Tuesday, February 28, 2006
"Just one word: Uranium"
Okay maybe two words: Zinc and Uranium...Canadian-based Scotiabank named the pair this years hottest commodities.
BIG MONEY DOWN UNDER: Export earnings for uranium are forecast to increase 50 per cent this year to $712 million through higher export prices.
Editorial: Mate, I nuked myself in the foot Taipei Times:
"One can almost hear the Australian government's saliva collecting in its mouth at the prospect of selling billions of dollars of uranium from its huge reserves to an eager customer for decades to come. Never mind that the customer is an unstable Third World despot with a big chip on its shoulder - and the owner of nuclear warheads and other munitions pointing in potentially inconvenient directions for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, India and Taiwan, not to mention US bases in the region."
In case you hadn't guessed, they're concerned with Australia's plans to sell uranium to China.
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, he agrees with the Taipei editorial, and ellaborates on some of the themes.
Despite the potential profits, some nations aparently "do the right thing" as matters of "principle." Sweeden wont be cashing in, according to the official website of the Nordic Council. Weird.
And then there's Russia's lattest plans for the Ore. See below...
BIG MONEY DOWN UNDER: Export earnings for uranium are forecast to increase 50 per cent this year to $712 million through higher export prices.
Editorial: Mate, I nuked myself in the foot Taipei Times:
"One can almost hear the Australian government's saliva collecting in its mouth at the prospect of selling billions of dollars of uranium from its huge reserves to an eager customer for decades to come. Never mind that the customer is an unstable Third World despot with a big chip on its shoulder - and the owner of nuclear warheads and other munitions pointing in potentially inconvenient directions for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, India and Taiwan, not to mention US bases in the region."
In case you hadn't guessed, they're concerned with Australia's plans to sell uranium to China.
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, he agrees with the Taipei editorial, and ellaborates on some of the themes.
Despite the potential profits, some nations aparently "do the right thing" as matters of "principle." Sweeden wont be cashing in, according to the official website of the Nordic Council. Weird.
And then there's Russia's lattest plans for the Ore. See below...
Russia plans to spend $10 billion more on uranium production
Just where they will find that 10 billion is the question. But the Uranium is easy to find. It's in Siberia...and Buryatia...
In 2005, the country's three uranium producers mined just 3,325 tons of ore, one-fifth of the amount Russia annually consumes to fuel nuclear power stations and to meet military needs and export obligations...
...As Russia competes with France and the United States to build nuclear reactors for countries unable to build their own, setting up a reliable uranium network will be key.
"TVEL also supplies enriched uranium to countries which have nuclear reactors built by Russia, and they will want to stay in that market," Breach said. Russia supplies enriched uranium mainly to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, India and China, he said.
"RosAtom has no money, so where will the money come from?" said Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear industry expert at the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering close to Moscow."
In 2005, the country's three uranium producers mined just 3,325 tons of ore, one-fifth of the amount Russia annually consumes to fuel nuclear power stations and to meet military needs and export obligations...
...As Russia competes with France and the United States to build nuclear reactors for countries unable to build their own, setting up a reliable uranium network will be key.
"TVEL also supplies enriched uranium to countries which have nuclear reactors built by Russia, and they will want to stay in that market," Breach said. Russia supplies enriched uranium mainly to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, India and China, he said.
"RosAtom has no money, so where will the money come from?" said Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear industry expert at the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering close to Moscow."
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Russia offers to enrich Iran's Uranium, for peace
Friday, February 24, 2006
US Conducts Subcritical Nuclear Weapons Test
960 feet below ground in the Nevada desert, the US and UK conducted a subcritical test - called Krakatau - on Thursday, to view the effects of a large explosion on plutonium. Subcritical means that the explosion falls short of a nuclear chain reaction.
Krakatau subcritical experiment is being prepared to be lowered into the floor of the tunnel of the U1a Complex at the Nevada Test Site. 2/22/2006
Nevada Test Site Press Release
video from the Nevada test site
And more pictures from the Test Site of this, and other subcritical experiments.
Hiroshima peace tower reset after nuclear test: "When Minoru Hataguchi, director of the museum, pressed the reset button, the tower displayed "639," the number of days since the last nuclear experiment was conducted by the U.S. government on May 26, 2004.
Hataguchi said, "I'm angry because it's an act that tramples on the feelings of the people of Hiroshima." "
and Hiroshima, Nagasaki mayors protest nuclear weapons testing by U.S. and Britain
"Anti-nuclear groups criticize the subcritical experiments as contrary to the spirit of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear arms. The U.S. has observed a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing since 1992, but has not ratified the treaty."
Krakatau subcritical experiment is being prepared to be lowered into the floor of the tunnel of the U1a Complex at the Nevada Test Site. 2/22/2006Nevada Test Site Press Release
video from the Nevada test site
And more pictures from the Test Site of this, and other subcritical experiments.
Hiroshima peace tower reset after nuclear test: "When Minoru Hataguchi, director of the museum, pressed the reset button, the tower displayed "639," the number of days since the last nuclear experiment was conducted by the U.S. government on May 26, 2004.
Hataguchi said, "I'm angry because it's an act that tramples on the feelings of the people of Hiroshima." "
and Hiroshima, Nagasaki mayors protest nuclear weapons testing by U.S. and Britain
"Anti-nuclear groups criticize the subcritical experiments as contrary to the spirit of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear arms. The U.S. has observed a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing since 1992, but has not ratified the treaty."
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Q: 13 New Nuke Plants Planned?
A: Space Elevator!
The article:
"Nuclear moves to front burner -
Bush push for energy reactors may not get much heat from former foes of atomic power"
One connection not yet explored in this here NuclearWarBlog, is nuclear war and global warming. They are, traditionally, two very separate possible apocalypses to worry about - for those of us who worry about these sorts of things.
Say what you will about spent nuclear fuel rods, they aren't contributing to the impending global climate crisis.
But Alice Slater, President of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) writes that there is a connection between Nuke Power and Nuke Proliferation.
I came accross the above essay from the anti-nuclear quote of the day blog that I enjoy now and again. The pro-nuke Blog takes issue with Slater's use of the verb "spew" to descrice nuclear waste - which is valid. Coal power plants spew, nuclear power simply "accumulates" - and then what? That's the billion dollar question. And then what?
Soaks in a pond? Sits in a parking lot?
My vote is for all the spent fuel rods to be sent on a rocket-ride into the sun - only that trip up into orbit is quite a gamble if the rocket fails to leave the earth's atmosphere. So I'm putting my hope for the future of clean, safe nuclear energy in the Space Elevator.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Pro Nukes Blogs -aka Fission Fans
Fission is neat. I'll admit it.
NEI Nuclear Notes is very positive about the future of energy generated by Nuclear Fission, and the Blog includes links-a-plenty to other Positive Nuclear Power Blogs:
Like the Daily Chernobyl blog, which reminds me to check my irritational fear of nuclear power and ballnce it against MY VERY RATIONAL FEAR of nuclear power:
The spent fuel rods are killers, if I'm not mistaken... A couple of generations of nuclear power has left the planet an unmanagable legacy of radioactive waste. Building more, new nuclear power plants will only compound the problem
Unless I'm just being a reactionary.
I am, at the moment, too sleepy to delve deeply into all of these webblogs (like the intriguing Peak Oil Optimist) - but a surface scan of a few of them has revealed very little mention of my favorite term: spent fuel rods..." But I did come across some pro-bush (some anti-bush) asides and a blinky anti-islam banner ad. So there's that.
NEI Nuclear Notes is very positive about the future of energy generated by Nuclear Fission, and the Blog includes links-a-plenty to other Positive Nuclear Power Blogs:
Like the Daily Chernobyl blog, which reminds me to check my irritational fear of nuclear power and ballnce it against MY VERY RATIONAL FEAR of nuclear power:
The spent fuel rods are killers, if I'm not mistaken... A couple of generations of nuclear power has left the planet an unmanagable legacy of radioactive waste. Building more, new nuclear power plants will only compound the problem
Unless I'm just being a reactionary.
I am, at the moment, too sleepy to delve deeply into all of these webblogs (like the intriguing Peak Oil Optimist) - but a surface scan of a few of them has revealed very little mention of my favorite term: spent fuel rods..." But I did come across some pro-bush (some anti-bush) asides and a blinky anti-islam banner ad. So there's that.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Nuclear Power Gets a Bump
A day after the State of the Union speech, where Bush called US addicted to foreign oil, and said the cure would be coal, switchgrass, and nuclear power, some of the papers are all aglow: Clean, safe, nuclear power.
Like a mantra: clean, safe, nuclear power.
Apparently if you repeat it enough it becomes true.
The Utah State Legislature: responded swiflty to the President's call for new nukes (energy that is)
The House amended [and passed] HB46, which would create a new state energy office focus on alternative energy technologies, to include a specific mention of nuclear energy research...
Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, said that Utah — with its uranium availability, power delivery infrastructure, and thousands of acres of state-owned land — has a "great potential" to become a nuclear power supplier for the entire West...
"Everyone thinks, at first, about Chernobyl," [Rep. Mike] Noel said..."But the new technology makes nuclear power safe and available."
yet - the lawmakers acknowlege that "safe" has little to do with the nuclear waste, the spent fuel rods are never "safe" and they never will be. Everyone knows that.
Currently, state officials are trying to stop the shipment of nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Indian Reservation by Private Fuel Storage [(safe, clean)], a consortium of nuclear power plants who need to dispose of spent nuclear rods...
"'This does not send a message to bring all of your spent nuclear rods to this state...'[Rep. Brad] Daw said. 'All I'm saying is that we should be studying the use of nuclear power in the state. . . .nuclear energy is clean and it is safe.'
Anyway.
The money for this new endevour comes from the Enormous energy bill that the Bush Administration passed last year. Some called it a give away to the Republicans BIG donors in Oil, Coal, and Nuclear Power.
Listen to a fine radio program on the MASSIVE ENERGY BILL or read about it:
Nuclear Giveaways in House Energy Bill - Public Citizen
Chicago Tribune"No nuclear plants have been licensed since 1978, but utility companies nationwide are considering building at least 10 new reactors":
Politicians, the public and utility executives largely lost interest in nuclear power after enduring huge cost overruns and difficulty running the [clean, safe] plants efficiently. The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union seemed at the time to have buried nuclear energy.
So why the new interest now?
And what could this mean in other parts of the world? Like India?
"With less than four weeks to go before President George W. Bush arrives here, the focus is supposed to be on the prospect for Indo-US nuclear energy cooperation. Yet, there is little debate on India’s potential gains from the new Bush initiative, tentatively called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, that could engineer a revolution in the way the world thinks about atomic power."
Like a mantra: clean, safe, nuclear power.
Apparently if you repeat it enough it becomes true.
The Utah State Legislature: responded swiflty to the President's call for new nukes (energy that is)
The House amended [and passed] HB46, which would create a new state energy office focus on alternative energy technologies, to include a specific mention of nuclear energy research...
Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, said that Utah — with its uranium availability, power delivery infrastructure, and thousands of acres of state-owned land — has a "great potential" to become a nuclear power supplier for the entire West...
"Everyone thinks, at first, about Chernobyl," [Rep. Mike] Noel said..."But the new technology makes nuclear power safe and available."
yet - the lawmakers acknowlege that "safe" has little to do with the nuclear waste, the spent fuel rods are never "safe" and they never will be. Everyone knows that.
Currently, state officials are trying to stop the shipment of nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Indian Reservation by Private Fuel Storage [(safe, clean)], a consortium of nuclear power plants who need to dispose of spent nuclear rods...
"'This does not send a message to bring all of your spent nuclear rods to this state...'[Rep. Brad] Daw said. 'All I'm saying is that we should be studying the use of nuclear power in the state. . . .nuclear energy is clean and it is safe.'
Anyway.
The money for this new endevour comes from the Enormous energy bill that the Bush Administration passed last year. Some called it a give away to the Republicans BIG donors in Oil, Coal, and Nuclear Power.
Listen to a fine radio program on the MASSIVE ENERGY BILL or read about it:
Nuclear Giveaways in House Energy Bill - Public Citizen
Chicago Tribune"No nuclear plants have been licensed since 1978, but utility companies nationwide are considering building at least 10 new reactors":
Politicians, the public and utility executives largely lost interest in nuclear power after enduring huge cost overruns and difficulty running the [clean, safe] plants efficiently. The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union seemed at the time to have buried nuclear energy.
So why the new interest now?
And what could this mean in other parts of the world? Like India?
"With less than four weeks to go before President George W. Bush arrives here, the focus is supposed to be on the prospect for Indo-US nuclear energy cooperation. Yet, there is little debate on India’s potential gains from the new Bush initiative, tentatively called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, that could engineer a revolution in the way the world thinks about atomic power."
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