What do we think folks? Is nuclear power part of the answer? Have we just been doing it wrong all these years?
"France, which completely reprocesses its recyclable material, stores all the unused remains -- from 30 years of generating 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy -- beneath the floor of a single room at La Hague.
The supposed problem of "nuclear waste" is entirely the result of a the decision in 1976 by President Gerald Ford to suspend reprocessing, which President Jimmy Carter made permanent in 1977. The fear was that agents of foreign powers or terrorists groups would steal plutonium from American plants to manufacture bombs.
That fear has proved to be misguided. If foreign powers want a bomb, they will build their own reactors or enrichment facilities, as North Korea and Iran have done. The task of extracting plutonium from highly radioactive material and fashioning it into a bomb is far beyond the capacities of any terrorist organization."What do we think folks? Is nuclear power part of the answer? Have we just been doing... more
TOKYO : The world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan is set to resume operations soon, two years after a strong earthquake caused a radioactive leak there, an official said Thursday.
Despite some local opposition, Tokyo has given the go-ahead for a test run of a reactor at the plant -- seen as a de facto resumption of the facility. The agreement of local communities is the last hurdle to a restart.
Operators say they have strengthened the seven-reactor plant 300 kilometres (185 miles) northwest of Tokyo since the 2007 quake which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale and led to a radioactive water spill into the Sea of Japan.TOKYO : The world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan is set to resume operations... more
President Barack Obama last night launched a drive to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
He said the United States, as the only country to have used nuclear bombs in warfare, had a moral responsibility to lead the campaign to abolish them.
Nuclear arms reduction will become a strong element of his foreign policy, particularly in terms of nuclear terrorism, and he is using his visit to Europe to further that aim.
"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be checked - that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," President Obama told a huge crowd in a square outside the Prague Castle gates.
"This fatalism is a deadly adversary. If we believe the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."President Barack Obama last night launched a drive to rid the world of nuclear... more
PRAGUE (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will call for the elimination of all nuclear weapons across the globe, in remarks on Sunday he hopes will lend credibility to his message in atomic disputes with Iran and North Korea.
Visiting Prague during an eight-day visit to Europe, Obama plans to deliver what his aides have billed as a major speech on weapons proliferation.
Obama, who is making his debut on the world stage, said in Strasbourg, France on Friday that he would lay out an agenda to secure the world's loose nuclear materials and halt the spread of illicit weapons.
He added that he wanted to offer an agenda "to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
"Even with the Cold War over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet," Obama said.
Obama, a former U.S. senator who succeeded President George W. Bush in January, has long shown interest in the issue of halting weapons proliferation and wants to make it a signature foreign policy issue for his new administration.
"The president has been very focused on these issues of proliferation for many years," White House Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters.
"Tomorrow, I think you'll hear the president, in a very comprehensive way, outline many of the things that he's been talking about and working on for some time," McDonough said.
While in Prague, Obama will also discuss climate change and energy security with the 27 leaders of European Union countries at a summit hosted by the Czech EU presidency, undermined by a government collapse last week.
Thousands of Czechs are expected to turn up for Obama's speech at a square outside the medieval Prague Castle, with the panorama of the historic Czech capital in the background.
The call for renewed efforts at global nuclear disarmament is likely to be well received in Europe, where Obama is seeking to use his strong popularity to advance his agenda on issues such as Iran and the war in Afghanistan.
The proliferation speech comes after Obama met on Wednesday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit, where the two leaders pledged to pursue a new deal to cut nuclear warheads.
The aim to is agree to a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), which led to the biggest-ever bilateral cuts in nuclear weapons, but expires in December.PRAGUE (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will call for the elimination of all... more
Barack Obama yesterday announced a radical drive aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons, as the focus of his European visit switched from financial to geopolitical security.
"In Prague, I will lay out an agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said yesterday after arriving in continental Europe for the first time as president. "The spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet," he warned, adding that suspected rogue nuclear states, such as North Korea or Iran, may only be persuaded to abandon their quests if the big nuclear powers set an example.
"We can't reduce the threat of a nuclear weapon going off unless those that possess the most nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia, take serious steps to reduce our stockpiles," Obama said. "So we want to pursue that vigorously in the years ahead."
At Obama's first meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, in London on Wednesday, both agreed on fast-track negotiations to slash their nuclear stockpiles by about a third from the end of this year. Robert Gibbs, Obama's spokesman, said the president believed "loose nukes", stolen nuclear materials or the acquisition by terrorists of weapons-grade fissile material, were among the gravest risks to the US.Barack Obama yesterday announced a radical drive aimed at ridding the world of nuclear... more
Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to agree cuts in their countries' nuclear arsenals by December this year, as part of a "fresh start" in US-Russian relations and a step towards "a nuclear free world".
After a meeting between the two men in London, on the eve of the G20 summit, President Obama also accepted an invitation to fly to Moscow in July, by which time both sides hope negotiators from both countries will have worked out an arms control deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) which expires on 5 December. The negotiators were told to begin work at once.
There were no specific figures in the statements issued after the meeting at Whitfield House, the US embassy residence, but the two leaders agreed that the new deal would go further than the Moscow treaty that their predecessors, George Bush and Vladimir Putin, agreed in 2002. The treaty stipulates operationally deployed (ready to fire) arsenals of 1,700-2,200 warheads, suggesting the goal of a new treaty would be to go below 1,700, and a target figure mentioned as a possibility by both sides is 1,500 warheads each.Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to agree cuts in their countries'... more
The threat of global warming has given a boost to the nuclear industry in many countries as one way to provide electricity without increasing carbon emissions. But what to do with the nuclear waste, especially the most toxic form - spent nuclear fuel.The threat of global warming has given a boost to the nuclear industry in many... more
Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal. These coatings are as thin as a layer of paint and can transfer sunlight to power at amazing efficiency. Although the underlying technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets. The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430 megawatts per year. This is more than the combined total of every other solar manufacturer in the U.S.Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was... more
ALMOST without exception, scientists and policy makers agree that hybrid vehicles are good for the planet. To a small but insistent group of skeptics, however, there is another, more immediate question: Are hybrids healthy for drivers?
There is a legitimate scientific reason for raising the issue. The flow of electrical current to the motor that moves a hybrid vehicle at low speeds (and assists the gasoline engine on the highway) produces magnetic fields, which some studies have associated with serious health matters, including a possible risk of leukemia among children.
With the batteries and power cables in hybrids often placed close to the driver and passengers, some exposure to electromagnetic fields is unavoidable. Moreover, the exposure will be prolonged — unlike, say, using a hair dryer or electric shaver — for drivers who spend hours each day at the wheel.
Some hybrid owners have actually tested their cars for electromagnetic fields using hand-held meters, and a few say they are alarmed by the results.ALMOST without exception, scientists and policy makers agree that hybrid vehicles are... more
All Things Considered, February 16, 2009 · The cost of a digital frame has dropped below $20 and sales are picking up. But this could be bad news for the environment. If each U.S. family had one frame around the house, the country would need five new power plants to keep pace with the new demand for electricityAll Things Considered, February 16, 2009 · The cost of a digital frame has dropped... more
In an earlier blog, I promised to touch on the topic of nuclear power as a source of “green energy". This is in response to repeated calls from those on the political right (and some on the left as well actually) and in the mainstream media. As recently as last week an op-ed article appeared in the Financial Times calling on readers to embrace nuclear power as the best path to reduce global warming and improve energy security in the world. This follows on the heel of a flow of articles that have been hitting the pages of even “liberal” papers, such as the New York Times. For example, on May 15, 2006, the Times ran an editorial entitled, “The Greening of Nuclear Power,” in which the author all but declared nuclear energy as the only viable solution for climate control and security through energy independence . Another article by Joe Gertner, “Atomic Balm,” called for a “nuclear renaissance.”
Follow the link to read the whole article; Very good!In an earlier blog, I promised to touch on the topic of nuclear power as a source of... more
No classified information has been lost... uh huh, yeah.
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The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico is missing 67 computers, including 13 that were lost or stolen in the past year. Officials say no classified information has been lost.
The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight on Wednesday released a memo dated Feb. 3 from the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration outlining the loss of the computers.
Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos, on Wednesday confirmed the computers were missing and said the lab was initiating a monthlong inventory to account for every computer. He said the computers were a cybersecurity issue because they may contain personal information like names and addresses, but they did not contain any classified information.
Thirteen of the missing computers were lost or stolen in the past 12 months, including three computers that were taken from a scientist's home in Santa Fe, N.M., on Jan. 16, and a BlackBerry belonging to another employee was lost "in a sensitive foreign country," according to the memo and an e-mail from a senior lab manager.
The e-mail was also released by the watchdog group.
The theft of the three computers in January triggered the inventory and a review of the lab's policies regarding home use of government computers, Roark said.
Only one of the three computers stolen from the employee's home was authorized for home use, which raised concerns "as to whether we were fully complying with our own policies for offsite computer usage," he said.
Roark said computers with classified information are "kept completely separate from unclassified computing."
"None of these systems constitute a breach of a classified system," he said.
The e-mail from Los Alamos senior manager Stephen Blair to lab co-workers said the missing computers and Blackberry were "garnering a great deal of attention with senior management as well as (nuclear security administration) representatives."
The security administration memo said the "magnitude of exposure and risk to the laboratory is at best unclear as little data on these losses has been collected or pursued given their treatment as property management issues."
The lab, located in Los Alamos, N.M., employs about 10,000 people.No classified information has been lost... uh huh, yeah.
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The Los Alamos nuclear... more
On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat exploded and began spewing radioactive smoke and gas. Firemen discovered that no amount of water could extinguish the blaze. More than 40,000 residents in the immediate area were exposed to fallout 100 times greater than that from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. But the most serious nuclear accident in history had only begun.
Based on top-secret government documents that came to light only in the Nineties, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL reveals a systematic cover-up of the true scope of the disaster, including the possibility of a secondary explosion of the still-smoldering magma, whose radioactive clouds would have rendered Europe uninhabitable. The government effort to prevent such a catastrophe lasted for more than seven months and sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers, miners and other workers.
THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL dramatically chronicles the series of harrowing efforts to stop the nuclear chain reaction and prevent a second explosion, to "liquidate" the radioactivity, and to seal off the ruined reactor under a mammoth "sarcophagus." These nerve-racking events are recounted through newly available films, videos and photos taken in and around the plant, computer animation, and interviews with participants and eyewitnesses, many of whom were exposed to radiation, including government and military leaders, scientists, workers, journalists, doctors, and Pripyat refugees.
The consequences of this catastrophe continue today, with thousands of disabled survivors suffering from the "Chernobyl syndrome" of radiation-related illnesses, and the urgent need to replace the hastily-constructed and now crumbling sarcophagus over the still-contaminated reactor. As this remarkable film makes clear, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL is far from over.On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian... more
AUTO engineers have been talking for years about the coming “electrification of the automobile.” But as the development of hybrids and pure-electric vehicles has accelerated rapidly across the industry, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the subject of batteries from the cars and trucks they’ll soon be powering.AUTO engineers have been talking for years about the coming “electrification of the... more
When I look at this new year ahead, I can, on one hand, see war and poverty emerging and so many troubles. Or, I can choose to look at the possibilities for peace, for the creation of new wealth, and for creating new conditions in America and the world.
Well, you know me; I choose to look at what's possible that we can create; mindful of the challenges that face us, knowing how important it is that we choose peace over war, that we show strength through peace, that we say that peace is inevitable, not war is inevitable, and have that principle infuse our awareness of every matter of conflict we might meet.Happy New Year.
When I look at this new year ahead, I can, on one hand, see war and... more
The A123 module carries 5,000 watt-hours of usable energy, compared with about 1,300 watt-hours for the battery that is built into the Prius.
The module fits in the well normally occupied by the spare tire, with a charging port installed on the back bumper.
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I e-mailed Hymotion, expressing interest in their A123 module, but they never replied.
I'm not upset, because like the person in this New York Times Article says: “I don’t have $10,000; I have children.”The A123 module carries 5,000 watt-hours of usable energy, compared with about 1,300... more
Dominique Prieur, one of two spies arrested and jailed in New Zealand for their part in bombing the Rainbow Warrior, has started a new life - with the fire brigade.Dominique Prieur, one of two spies arrested and jailed in New Zealand for their part... more
In an interview with the Daily Mail to promote "Revolutionary Road," Leonardo DiCaprio also took time to discuss his passion for the environment and the new sports car he just bought:
He's recently traded in his Toyota Prius hybrid car for a £100,000 Tesla, the first high-performance electric car.
'It's my first sports car and it's an unbelievable drive,' he enthuses. 'It's scarily fast and it all happens with the flip of a switch, unlike a piston-driven engine that needs to build up momentum.'In an interview with the Daily Mail to promote "Revolutionary Road," Leonardo DiCaprio... more
There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.
Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its... more
A group of Bay Area engineers is trying to launch a green car revolution at 100 mpg by souping up Toyota's Prius. The holy grail of their "plug-in hybrids:" less smog, less global warming and a cure for America's oil addiction.A group of Bay Area engineers is trying to launch a green car revolution at 100 mpg by... more
