What happens when German public votes for nuclear entry in "green" contest? Organizers disqualify it

[wtmusic]

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A funny thing happened on the way to the final round of Germany’s prestigious GreenTec Awards. A molten salt reactor that the public had voted into the August 30th gala gathering vanished from the competition, muscled out by none other than the contest’s organizers.

It seemed like an odd turn of events, considering that GreenTec exists to honor “ecological and economic consciousness and commitment,” as it says on its website.

What could be more ecologically sound than the Dual-Fluid Reactor, an MSR entered into the contest by Berlin’s Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics. MSRs and other advanced nuclear designs auger a CO2-free energy future and represent clear improvements in nuclear safety, efficiency, and waste management when compared to conventional nuclear. The Dual-Fluid Reactor (DFR) is no exception (click on the video below to learn more about it, including how it can be used as a source of industrial process heat to make hydrogen and synthetic fuels)."

http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2013/07/12/germanys-inconvenient-truth-a-green-group-squirms-over-the-publics-love-a-molten-salt-reactor/

[bananas]

1. Nuclear isn't green or ecologically sound.

Here's the EPA definition, the EU definition is probably similar:
http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/gpmarket/index.htm

These definitions aren't arbitrary.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Iterate]

3. The "German public" didn't vote for shit. It was a freeped online poll.

Last edited Sun Jul 14, 2013, 12:55 PM - Edit history (1)

And the DFR entry was excluded by a similar online poll, which was confirmed by the jury.

Another company was excluded as well, Öko-Energieversorger from Hamburg, which was removed primarily because they were recently fined over €42,000 for refusal to file accounting/performance reports to federal agencies. It is part of the award criteria that the applicant demonstrate the highest ethical standards for future engineers. Should they win their court appeal, which is nearly impossible, they will be eligible in the future.

The DFR/Institut für Festkörper-Kernphysik GmbH (Berlin) entry was excluded for many reasons and after lengthy and open discussions, but primarily because they lied on their application and didn't meet the contest's requirements on about 10 different points, including similar lack of integrity. How shocking. The entry was promoted heavily by a few advocates.

The Weinberg Foundation then picks up the ball, adds their own snark and deception, and cries foul.

These are the nominees which did meet the criteria:

Kurt Spiegelmacher -Dachkraftwerk - an unobtrusive rooftop wind power system.

ONE EARTH - ONE OCEAN eV -Maritime Müllabfuhr - an autonomous catamaran skimmer for removing plastic waste and oil from the oceans.

Thermicon GmbH -Abgaswärmerückgewinnung -A scalable exhaust heat recovery module for efficient recovery of waste heat from boilers for use in floor heating and hot water.
http://www.greentec-awards.com/wettbewerb/nominierte.html
http://green.wiwo.de/greentec-awards-in-eigener-sache/

[wtmusic]

4. Where are you getting your information, or is this just more linkless, antinuke babble?

What the fuck does Öko-Energieversorger have to do with it? Guilt by association?

[Iterate]

5. Ooops, forgot the links

They're from the contest site and a media partner.

There's no guilt by association. No need to be defensive. It shows that the process was no different for another entry. Inclusion of the actual nominees shows that they're not in any way in the same category as DFR. They meet the standard and statement of purpose, DFR does not. The Weinberg Foundation took up the cause as some sort of grand injustice or conspiracy or failure of democracy. It wasn't. They acted like the DFR/Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics entry was entitled to win by the simple act of its submission. It wasn't.

From your OP:

VIOLATION
The spokeswoman said that the Institute had violated a clause in the application process “which obliges participants to provide truthful information about their projects, ensuring an objective evaluation process.” She also noted that “The organizers are authorized to disqualify the applicant as well as take away his/her rights to the title.” They also stripped another finalist, called Care Energy.

[kristopher]

6. Did you know there are 2 "Weinberg Foundation"s

One is a well respected philanthropic organization that has a wonderful reputation for their good works over decades.
The other is a knock-off formed by a group of nuclear pushers trying to promote their start up thorium businesses in the UK and Europe. This copycat "Weinberg Foundation" was their strategy for attracting media attention and for lending an aura of credibility to a technology that has been rejected consistantly.
The very existence of this Weinberg Foundation violates the premise of truth and integrity.

[Iterate]

8. No, I didn't know about that bit of reputation piracy.

Last edited Sun Jul 14, 2013, 06:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Normally I would have ignored such a minor kerfuffle as this incident, but following up usually leads to something interesting.

In this case it's the "Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics", or "Institut für Festkörper-Kernphysik", the organization that made the DFR entry. I wouldn't claim to know about every German research institute, but I do know most of them and this one I'd never heard of.

I first saw it mentioned...as GmbH, which is a fairly strict class of high-end, for-profit businesses. You don't get that classification by wishing it.

The first clue comes with their website: it has no owner and creator identifying footer. Look again at every German organization or company website and you'll see it, as required by law, an early internet artifact from when people were expected to have honest pages. And almost none of the site is in German, meaning that it's produced for an Anglophone audience. Not including both languages is not only cheaper, it discourages scrutiny.

And it's not a GmbH (and hence the edit on the previous post), it's listed on the contact page as an IFK limited, whatever that is. It's located in an office block in Berlin above an Italian eatery, amidst psychiatrists and tax accountants. It has no facilities. It looks like it was established in 2010. And it accepts paypal donations.

I've never known a research institute to accept paypal.

It's also never invented or innovated anything, let alone a DFR. That fact alone disqualifies it from the contest. The contest is for inventors, not promoters.

It's always interesting to look at the staff of these organizations and their connections, but that will have to wait. Or maybe we'll never hear from them again, but it's likely Weinberg will want to go to that well a few more times.

Forgot again: http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/

[wtmusic]

7. No, GreenTec changed the rules after the entry was made.

"Sounds good? Indeed, it does. But! A reactor! With atoms! And with nuclear! Oh, please! Not in nuclear-superstitious Germany!

The GreenTec Awards jury decided to defy the audience and its vote and expulse the Dual-Fluid Reactor from the final round. In order to do so, they changed the rules of the game: Now they have an amendmend saying that “selection of nominees and winners will ultimately be done independently by the Jury of Awards GreenTec. Legal action is excluded.”

People who had campaigned for the award and for the DFR were heavily shocked. Not only they found the decision as such completely incomprehensible, but also the procedure to make it. Changing rules in the course of the game is something that is usually considered less than fair. Most of us (but obviously not all) learned this early in our childhood. No wonder the award’s makers were criticized violently in blogs and social media, especially on their own Facebook page.

Eventually they published an explanation of their reasons to exclude the DFR. However, this fueled criticism even more. Their statements made clear they obviously didn’t understand how the DFR works, what it does, and why it is inherently safe. Instead, their comments seem to assume that the DFR is something like a mixture of a conventional light water reactor and a distributed final disposal for nuclear waste. They clearly did not understand that the Dual-Fluid Reactor could do a tremendous job to the environment by producing huge quantities of low-carbon energy and reducing the overall radiotoxicity of nuclear waste by orders of magnitude."

http://rainerklute.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/how-to-stash-a-nuclear-reactor-away/

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9. Petition to demand GreenTec consider the entry

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/greentec-awards-beruecksichtigen-sie-das-publikumsvotum-und-nominieren-sie-den-dual-fluid-reaktor

It's in German; here are the translated names of the fields:

Vollständiger Name Full Name
Postleitzahl Ort Town and Zip
Straße Hausnr. Address
Anonym unterschreiben Sign Anonymous
Informationen zu dieser und ähnlichen Petitionen bekommen Get information about this and similar petitions
Adresse mit dem elektronischen Personalausweis verifizieren (?) Address with the electronic ID verification (?)

"Petition:

The GreenTec Awards, a major environmental award, aims to promote the "ecological and economic engagement and the use of environmental technologies." The patron is Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier; media sponsors are ProSieben and Economy Week. Potential winners will "contribute to protecting the environment and resources in the interest of environmental sustainability and to prevent and reduce pollutants."

Through an online voting process, projects have been nominated in each category for admittance to the final round. Two additional projects are selected by the jury. Nominated in the Energy category was a "Dual-Fluid Reactor", a novel nuclear reactor which uses nuclear waste as fuel and produces only electricity and cheap fuel.

However, GreenTec defied this call from the audience and disqualified the entry from consideration in the final round. To achieve this, the following text was added to the rules after the entry was publicly approved: "Selection of nominees and winners will ultimately independently by the Jury of Awards GreenTec. The decision is final."

The Nuklearia, a nuclear-friendly working group within the Pirate Party, is opposed to this approach. We think a subsequent rule change for "correction" of the obviously uncomfortable and undesirable result of online voting should not be permitted. Do you accept the results of online voting and demand that GreenTec requalify the dual-fluid reactor entry, permitting it to be judged in the finals?

An open letter, which is available at nuklearia.de/2013/06/17/greentec-awards-publikumsvotum-respektieren-dual-fluid-reaktor-nominieren / explains why the dual-fluid reactor fits the objectives of GreenTec Awards perfectly. In the letter jurors are asked to respect the audience's vote and allow the Dual-Fluid Reactor entry to continue to the final round.

We ask all interested parties to read the open letter and sign the petition!"