Newsletter XLIV 2023
October 29th to November 4nd
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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...
4 November 2004 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Balakovo, RUS
11 November 1983 (INES 3) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
16 November 2001 (INES ? Class.?) High Flux Reactor, Petten, NLD
19 November 2003 (INES 2 Class.?) Nuclear factory La Hague, FRA
19 November 1975 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Gundremmingen, GER
20 November 1959 (INES 4) Nuclear factory Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
22 November 2002 (INES 2) NPP Tihange, BEL
28 November 2007 (INES 2) NPP Asco, ESP
29 November 1970 (INES 3 | NAMS 2,5) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
29 November 1955 (INES 4) Research reactor EBR-I, NTRS Idaho, USA
30 November 1975 (INES 5) NPP Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad, USSR
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We are looking for current information. If you can help, please send a message to: nuclear-world@reaktorpleite.de
4. November
CO2 | Agriculture | Rock weathering
Arable land - agriculture as a means to combat climate change
Natural rock weathering removes CO₂ from the atmosphere. Crushed rock that is distributed on arable land can significantly speed up this process.
Davis (USA). According to data from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the Earth's atmosphere currently has the highest CO₂ concentration in a million years. Rock weathering, where carbon dioxide from the air reacts with volcanic rock, can reduce concentrations. Because this natural process takes millions of years, it cannot compensate for climate change and global warming.
However, studies have already shown that rock weathering can be significantly accelerated if the rock is ground into a fine dust. Scientists estimate that this improved rock weathering could remove up to 75 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 215 years as the fine dust is dispersed across global agricultural fields...
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Fuel element factory in Lingen | Rosatom | Framatome
Anti-nuclear organizations protest:
No uranium for Putin's Rosatom
Environmental NGOs complain that no enriched uranium is allowed to be delivered to Russia from Lingen. This violates EU rules.
BERLIN taz | Four environmental organizations are protesting against the planned exports of enriched uranium from Lingen to Russia. The main point of criticism from Ausgestrahlt, the alliance AgiEL - opponents of nuclear power in Emsland, the action alliance Münsterland against nuclear facilities and Ecodefense: The enriched uranium exported is a dual-use good, the export of which to Russia violates EU rules.
Business is being done with Rosatom - the Russian state-owned company is actively involved in the war against Ukraine and is working on the development of weapons that also threaten Europe. This violates EU regulations, according to environmentalists.
The fuel element factory in Lingen, which belongs to the French Framatome group, plans to export enriched uranium dioxide to Russia...
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Climate summit | Health | fossil
Before the climate summit in Dubai
Health experts are calling for an exit from fossil fuels
The climate crisis is also a health crisis. Numerous people are already dying prematurely as a result of the consequences of climate change or from diseases that are influenced by climate change.
In an open letter to the president of this year's climate conference, Sultan Al-Jaber, health experts from around the world are calling for a quick and fair phase-out of coal, oil and natural gas. Renewable energies should be expanded as quickly as possible. Three health organizations from Germany have also signed.
The reason: Fossil energies massively threaten the health of people worldwide - in the future, but also now. And this despite the fact that the right to health is enshrined in the Paris Climate Agreement. With their signature, the countries of the world have also committed themselves to respecting and promoting people's health...
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Jülich | Castor | Bus Routes | Interim storage | Ahaus
Dear friends,
According to the operator, from next Monday, November 6.11th, the second test Castor can roll from Jülich to Ahaus - with an empty Castor and over the motorways. Nightly return transport is planned.
On the other hand, next Monday, November 6.11th, vigils will take place in Jülich and Ahaus: in Jülich at 19 p.m. in front of the main gate of the research center and in Ahaus at 17 p.m. at the Kurt-Schumacher-Ring/Tobit roundabout. There the motorway slip road from the Ahaus/Legden exit on the A31 reaches the city.
We call for participation in order to advance the resistance against the absurd transfer of nuclear waste from the 152 castors with 300 highly radioactive fuel elements.
There is also something new in this matter: In 2014, the North Rhine-Westphalia state government ordered the evacuation of the current Castor camp in Jülich - the main reason: earthquake safety was not guaranteed. But now the turning point: Both NRW Economics Minister Neubaur and the responsible federal office BASE surprisingly announced that earthquake safety was no longer at risk.
If that is the case, then the main reason for the ordered evacuation and thus the Castor transports no longer applies. The Castors could stay in Jülich - as the mayor of Jülich demands - and there would be enough time to upgrade the existing warehouse and, above all, to build a new Castor hall according to current safety standards.
Now it's the NRW state government's turn!
Nuclear-free climate greetings
SOFA (Sofortiger Atomausstieg) Münster, action alliance Münsterland against nuclear facilities
www.sofa-ms.de, www.urantransport.de
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4 November 2004 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Balakovo, RUS
AtomkraftwerkePlag
On the night of November 3rd to 4th, 2004, an incident occurred due to a malfunction in a turbine, which is why the Balakovo-2 reactor was automatically shut down. There is said to be no damage to the reactor. However, because of contradictory news, there was great concern among the population: "Hundreds of residents fled that day for fear of radioactive contamination of the surrounding area. Business owners closed their shops and pharmacies were out of stock of iodine preparations to prevent health damage caused by radioactive radiation." The reactor was restarted a few days later...
Wikipedia
On November 4, 2004, there was an accident at the nuclear power plant, as a result of which there was great concern among the population in the town and the surrounding area[4] and there was some panic buying. Numerous frightened residents supplied themselves with iodine-containing radiation antidotes in pharmacies, as eyewitnesses and news agencies reported. Universities in Samara, 300 kilometers northeast, were closed. City businesses advised their employees to stay at home. The environmental organization Greenpeace in Russia feared a leak. The incident brought back memories of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986 in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union).
Ultimately, according to the operator Energoatom, the incident at the power plant was only a minor disruption. The Russian Atomic Energy Agency announced that there were no increased radioactive emissions and that any danger could be ruled out...
3. November
Russia | Nuclear tests | CTBT
Warning to Washington
Moscow wants to continue refraining from nuclear tests
Russia has withdrawn from the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. Nevertheless, the Kremlin wants to stick to its previous line and not detonate the bomb for test purposes for the time being. However, this is subject to a condition.
Russia says it wants to continue to refrain from testing nuclear weapons despite its withdrawal from a ban treaty. Moscow intends to "maintain the moratorium that was introduced more than 30 years ago," the Foreign Ministry said. However, if the US were to carry out “large-scale tests,” Russia would be “forced to do the same,” the ministry warned.
The Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) provides for an end to all nuclear weapons testing and was submitted for signature in 1996. However, it has not yet come into force because not enough countries have ratified it. The nuclear powers USA and China, among others, have not yet ratified the CTBT...
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CO2 | Sofas fuel them Climate Crisis with loans for fossil Major projects
How 422 carbon bombs kill the 1,5 degree target
Banks are financing fossil megaprojects with trillions in loans. At the same time, the CO₂ budget that remains to limit global warming is dwindling surprisingly quickly. There is still a small glimmer of hope.
Good news is rare in the current world situation, and the desire for something positive is all the more understandable. Journalists who report on the climate crisis are also repeatedly asked to please announce good news “sometimes.” What good is all this “panic”? But that's easier said than done.
One could just as easily ask the correspondents in Israel or Ukraine to tell positive stories from the war. But feel-good news usually has no place in crises. If you keep an eye on the big picture, this also applies to the issue of climate change.
SPIEGEL founder Rudolf Augstein, who would have turned 5 on November XNUMXth, once coined the phrase: “Say what is,” and not “say what you would like.”
[...] In total, the financial institutions indirectly supported 422 large-scale fossil fuel projects. Such oil, gas and coal projects, whose potential emissions exceed one billion tonnes of CO₂, are also called “carbon bombs”.
Of the 422 CO₂ bombs, 128 are still being planned; production or dismantling has not yet begun. Shortly after the global climate agreement of 2015, a total of 70 projects started from scratch - despite the commitment of around 200 countries to stop climate change.
The two largest CO₂ bombs in the world are in the USA: in the Permian Basin and in the Marcellus Shale. High on the toxic climate list is also a project in Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, probably the largest conventionally used oil field in the world. Projects with enormous potential for releasing CO₂ also include a production area in Vaca Muerta, Patagonia, oil shale mining sites in Alberta, Canada, and a Tambey deposit in the Russian Arctic...
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India | Smog | particulate matter
Extreme smog
Air quality in India reaches dangerous levels
Schools should teach online, construction work will be restricted: The air in the Indian mega-metropolis of Delhi is polluted to a health-endangering level.
Thick smog is causing problems for people in Delhi. Due to severe air pollution, construction activities are temporarily restricted in the Indian capital New Delhi, which is part of Delhi. Schools were also advised to initially give online lessons, as the responsible authority announced on Thursday.
[...] The city's air quality index (Aqi) was well over 200 in the morning Central European time and thus fell into the "very unhealthy" category.
According to US authorities, a value of 100 generally corresponds to the maximum limit that can be reached in the short term without endangering the protection of public health. For those who are sensitive, values over 50 can become a problem. The situation is considered dangerous from a value of 301.
Contributing cause of heart and circulatory diseases
This was significantly exceeded in the morning at a measuring station in Nehru Nagar in the south of Delhi, where the Aqi was 535. For particularly small fine dust particles of size PM2.5, which can penetrate particularly deeply into the human body, the station showed 639 micrograms per cubic meter of air - a multiple of the limit values still considered acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO)...
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UN | Human rights | Resignation | Palestine
“Thousands of civilians are being murdered in the Gaza Strip”
Telepolis documents: Letter of resignation from the head of the OHCHR representation in New York. UN official speaks of genocide in Gaza. He compares Israel's actions with other cases of serious human rights violations.
The head of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber, has resigned from his position in protest at what he believes is an overly soft stance towards Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip. He wanted to express his protest against the "total failure" of the United Nations in protecting the Palestinian civilian population...
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Think | intellectual | philosophers
Precht & Co.: Mocking intellectuals is fashionable. But we need them
Public Forget the thinkers, bring on the “experts”. That's been the motto since Corona at the latest. Why this may be obvious, but is a mistake
Whenever a statement by Richard David Precht is discussed in the German media, the question quickly arises as to whether he is even a philosopher. The question is obvious, because Precht is called a philosopher everywhere. But why is this even relevant?
There is now a consensus that it is primarily the “experts”, i.e. scientific specialists, who should be interviewed about controversial topics: people who research in the areas in question. They didn't just express their opinion, or so one hopes, but they provided facts and insights. For decades, however, these experts were contrasted with the “intellectuals”, i.e. writers, humanities scholars, leading journalists and even philosophers, who eloquently expressed their opinions, took positions, warned and admonished. Public intellectuals are people who do not present facts, but rather evaluations. The political scientist Hannah Arendt was such a great intellectual, Martin Walser and Günther Grass certainly were too.
[...] Philosophers can also become important in explosive daily debates if they put underlying concerns into concrete terms. That's why you should also sit on talk shows and do podcasts. However, you and your audience should insist on having time for justifications and not just quick theses.
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Climate change | Adaptation | Funding gap
"Adaptation Gap Report"
Too little money for climate adaptation
A new report from the UN environmental program UNEP warns of a financing gap in adapting to increasing climate change. Contrary to the promises of rich countries, the gap is actually getting bigger.
Advancing climate change requires intensive adaptation measures - such as drought-resistant agriculture, higher dikes to protect against rising sea levels, and better medical care in the event of heat waves. However, there are too few funds available worldwide for this, and the financing gap is actually growing.
This emerges from the “Adaptation Gap Report 2023” from the UN environmental program Unep. The world is “underfinanced and unprepared,” UNEP director Inger Andersen warned on Thursday when presenting the report at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi.
According to the report, progress on climate adaptation is slowing across the board, even though it should be accelerating to keep pace with the increasingly dire consequences of climate change.
The current funding gap is estimated to have grown to between $194 billion and $366 billion per year. The reason for this is the increasing need for financing for adaptation due to the warmer climate and the slowing inflow of funds from industrialized countries...
2. November
Gundremmingen | Interim storage | dismantling
RWE is allowed to build a new building for waste at the Gundremmingen nuclear power plant
A new interim storage facility is to be built at the old Gundremmingen nuclear power plant in which low- and medium-level radioactive waste will be stored.
The Gundremmingen nuclear power plant is being packed into boxes piece by piece. The dismantling of Block C of the former nuclear power plant began a good quarter of a year ago. After it went completely offline at the end of 2021, a so-called dismantling factory was built on the site in reactor block A. If necessary, the dismantled system parts are dismantled one-to-one. Each individual screw is decontaminated with or without surface removal in order to be able to return the materials to the recycling cycle and thus recover uncontaminated valuable materials. This now requires another interim storage facility - which is quite controversial in the community...
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Energy consumption | industrial production | record low
Shrinking industrial production:
Energy consumption at record low
High prices lead to shrinking industrial production and falling demand. The lower consumption reduces Co2 emissions.
BERLIN taz | Due to reduced industrial production, energy consumption in Germany will fall to a record low this year. This emerges from the forecast published on Thursday by the “Energy Balance Working Group”. It expects a decline of almost 2022 percent to 8 petajoules (PJ) compared to 10.784. “Consumption would therefore be almost 28 percent below the previous high in 1990, when 14.905 PJ was reached,” said the working group, which consists of three energy industry associations and six research institutes. Energy consumption had already fallen to its lowest level since 2022 in 1990...
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Victim | War Crimes | Crimes against humanity
War crimes: Victims get more rights in Germany
In the future, war criminals around the world will increasingly have to expect that their crimes will be atoned for in Germany. The federal government has decided this.
The prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed abroad should be improved in Germany. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet decided on a number of changes. The rights of victims should be strengthened in international criminal law. The federal government also wants to improve the international impact of German proceedings and judgments. In addition, gaps in criminal liability in German law should be closed.
According to the draft law, this concerns victims whose rights to physical integrity, freedom, religious, sexual or reproductive self-determination or undisturbed physical and mental development were violated in childhood. In future, victims or relatives of those killed will be able to appear as co-plaintiffs in proceedings in Germany. To this end, they should be able to receive a victim advocate and psychosocial support without any further requirements.
[...] The existing principle of universal law has already been applied in proceedings against two Syrians before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court. The court imposed a life sentence on one of them in January 2022. He is said to be an accomplice in the torture of at least 4000 people and the deaths of at least 27 prisoners. A second Syrian had previously been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting a crime against humanity. Experiences from these processes were incorporated into the new regulations.
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Pope | Arms industry | Israel | Ukraine | Palestine
Pope Francis: “The world is at war, but the arms industry is behind it”
Pope Francis spoke about the war in the Middle East in an interview. Peace can only be achieved through dialogue. He held the arms industry responsible.
[...] In his opinion, the solution to the conflict in the Middle East lies in the creation of two states. Israelis and Palestinians are two peoples who have to live together. According to the Pope, it requires “two clearly defined states and Jerusalem with a special status.” Human wisdom should end such situations, the Pope believes.
[...] “The biggest problem is the arms industry,” said Pope Francis during the interview. "I was told by a person who knows about investments and whom I met at a meeting that today the most profitable investments are in weapons factories," the 86-year-old added...
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Israel | Palästinians | Human rights | Collateral damage
Israel-Gaza War: Two kinds of People
Israel's self-entitlement dies in the rattling of the tanks in Gaza, in the West Bank the law of the jungle reigns. Why a Jewish sociologist speaks of "idolatry". A commentary.
Let's take a moment to understand what UN Secretary-General António Guterres may have meant when he reminded the West of a simple fact in the face of the Israeli bombardment: Palestinians, i.e. people, live in the Gaza Strip. Oppressed people, often perceived as second-class people, in other words: not as real, fully-fledged human beings.
More than a million of these lesser people are wandering lost in the Gaza Strip as these lines are written - disenfranchised, homeless, hungry, injured, near death, desperate. At least another million live in anxious anticipation of what is to come. Thousands are already among the dead who never had a voice; Statistically calculated - if recorded at all - they fall under the collateral damage of Israeli self-defense.
[...] The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, according to the paper, criticizes that "Israel is cynically exploiting the war to advance its political agenda of seizing land in the West Bank." Soldiers, but also civilians, are often involved in the actions.
Between October 7th and 19th, more than 550 Palestinians were displaced; At least 69 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since October 7th, including 15 children and one woman. Israelis considered it “their God-given right to settle there.”
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France | severe weather | Atlantic coast
Hurricane “Ciaran”:
1,2 million households in France without electricity
The people in Brittany are most affected. A truck driver was killed and there are driving bans in some areas.
1,2 million households in France are without electricity due to Hurricane Ciarán. Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said technicians are busy restoring the supply. 780 of the affected households are in Brittany, as the electricity supplier Enedis announced. 000 technicians are on duty.
Even before the severe storms on Thursday night, the electricity supplier had relocated materials and personnel to the affected regions...
1. November
Japan | lifetime extension | nuclear oversight | Sendai
Sendai blocks in operation for another 20 years
Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) has approved the operation of Units 1 and 2 of Kyushu Electric Power Company's Sendai Nuclear Power Plant beyond 40 years. According to the new legislation, the blocks can even be operated beyond 60 years.
Sendai 1 and 2 - both 890 MWe pressurized water reactors - will reach 3 years of operation on July 2024, 27 and November 2025, 40, respectively.
[...] With the approval of the NRA, Sendai 1 can now continue to operate until July 2044 and Sendai 2 until November 2045.
[...] In total, there are now six Japanese reactors that have been approved for operation beyond 40 years. These include the Mihama 3 and Takahama 1 and 2 blocks, which have all been returned to service, as well as Tokai 2, which has not yet been returned to service...
Translation with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Glyphosate | Monsanto | Compensation
Bayer suffers third defeat in glyphosate trial in a row
The weed killer glyphosate continues to cause a lot of trouble for the Leverkusen-based chemical company Bayer. The US courts are now increasingly siding with the plaintiffs.
Bayer has suffered its third consecutive defeat in US litigation over weed killers containing glyphosate. Jurors in a California state court in San Diego awarded a 57-year-old a total of $332 million in damages on Tuesday. Bayer said it was convinced it had strong arguments to prevail in an appeal.
Bayer had won nine US cases before losing three. It was only on Monday that the company announced that it would challenge its two previous defeats...
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Wind power | Actions for failure to act
Many lawsuits for inaction from wind power companies in MV
If, in the opinion of applicants, authorities dawdle excessively, they can be sued, for example by wind power companies. In many places in Germany these are isolated cases - not so in MV.
Greifswald/Berlin (dpa/mv) - Wind power companies in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania complain particularly frequently against authorities because of delayed approval procedures. This emerges from a Germany-wide survey by the German Press Agency. There are also corresponding complaints of failure to act elsewhere. After evaluating the feedback from almost all federal states, nowhere have there been nearly as many cases as in the northeast.
According to the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Greifswald, 1 corresponding lawsuits were pending as of October 19st. At the beginning of September, according to information at the time, there were even 21. For the whole of Germany, the survey of the responsible courts revealed a number of at least 30 such actions for failure to act. Accordingly, in most federal states these are isolated cases. No cases were reported in several countries, including Bavaria, Hamburg, Saarland and Saxony. The neighboring northern federal state of Schleswig-Holstein recorded three lawsuits, Lower Saxony two...
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Double blow against climate change: carbon dioxide as an energy source
How can carbon dioxide be captured from the atmosphere and used beneficially? In the USA, a research team has found a pioneering, highly efficient way to convert CO2 into fuel. The process could warm houses and contribute to electricity supply.
[...] The process of carbon capture and conversion begins with capture based on an alkaline solution. It first fixes the carbon dioxide from power plant emissions or the free air in a liquid metal bicarbonate solution. The substance is then converted into formate crystals using a cation exchange membrane electrolyzer. These have an efficiency of more than 96 percent, as the research team was able to show in laboratory-scale experiments.
In solid form, the crystals have an unlimited shelf life and are so stable that they can be stored for years without causing losses - unlike hydrogen, for example. In addition, formate is considered harmless...
31. October
Aviation | Sustainable | Solar energy | Hydrogen
Revolution in aviation: Zeppelin is supposed to fly around the world without fossil fuels
A start-up wants to travel around the world in 20 days with a solar and hydrogen-powered airship. The project could make aviation more sustainable.
[...] The journey with the 151 meter long “Solar Airship One” is scheduled to start in 2026. The Zeppelin, filled with more than 50.000 cubic meters of helium, draws its propulsion from two different sources. In addition to solar panels covering over 4800 square meters of the upper half of the aircraft, it also uses hydrogen for locomotion. However, the latter should only be used at night when the sun is not shining. According to the developers, the solar zeppelin will fly completely without fossil fuels, noise and CO₂ emissions...
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severe weather | Atlantic coast
Approaching storm “Ciaran”
Storms bring floods – warnings for England and France
Heavy rain has already flooded some areas in Northern Ireland and Ireland. France is also preparing for the storm, which is expected to hit the northwest of the country from Wednesday evening. The local people have been warned.
The approaching storm “Ciaran” caused heavy rain in Northern Ireland and Ireland on Tuesday night. France is also preparing for the storm, which is expected to hit the northwest of the country from Wednesday evening. Gusts of up to 170 kilometers per hour are expected on the French Atlantic coast and the English Channel, the weather service Météo France announced on Tuesday...
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Bavaria's Kini Jödler and his right-wing horror clowns
Re-election of Söder in Bavaria:
Right-wing spooky in the plenary hall
Racist slogans and mocking laughter: The AfD faction is turning the prime ministerial election in Bavaria into an unworthy spectacle.
MUNICH taz | The Bavarian State Parliament actually met on Tuesday morning for only one purpose: to elect the Prime Minister. Important, of course, but actually not much more than a formality. But then this second session of the new parliament gave a foretaste of what this legislative period could bring with it: it was obvious that not everyone here was interested in respectful cooperation.
The AfD faction, which has been significantly strengthened after the election, repeatedly appears loudly, complains, and responds to speeches by the democratic parties with derisive laughter. While CSU parliamentary group leader Klaus Holetschek is proposing the previous Prime Minister Markus Söder for re-election in his speech, the seats are swapped in the far right corner of the plenary hall, the colleagues bring Daniel Halemba forward to the third row and take their youngest in the middle. The message is clear: you are one of us. We stand behind you. The colleagues quickly take a selfie with the young star...
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Climate change | mass extinction | Pacific | dead whales washed up
Hundreds of dead whales washed up – researchers are solving the mystery of mass extinctions in the Pacific
Dead gray whales were not a rare sight along the US coast. Researchers got to the bottom of the cause of the mysterious mass extinction - and raised the alarm.
Newport - Scientists at Oregon State University have investigated the mysterious mass death of gray whales on the Pacific coast of the USA and found a possible cause. Since 2019, over 680 animals have washed up dead on the coast.
The research team examined the population, deaths and body condition of whales over the last 50 years. The scientists then compared this data with the animals' level of access to their feeding grounds and the abundance of crustaceans and found a clear pattern.
[...] North Pacific gray whales spend their winters in warm lagoons off Mexico, where they raise their offspring. However, in summer they migrate to the Arctic to feed on crustaceans.
The giant marine mammals – which can reach lengths of up to 17 meters, weigh up to 35 tonnes and have been shown to live up to 80 years – only spend around four months feeding. They usually fast for the rest of the year. “You really have to stuff yourself during these four months,” explained study leader Stewart.
[...] This discovery highlights the impact of climate change on Arctic marine ecosystems and wildlife. In addition to gray whales, hundreds of dead birds also washed up on the Pacific. The mass death of around ten billion snow crabs off the coast of Alaska is also said to be due to global warming.
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Climate protection | CO2 emissions | Warming
Climate protection: CO2 budget only lasts until 2029
The time window and emissions budget for climate protection targets have continued to shrink
Time is running out: humanity's CO2 budget for achieving the 1,5 degree climate protection target has continued to shrink - and could be used up in six years, as an updated balance sheet shows. According to this, the remaining budget for global CO2 emissions is only 250 gigatons - half as high as in the world climate report from 2021. If global CO2 emissions remain at current levels, this amount will be reached in 2029, as the researchers in “Nature Climate Change” report.
Even though it has long been clear that further global warming will have serious climate consequences for many regions, global CO2 emissions continue to rise. As recently as the summer of 2021, the current world climate report quantified the CO2 emissions budget remaining for various climate protection goals: for a 50 percent chance of maintaining the 1,5 degree target, humanity still had around 500 gigatons left, for an 83 -percent chance only around 300.
But since then, global CO2 emissions have continued to rise despite the corona pandemic and a temporary decline. In March 2023, according to the IPCC synthesis report, global warming had already reached a good 1,1 degrees warmer compared to pre-industrial values - and the trend is accelerating sharply...
30. October
Annalena Baerbock and Julian Assange
Unsatisfactory eleven pages
In the election campaign, the Green Baerbock campaigned for Julian Assange. As Foreign Minister, she doesn't do enough for the imprisoned journalist.
Hannah Arendt once observed that “targeted deceptions have been known to us as legitimate means of achieving political ends” since the beginning of recorded history. Does Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock know Arendt’s 1972 essay “The Lie in Politics”? Not clear. Her statements about the Australian journalist Julian Asssange, who was persecuted by the US government, make her a prime example of Arendt's reflections.
As the Green candidate for chancellor, Baerbock called for “the immediate release of Julian Assange” in September 2021. But as Foreign Minister, she ignored inquiries for months about the founder of the disclosure platform WikiLeaks, who has been imprisoned in London for over four years...
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Siemens Energy | Rosatom | France | Hungary
Joe Kaeser defends nuclear power deals with Rosatom in Hungary
Siemens Energy will not stop doing business with Russia's state-owned company Rosatom. After the gas turbine dispute with Gazprom, a new nuclear power plant in Hungary is moving into the spotlight.
Siemens Energy is sticking to current contracts with the Russian nuclear company Rosatom. Siemens Energy will continue to supply components to projects that are still under construction and will be completed outside of Russia. The former CEO of Siemens, now chairman of the supervisory board of Siemens Energy, Joe Kaeser, confirmed this in an interview with the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
Siemens Energy on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Hungary: “The alternative would be for the Chinese to step in”
Germany's leading energy technology company, which is currently struggling with financial problems in its wind business, is responsible for supplying safety technology for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Hungary, Paks 2. Construction work began in August this year and is being carried out by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom. Despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the company has not yet been sanctioned by the EU: France and Hungary are still too dependent on cooperation with Rosatom and could veto it. The demands of Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) in April of this year to sanction civil nuclear cooperation with Russia have so far achieved nothing significant...
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Israel | Journalist | Reporters Without Borders | Lebanon
Shelling in Lebanon
Human rights activists accuse Israel of deliberately killing a journalist
Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah is killed in a rocket strike in the border area between Israel and Lebanon. Reporters Without Borders has looked at the recordings - and is now making serious allegations.
The Hamas attack on Israel is just a few days old. In order to deter attacks by the Hezbollah militia from Lebanon, Israel is carrying out targeted air strikes along the border. Amid the shelling, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah dies.
Now, two weeks later, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is making serious allegations against Israel. The death of the photojournalist is said to be the result of a targeted attack from the direction of the Israeli border.
[...] The organization included in its press release a link to a video in which, among other things, the group can be seen before the shelling and the two impacts. In the video, the vests with large printed “Press” characters are clearly visible.
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Israel | Gaza | Hamas | West Bank | Palestine
Middle East Glossary:
Understanding the Middle East conflict
What is the Temple Mount dispute about? And what does the two-state solution mean? Anyone who talks about the Middle East conflict should know their vocabulary. A handout
Since the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, the Middle East conflict has again become the focus of public interest. The current war is now often compared to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, which was traumatic for Israel. Rightly or not: Anyone who wants to talk about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians cannot avoid historical data. You should know these terms.
Overview:
- Abraham Chords
- Occupied territories
- Fatah
- Gaza Strip
- Golan Heights
- Hamas
and many more.
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PFAS | Chemical industry | Poison of eternity
Fighting the eternity chemicals
PFAS are water and dirt repellent, acid resistant, pressure and heat resistant. But they can also make you sick and stay in the environment forever. The EU is discussing radically restricting its use.
PFAS stands for per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances. These are industrially produced organic compounds in which hydrogen atoms are replaced by fluorine atoms. This makes them extremely resilient. More than 10.000 solid, liquid and gaseous chemicals are PFAS.
Industry uses them in a variety of ways: from dental floss or food packaging to semiconductor production to car tires and oil pipelines. PFAS also enter the environment and accumulate - as production residues, when products containing PFAS are used and when the products are disposed of in household waste.
Why PFAS are so dangerous
Since the 1960s, manufacturers have known about the risks of diseases such as cancer when certain PFAS enter the human body. Nevertheless, they declared their production facilities and products to be harmless. Over the past 20 years, researchers around the world have identified dangerous residues that accumulate in water, soil, plants and animals. PFAS are found even in the polar regions - and in the blood of virtually every human...
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Arctic | Permafrost | Nunataryuk
New Atlas of the Arctic Permafrost Region
State and future of settlements, living environment and economy in the Far North
State and future at a glance: An international project has created and published for the first time a comprehensive atlas of the Arctic permafrost region and its socio-economic aspects. The maps not only show the current and future state of the permafrost, but also how many people live in the Nunataryuk area today and how their economy, environment and lives will change. By 2050, half of all settlements and half of all oil, gas and other raw material extraction sites could be affected by thawing permafrost.
The Arctic soils have been permanently frozen for hundreds of thousands of years. This permafrost makes up around 15 percent of Earth's land masses and stores gigantic amounts of undecomposed relics of prehistoric plants, animals and microorganisms. But climate change is warming these permafrost and causing them to thaw. This is already causing landslides, holes in the ground to open up and lakes to overflow. Human infrastructure is also affected: roads, railways and settlements are damaged and sink into mud...
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30 October 1961 (Tsar Bomb AN602) Novaya Zemlya, USSR
Atomwaffen A - Z
The detonation of the Tsar Bomb (or Tsar Bomb)
[...] The test was carried out at a time of increased voltage. On September 1, 1961, a three-year testing moratorium ended. In the following 16 months, the United States and Russia conducted more above-ground testing than in the previous 16 years.
However, this bomb was unusable militarily due to its heavy weight and was designed as a pure demonstration of power during the Cold War...
Wikipedia
The AN602 was a hydrogen bomb detonated on October 30, 1961 in the north of the Soviet Union. It created the largest explosion ever caused by man...
Construction
That of a team around the later dissident Andrei Sakharov The bomb constructed weighed 27 tons, was eight meters long and two meters in diameter. It was constructed in three stages and was designed for an explosive force of 100 MT. Half of the explosive power was omitted for the test in order to reduce the radioactive contamination by 97 percent...
explosive power
According to Soviet information, the explosive power of the Tsar bomb was 50 MT, making it around 4000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima Little Boy bomb and around three to four times as powerful as Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear weapons test in the USA...
The amount of the chemical explosive TNT, which would release energy comparable to the Tsar bomb, would have a diameter of 400 meters as a sphere.
execution of the test
The bomb was detonated on October 30, 1961 at 11:32 a.m. Moscow time over the Sukhoy Nos Zone C test site at approximately 73,8° N latitude and 54,6° E longitude in Mityushika Bay on the island of Novaya Zemlya. It was dropped from a modified Tupolev Tu-95W bomber at an altitude of 10.500 meters and decelerated by a parachute to give the aircraft sufficient time to leave the test area...
effects
The explosion took place at an altitude of around 4.000 m...
29. October
Vladimir Slivyak | Ecodefense | Rosatom
"The goal is to get the Russians to take responsibility"
Russia is using its nuclear industry as a weapon, says environmental activist and alternative Nobel laureate Vladimir Slivyak. The European Union should no longer rely on nuclear and fossil fuel deals with dictators.
Climate reporter°: Mr. Slivjak, your environmental organization Ecodefense was classified as a “foreign agent” by the Putin government in 2014 and was subjected to extensive repression. Before the war in Ukraine broke out, you had to go into exile.
[...] How do you explain that Rosatom is so underrepresented in Western political discourse? Why is the fight against this company so important for Ecodefense?
[...] Right now it is important for Ecodefense to organize resistance against Rosatom, not only because it is a nuclear monster, but also because it is an instrument of Russian imperialism and war.
Unfortunately there is one within the European Union strong lobby for Rosatom. It is not just the nuclear industry - the French company Framatome in particular stands out here - that Rosatom wants to keep as a lucrative partner. There are also states like Hungary that want to build Russian nuclear reactors because they have received money from Moscow for them - in 2014 Hungary was granted a loan of ten billion euros. France and Hungary are working together to prevent any sanctions against Rosatom in the EU.
I think there are powerful European forces that do not want the issue of European dependence on Rosatom to be discussed. They hope that their business with Rosatom will remain unaffected by the sanctions. Ultimately it's about money, but companies are playing a very dangerous game by increasing nuclear dependence on Moscow. This could have dire consequences...
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Middle East war: appeals from Washington
The US government is concerned about civilians in the Gaza Strip. Developments in the West Bank are also criticized. The Pope calls for a ceasefire.
The essentials in brief:
- Biden emphasizes protecting civilians
- USA and France criticize violence by settlers
- Israel is “only at the beginning” of military action in Gaza
- Military reports 450 targets bombed
- Red Cross condemns "unbearable levels" of suffering in Gaza
- Thousands of Palestinians loot UN aid agency warehouses
- Internet in Gaza is apparently partially working again
Israel must protect innocent residents of the Gaza Strip by distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilians, the White House warned in Washington. At the same time, US President Joe Biden promised a significant increase in aid for the Palestinian territory controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas...
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Pesticides | Chemical industry | Mercosur
Food: How banned pesticides are returning to German supermarkets
Imported products contain active ingredients that are not sold in the EU but may be produced and exported here. A bill is intended to put a stop to this. Why it falls short.
The consumer magazine Öko-Test recently had tea leaves from 24 black teas tested for traces of pesticides. These included ten organic products. Result: The commissioned laboratory found a total of twelve spray poisons. Six of them are banned or no longer permitted in Germany.
Almost all poisons have been classified as “highly dangerous” by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN). The ingredients of only two of the black teas tested were flawless, so they were rated “very good”. In some cases, a product even contained seven different pesticides - including two that are not permitted for cultivation in the EU.
These were the Cornwall Ceylon-Assam black tea from Norma and the Westminster black tea blend from Aldi Nord. Both were graded "unsatisfactory"...
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Greens criticize joint application by CDU and AfD in Cottbus
The district association of the Cottbus Greens has criticized a joint motion by the AfD and CDU in the city council (SVV) to limit the admission of refugees.
“The fact that the CDU and AfD have jointly submitted an application here for the first time and that it was passed with one vote from the SPD shows how the firewall against the right is being further torn down,” said district association chairman Stefan Binder on Sunday, according to a statement. "The numerous abstentions during this vote also lack a moral compass and indirectly pave the way for a future black-blue coalition," it continued...
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E-car | charging infrastructure
Inductive charging
When the electricity comes from the street
Recharging your batteries while driving: A technology consortium near Milan with Stellantis as an automotive partner proves that this is already possible today. However, there is still a long way to go before it can be used in real life.
[...] Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer technology (DWPT) has been researched worldwide for years. Partly on special test tracks like in Italy, partly on public roads. A motorway section in Bavaria and a one-kilometer-long bus lane in Balingen in Baden-Württemberg are to be made inductive...
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Israel | War on Terror | Ceasefire
Israel War: Terror cannot be fought through war
Israel's campaign is reminiscent of the failed "War on Terror." This does not create security for Israel. Around 400 peace organizations also see it that way. A comment.
An international dispute has broken out over the war in the Middle East. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke early on in favor of the delivery of urgently needed aid and a ceasefire. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), on the other hand, initially opposed such a ceasefire at the EU Foreign Ministers meeting at the beginning of the week.
Before the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Baerbock then spoke of the need for so-called “humanitarian windows”. At the EU summit in Brussels, the EU states reiterated this stance. But such diplomatically chosen formulations must not distract from what is important: the human right to health must be the guideline for action, even in war.
The situation in Gaza is disastrous. According to the UN, the Gaza Strip is currently running low on water, food, fuel, medical supplies and even body bags...
| Current news+ | Background knowledge | Top |
Current news+
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Uranium exports | Lingen fuel element factory | Russia
Uranium exports from Lingen to Russia violate EU law - study by the Greens justifies the possibility of a ban
Do the planned exports of uranium fuel from Lingen in Emsland to Russia possibly violate EU regulations? A report from the Green Parliamentary Group from October 2020 entitled “On the admissibility of dual-use export permits for depleted uranium from Germany to Russia in accordance with EU Regulation 833/2014” by Professor Dr. Bernhard W. Wegener suggests this assumption. Accordingly, existing EU regulations could be a reason to put these planned deliveries of uranium fuel from Lingen on the banned list for Russia. The responsible federal office has not yet issued the necessary export permit. Yesterday, in response to a request from environmental activists, the BMU announced that this approval “is currently under review”.
Dual-use products are those that could also be used for military purposes. Yesterday, with a view to the pending export approval for deliveries of uranium fuel from Lingen to Russia, the BMU said that such uranium deliveries “for peaceful use” are currently not subject to EU sanctions. However, as Wegener's study shows, it might be reasonable to assume that uranium exports to Russia could not only be used for peaceful purposes.
Upon request, the BMU reported on the materials to be exported: “An application from Framatome GmbH to export nuclear fuel residues from fuel element production to MSZ Machinery Manufacturing, Joint-Stock Company (MSZ JSC) is currently being examined. Manufacturing residues are usually cleaned, reprocessed and returned to the manufacturing process. These activities are not new and comparable deliveries from ANF GmbH in Lingen to MSZ JSC have already taken place in the past. For details, please contact Framatome GmbH. MSZ JSC is a manufacturer of fuel elements, including from re-enriched uranium from reprocessing. The BMUV has no information on the radiological conditions at the MSZ JSC site.”
The delivery from the uranium factory in Lingen, which belongs to the French Framatome group, is to go to the “MSZ Machinery Manufacturing, Joint-Stock Company” (MSZ JSC) plant, which belongs to the Russian TVEL. TVEL also carries out uranium enrichment and is part of the Russian state-owned company Rosatom. (Please refer Nuclear waste report) This nuclear complex was also the target of exports of depleted uranium in 2020, which was considered in the study by Professor Wegener and others.
During the Study by Professor Wegener it says on the legal background: “The EU Sanctions Regulation 833/2014 contains in Article 2 Paragraph 1 a ban on “dual-use goods and technologies with or without originating in the Union, directly or indirectly, to natural or legal persons, “Sell, deliver, transfer or export to any organization or facility in Russia or for use in Russia if such goods are or may be intended, in whole or in part, for military purposes or for a military end-user.”
This regulation requires that the delivery of such materials, which in particular includes enriched uranium, excludes the possibility that civil and military use could be mixed in Russia. It is reasonable to assume that this proof will be even more difficult to provide today, after the war in Ukraine, when Russia used attacks on nuclear facilities to demonstrate how international regulations and standards are dealt with in the event of a crisis.
| Current news+ | Background knowledge | Top |
Background knowledge
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The map of the nuclear world
Business is business, MiK doesn't care whether it's in France, Russia or Germany...
The internal search for
Uranium transport | Framatome | Rosatom
brought the following results, among others:
September 13, 2023 - Russian uranium remains welcome
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February 11, 2022 - Macron's nuclear plans are a radioactive nightmare
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January 30, 2022 - In the middle of the nuclear phase-out country
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December 11, 2019 - The Last Primordial Suit
YouTube
Uranium transports Germany Russia
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Urantransporte Deutschland Russland
World News Channel - April 2, 2023 - 2:15
OUTRAGE OVER NUCLEAR DEAL: Russian-French joint venture produces fuel elements
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ZDF Frontal21 - August 12, 2017 - 8:29
German nuclear transport to Russia
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ZDF planet e - August 31, 2016 - 28:28
Germany's secret nuclear shipments
Playlist - radioactivity worldwide ...
This playlist contains over 150 videos on the topic
The search engine Ecosia is planting trees!
Fuel element production and uranium enrichment
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=Brennelementfertigung+Urananreicherung
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Wikipedia
[...] Since 2021, plans have been known for a joint venture between Framatome and the Russian authority Rosatom, which controls Russia's civil and military nuclear industry and reports directly to the Russian government. One aspect of the cooperation is the acquisition of licenses to build fuel elements that can be used in Russian-designed reactors. After this cooperation with Rosatom was initially denied, it was subsequently implemented not with the German Framatom GmbH, but with Framatom's French parent company.
[...] The former Areva GmbH and its subsidiaries in Germany – Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF) and DSR Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH – employed around 2016 people at the end of December 3.800.
In Lingen (Ems) and Karlstein am Main, ANF manufactures fuel elements, fuel element components and core components for nuclear power plants in Europe and for the global Framatome market.
DSR Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, based in Berlin, offers engineering, project management and consulting services for the operation and dismantling of nuclear facilities.
[...] is a Russian company active in the fields of uranium conversion, uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel production. TWEL is a subsidiary of Atomenergoprom and is therefore subordinate to the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy of Russia (Rosatom).
According to its own information, TWEL is the monopoly supplier of nuclear fuel for Russian nuclear power plants, research reactors and ship reactors. The company exports its products to several countries and controls around 17% of the global nuclear fuel market.
[...] In March 2021, TWEL announced its planned entry into the Lingen fuel assembly plant of the company Advanced Nuclear Fuels. The application for approval of this investment by the Federal Cartel Office was withdrawn a few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In 2021, TWEL supplied nuclear fuel to around 75 nuclear reactors in 15 countries...
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Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Climate Protection
The production of fuel elements at Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF) in Lingen is part of the nuclear fuel cycle, which revolves around the generation of electricity in nuclear power plants. The ANF uses uranium with a maximum enrichment of 5 mass percent uranium-235, which is produced in enrichment plants from natural uranium (uranium-235 content approx. 0,72%). Mixed oxide fuel elements, which consist of reprocessed fuel – including plutonium – are not manufactured at ANF.
Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH
The ANF produces fuel elements for pressurized water (PWR) and boiling water (BWR) reactors at the fuel assembly plant (BFL) at the Lingen site. In addition to the location in Lingen, which houses nuclear production, there are two other production facilities. Component production is located at the Karlstein location, where, for example, spacers or head and foot pieces are manufactured. Cladding tubes for the fuel rods are produced in Duisburg. The sales, design and construction of fuel elements are located in Erlangen at the parent company Framatome GmbH...
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FEDERATION
Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany eV (BUND) – Friends of the Earth Germany
Uranium enrichment – no exit in sight
Despite the nuclear phase-out, uranium is still being enriched in the middle of Germany for use in nuclear power plants.
Every year, 65 tons of enriched uranium are produced at Germany's only uranium enrichment plant in Gronau, 4.500 kilometers west of Osnabrück. The natural uranium must be enriched for use in nuclear power plants, which means that the proportion of the uranium isotope 235 must be increased from around 0,7 to at least three percent.
The plant in Gronau is operated by Urenco, an internationally operating company with plants in Great Britain, Holland and the USA, one sixth of which is owned by the German energy companies Eon and RWE. The UTA-1985 factory has existed in Gronau since 1, and a second one (UTA-2) has been in operation since 2008 and is constantly being expanded...
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Newsletter XLIII 2023 - October 22th to 28st
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