Newsletter XL 2023
1. to 7. October
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The PDF file "Nuclear Power Accidents" contains a number of other incidents from various areas of the nuclear industry. Some of the incidents were never published through official channels, so this information could only be made available to the public in a roundabout way. The list of incidents in the PDF file is therefore not 100 % identical with "INES and the disturbances in nuclear facilities", but represents an addition...
1 October 1981 (INES 3 | NAMS 1,3) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
3 October 1986 (Broken Arrow) nuclear submarine K-219, USSR
3 October 1952 (1st British atomic bomb test) Trimouille Island, GBR
5 October 1966 (INES 4) NPP Enrico Fermi 1, USA
7 October 1957 (INES 5 | NAMS 4,6) Nuclear factory Windscale/Sellafield, GBR
9 October 2006 (1st North Korean atomic bomb test) Punggye-ri, PRK
12 October 1969 (INES 4) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
15 October 1958 (INES 4) Boris Kidrič Institute, Vinca, YU
17 October 1969 (INES 4) NPP Saint Laurent, FRA
19 October 1989 (INES 3) NPP Vandellòs-1, ESP
30 October 1961 (Tsar Bomb AN602) Novaya Zemlya, USSR
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We are looking for current information. If you can help, please send a message to: nuclear-world@reaktorpleite.de
7. October
Israel | Hardliners on the rise | Palestine
Escalation in the Middle East conflict:
“This changes everything”
Hamas took Israel by surprise with a terrorist attack and took hostages. Israel is preparing for war, the damage can hardly be repaired.
TEL AVIV taz | “It doesn’t feel real, not like today, like I’m watching TV pictures from the 70s,” says 35-year-old Inbar, looking at the screen of her smartphone in the shelter in Tel Aviv. Images of Israeli soldiers being dragged out of a tank at gunpoint by armed Palestinians flash across the screen. “We’ve gotten used to the rockets,” says their neighbor Leenatan. “But the fact that someone could knock on our door changes everything. It scares me."
In a surprise move, the Gaza-ruling Islamist Hamas attacked southern Israel on Saturday morning, while many were celebrating the last holiday of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
[...] At least in one point the attack has already changed something: the internal Israeli crisis is off the table for the time being. The protest groups canceled the weekly rallies, the opposition called for unity. Thousands of reserve soldiers temporarily suspended their refusal to serve under the current government.
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Climate Crisis | Raid | protest movement
Luisa Neubauer:
“Disturbing can’t be an end in itself, that’s what small children do.”
For Luisa Neubauer, the raids against the last generation are an attack on civil society. But protest movements should reflect more closely on their work.
Last week it became known that the Bavarian justice system not only searched Last Generation's apartments in May, but that Fridays for Future were also indirectly affected by the raids. We spoke to Luisa Neubauer about the consequences she draws from this and how she sees the relationship between the two protest movements. When we reached her by phone, she was standing at an Italian train station.
ZEIT Campus: You were just with the Pope to talk about the climate crisis on the occasion of the publication of his new climate letter "Laudate Deum". You could say: When a Fridays for Future activist speaks in the Vatican, then the movement has finally arrived in the bourgeois mainstream. Do you see yourself there?
Luisa Neubauer: Naturally. The climate movement not only has to be there, but also where the so-called bourgeois middle is. I don't believe in squeezing the climate crisis into a left-wing eco-corner - in the hope that fundamental things will then change for the better -
ZEIT Campus: In addition to our own positioning, there is also that of the state: In May, the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office carried out raids on the more radical wing of the climate movement, namely the Last Generation. It has been public for a few days that Fridays for Future was also indirectly searched: two companies that work with you were visited, a creative agency and one for stage technology. The Attorney General's Office probably came up with this because you used the same payment service provider as the last generation. You have now lodged a complaint with the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office. Why?
Luisa Neubauer: It is highly problematic that there were raids on the Last Generation. It was not known for a long time that two companies were visited that work with Fridays for Future. We fear that the agency has confiscated thousands of private addresses from people who simply wanted to order stickers or posters to their homes ahead of the global climate strike. So suddenly people who go to mass demonstrations have to ask themselves whether they will be targeted by law enforcement authorities. That's why we filed a complaint...
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Hamas attack on Israel:
At least 100 dead in Israel
Hamas shows prisoners in a video. Israel responds with airstrikes in which 198 Palestinians are said to have died. The developments in the live ticker.
At least 100 Israelis and 198 Palestinians die
According to the Israeli news channel N12 News, at least 100 Israelis were killed in the major attack on Israel by the radical Islamic Palestinian group Hamas. According to health officials there, 198 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military says the navy has killed scores of Palestinian fighters trying to cross the sea into Israel...
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Climate targets | CO2 emissions | Building sector
We will solve the housing crisis holistically – and sustainably, please
The ecological standards and the costs are coming down – is the concept against the housing shortage ready? Unfortunately, that is too short-sighted. Social and sustainable is also possible in construction and can even be used on a large scale.
There is a shortage of 700.000 apartments, interest rates have risen and the construction industry is in crisis. So politicians in the industry want to make it easier to build the many apartments they need and are also further weakening the ecological standards for construction. I don't think that's thinking far enough.
Yes, we need enough affordable housing. However, there are ways that lead to the goal and are social and sustainable at the same time.
The building sector causes 40 percent of CO2 emissions worldwide. In Germany, like transport, it will not achieve its sector target for 2030. How things are built today is crucial for the climate goals and therefore for the future of future generations.
As a reminder: In 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court warned politicians to pursue climate goals with more ambition so as not to leave young people with an insoluble burden...
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Election campaign | Attack | Victim
Was there an attack on AfD leader Chrupalla in Ingolstadt?
No substance was found on him; whether there was a needle stick is controversial. AfD-affiliated media predicts an attack by the Ukrainian secret service SBU.
On Wednesday afternoon (October 4.10th), AfD leader Tino Chrupalla was scheduled to speak at an election event in Ingolstadt. State elections will take place in Hesse and Bavaria on Sunday. Shortly before his speech, according to police reports, there was a “medical incident” that the AfD describes as an “assault.” Some people took selfies with Chrupalla on the way to the stage. He then felt pain in his arm and then his legs gave out: “Due to further health problems,” the police said on Thursday, “Mr. Chrupalla was taken to the clinic for medical care Ingolstadt spent. Superficial redness or swelling was noted on the upper arm. The other investigations carried out so far have been unremarkable.”
The AfD, however, wrote on Thursday that a stab wound had been diagnosed.
[...] Whether it was an attack remains an open question - apart from the AfD. According to dpa, according to Bayerischer Rundfunk, the police questioned the treating doctor, who backed out. No injury was identified with the “needle prick” mentioned, but rather it was “a description of the injury pattern based on Chrupalla’s information.”
That's confusing. Did the doctor not examine Chrupalla, just question him? How then to explain the finding of the “intramuscular injection”. Can it be detected if no substance is found? The public prosecutor had quoted from the doctor's letter that a “needle prick on the right. Upper arm in the deltoid muscle area...
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For those who decide at short notice:
Nuclear waste conference
On Saturday, October 7th, the nationwide nuclear waste conference will take place in Göttingen, with an additional working group on the expansion plans for Gronau and Lingen as well as the planned Castor transports Jülich-Ahaus.
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7 October 1957 (INES 5 | NAMS 4,6) nuclear factory Windscale/Sellafield, GBR
A fire ignited plutonium and generated a very large amount of radioactive dust (1786 TBq), which, among other things, forced the surrounding dairy farms to give up. (Cost approx. US$89,9 million)
The full extent of the accident and the errors in organization and technology were kept secret for 30 years.
This fire from Windscale in October 1957, classified as a "serious accident" (INES 5), is the only pre-2005 Sellafield accident that has not yet ended Wikipedia has disappeared...
Wikipedia
Since the late 1940's and Windscale/Sellafield's inception, approximately 20 incidents of greater or lesser severity involving the release of radioactivity have been reported. 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.
In the nuclear reactor Pile No. 1 in Windscale and Sellafield, respectively, technicians heated up the reactor in order to glow the so-called Wigner energy from the graphite serving as a moderator...
The accident is later blamed for dozens of cancer deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
Nuclear power accidents by country#United_Kingdom
Translate with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
AtomkraftwerkePlag
Sellafield (formerly_Windscale), UK 1957
Windscale began operations in the 1940s. The site was initially responsible for the inspection and packaging of small arms ammunition and later, aided by its isolated location, for plutonium production for the British nuclear weapons program...
On October 7, 1957, Pile 1 was heated for the ninth time, and initially there were no complications. However, when the temperature did not rise to the required level the following day, the crew decided to heat it up again, causing the reactor to spiral out of control. There was a sudden increase in temperature, which continued over the next few days without being able to be stopped. On October 10, the reactor caught fire and radioactivity was released. All attempts to delete it failed. On October 11, 1957, a maximum temperature of 1.300 °C was reached and a large radioactive cloud containing iodine, cesium, strontium and plutonium spread over the Irish Sea. The reactor was finally cooled with large quantities of water and the fire was extinguished the following day.
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...
Youtube
Uranium economy: Facilities for processing uranium
Reprocessing plants turn a few tons of nuclear waste into many tons of nuclear waste
All uranium and plutonium factories produce radioactive nuclear waste: Uranium processing, enrichment and reprocessing plants, whether in Hanford, La Hague, Sellafield, Mayak, Tokaimura or wherever in the world, all have the same problem: with every processing step More and more extremely toxic and highly radioactive waste is being produced...
6. October
Neckarwestheim | Radioactivity | leak
Ministry: No danger to people or the environment (Standard message)
Leak in the nuclear power plant in Neckarwestheim: radioactive liquid escaped
The Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant is currently being dismantled. The Ministry of the Environment is now reporting on a slightly radioactive pool of water that was discovered in September.
At the decommissioned Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant (Heilbronn district), damage was discovered in the system for treating radioactive wastewater during a routine inspection. According to a statement from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment, two leaks were found in a pipeline at the end of September, resulting in acidic radioactive liquid escaping. However, the contamination caused was low, it said. There was no danger to people or the environment...
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Heat | 1,5 degree | El Niño
Extremely warm start to autumn:
The tyranny of heat
It was the warmest September – and probably the warmest year ever. The World Weather Organization warns of consequences for the environment and people.
BERLIN taz | 16,38 degrees Celsius – that’s how warm the earth’s surface was on average this September. According to the World Weather Organization (WMO), this is around 1,75 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial reference period from 1850 to 1900. “Since June, the world has been experiencing unprecedented heat on land and at sea,” explained WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.
The temperature anomalies are enormous – “far greater than anything we have ever seen.” What is particularly worrying is that the El Niño event is only just developing. Taalas: “We can expect these record-breaking temperatures to continue for months and have cascading effects on our environment and society.”
According to a survey by the European earth monitoring service Copernicus, the temperature worldwide in June was 0,53 degrees Celsius above the average value from 1991 to 2000. This means that June 2023 was a total of 1,46 degrees warmer than an average June before the start of industrialization...
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"The SPD primarily made politics for the top 10 percent"
A few years ago, Marco Bülow was seen as the SPD's hope - as the face of a social democracy that does not submit to Merkel and power. Then he left the SPD.
Roberto De Lapuente spoke to him.
De Lapuente: Mr. Bülow, when you left the SPD in 2018, it didn't even begin to look as if the Social Democrats would ever be able to appoint a Federal Chancellor. Now they do. Is social democracy not dead yet?
Marco Bülow: Social democracy itself is not dead and it should be alive more than ever, but the SPD is no longer a social democratic party. The SPD leads the government, but actually it only manages - and Chancellor Scholz and the leadership of the SPD are copying Angela Merkel and her post-democratic politics. In government, they carry the legacy of the GroKo, the embodied diffuse middle with an election program sprinkled with social democrats, which will only be dug out again at the next election.
"In the opposition before 1998, the SPD still had a social democratic core"
De Lapuente: How do you explain the “success” of the Social Democrats in the last federal election?
Marco Bülow: In the GroKo, the SPD was at an almost solid 15 to 17 percent in all surveys. Then an almost historic opportunity arose. The Greens were seen as the Union's real challengers. So the anti-campaign is concentrated, all attacks - which have always been the SPD's part - were now aimed at the Greens and their top duo. The SPD always suffered from this, but this time it benefited them. In addition, the Merkel bonus was lost at the Union, there were fights for the leadership and a puppet show between Söder and Laschet...
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China | Electric Cars | battery technology
How China is decarbonizing its public transport
Part 2: China is a pioneer not only in electric cars, but also in the electrification of public transport. The vehicles come from domestic production and the whole thing becomes an export model, so that China may electrify the global south at the same time.
In the mid-2000s, three considerations prompted the Chinese leadership under then-state and party leader Hu Jintao to promote e-mobility: the country should become more independent of oil imports, and air quality, especially in cities, should improve. On top of that, battery-electric technology - in contrast to combustion engine technology - offered the opportunity for Chinese companies to become world market leaders.
In 2009, China's leadership launched a plan to electrify the country's bus fleet. As part of a national demonstration program, ten cities were asked to add at least 1.000 new electric buses to their fleets each for three years...
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European Union | Human right | Asylum
“Objectively an abuse of law”
Ex-constitutional judge: Asylum law misused
Complex asylum procedures for people who clearly have no right to protection overload the system. Former constitutional judge Papier suggests that migrants must go through a preliminary examination before crossing the border.
According to the former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, the current asylum law no longer meets the new challenges of refugee migration. “Nevertheless, politics at national and European level has not yet been able to offer truly effective solutions to a problem area,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. With a view to the planned European asylum reform, Papier demanded that the right to apply for asylum "can no longer be misused as a door opener and as a justification for immigration that is illegal in itself."
The implementation of the complex asylum procedures, even for the many people who obviously had no right to asylum and international protection, "was and is dysfunctional and objectively an abuse of the law," he said. In Papier's opinion, whether a claim for protection can even be considered should be decided before entering the EU and before crossing the border...
5. October
Glyphosate | Pesticides | Chemical industry
Ecotoxicologist on pesticide ban: “Glyphosate is the perfect smokescreen”
Dr. Carsten Brühl is an ecotoxicologist at the University of Landau. He has been researching the effects of pesticides for years. He makes an urgent appeal to the EU and Germany: “We have no more time!”
[...] The issue of glyphosate is currently coming up again. The EU will vote on a new approval of the total herbicide for ten years. What do you think about the debate?
I think there is enough research to say: we should act according to the precautionary principle in the EU. This means that from the moment there are doubts about the safety of a substance, the EU can decide, solely as a precautionary measure, to stop exposing the population to this substance.
In the specific case of glyphosate, it is also interesting that courts in the USA have already decided that it caused cancer. I find it bizarre, or perhaps even immoral, that against this background the EU says: whatever, we'll let this continue. I can't understand that at all.
[...] The risks to humans when it comes to glyphosate are not entirely clear. But the risks for the environment and ecosystems do. Why doesn't that matter?
Glyphosate is a total herbicide, and not the only one. So if we start banning substances based on ecological considerations, then we also have to take other pesticides - especially total herbicides - off the market. Incidentally, glyphosate is not the only pesticide that is suspected of causing cancer.
The focus on glyphosate is distracting, it is the ideal smoke candle. I consider the environmental risk of all pesticides to be relatively high. In addition, it is not clear how different pesticides interact...
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atomic bomb tests | irradiated | Radiation protection
Long-term consequences of atomic bomb tests: Irradiated wild boars
Wild boars are still heavily affected by previous atomic bomb tests and Chernobyl. This is proven by a scientific study.
Georg Steinhauser, who led the research, says he couldn't believe his eyes when he had the results of a study from the Leibniz University of Hanover and the Vienna University of Technology on his desk. The meat from wild boars shot in Bavaria between 2019 and 2021 had above-average radioactivity. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology at the end of August.
[...] After the first nuclear test in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the USA, the Soviet Union and China (later also France and Great Britain) tested their nuclear weapons by exploding them above the ground until the 1970s. This led to severe radioactive pollution of the atmosphere, which spread virtually across the globe. People became ill with cancer and chronic diseases.
[...] However, it makes no difference to human health whether the increased radioactivity comes from the Chernobyl reactor disaster or from the nuclear weapons tests in the 1960s and 1970s, said the scientist from the German Steel Protection Office mentioned above. Nevertheless, it sheds new light on the long-term consequences of such tests, even if they took place in geographically distant areas.
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Sweden amends nuclear law
Swedish nuclear power: government wants to change the law
The Swedish government has introduced a bill in parliament to amend Sweden's nuclear laws. It aims to repeal the current law that limits the number of operating reactors to ten and allow reactors to be built at new sites rather than just existing ones.
“The proposals mean that the provision in the Environment Code which states that the government can only approve a new nuclear power reactor if it replaces a permanently decommissioned reactor and is built on a site where one of the existing reactors is located will be repealed ", said the government. "It must be possible to keep more than ten reactors in operation at the same time and at different locations than before. As a consequence, an amendment to a provision in the Act on Nuclear Activities is proposed, which contains a reference to the prohibitions in the Environmental Code."
The changes to the law are scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2024.
Last October, Sweden's new center-right coalition government took a positive stance toward nuclear energy. The Christian Democrats, Liberals, Moderates and Sweden Democrats published their written agreement on the policy - the so-called Tidö Agreement. Regarding energy, the agreement states that the energy policy target will be changed "from 100% renewable energy to 100% fossil fuel free"...
Translation with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Switzerland | Transport policy | Local transport
Investments in Deutsche Bahn:
It's worth taking a look at Switzerland
Invest generously in rails, forego complicated tariffs and stay on the carpet: Swiss Railways is showing the DB how to do it.
Missing carriages, thinned out timetables, reversed carriage rows and neglected stations are just as recurring annoyances for rail travelers as unpunctual trains. In 2022, almost one in three long-distance trains arrived at least 15 minutes late, with canceled trains not even being recorded in the punctuality statistics. Every second switch has been shut down since Deutsche Bahn (DB) was converted into a stock corporation in 1994. Last year, the number of private companies connected to the DB rail network via sidings fell once again.
[...] SBB has impressively demonstrated for years how the widely proclaimed shift of traffic to rail can be achieved through intelligent networking of local and long-distance transport, tight train frequency and comprehensive offerings. Supposedly prestigious large-scale projects, such as those implemented in this country with “Stuttgart 21” or the Berlin Central Station, are searched in vain in the Alpine republic.
The number of passengers there has increased by a third since 2000 and is therefore – measured in relation to the population – more than twice as high as here. Currently, over a million passengers use the Swiss railways every day with a clearly structured, simple fare system. Three out of four customers are satisfied with both the service and the timetable offers for what is - in relation to the country's area - the densest rail network in Europe...
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Brazil | Climate change | Heat
Rescue operation in Brazil
Dolphin mass extinction alarms researchers
Extreme heat and severe drought, plus the El Niño weather phenomenon: there is a state of emergency in the Amazon region. This will be the fate of 120 freshwater dolphins, who will die in Lake Tefé. Researchers are now trying to save the remaining animals.
After dozens of freshwater dolphins died in the Brazilian Amazon, a rescue operation for the remaining animals has begun. Emergency services tried to capture and examine animals living in Lake Tefé, as the television station TV Globo reported. In addition, carcasses of dead dolphins were recovered and autopsied to find out the cause of death. Amazon river dolphins are the largest river dolphins. They grow to around 2 to 2,5 meters tall and weigh 85 to 185 kilograms.
Most recently, 120 dead freshwater dolphins were discovered in the lake, which corresponds to around five percent of the population in the region. "This is a very worrying and serious situation," said scientist Miriam Marmontel from the Mamirauá Institute. The exact cause of death is still unclear. However, the researchers assume that it is related to the current heat and drought in the region. "The average water temperature in Lake Tefé is 32 degrees - but recently we measured 40 degrees even at a depth of three meters," said Marmontel...
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“Zammreißen-Demo” on Odeonsplatz:
"Not again!" - 35 000 people demonstrate against the right
Charlotte Knobloch and other prominent speakers warn against a return to dark times. Tens of thousands came. It is a protest against right-wing extremist tendencies, against hatred and agitation - but also a celebration of democracy.
No, Luise Kinseher doesn't want to take on the lion, but she would like to replace him. The woman who was Mama Bavaria on the Nockherberg and is now standing in front of the Feldherrnhalle thinks about the Bavarian heraldic animal. An animal that likes to sleep and when it doesn't sleep then roars to scare others is the leading animal of Bavarian politics. The cabaret artist says she would much rather have a different heraldic animal.
"I'm for the cow," she shouts and the crowd laughs. "The cow is a woman", a vegan at that, she doesn't roar, she moos, and otherwise she spends her life eating and digesting. Choke up, chew the cud, swallow. For her, Kinseher says, this is a “symbol of peaceful democracy.”
Thousands of people cheer. According to the police, 35 000 came to the rally under the motto “Zammreißen – Bavaria against the Right”. It is a protest against right-wing extremist tendencies, against hatred and incitement. But then the meeting becomes more and more a celebration of democracy. People laugh and clap and dance.
[...] Maxi Schafroth:
Anyone who does not value freedom in democracy, who finds it too colorful, should please leave and make room for those who are new and “want to participate in freedom”.
Tens of thousands applaud.
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5 October 1966 (INES 4) Enrico Fermi 1, USA
Fermi-1, the prototype fast breeder reactor, suffered a partial fuel meltdown. (Cost approx. US$23 million)
Wikipedia
On October 5, 1966, there was a meltdown in some parts of the reactor core. This accident was caused by a fragment that got into the cooling circuit. Two of the 105 fuel elements melted. The reactor was shut down on November 29, 1972...
Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station#Fermi_1
Translate with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
AtomkraftwerkePlag
...The construction of the fast breeder reactor near Monroe in the state of Michigan, south of Detroit on Lake Erie, began in 1956 and the reactor went into operation in 1963.
[...] Construction costs had tripled the original estimate to $135 million, and teething problems in operation led to financial losses. In 1966, the year it went into operation, the reactor produced only $300.000 worth of electricity and tiny amounts of fuel. After an accident on October 5, 1966, it was repaired for four years, but even after that it never reached full performance.
[...] The reactor is in safe confinement; the closure is scheduled to take place in 2032...
4. October
Whistleblower in the Police
“Make a report” project:
Whistleblowing portal for police launched
If police officers draw attention to internal grievances such as sexism or right-wing extremism, they must fear serious consequences as polluters. A new project wants to change that.
Right-wing extremist chats, data misuse, sexism in the workplace, police violence: the list of scandals with which police officers have made headlines in the recent past is long. Under the domain mach-melde.org The Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) and the Alfred Landecker Foundation are launching a new project on the topic of whistleblowing in the police. It is intended to encourage police officers to take action against grievances within their own ranks.
Reports about racist, sexist and right-wing extremist tendencies in the police often only become known by chance or through the courageous voices of activists, those affected or police officers, according to the GFF at the start of the project. This is where the project aims to increase knowledge within the police on the subject of whistleblowing and thus contribute to a better error culture...
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China | EU Commission | Subsidies
Electric cars from China
EU Commission starts anti-subsidy investigation
Brussels - As announced by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the European Union speech, the EU Commission has launched an anti-subsidy investigation into imports of electric vehicles from China. The first aim is to determine whether the value chains for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in China benefit from illegal subsidies and whether these are causing or threatening to cause economic harm to BEV manufacturers in the EU.
Based on the results of the investigation, the Commission will determine whether it is in the EU's interest to eliminate the impact of possible identified unfair trading practices through anti-subsidy duties on imports of battery electric vehicles from China...
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NSU 2.0 Fascists in the Police
NSU 1.0 is seemingly dead: Long live esprit de corps
When the National Socialist Underground (NSU) reappears as a police cell.
Actually, the end of the NSU trial in Munich should put the tiresome issue to rest. Then an NSU 2018 appeared in 2.0 – not in Thuringia, but in Hesse, in police circles.
“Crummy Turkish pig!” … “you’re not finishing Germany” … “In retaliation (…) we’ll slaughter your daughter.”
The threatening letter was signed “NSU 2.0”. It was sent on August 2, 2018.
The threatening letter was addressed to the home address of lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz. A private address that cannot be found in the public telephone directory. Neither does her daughter's name. In the NSU trial, lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz represented the family of the first NSU murder victim, Enver Simsek, in the co-prosecution. She filed a complaint. She hasn't heard anything since. It took four months for the public to find out about this incident, about this announcement.
Now the police are talking – also about their internal investigations. A lead led to a computer in the first police station of the inner city station in Frankfurt. “The population register entries for Basay-Yildiz were queried there. And apparently for no official reason.”...
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Exit | electricity imports | Wind energy from Denmark
After the nuclear phase-out: Who is Germany's largest electricity supplier?
Energy and climate – compact: Germany is once again a net importer of electricity. A popular narrative says that we mainly buy French nuclear power. The reality is different.
Since the last three German nuclear power plants went offline at the end of April, Germany has been a net importer of electricity for the first time in a long time. So far in 2023, 49,5 billion kilowatt hours have been imported and 38,5 billion exported, as data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems shows.
The difference of 11 billion kilowatt hours is still small compared to the total consumption of 338,5 billion kilowatt hours in the same period, but is in clear contrast to previous years. In 2022, a net 28,1 billion kilowatt hours were exported, and from 2015 to 2018 there were even around 50 billion kilowatt hours, with more flowing abroad each year than being imported from there...
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CO2 emissions | Decarbonization | Methanol
Methanol – a building block of the energy transition
Green methanol could be used as fuel in ships and become a raw material for a climate-friendly chemical industry. An Icelandic company has been working on the technology for over a decade.
[...] Methanol is an alcohol and the simplest liquid hydrocarbon. It already serves as an important raw material in the chemical industry. However, methanol has so far usually been produced from natural gas or - especially in China - from coal. It is therefore a fossil raw material.
[...] The plant is located next to a coke factory; hydrogen and carbon dioxide are extracted from the exhaust gases from coke production.
Ómar Sigurbjörnsson from Carbon Recycling International still speaks of progress. Methanol in China is usually obtained from coal gasification, which is associated with significantly higher emissions. The China facility has allowed Carbon Recycling International to build the technology on a larger scale for the first time...
3. October
Right-wing demonstration on German Unity Day:
Folk festival with AfD
Thousands cheer for the AfD at a conspiracy ideology demonstration in Berlin. Hatred of ruling politicians unites those gathered.
BERLIN taz | It is German Unity Day in Berlin and at least 5.000 people in the Lustgarten are shouting “East-East-East Germany”. Their entertainer, Lars Hünich, state manager of the AfD Brandenburg, is on stage and probably feels something like an “inner Nazi party rally”. At least he says he is “touched.”
[...] The event for the AfD was a folk festival in the best sense of the word. While it has always been part of the Coronademos, it has now completely taken over the once heterogeneous spectrum. At the AfD/JA Brandenburg stand, the Fuffis slipped one by one into the donation box. Bystanders spoke dreamily of the supposedly coming “absolute majorities” in the East.
The police were present with a minimal presence. Around 50 grannies against the right maintained the protest against the largest Nazi demo in Berlin in almost a year.
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Expansion solar | agrivoltaics | open spaces | Video
Solar energy expansion in the countryside
Volts instead of wheat?
In order to achieve the climate goals, more energy must be generated from solar power. This requires, among other things, arable land - which often leads to conflicts. But compromises are possible.
There is a gold rush atmosphere in the solar industry. In order to achieve Germany's climate goals, the federal government wants to triple the pace of expansion of photovoltaics to 2026 gigawatts per year by 22. Half of the solar systems will be built on roofs and the other half on open spaces.
In addition to sealed areas, agricultural land is also needed for this: according to calculations by the Braunschweig Thünen Institute, probably around 1,7 percent of the area currently used for agriculture. That's 280.000 hectares, an area slightly larger than Saarland.
[...] But what is supposed to advance the expansion of renewable energies also has dark sides. The hunt for possible usable land increases the competitive pressure on agricultural land, drives up rental prices and causes fertile fields and meadows to disappear under dark solar modules.
[...] In the municipality of Pronstorf near Lübeck, for example, residents defended themselves against a solar park in a referendum and achieved a temporary ban on construction.
[...] These conflicts are symptomatic of the conflicts in many regions. They could defuse so-called citizen energy parks, from which communities and residents benefit more, for example through reduced electricity prices...
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Fire without a wall: The wrong path of the Söder-Merz Union
If one day the history of German conservatism is assessed, the fall of 2023 could be of decisive importance - as a fatal turning point. Given the seemingly unstoppable rise of the AfD, attention is rightly focused on the disastrous actions of the traffic light government. No less crucial, however, is the question of how the traditional conservative formation of the CDU/CSU feels about the right-wing populists. Or to put it more bluntly: the AfD's soaring has even more to do with the failure of the Union than with the failure of the government.
In fact, the Union, as a bourgeois-conservative rallying movement in the history of the Federal Republic, was for a long time the guarantee that no right-wing radical party could establish itself. “To our right there is only the wall,” was the well-known motto of the long-time Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU chairman Franz Josef Strauss. However, with the emergence of the AfD and the strengthening of the Free Voters, this concept no longer works.
The old days had a fundamental advantage: the opponent was always on the left. On the other hand, there was rallying on the right, with pithy, populist speeches. Today the situation is completely different. And the Union itself bears significant responsibility for this.
As a reminder: by the middle of 2015, the AfD, which had been founded just two years earlier, was clearly in decline. Back then, at the height of the refugee crisis, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), driven by Markus Söder, who was, according to Seehofer, “eaten up by ambition,” had not agitated head-on against the Chancellor - with the unspeakable sentence “Migration is the mother of all problems - but instead stood at Angela Merkel's side and supported her "We can do it", then the AfD would not have been so enormously revitalized back then. But instead of tackling the challenge of migration together and resolutely, the sister parties almost split up and the CSU almost went as far as dissolving the faction. And after Seehofer publicly humiliated the Chancellor, then AfD leader Alexander Gauland could only describe the disastrous situation in December 2015 as a “gift” for his party.
Since then, there have been many more gifts from the Union for the AfD, with the largest one coming on September 14th of this year...
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3 October 1986 (Broken Arrow) nuclear submarine K-219, USSR
Wikipedia
was a nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy. It was of the Project 667A type, NATO designation: Yankee I class. As a missile submarine (SSBN), the job of the K-1971, built in 219, was to carry submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) off the east coast of the USA as part of nuclear deterrence in order to provide as much as possible in the event of a nuclear war to ensure short response times.
On October 3, 1986, one of the rockets detonated in its silo around 680 nautical miles northeast of the Bermuda Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, filling the rocket room with water. The K-219 then surfaced and floated on the surface for three days. The submarine finally sank on October 6th for reasons that were ultimately unclear. Four crew members died, the rest of the crew was rescued...
nuclear weapons AZ
The Soviet nuclear submarine K-980 (Yankee I class) sank around 6 kilometers northeast of the Bermuda Islands on October 1986, 219 while being towed after a fire broke out in the missile bay on October 3. Four crew members were killed. There are conflicting reports as to what sank along with the submarine: two nuclear reactors and 15 (Yemelyanenkov, 1992) or 16 (Handler, 1992, Nilsen, 1996) ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads sank at a depth of 5000m. If there are 16 SS-N-6 missiles, each carrying two nuclear warheads and two nuclear torpedoes, then there are 34 nuclear warheads (Greenpeace 1993). Three years later there was talk of 50 (Radnet, 1996) and 44 nuclear warheads (San Francisco Examiner, 1996) with a total of 90 kg of plutonium-239. According to a survivor, 44 nuclear warheads also sank (Cole, 2003), which broke apart and released the plutonium. The US refused to fund or support an investigation of the accident site for radioactive contamination...
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3 October 1952 (1st British atomic bomb test) Trimouille Island, GBR
Wikipedia
List of nuclear weapons tests#Britain
Great Britain used test sites in Australia (12 tests), on the Christmas Island (6 attempts) and on Malden Island (3 tries).
The Operation Hurricane was the first British atomic bomb test, on October 3, 1952 on Trimouille Island, one of the 174 small Montebello Islands was carried out on the northwest coast of Western Australia...
Atomwaffen A - Z
Trimoulle Island - Montebello Islands
The Montebello Islands are located about 100 km northwest of the Australian coast. Britain secretly carried out three nuclear tests here between 1952 and 1956 with the approval of Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies. It is questionable whether Menzies included his cabinet in the decision. The Australian population initially knew nothing about it.
The first British atomic bomb was detonated as part of “Operation Hurricane” on October 3, 1952 at 8 a.m. local time. It was a plutonium bomb with a yield of 25 KT (kilotons) and was detonated on a ship, the HMS Plym. The ship was anchored in a lagoon near Trimouille Island. The plutonium used for the implosion bomb similar to the “Fat Man” bomb was produced at Windscale (later Sellafield) and supplied from Canada. The explosion was ignited below deck and therefore 2,7 meters underwater. It created a crater on the ocean floor that was 6 meters deep and more than 300 meters wide...
2. October
Left-wing exodus from Elon Musk's X: Bluesky is like Twitter without AfD
Blue sky After Elon Musk's support of the AfD, many leftists are no longer on his platform X: There was a mass move to the new Bluesky platform. The reunion is warm, but there is a problem: time cannot be turned back
It is now known that Elon Musk is a toxic man-boy who wants to take over the world with oversized electric Matchbox cars and digital playgrounds. It is becoming increasingly clear that he also has a very right-wing worldview - at least now when he publicly supported the AfD in a tweet.
[...] But no one can stop time, and the fact that Twitter developed this way is not just because of the Matchbox boy. While Twitter in Germany was characterized by a left-wing, liberal and progressive bubble of journalists and politicians for years, over time - and with political developments - it increasingly opened up to a right-wing public, which ultimately seemed to dominate the platform under X . The fact that leftists no longer feel comfortable here is due to the nature of this shift to the right, which is not a purely digital phenomenon - but a reflection of the analog world. The fact that minorities are no longer safe here is unfortunately also part of the nature of the shift to the right and that is what creates its danger. X gives a feeling for what it feels like to live in a right-wing hegemony of discourse. And: who can still live here and who can't...
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Propaganda against Human rights and for more Surveillance
Signal boss for chat control:
The EU can stop this regression in human rights
Governments around the world are joining forces with AI companies in an assault on the right to privacy. The danger of chat control breaking the dam is not hypothetical, warned Signal boss Meredith Whittaker in Brussels. We are publishing her speech as a guest commentary.
As you know, we are in the midst of a storm of global attacks on the human right to privacy - with governments, security services, NGOs-cum-AI companies working with lots of money and little transparency to displace the few safe havens that exist We oppose the cruel surveillance business model and the states that profit from it.
I have been working in the technology industry for almost twenty years and have repeatedly dealt with data protection issues. I have seen many attacks on encryption by governments. But I've never seen anything as willfully misleading as the campaign I'm seeing now.
The example of Great Britain is alarming
I have just come from the UK, which is at the forefront of the campaign against encryption and the right to privacy. What I saw there is alarming. Anti-intellectualism and propaganda dominate both popular and much of the so-called expert discussion. An air of hysteria and menace hangs over any attempt at meaningful discussion – including discussion of best practices for supporting children that differ from a fixation on online surveillance. It becomes frightening and difficult to defend human rights when it appears that you are defending demons and monsters. Under these harsh conditions, democratic deliberation on this incredibly serious violation of rights was hardly possible. And I don't think this was a coincidence...
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Omega weather conditions | Floods | severe weather
Omega weather situation: Germany has the warmest September since measurements began - Spain, Greece and Libya are suffering from storms with fatalities
Offenbach – An Omega weather situation over Europe brought enormous meteorological anomalies to Germany in September 2023. In Spain, Greece and Libya, the same weather situation led to torrential rainfall with massive flooding.
According to initial evaluations by the German Weather Service (DWD), in September 2023, as a result of the Omega weather situation in Europe, the temperature in Germany rose to a value previously unattained in the annals of weather records under the constant influence of high pressure. While in Germany the sun shone above average and at the same time it was considerably too dry, other countries such as Spain, Greece or Libya suffered from extreme rainfall under the same weather conditions...
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Heat | Species extinction | Pesticides
Study on biodiversity in water bodies
Hunsrück professor concerned: biodiversity in European streams is in danger
Researchers at the Birkenfeld Environmental Campus have found that biodiversity in European streams is declining for the first time in 30 years. Regional streams are also threatened.
The Thranenbach in the Hunsrück is full of life. Thousands of small animals swim in the crystal-clear water - even if the crabs, snails, worms and insect larvae that live here can hardly be seen with the naked eye.
[...] It could help, for example, to plant trees and bushes on the banks. Because they provide shade.
“In this way, the water temperature could be reduced by four to six degrees,” says the scientist. The study also showed that. The trout and other animals could then perhaps survive in our latitudes.
Intensive agriculture is a threat to biodiversity
Edge strips also protected the streams from intensive agriculture, which, according to studies, is also responsible for the loss of species. “We simply need five to ten meter buffers to the left and right of bodies of water.” Plants could intercept and filter fertilizers and pesticides that currently end up in streams...
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How the state is cooperating with RWE to worsen the environmental disaster
Police have corporate squads evicted. Political revolving doors are swinging, boundaries between the energy giant and municipalities are blurring. About the power of dirty coal in Germany.
In early 2023, the German village of Lützerath was the scene of violent clashes between thousands of demonstrators and police who wanted to clear the village to give it over to the giant Garzweiler II open-cast coal mine. The police rushed towards the demonstrators in small groups, punching, kicking and pushing them to the ground. Police dogs attacked demonstrators who were just a few meters from the steep edge of the Garweiler II opencast mine. Dozens of people were injured.
[...] The expropriation of land for mining is a historical pivot in Germany, as the modern Federal Mining Act that enables this grew out of old Nazi legislation that allowed the expulsion of communities for coal mining in Germany in order to achieve its to strengthen war capability.
[...] For decades, RWE has paid municipalities in shares rather than cash, meaning many are financially dependent on the company. Almost a quarter of RWE shares are owned by municipalities, cities and districts. The municipalities are therefore shareholders, licensors, customers, electoral districts, employees and tax collectors at the same time.
Blurred boundaries between companies and the state
The boundaries between RWE and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) are so blurred that the state is sometimes referred to as "NRWE". As I examined RWE's counterinsurgency strategies in the region, I found that the company's interests are present everywhere, from church choirs and city councils to school boards and universities.
RWE finances police barbecues and fire engines, I learned, sponsors football clubs and festivals, concerts and exhibitions, viewing platforms and historic castles...
1. October
Russia | AfD | multipolar
Bensmann on the AfD and Russia
“They do it out of conviction”
Little has changed in the close connection between the AfD and Russia after the war of aggression in Ukraine. AfD MPs continue to travel to Moscow and Putin fans are sitting in the party's Bundestag offices. Marcus Bensmann from the Correctiv research network investigated why Russia is so interesting for the AfD.
ntv.de: Why is Russia so important for the AfD? Does the party want to address such an issue or is it about potential votes?
Bensman: The AfD is always concerned with getting votes. The pro-Russia demeanor may still be popular in the new federal states, but certainly less so in the western federal states. It's more of a cocktail of different perspectives: Germany's right-wing nationalist ideology has a strong hatred of the USA and liberal democracies. Added to this is Russian kitsch and the right-wing longing to be able to dominate Europe together with Russia. In addition, there are apparently still many Komsomol members of German-Soviet friendship in the AfD.
[...] The USA is to be driven out of a "multipolar world order" as a regulatory power, and in every region the major power there can act as it pleases over the neighboring states and the people. Universal human rights and the sovereignty of a state within a hegemon's sphere of influence no longer apply. We can now see in Nagorno-Karabakh what this means if “the multipolar world order” becomes reality. Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan control the fate of 150.000 people, whether they face expulsion, death or torture. And both terms can also be found in the AfD. And you could translate it that way too. Germany has a choice: Eurasia or western ties, Miami or Siberia.
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Democracy | Press freedom | Justice | Refugees
“We are a compassionless people”
A word on German Unity Day from Niklas Frank, who misses a furor democraticus against the right
On the eve of German Unity Day, there is also talk of increasing right-wing populism and right-wing radicalism as well as the apparently still unresolved past. Mr. Frank, what do you say about the fact that after the excitement surrounding Hubert Aiwanger, the Free Voters are enjoying increasing approval ratings? All for nothing? All clarification for the cat?
This just shows what I assume about us Germans: We are a merciless people! There is only the anger that the Aiwanger is being attacked because of a youthful sin. He is seen as a victim, stylizes himself as such and in general: the free press that reports on such “youthful sins” should be abolished! That's the tenor. The supporters of Free Voters and AfD want to move away from democracy.
[...] Do you really believe that a possible AfD government would act in your father's direction?
But she will do it with pleasure! It will certainly not immediately resort to mass murder of migrants. But it will certainly be the first to eliminate our free independent press, as well as the independent judiciary. A federal government led by the AfD will immediately pass something similar to the “Law for the Restoration of the German Professional Civil Service.” In this way, the AfD excludes all those who do not fit in with its racial ideology, i.e. Jews, migrants, homosexuals. In addition, there is a rubber paragraph that affects all people who “endanger public order and security”...
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Agriculture | Glyphosate | Pesticides
Controversial EU plans: Glyphosate should be approved for ten years longer
In view of the EU's plans to extend the approval of pesticides containing glyphosalt by ten years, consumer advocates are calling for the weed killers to be banned. There are fears of dangers for people and the environment. The herbicides are sprayed on the fields before and after sowing.
- The extension of the approval is considered likely.
- Conflicting risk assessments from EFSA and WHO.
- The BUND refers to an open letter from scientists.
- According to the coalition agreement, a glyphosate ban will apply to Germany from 2024.
For years there has been controversy about glyphosate - a herbicide that is sprayed on the fields before and after sowing and kills everything that grows, crawls and flies there. Glyphosate is still approved until December 15th of this year.
[...] Over 3.300 scientists have now signed the paper and appealed to European politicians to reduce pesticides. They see the great danger that the high use of pesticides poses to biodiversity and the foundations of life such as water, air and soil.
[...] Jörn Wogram from the Federal Environment Agency also emphasizes that these scientific findings have been proven. However, the EFSA did not record this in this detail in its assessment report because there is not yet a European standard for this assessment. Therefore, the EFSA simply pointed out that Member States could take protective measures against such effects. Of course, the level of risk assessment is somewhat neglected, says Wogram.
The logic behind it is: where there are no standards, there is no risk. So the problem is primarily not a scientific one, but a bureaucratic one. And also a structural one. Because the decision-makers do not come from an environmental policy environment, but from an agricultural policy environment...
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PFAS | Eternity chemicals | Chemical industry
Chemicals conference ends with agreement:
For the first time global rules for chemistry
The UN agrees on an agreement on the handling of chemicals. This is to prevent environmental pollution that is causing millions of deaths.
A gap in international environmental law was closed in Bonn at the weekend: a framework agreement on the safe handling of chemicals and chemical waste was agreed at the fifth World Chemicals Conference. The agreement should actually have been passed four years ago. Therefore, the head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Inger Andersen, lamented: “Since the original deadline for a new legal framework, the World Health Organization estimates that millions of people have probably died from direct chemical pollution of air, water, soil and workplaces. Countless ecosystems and species have been polluted and poisoned. The damage is expected to be in the trillions of dollars.”
Given the great harm caused by chemicals, it is surprising that there has not yet been a multilateral agreement regulating the use of chemicals. Although there are four conventions and the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, these only cover a fraction of the estimated 40.000 to 60.000 industrial chemicals. According to the German Nature Conservation Association, pesticides contain around 1.000 different substances...
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Netherlands | Natural gas | Earthquake
Netherlands closes Europe's largest gas field
For years there have been calls for an end to funding in Groningen due to earthquakes in the region. 429 billion euros were generated, the profits went to the state.
The Netherlands has stopped production from Europe's largest gas field in the province of Groningen. According to authorities, production in the Groningen field, which has been disrupted by earthquakes for years, ended this Sunday. However, eleven boreholes at the site, which was opened in the XNUMXs, are to be kept open for another year in the event of a "severe winter". Despite the closure, experts warn that quakes in the region could continue.
[...] According to Shell, around 1963 billion euros were generated from Groningen gas between 2020 and 429. 85 percent of these profits went into the Dutch treasury.
The earthquakes caused severe damage to homes in the area, but residents received minimal compensation, according to the parliamentary report.
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Greens | EU external border | Asylum
Greens and EU asylum law:
Greens in the rain
The SPD celebrates the Chancellor's alleged power in EU asylum policy. Despite their convictions, the Greens have to give in.
In retrospect, it seems like an act of desperation. A week ago, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned urgently about the EU's planned “crisis regulation”. As a new argument, she put forward this could motivate countries at the external borders to forward large numbers of unregistered refugees to Germany in the event of a crisis. Until then, their criticism had been limited to humanitarian hardships. But Baerbock's appeal to the national interest had no effect.
In July, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Baerbock jointly rejected the crisis regulation, which blocked negotiations on a new EU asylum system for months. On Thursday, Faeser agreed to the crisis regulation in Brussels. Faeser has quietly turned around and the Greens are left out in the cold. While the SPD is selling its collapse as the result of an alleged “power word” from Olaf Scholz, for which he is celebrated in the tabloids, the Greens have been left speechless...
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1 October 1981 (INES 3 | NAMS 1,3) nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
Reprocessing of fuel elements that had been cooled for only 27 days resulted in the release of 0,9 Tbq of radioactive iodine. (Cost approx. US$9 million)
AtomkraftwerkePlag
Sellafield (formerly_Windscale), United Kingdom
In November 2001, a study on the possible toxic effects of the reprocessing plants in La Hague (France) and Sellafield was published by the European Parliament, written by WISE/Paris under the direction of Mycle Schneider. Their conclusion was that up to this point in time both sites had the highest human-caused release of radioactivity, comparable to a major nuclear accident every year. The release of radioactive substances was possibly twice that after the Chernobyl disaster. A significant increase in leukemia cases was found in the area around both locations; It is considered possible that radioactive emissions from both plants contributed. At Sellafield, significant concentrations of radionuclides have been discovered in food, sediments in flora and fauna. Carbon-14, cesium-137, cobalt-60, iodine-129, plutonium, strontium-90, technetium-99 were found, the latter with a half-life of 214.000 years...
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...
Slowly but surely, all the relevant info on disruptions in the nuclear industry is coming out Wikipedia away!
Wikipedia
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...
Translation with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Current news+
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FDP | industrial electricity price | green power | Electricity tax
FDP proposal for relief from industrial electricity prices is spot on
2024 could be the big year for green electricity in Germany. All you have to do is – surprise – listen to the liberals. Why her suggestion could be a game-changer.
The industry has been calling for relief from electricity prices for months. Apparently these are too high in Germany compared to international standards, so that there is a risk of industries moving abroad.
A reduction in industrial electricity prices with tax subsidies is therefore necessary. Now the FDP parliamentary group has made a remarkably good proposal: the private supply (“Power Purchase Agreements” = PPA) of green electricity should be exempt from all taxes and duties so that companies can receive cheap electricity.
Industrial electricity prices are competitive in international comparison
The warnings from the economy are nothing new. Such massive demands come regularly, but upon closer inspection they are usually exaggerated.
As early as 2012, the BDI (“Federal Association of German Industries”) had warned that companies would be overburdened warned and demandedthat the expansion of renewable energies as an alleged driver of electricity prices would have to be slowed down in order to reduce electricity prices. Even back then, the industry's arguments were wrong.
Electricity prices in Germany were quite competitive compared to other countries. From 2013 onwards, the attacks - including from the BDI - led to the collapse of the expansion of renewable energies and the solar industry in Germany.
Even today, the industry's whining is not justified. One current study from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) shows that German corporate electricity prices are in the middle of the European range and that the vast majority of companies are only slightly burdened by the electricity price.
Subsidized industrial electricity: Harmful for the climate, slows down the expansion of green electricity
The Union, the Greens and the SPD support subsidizing the price of electricity for energy-intensive companies with tax money in order to reduce it. This would result in billions more taxpayers' money being spent to reduce electricity prices.
However, the prices are mainly determined by the high natural gas prices. However, if the electricity price is subsidized across the board, climate-damaging natural gas power generation will continue to be protected and the switch to renewable energies will be weakened.
Chancellor Scholz, parts of the Greens and the FDP are there for good reason against a state-subsidized industrial electricity price. Scholz pointed out that the real task was to structurally reduce the price of electricity. He particularly emphasized the need to expand cost-effective green electricity generation.
He is absolutely right about that. Only renewable energies are able to provide very cost-effective electricity due to the lack of fuel costs. But in order to ensure that these cost savings through renewable energies are actually reflected in the price of electricity, the expensive natural gas electricity must be replaced with them.
FDP proposal: Will accelerate the expansion of green electricity and reduce electricity prices
According to the FDP proposal, an industrial company should be able to conclude a direct supply agreement (PPA) with a renewable system operator, in which the electricity purchase is treated as electricity generated and consumed by itself. These private electricity supplies would be exempt from all duties and taxes.
This would create an extremely favorable electricity price for industry, as solar and wind power generation is now the most cost-effective form of electricity generation - significantly cheaper than electricity from natural gas, coal or nuclear power, as recently confirmed by US investment bank Lazard was analyzed.
At the same time, it would massively accelerate the climate-protecting expansion of renewable energies - driven by the economy.
Expand the proposal to everyone who purchases local green electricity
In addition to the tax- and duty-free PPA contracts for industry, all electricity customers (not just companies, but also residents) within a five-kilometer radius of generation should also be granted tax- and duty-free direct electricity delivery. This would largely curb local resistance to wind, PV parks or biogas plants.
In particular, residents near a wind turbine or solar park would benefit from significantly cheaper electricity prices, which would greatly increase acceptance.
The traffic light coalition should introduce the complete abolition of all duties and taxes on green electricity for companies and residents of green electricity systems in the Bundestag consultations on the solar package that will soon begin and decide accordingly at the end of the year. Then 2024 could be the big year for the expansion of green electricity in Germany.
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Background knowledge
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The map of the nuclear world
Taxes are up for fossil fuels and military equipment, and taxes are down for green electricity.
The internal search for
industrial electricity price | green power | Electricity tax
brought the following results, among others:
September 20, 2023 - Federal government considers reducing German electricity tax by 95%
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September 1, 2023 - Industrial electricity price brake is unnecessarily complicated
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YouTube
Renewables
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Erneuerbare
smart tax - October 1, 2023 - 5:28
That will change in October 2023 - News Laws and Taxes
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tagesschau - September 29, 2023 - 6:51
Industrial electricity price in the Federal Council
Playlist - radioactivity worldwide ...
This playlist contains over 150 videos on the topic
The search engine Ecosia is planting trees!
Electricity tax
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=Stromsteuer
TIME ONLINE
April 7, 2023 - Six ideas for making electricity cheaper
The battery car is charged at the socket and the heat pump is operated electrically. But the electricity required for this is expensive in Germany. That could be changed...
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Wikipedia
Eco tax (Germany)
The term eco-tax refers to a series of tax policy measures that were passed with the “Law on the Introduction to Ecological Tax Reform”. The term is now used in general language to primarily refer to taxes that affect the consumption of energy. Apart from the electricity tax, no new tax was introduced under the law, but existing tax laws were redesigned in such a way that they have a steering effect in the interests of environmental protection, on the one hand by increasing the quantity taxes on energy consumption or on environmentally harmful behavior, on the other hand through discounts for the use of more efficient or emission-reducing technologies. The aim was, among other things, to internalize external costs arising from environmental damage (e.g. consequential costs of global warming or health damage caused by burning fossil fuels) and thus create a cost reality.
The concept of eco-taxes, also known as environmental taxes, was developed by the Swiss economist Hans Christoph Binswanger in the early 1980s and combines two approaches:
- Taxation of the scarce commodity energy with the aim of increasing energy efficiency,
- Broadening the basis for financing social security.
Eco-taxes as an economic policy instrument are - regardless of the specific implementation - an instrument within the framework of an eco-social market economy. This is seen as a further development of the social market economy with the aim of enforcing environmental protection using market-based means...
Electricity Tax Act (Germany)
The Electricity Tax Act (StromStG for short) regulates the taxation of the consumption of electrical power through an electricity tax in Germany.
Electricity tax
The electricity tax was introduced in 1999 as part of the law introducing the ecological tax reform (eco tax). The electricity tax is an indirect consumption tax. It is incurred by the electricity supplier when electricity is taken from the supply network by a final consumer, and by self-producers who take electricity for their own consumption. Electricity suppliers pass on the electricity tax to the final consumers in the electricity price. The electricity tax has been 2003 ct/kWh since 2,05; There are reduced tax rates for various purposes (e.g. traction current, manufacturing industry). Companies in the manufacturing sector can also, under certain conditions, waive a large portion of the electricity tax they pay or have the electricity tax paid refunded (“peak compensation”).
The main customs offices are responsible for collecting electricity tax. The federal government is entitled to its revenue as a federal tax. In 2019, tax revenue from electricity tax was around €6,7 billion
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Newsletter XXXIX 2023 - September 24st to 30th
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