Newsletter XXV 2023

Germany, France and other industrialized countries give the West African country 2,5 billion euros. The goal: the expansion of renewable energies.

BERLIN taz | The West African state of Senegal is to receive 2,5 billion euros from Germany, among others, to invest in renewable energies. This was announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), French President Emmanuel Macron and Senegal's President Macky Sall in Paris - on the occasion of the conference taking place there on financing poverty reduction and climate protection. At the same time, Senegal also wants to produce natural gas off its coast soon.

[...]

The climate protection organization Fridays for Future and its partners in Senegal reject the gas strategy. They advocate a complete switch to renewable energies. Lisa Badum, energy politician for the Greens in the Bundestag, said: "The success of JETP must not be diminished by a gas deal."

The Federal Chancellor should "finally bury" the planned gas purchases in Senegal. The Development Ministry in Berlin stated that gas production was neither financed nor supported by JETP ...

Australia | green power | Oil and gas heating prohibited

100 percent green electricity in Canberra: Now the end of oil and gas heating

The Australian capital only uses clean, significantly cheaper electricity. Now politicians have pushed through a ban on natural gas, despite media campaigns. What Germany should learn from it.

The success is remarkable: Canberra has been supplied with 2020 percent green electricity since 100. This will supply almost half a million people and a large economic region with clean energy.

[...] In Canberra there was no need for a referendum to aim for climate neutrality and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. Climate protection is being actively promoted in parliament itself.

In the federal capital Berlin, on the other hand, the SPD, Union and FDP have done everything they can to ward off the referendum for 100 percent renewable energies and climate neutrality by 2030...

politics and media | military-industrial complex | Defense Industry Lobby

Who fuels the war and benefits from it

How the military-industrial complex influences politics and the media - The costs and risks of war are being suppressed.

[...] At the end of the Cold War, the military-industrial complex found itself in an existential crisis. Without an adversary like the Soviet Union, it would have been difficult to justify the US's massive military spending. NATO expansion opened up new markets. The Eastern European and Baltic countries that joined NATO had to upgrade their armed forces and replace their Soviet-era stocks with Western weapons, ammunition, machinery, hardware and software compatible with NATO's armies. Entire armies, naval forces and air forces had to be reorganized. NATO expansion was a windfall for a weapons industry that originally saw hardship as the fruit of the end of the Cold War.

From 1996 to 1998, US defense contractors spent $51 million ($94 million today) lobbying Congress. Millions more were spent on campaign donations. When the arms industry saw the promise of the Eastern European markets, the desire to beat swords into ploughshares was over...

Last Generation | Press freedom | District Court

Investigators probably overheard conversations between the media and climate activists

According to a report, Bavarian authorities overheard journalists talking to the last generation. The group's official press phone was monitored.

[...] "The connection almost exclusively receives inquiries from media representatives, students and schoolchildren asking for press information or an interview," the SZ quoted from a police note on the results of the first two months of the eavesdropping operation for the public prosecutor's office . Monitoring continued thereafter.

[...] The wiretapping measures were therefore based on decisions of the Munich District Court. It goes on to say that although listening to conversations with journalists is not generally prohibited, there are high legal hurdles for doing so. The investigative authorities must always carefully weigh up freedom of the press and the interests of law enforcement. Whether this happened here is doubtful, it was said...

Serbia | Uranium ammunition | crimes against humanity

War by any means

»DU ammunition is a crime against humanity«

About the consequences of using bombs with depleted uranium. A conversation with Srdan Aleksic

You come from a southern Serbian town that was directly affected by the NATO bombing in 1999. What happened to your family?

I was born in Bustranje, a village very close to the administrative border with the southern Serbian province. For me, almost symbolically, the NATO bombing began on March 24, 1999, on my birthday. Those days were incredibly difficult for my family and I, as well as for my compatriots. The whole thing can best be described with words like pain, fear, fear, uncertainty. My parents later contracted cancer caused by uranium ammunition. My mother passed away while my father survived after a long complicated recovery process.

[...] The high and still rising cancer rate is unusual. What are the facts?

The cause and effect connection between the use of DU ammunition and the outcome of countless malignant diseases has been established in court in over 300 cases in Italy. NATO cannot deny this: only the court is called upon to determine the truth according to the legally prescribed process according to the rules, i.e. on the basis of the evidence presented and the medical expertise. Last but not least, it states that the damage to soldiers and civilians is undoubtedly the result of the use of DU ammunition...

Ukraine | depleted uranium

warfare

Thousands of bullets for Kyiv

British MP confirms delivery of armor-piercing uranium ammunition to Ukraine

Depleted Uranium (DU) is the substance that caused ecological catastrophe in parts of Serbia. DU rounds or penetrators (armour-piercing dynamometer rounds) consist mainly of depleted uranium, a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. As far as is known, these weapons were used by two states: the USA and Great Britain. This happened for the first time in the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. From 1994/95 the wars in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and Somalia followed. They were probably also used in Libya and Syria. In addition, they are - currently - fired in the Ukraine war after the Ukrainian army was equipped with such ammunition by London.

It also recently became known that the USA now also wants to equip its “Abrams” tanks intended for Ukraine with uranium-depleted, armor-piercing ammunition (see Tagesspiegel from June 15.6). The tanks that could fire it are currently in Germany...

***

23. June

Fossil energies | Climate protection | Energy transition

Remember, big corporations have known about climate change for 50 years

In debates about climate protection, the focus is often on the responsibility of the individual – one way or another. And in any case it is a good thing if you do without meat, prefer to take the train to fly and instead of a private car have a BahnCard. Someone has to lead by example and also reduce demand. But it's not your fault that the climate crisis is progressing inexorably. A new study shows that 50 years ago, the big corporations that pollute our climate accurately predicted how the climate would change. And kept it secret, even actively manipulated. They knew it all along, lied to us and made tons of money doing it. Nevertheless, you should pay for the necessary energy transition?

Who is blocking climate protection?

It's frightening: sometimes it feels like a jaded mantra to point out the increasingly extreme effects of the climate crisis. Events are getting worse, but the political reactions are becoming more haphazard and apathetic. According to the RKI, around 4.500 people died in Germany last year because of the heat. Climate expert Stefan Rahmstorf puts the cost of the climate crisis at 2022 lives in Europe in 100.000 alone. Yes, it's all happening at the same time, while right-wing populists like Markus Söder and Hubert Aiwanger try to convince us that extremely efficient heat pumps are something like the devil himself...

Drinking water | PFAS | Poison of eternity

"Post-It" manufacturer 3M

Billions in fines for polluted drinking water

The conglomerate 3M, known for its "Post-It" notes, has to pay a fine of 12,5 billion dollars in the United States. It is about so-called eternity chemicals that got into the drinking water.

The case surrounding contaminated drinking water caused by so-called forever chemicals is spreading widely in the USA. After the chemical companies DuPont, Chemours and Corteva had already agreed to pay a combined fine of 1,2 billion dollars, the consumer goods and medical technology manufacturer 3M also has to pay a large sum of up to 12,5 billion dollars...

drought | Groundwater | precipitation

Hydrologist on climate change:

How Germany loses its groundwater

How can we live well despite global warming? Hydrologist Borchardt pleads with Lanz to take precautions in good time. Because one thing seems clear: climate change will change Europe.

[...] "This drought that we are seeing now has been there since at least 2017 and is a connected event." It's about a period of drought, not a singular event...

industrialized countries | Global South | climate debt

Financial summit: It's time for the West to pay off its trillions in debt!

Heads of government of powerful and less powerful countries traveled to Paris. It's about a global financial pact, but money shouldn't flow. About the dangerous refusal to pay by the rich.

French President Emmanuel Macron invited to the summit in Paris this week. Around 40 heads of state and government, including about a dozen from Africa, the Chinese Prime Minister and the Brazilian President, will attend the "summit for a new global financial compact" in the French capital together with international organizations, representatives of civil society and the private sector. participate.

According to Macron, it is about "rethinking international solidarity". We must restore the "credibility of the rich countries" and do more for global health, education and food security. Those are noble words. But is there really a lack of words and promises? Isn't it deeds, i.e. real money flows, that are missing? ...

nuclear disarmament | deployment of nuclear weapons | Climate change

fight for nuclear disarmament

»We're not going to be shaken off and we're going to move with it«

Anti-nuclear opponents organize protest camp. Climate change is also an issue. A conversation with Johannes Oehler

Together with the medical peace organization IPPNW, you are organizing a one-week protest camp in Düren in July. What prompted you to do this?

Together we have been inviting people to Büchel for many years, where around 20 US nuclear weapons are stationed. As Büchel is being modernized, the German nuclear bombers were relocated to Nörvenich Air Force Base. But we won't let ourselves be shaken off and are going along with our protest camp. This year the BUND NRW, the Peace Cooperative, Greenpeace, ATTAC and the Hambi-Camp 2.0 are also there, supporting and helping to shape our camp...

June 23, 2012 (INES 1 Class.?) Rajasthan, IND

At the Rajasthan nuclear power plant, 34 workers were contaminated with tritium.

Nuclear Power Accidents

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Akw Rajasthan (India)

5 active heavy water reactors (Rajasthan-2 to -6) • Output: 200 MW/220 MW/220 MW/220 MW/220 MW • Type: 5 x horizontal pressure tube • Start of construction: 1968/1990/1990/2002/2003 • Manufacturer : CGEC/AECL (Rajasthan-2); DAE (Rajasthan-3 to -6) Commissioning: 1972/1980/1999/2000/2009/2010 • Shutdown: open ...

Numerous leaks and IAEA inspection

In Rajasthan-5, radioactive tritium leaked in June 2012, exposing 34 casual workers to increased levels of radiation. In November of the same year, an IAEA delegation inspected the nuclear power plant. Activists said they received information from this team about safety issues, intermittent unavailability of backup generators and equipment to check for radiation exposure on employees. An independent investigation by the IAEA was questioned. The operator denied everything. There was also an independent study of cancer and other diseases conducted by activists that was ignored by the operator...

22. June

France | environmental movement | Ecoterrorists

Climate protests in France:

Banned as "eco-terrorists".

France decrees dissolution of environmental movement

As expected by observers, the French Council of Ministers ordered the dissolution of the environmental movement Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Revolts of the Earth) at a meeting on Wednesday. The reason given was that this instigated "sabotage and damage to property, including acts of violence." The movement was guilty "under the guise of defending the environment." There is talk, for example, of an action in which activists sabotaged the facilities of a cement manufacturer. The legal basis for the ban is the "anti-separatism law" passed in mid-2021, which stipulates that an association or group can be dissolved by the Council of Ministers if it "calls for armed demonstrations or violent acts against people or property" ...

Drinking water | South America | Niederschlag

Consequences of water scarcity:

Uruguay is salting its drinking water

Due to drought, water supplies are stretched with saline water from near the sea. That exceeds the WHO maximum values for sodium chloride.

BUENOS AIRES taz | Uruguay's President Luis Lacalle Pou declared a water emergency for the capital and the greater Montevideo area at the beginning of the week. Around 1,8 million people are affected, more than half of the population of the small country. Their most important source of supply is the Paso Severino reservoir, the large freshwater reservoir 85 kilometers north of Montevideo, whose water reserves are dwindling. An improvement is not even in sight in the long term.

[...]

For Uruguay's environmental protection groups like Redes - Amigos de la Tierra there is another reason: the rain stays away because land use has been radically changed. "No es sequía, es saqueo - It's not drought, it's looting," was the cry of protest. Not only the current liberal government of President Lacalle Pou, but also the progressive previous governments have placed the water supply for industry and agriculture above the supply of the population. Above all, the water-intensive cellulose factories and the agro-industrial plantations of pine and eucalyptus trees created for this purpose...

Tempo 30 | Federal Minister of Transport | Wissing

Wissing's obscure choice of words: Nobody called for a "wide" 30 km/h speed limit

The expansion of the Road Traffic Act is intended to give municipalities more leeway in traffic planning. But at 30 km/h the fun is over.

Two years ago, Aachen, Augsburg, Freiburg, Hanover, Leipzig, Münster and Ulm founded the initiative "Cities worth living through reasonable speeds". The cities want to decide for themselves when and where to set the pace. Almost 800 municipalities have now joined this initiative. And the federal government apparently also responded: the cabinet decided on Wednesday to expand the Road Traffic Act (StVG). It now gives the municipalities more leeway in the design of their transport. "This would fulfill one of the core requirements of the initiative," it says Website .

[...]

If you listen to the rhetoric of Federal Motor Transport Minister Volker Wissing, you shouldn't expect too much. It starts with the choice of words. Again and again he speaks out against a "widespread" Tempo 30. Nobody asked for that. The municipalities only want to be allowed to order 30 km/h where they consider it necessary...

Japan | tritium water | Pacific

Fukushima: Cooling water discharge into the sea is imminent

First tests for the controversial release of the tritiated water have begun

The time has come: In Fukushima, the first tests have begun to release the cleaned cooling water, which is still contaminated with tritium, from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The plan is to dilute the approximately 1,25 million tons of water containing tritium and channel it about one kilometer into the sea via a tunnel. The initiation could begin in a few weeks. While fishermen and environmental organizations protest, operator Tepco emphasizes that the discharged tritium will hardly change the natural tritium content of the Pacific.

[...]

How the tritium introduced in Fukushima subsequently spread in the Pacific will be investigated by scientists in 2021 using model simulations. According to this, most of the tritium will spread eastward across the equatorial Pacific. After three years, it could then also reach the west coast of the USA - possibly even in higher concentrations than on the coasts of Japan and China.

Belgium | lifetime extension | Netherlands

Objection by environmentalists against nuclear power plant lifetime extension in Belgium

The Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives for Environmental Protection (BBU) informed on Wednesday about its objection to the planned lifetime extension of Belgian nuclear power plants:

The lifetime of the Belgian nuclear reactors Doel 4 and Tihange 3 is to be extended to 2035. The Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives for Environmental Protection (BBU) has now raised an objection to these plans in Belgium. In the objection, the BBU emphasizes that in the event of an accident, radioactive substances can get from the Belgian nuclear reactors via the air to the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, “into the air we breathe, in the drinking water and in the food.” The BBU also explains : »A longer service life of the nuclear power plants causes more nuclear waste. There is no safe repository for this anywhere in the world. The bad experiences of the Asse and Gorleben repository projects in Germany must be taken into account.«

[...] The BBU points out that a specialist conference of the anti-nuclear power movement on the topic of "interim storage of radioactive waste" will take place in Hanover on Friday, June 23rd. And on July 1st, Dutch organizations are organizing a demonstration in the province of Zeeland against the construction of new Dutch nuclear power plants.

21. June

China realized Solar and wind expansion in the Gobi Desert

China is planning a massive 455 GW of solar and wind power in deserts by 2030

Beijing - China will continue to focus on the rapid expansion of renewable energies in its own country in the coming years. China plans to build 455 gigawatts (455.000 MW) of solar and wind power capacity in the Gobi Desert and other desert regions by 2030 in order to achieve its own climate protection goals. This is reported by the Chinese television station CGTN.

Afterwards, Yu Bing, deputy head of the National Energy Agency, said that the construction of large-scale wind power and photovoltaic systems in the Gobi and other desert regions is an important measure to implement a green and low-carbon energy transition and build a new energy system...

Power Supply | Disinformation | Bild-Zeitung

No, Germany does not need nuclear power from France - Bild lies again

That the tabloid magazine Bild has a very tense relationship with truth, journalistic principles and differentiation in general is nothing particularly new. Last week's piece on Germany's electricity supply is, even measured by image standards, an expression of chaotic work organization and a complete lack of competence in questions of energy policy and the economy in general. No, Germany doesn't need nuclear power from France and BILD is once again spreading disinformation.

Disinformation, which is then reproduced again by willing populists in the FDP and Union. If Bild is looking for someone anyway to explain the function of a heat pump to the editors, how about a first-semester student in business administration who then also takes on the editing of Felix Rupprecht's articles? ...

Environmental associations | Climate Protection Act | Sectors

Environmental groups criticize new climate protection law

The government wants to abolish mandatory sector targets for individual economic sectors, the cabinet has decided that. Environmental groups see this as the wrong approach.

Environmental groups have criticized the new climate protection law passed by the cabinet. "The binding sector targets of the Climate Protection Act must not be weakened as planned," demanded the associations in a joint statement. There is "the danger of a blatant weakening of the central and pioneering climate policy instrument in Germany".

This Wednesday, the Federal Cabinet approved the draft for a fundamentally revised climate protection law. It is planned to move away from the previously mandatory annual sector targets for individual economic sectors. Instead, the focus should be on forecasts for achieving climate goals overall...

heat wave | lack of oxygen | sea temperature

Expanding Dead Zones: When the Seas Boil

Energy and climate – compact: The sea around Great Britain is currently four degrees warmer than usual. There is a heat wave in the oceans around the world. When fish suffocate.

[...] The maps from the Climate Reanalyzer at the University of Maine in the USA, which represent a compilation of daily weather data, show temperatures for large parts of the world's oceans that are in some cases significantly above the average for the years 1971 to 2000. In particular, the tropical Pacific, large parts of the North Atlantic including the North and Baltic Seas, the western Mediterranean and the Sea of Japan are far too warm.

Around Ireland and Great Britain, the water is around four degrees Celsius warmer than usual there at this time of year, writes the New Scientist and speaks of one of the most severe heat waves that has ever been recorded in the sea there. On some coasts, the water temperature is 23 degrees Celsius, which is a new record for the time of year. Off the coasts of Britain, records date back to 1850...

Fossil energies | Climate protection | Climate summit

National climate plans

No end of fossil fuels in sight

Climate researchers agree - the world needs to get out of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, half of all countries plan to continue or expand their fossil fuel production. This is also due to a conflict between industrialized and developing countries.

Climate protection is complicated. Many and profound changes are needed, and of course these are accompanied by controversial societal debates. That's how it should be.

But at the center of all climate protection efforts is a plain and simple truth: we have to get out of fossil fuels.

Scientifically, this is as clear as the fact that greenhouse gases are warming the earth. Or that gravity causes objects to fall to the ground...

June 21, 2013 (INES Class.?) Kuosheng, TWN

An air damper in the Kuosheng nuclear power plant fell into the busbar, triggering a reactor shutdown. (Cost approx. US$4 million)

Nuclear Power Accidents

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant (Taiwan)

2 decommissioned boiling water reactors • Output: 2 x 985 MW • Type: 2 x BWR-6 • Manufacturer: General Electric • Start of construction: November 19, 1975/15. March 1976 • Commissioning: February 1, 1981/26. March 1982 • Shutdown: December 28, 2021/15. March 2023 ...

Seismic hazard and accidents

A 7,6 magnitude earthquake on September 21, 1999 automatically shut down several reactors in Chinshan and Kousheng.

According to a website of the "Austrian Ecology Institute", three workers were exposed to increased radiation in 1993 when fuel rods fell into the water. The event was classified as an INES Level 3 incident.

On May 15, 2001, the operator found that 54 of the 157 control rods in the Kuosheng-2 reactor, which are designed to control nuclear reactions and protect fuel assemblies from overheating, were cracked. The operator checked all control rods of the same type in the other nuclear power plants.

In 2010, divers found not only sediment but also other debris during a routine cleaning of the emergency cooling water basin: "cable spools, oxygen masks, tools and even bunches of keys". The garbage could have clogged pipes, causing the reactor to overheat.

20. June

heat in Europe | Health | Disaster

Heat in the city: A health disaster is imminent

Energy and climate – compact: Europe is warming up twice as fast as the global average. In Germany alone there are up to 20.000 heat deaths every year. Why cities urgently need to adapt to a hotter climate.

[...]

Europe would warm faster than any other continent. For example, 2022 was marked by wildfires, extreme heat and wildfires that had high human, economic and environmental costs. That emerges from the status report for the European climate 2022, which the WMO published together with the Copernicus climate change service of the European Union ...

Glacier | Climate Crisis | Climate catastrophe

Climate crisis in the Himalayas: rapid melting of glaciers

In the Himalayas, glaciers are losing ice faster than ever before. Researchers warn that 80 percent of the volume could be gone by the end of the century.

KATHMANDU afp/ap | The glaciers in the Himalayas supply up to two billion people with water. Still. Because, according to scientists, they are melting faster than ever before because of climate change. Glaciers lost 2011 percent more ice between 2020 and 65 than in the previous decade, according to a report by the International Center for Integrated Development of Mountain Regions (ICIMOD) released on Tuesday.

Glaciers in the Hindu Kush/Himalayas region are an important source of water for around 240 million people in the mountain regions and for another 1,65 billion people in the adjacent river valleys.

"As it gets warmer, ice will melt, which was expected, but what was not expected and is very worrying is the rate," said lead author of the report, Philippus Wester. "It's much faster than we thought." ...

EU Commission | Climate protection | Nature Conservation | Green Deal

Meeting of the EU Council of Environment Ministers

Who slows down in Brussels when it comes to nature conservation

Today, the EU environment ministers are discussing a central building block of the Commission's "Green Deal" agenda. At the same time, there is also resistance to the project in Brussels.

It is about what is perhaps the most important project of the EU Commission - Ursula von der Leyen calls the "Green Deal" a matter of the heart. She had hardly been elected President of the Commission when, together with the responsible commissioners, she presented a plan on how Europe can win the fight against the climate crisis: "We started four years ago with a vision: the European 'Green Deal'."

The "Green Deal" should become something like the Green Basic Law of the European Union. A package with umpteen individual measures for more climate protection and environmental protection.

[...] Now it is Ursula von der Leyen's own party friends who are putting the brakes on it. The Christian Democrats in the European Parliament fear that people in rural areas, and especially farmers, will be overwhelmed. People are in favor of nature conservation, they say in the ranks of the Christian Democrats, but the Commission's legislative proposals are unsuitable...

industry production | Greenhouse gas | Hydrogen

Can plastic, steel, cement become climate-neutral with hydrogen alone?

Industry is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in Germany. Chemical, cement and steel production in particular pose challenges. Why quick solutions are and are needed.

Around 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany are caused by industry. This makes the industrial sector the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after fossil energy production (with around 38 percent), followed by traffic with around 18 percent and households with ten percent.

[...] The four sectors of industry with the highest emissions are steel and iron production with around 35 percent, followed by refineries with around 22 percent, cement production with around 20 percent and the chemical industry with around 17 percent. All of these and other industries should largely reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030.

[...] It will be crucial that politics in the EU is not again dominated by the interests of corporations in steel, chemical and cement production, which fear a reduction in their sales markets instead of moving forward aggressively in the competition for climate protection technologies to go...

19. June

United States import uranium from Russia

Ukraine: US pays Russia billions for enriched uranium

In the USA there is no energy saving campaign to send less dollars to Russia for the war - Europe saves oil and gas.

In the US, electricity is consumed and wasted as if Russia were not at war with Ukraine. American energy companies transfer around one billion dollars to the Russian Rosatom group every year for cheap enriched uranium.

Rosatom is owned by the Russian state and produces low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plants and high-enriched uranium for military use. The US imports about a third of the enriched uranium needed for nuclear power plants from Russia. It's cheapest there. "The US payments go to a subsidiary of Rosatom, which in turn is closely linked to the Russian military apparatus" ...

Fusion reactor ITER | Cadarache | Cracks

Not built yet, no longer needed?

The research institutions that support the European nuclear fusion strategy are running out of patience with the large-scale ITER project. EuroFusion boss Tony Donné has now announced a change of course.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER for short, is about to lose its status as the key to nuclear fusion. Once again, there are significant delays in the major project. The reason for this are problems with weld seams and cracks in the technical heart of the facility, the fusion chamber. The scientific institutions that support the European nuclear fusion strategy are now running out of patience. At the Forum Fusion in Berlin last week, Tony Donné, head of the operator consortium EuroFusion, said: "We shouldn't have to wait so long with a first fusion power plant until the necessary knowledge is available through ITER." In other words, this means: ITER should no longer be the prerequisite for a first demonstration power plant. Instead, one is to be built parallel to the ongoing assembly work in Cadarache, France...

Storage for Renewables | Transformation of energy system

Germany needs a storage strategy

In a stimulus paper, experts from the photovoltaics industry spoke up. Your concern: Germany is not strategically approaching storage expansion and is therefore losing valuable potential in the conversion of the energy system.

The massive and rapid expansion of renewable energies is a declared political goal. This is accompanied by many transformations that are described in long-term goals - strategic goals. For example, the national hydrogen strategy was already presented in 2020. The electricity market design is to be put on a new footing, a system development strategy is to be developed for network infrastructure solutions. A power plant strategy was announced, a photovoltaic strategy and an onshore wind energy strategy formulated. In the further transformation environment there is a forest strategy, a biomass strategy and a water strategy.

However, one central point is missing in all the strategic considerations – a storage strategy. The PV Think Tank - a loose association of experts who deal with the future of photovoltaics in Germany - addresses this gap and describes the system errors that inevitably accompany it.

The planned expansion of renewable energies requires flexibility. While private small PV systems are usually combined with battery storage today, this is the exception for large solar parks. The consequences are curtailments and negative market prices in phases of high generation ...

France | EDF | corrosion and cracks

French Electricity

Shaky nuclear course

France's electricity company EDF is now completely state-owned again. However, this does not solve the problems. Nuclear power is becoming more and more expensive, but President Macron would rather use the savings of the population than change course.

[...] The state partially privatized the company 18 years ago in order to increase its capital. Now privatization has been reversed.

Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire spoke of "excellent news for the French". Regaining complete control over the company was necessary in order to increase electricity production more quickly in the future and to accelerate the program to build at least six new reactors for the time being.

Of course, millions of small shareholders lost a lot of money in the privatization experiment ...

June 19, 1961 (INES 3 NAMS 4) Sellafield, GBR

A leak in an evaporator released large quantities of liquid containing plutonium (540 TBq) released into the cooling water. Although it was the eleventh largest release of radioactivity in the world, we have no further information. (Cost approx. US$800 million)

Nuclear Power Accidents

The nuclear chain

Sellafield/Windscale, UK

The largest civilian and military nuclear facility in Europe is in Sellafield. While in the past plutonium was produced here for the British nuclear weapons program, the site now serves as a nuclear waste reprocessing plant. The Great Fire of 1957 and numerous radioactive leaks contaminated the environment and exposed the population to increased levels of radiation...

This incident as well as several other releases of radioactivity are in Wikipedia no longer to be found.

Wikipedia

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

The complex was made famous by a catastrophic fire in 1957 and by frequent nuclear incidents, which is one of the reasons why it was renamed Sellafield. Up until the mid-1980s, large quantities of the nuclear waste generated in day-to-day operations were discharged in liquid form via a pipeline into the Irish Sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Incidents

Radiological releases

Between 1950 and 2000 there were 21 serious off-site incidents or accidents involving radiological releases that warranted classification on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at Level 5, five at Level 4 and fifteen at Level 3. In addition, there were in intentional releases of plutonium and irradiated uranium oxide particles into the atmosphere known for extended periods in the 1950s and 1960s...

Translated with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Sellafield (formerly_Windscale), United Kingdom

There are comparable nuclear factories all over the world:

Uranium enrichment and reprocessing - facilities and sites

During reprocessing, the inventory of spent fuel elements can be separated from one another in a complex chemical process (PUREX). Separated uranium and plutonium can then be reused. As far as the theory...

18. June

Switzerland | Climate Protection Act | fear mongers | Exploding costs

One in three wants to build new nuclear power plants

The population wants Switzerland to be climate-neutral by 2050. The majority of the electricity required for this should come from renewable sources – a third want to build new nuclear power plants.

57 percent want a general obligation for solar systems on new buildings.
Nuclear power also has a certain popularity: 45 percent want to let the nuclear power plants run longer, 30 percent even want to build new ones.
This is what the post-vote survey by 20 Minuten and Tamedia says.

The Yes to the Climate Protection Act is a fact. The parties disagree on exactly what that means. While the federal government and Left-Green appease and say there will be no new bans or higher costs for the general public, the SVP fears exactly this: "Cost explosions and power shortages will be the result," the party warns in a statement ...

Ukraine War | Peace Movement

Can the peace movement gain importance again?

Concerns about the escalation of the Ukraine war are increasing. But the international peace movement falls short of its potential. A few reasons became apparent recently in Vienna.

An international peace conference with hundreds of participants from 35 countries took place in Vienna a week ago. The aim of this congress should also be the adoption of a "Vienna Declaration for Peace".

However, the first problem arose beforehand. Just two days before the conference, the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (ÖGB) surprisingly canceled the premises that had already been promised, because unpleasant speakers like the US economist Jeffrey Sachs would appear there ...

China | Molten salt reactor | TMSR-LF1

Experiment in the Gobi desert

China will soon start the world's first thorium reactor

China will soon launch the world's first molten salt reactor. The technology has great advantages over conventional nuclear power plants and is to be exported to other countries.

Shanghai (China). The Chinese government plans to make the country carbon neutral by 2060. In addition to the expansion of renewable energies, for example with the largest wind power plant in the world and a solar park in the Gobi desert, new nuclear power plants are also to be built. China therefore announced that the world's first molten salt reactor would be commissioned in 2021.

As the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports, the TMSR-LF1 thorium reactor in north-west China, in the Gobi desert, will soon be commissioned...

Climate protection | transport sector | Wissing

Quaschning explains: Wissing's climate protection

The transport sector is mercilessly chasing its climate goals, but Minister Wissing is sticking to the combustion engine, wants to build new motorways and soften the climate protection law. Others should save CO2. That will not work.

Transport Minister Wissing gives a damn about climate protection. So that this is not so noticeable, others should protect the climate for him.

In 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the Climate Protection Act to be unconstitutional. By 2045 at the latest, we must be climate-neutral.

Neither traffic nor industry, the electricity industry, buildings or agriculture will then be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases.

In 2022, the Climate Protection Act was just barely complied with. But the traffic tore its targets with a bang...

June 18, 1999 (INES 2) Shika, JPN

A control rod malfunction triggered an uncontrolled nuclear reaction in unit 1 of the Shika nuclear power plant. (Costs approx. 39,6 million US$)

Nuclear Power Accidents

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Shika Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)

From 1992 and 2005, two boiling water reactors with 540 and 1.206 MW capacity were operated in Shika. After the severe earthquake on July 16, 2007 off the west coast of Japan, the two reactors were retrofitted in December 2007 for safety reasons. On March 18, 2009, a lawsuit filed by Japanese citizens due to safety concerns and the aim of shutting down Shika-2 was dismissed in the second instance ...

Accident

In June 1999, three of 1 control rods on the Shika-89 unit slipped from their normal positions, setting off an uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. This event, which the operator kept secret until 2007, was eventually classified as an INES level 2 incident. The reactor was therefore shut down from March 2007 to mid-May 2009. The incident was traced to an error in a manual...

June 18, 1988 (INES Class.?) Tihange-1, BEL

On June 18, 1988, during the operation of the pressurized water reactor, a sudden leak occurred in a short section of the ECCS (Emergency Core Cooling System) pipeline that could not be isolated. The leak rate was in the order of 1.300 liters per hour. The cause of the leak was a crack in the wall of the pipeline measuring 9 cm on the inside and 4,5 cm on the outside. The risk of a pipe rupture in the emergency cooling system is considerable when the emergency injection system is activated, since large quantities of cooling water are injected if coolant is lost. (Costs ?)

Nuclear Power Accidents

AtomkraftwerkePlag

https://atomkraftwerkeplag.fandom.com/de/wiki/Tihange_(Belgien)

Wikipedia

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Tihange

June 18, 1982 (INES Class.?) Oconee, USA

The feedwater heat extraction line in the Oconee 2 pressurized water reactor had failed, damaging the thermal cooling system. (Costs approx. 12 million US$)

Nuclear Power Accidents

June 18, 1978 (INES Class.?) Brunsbuettel, DEU

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Brunsbuettel_(Schleswig-Holstein)

On June 18, 1978, two tons of radioactive vapor escaped to the outside due to a leak in the live steam system. The incident lasted more than two hours. The security team had tampered with the automatic emergency shutdown in order to save the operator millions in losses. Vattenfall covered up the incident for days until an anonymous caller informed the public. The plant was idle for more than two years after the incident...

Wikipedia

Brunsbüttel#Malfunctions

Incidents and reportable events

As of March 31, 2016, there have been 447 reportable events since commissioning, two of which involved increased radioactivity emissions ...


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Military-industrial complex (MiC) | critic | Whistleblower | nuclear age

US war machine: Many knew, only he disagreed

On the death of Daniel Ellsberg: the whistleblower had been warning of the dangers of militarism since 1971. How the media and establishment tried to block his message.

With the death of Daniel Ellsberg on Friday at the age of 92, the world has lost a man of empathy and determination. Ellsberg's fame as a whistleblower dates back to June 23, 1971. That day, ten days after the release of the Pentagon Papers, which he had made available to journalists, he appeared on the CBS Evening News and openly questioned the mentality of militarism.

Ellsberg was to be right when he said he didn't believe there was a single line in the 7.000 pages of top-secret documents "providing an estimate of the likely impact of our policies on the total number of victims among the Vietnamese or on the expecting refugees", just as little as the ecological consequences of the defoliation. And he added:

The documents only reflect the internal concerns of our officials. This means nothing more and nothing less than that our officials have never given any thought to the impact of our policies on the Vietnamese.

Speaking to moderator Walter Cronkite, Ellsberg said: "But I don't think we should let government officials dictate what the public should know about the quality of their work and the way they do it."

Monitoring the course of the war had become an ever greater burden for Ellsberg as an insider. Many other government officials and senior advisers with security clearances also had access to documents showing how four governments crookedly acted as the US became increasingly involved in Vietnam and then staged an outright carnage.

Unlike the others, however, he broke his role and leaked the Pentagon Papers to the media. In the CBS interview, he said, "The fact is, secrets can be kept by men in government who have learned throughout their careers to keep their mouths shut. I was one of them."

Ellsberg's mouth - and his heart - never closed again from then on. For the 52 years following the publication of the Pentagon Papers, he devoted his time to speaking, writing, and protesting.

When the Vietnam War was finally over, Ellsberg primarily returned to his old cause: the fight against nuclear war.

That spring, three months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Ellsberg was making the most of each day, spending time with loved ones and constantly talking about the all-too-real dangers of nuclear annihilation.

He left two brilliant, monumental books to be published this century - Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002) and The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017).

They shed a stark and chilling light on the pattern of official lies and secrecy in military affairs and on the ultimate foreseeable outcome - nuclear holocaust.

Constant warning of nuclear danger

Ellsberg was determined to do everything in his power to prevent this mass murder. As he said in an interview on the occasion of the release of "The Doomsday Machine," scientific research had concluded that a nuclear war would "hurt many millions of tons of soot and black smoke from burning cities into the stratosphere."

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Background knowledge

The map of the nuclear world

The world is overflowing with nuclear weapons...

The internal search for

Whistleblower im nuclear age

brought the following results, among others:

February 14, 2023 - What is bothering countries about the whistleblower law

October 27, 2022 - France: Accidents in nuclear power plant covered up

December 14, 2021 - Nobel Prize winners call for two percent disarmament for the climate

YouTube

Keyword search: The most dangerous man in America

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Der gefährlichste Mann in Amerika

Videos:

acTVism Munich May 2nd, 2023 - 35:15 (Part2)

Chomsky and Ellsberg on the current threat (Ukraine & Taiwan)

acTVism Munich March 27, 2023 - 34:41 (part 1)

Chomsky and Ellsberg on the current threat (Ukraine & Taiwan)

Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg discuss US intentions in the Ukraine war and preparations for war with China.

ARTEplusX from April 27, 2010 - 10:00

The Most Dangerous Man in America - Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers - 1 of 9

Date taken: September 11, 1967 - 3:26

Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go

Playlist - radioactivity worldwide ...

This playlist contains over 150 videos on the topic

Ecosia

This search engine is planting trees!

Keyword search: Daniel Ellsberg

https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg

"The Doomsday Machine"

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (Bloomsbury, 2017)

From the legendary whistleblower who uncovered the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness account of the dangers of America's top-secret seventy-year nuclear policy that - shockingly - continues to this day.

For the first time, former senior defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking first-hand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the most remote air bases of Pacific Command, where he discovered the authority to use nuclear weapons was largely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, the implementation of which would nearly result in human extinction, Ellsberg shows that legacy This most dangerous armament in the history of civilization - and its planned renewal under the Trump administration - threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so openly about the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years.

Framed as a memoir - a chronicle of the madness that Ellsberg admits he was a part of - this gripping revelation reads like a thriller and sets out viable steps we can take to dismantle the existing "doomsday machine" and create a nuclear catastrophe prevent Ellsberg returning to his role as a whistleblower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real story by Dr. Strangelove and an ultimately hopeful - and hugely important - book not only about our country but about the future of the world...

Wikipedia

Whistleblower

A whistleblower (in the German-speaking world in the past and increasingly today also informant, whistleblower, revealer or revealer) is Anglicism for a person who publishes important information for the public from a secret or protected context...

Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel "Dan" Ellsberg (April 7, 1931 in Chicago – June 16, 2023 in Kensington, California) was an American economist, peace activist and whistleblower about illegal actions by the United States Department of Defense and the White House. His publication of the secret Pentagon Papers in 1971 exposed years of deception of the American public about key aspects of the Vietnam War. Among other things, the real war goals had been deliberately misrepresented by several US governments in a row.

The government has banned the New York Times from publishing the documents. The ensuing legal battle went as far as the US Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark ruling allowing publication and strengthening press freedom. Ellsberg was nevertheless charged with espionage and faced 115 years in prison. The trial fell through when intelligence agents broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's practice and illegally monitored him, arranged by the Nixon administration.

Ellsberg, who was politically active until recently, massively criticized the USA's Iraq war, among other things. In June 2013, he described Edward Snowden's PRISM surveillance program disclosures as the "most important in US history", Snowden would protect citizens from the "United Stasi of America"...

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