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June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Zero-Emission Canada Possible

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022
By John LaForge
David Suzuki Foundation Study

Canada can achieve 100% carbon-emission-free electricity production by 2035 by urgently promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency, smarter transmission, and by avoiding the cost, pollution, and delays of nuclear power, fossil gas, carbon capture, and carbon offsets. So says the David Suzuki Foundation in a new study. The report details an overhaul of Canada’s electricity sector and identifies vast potential to expand wind and solar capacity, sources cited by the International Energy Agency as “the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in history.” Energy transition pioneer Amory Lovins told the Guardian, “far better to deploy fast, inexpensive, and sure technologies like wind or solar than one that is slow to build, speculative, and very costly. Anything else makes climate change worse than it needs to be.”

— The Energy Mix online, May 27, 2020; the Guardian, Mar 26, 2022

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter, Renewable Energy

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

U.S./German Radioactive Waste Importation on Hold

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022
By Bob Mayberry

The U.S. and Germany have agreed to export highly radioactive waste fuel from the Jülich Research Center in Germany to the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina. Critics note that the transfer would appear to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has been put on hold.

According to the watchdog group SRS Watch, the Jülicher Nuclear Waste Management Company (JEN), located near the German-Dutch border, has large quantities of radioactive graphite pebbles that fueled Germany’s now defunct gas-cooled reactors. SRS originally agreed to import and process, and ultimately dump the German waste fuel at the SRS — and perhaps elsewhere in the U.S. However, objections raised by SRS Watch, and by German colleagues opposed to the export, resulted in new agreements between the SRS and JEN to commercialize the processing of irradiated graphite fuel, which includes both low- and highly enriched uranium.

H-Canyon reprocessing plant at SRS, July 30, 2015, ©High Flyer

These agreements also stand in violation of the nuclear weapons non-proliferation policies under the 1970 NPT, which requires the production of risk assessments before any processing of waste fuel. Tom Clements, a director of SRS Watch who first brought the secret deal to light, reports that any shipping of Germany’s waste reactor fuel would also be illegal under German law.

The DOE has refused to prepare such assessments, claiming that the graphite fuel poses no weapons proliferation risk.

According to Reuters, Germany agreed in 2014 to pay $10 million to the U.S. to outsource the waste fuel to SRS. But former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley threatened to fine the DOE up to $100 million a year for the delay in cleaning up the site’s colossal Cold War radioactive waste problems.

Consequently, the U.S.-German agreement has been delayed, and the parties have shifted their focus to commercializing the processing of the waste. However, techniques for removing highly enriched uranium from this aged and highly radioactive “pebble bed” experimental fuel have still not been developed.

–  SRS Watch, April 11, 2022;  Newswires, 21 February 2020; Reuters, 28 July 2014

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

U.S. Renewable Energy Output Surges Ahead of Nuclear

Nuclear-Free Future, photocredit: Sierra Club
Nukewatch Quarterly 
Summer 2022
By Lindsay Potter

In 2021 domestic renewable energy — wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and geothermal — outproduced nuclear power for the second year running, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) found. Clean sources were responsible for 795 million megawatt-hours (MWh), 21% of energy production, while nuclear totaled 778 million MWh, or 20%. Solar Industry Mag reported April 26, 2022, that wind, the largest producer of renewable energy in the U.S., increased outputs by 12% in 2021 (14% in 2020), and utility-scale solar produced 28% more in 2021 (26% in 2020). The EIA predicts an additional 10% hike in renewable production for 2022. Globally, hydro-electric together with solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal produce more than twice as much energy (24.2%) as nuclear (10.3%), according to world-nuclear.org.

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 (WNISR) found that nuclear power production fell by more than 100 terawatt-hours (TWh), the greatest drop aside from the standstill following the Fukushima disaster. Although hydro-electric steadily outproduced nuclear over the last 30 years, other renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass have now globally surpassed nuclear. Proof possible: for the first time this year, hydro, wind, and solar together generated more than all fossil fuels in the European Union — though France still relies on nuclear for 71% of its energy.

Competitive clean energy casts shade on the need for nuclear, as the industry flounders to innovate expedient and economic technology. Given the minimum of 10-15 years needed to bring new Small Modular Reactors online, trials in Argentina, China, and Russia have been unimpressive. Furthermore, WNISR announced “net capacity addition” fell for nuclear to 0.4 gigawatts (GW) and rose by more than 250 GW in the renewable sector last year, leading the report to conclude “nuclear is irrelevant in today’s electricity capacity newbuild market.” The WNISR also cites cost, health effects, climate change effects, the global impact of COVID-19, and “bribery, corruption, and counterfeiting” in the nuclear industry as additional evidence that nuclear power is dying.

By 2050, the EIA predicts that wind and solar technologies will become as affordable as natural gas, as nuclear and coal continue to fall out of use. To make way for clean energy Congress must severe ties with dying industries, promote carbon fees and sunset credits, shut down pipelines and drilling leases, and halt initiatives to develop new poisoned nuclear theories or bailouts that keep dangerous reactors running past their licensed closure dates.

Solar Industry Mag, Apr 26, 2022; World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021; Deutsche Welle, Sept 28, 2021; EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2022

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter, Renewable Energy

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nukewatch Welcomes Lindsay Potter

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022
Lindsay Potter carrying 14-month-old Riley this past winter on the Plowshares Land Trust, home to Nukewatch.

We are happy to welcome Lindsay Potter to the Nukewatch staff! Our part-time IT support and writer Christine Manwiller had to step back because of growing responsibilities at her full-time job. Lindsay is a writer, farmer, activist, and a full-time mother. After completing two BA’s, in Poetry and Journalism, Lindsay has spent several years farming and now dedicates her time to getting back to the land, caring for family, and participating in community grassroots organizing for social, racial, and environmental/climate justice. Most recently Lindsay focused on two projects: working in Osceola, Wisconsin to protect the groundwater and the St. Croix River from harmful frac sand mining practices at the North 40 Mine, particularly as a member of the Town Board Committee drafting a new ordinance limiting and regulating the mine; and working with Amery (WI) United, a community group dedicated to racial justice organizing, that planned monthly rallies throughout the summer of 2020 and now focuses on building awareness of racism in rural Wisconsin by hosting diverse educational speakers, working with local school boards to address discussions and curricula around race, and creating events encouraging celebration and centering of Black American culture.

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Office News, Quarterly Newsletter

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Congress Approves Two- year Extension of Radiation Exposure Compensation Act

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022
photocredit: US Department of Justice
By John LaForge

Both the House and U.S. Senate have approved a two-year extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA, a federal law that compensates some of the U.S. residents who were exposed to radiation during the Cold War.

The act was implemented in 1990, but expires in July unless the extension is signed into law by President Biden. The extension is intended to provide time to craft a larger expansion of the program that could last until 2040.

The law allows one-time payouts for downwinders, uranium miners, uranium mill and transport workers who can establish that they were exposed to radiation from weapons detonations or the workplace.
Congress is considering a separate bill that would broaden the geographic area covered by the act, for example adding New Mexicans to the list of downwinders, including uranium workers contaminated after 1971, and raising the compensation cap to at least $200,000.

Many downwinders and uranium workers are Native Americans and suffer from cancers and other long-term health problems. Navajo Nation leaders are among those urging Congress to expand RECA.

— AP, May 14; KNAU, Arizona Public Radio, May 5; and Carlsbad Current-Argus, May 5, 2022

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

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