Northeast U.S. Temperatures are Decades Ahead of Global Average

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/northeast-us-temperatures-are-decades

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Northeast U.S. Temperatures are Decades Ahead of Global Average[/font]

[font size=4] UMass Amherst climate scientists say Northeast will warm sooner than most of U.S.[/font]

January 11, 2017
Contact: Janet Lathrop

[font size=3]AMHERST, Mass. – Results of a new study by researchers at the Northeast Climate Science Center (NECSC) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggest that temperatures across the northeastern United States will increase much faster than the global average, so that the 2-degrees Celsius warming target adopted in the recent Paris Agreement on climate change will be reached about 20 years earlier for this part of the U.S. compared to the world as a whole.

NECSC postdoctoral researcher Ambarish Karmalkar and geosciences professor Raymond Bradley’s study explores how climate across the U.S. will be affected by the recent Paris agreement to limit global average temperatures to no more than 1.5 degrees C, or 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Details appear in the current issue of PLOS ONE, released today.

Bradley says, “With the signing of the Paris Agreement to try and limit greenhouse gas emissions, many people have been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that the 2-degrees C target is somehow a ‘safe’ limit for climate change. But the 2 C number is a global average, and many regions will warm more, and warm more rapidly, than the earth as a whole. Our study shows that the northeast United States is one of those regions where warming will proceed very rapidly, so that if and when the global target is reached, we will already be experiencing much higher temperatures, with all of the related ecological, hydrological and agricultural consequences.”

The lower 48 states are projected to cross the 2-degree C warming threshold about 10 to 20 years earlier than the global mean annual temperature, they note. Bradley and Karmalkar write that “the fastest warming region in the contiguous U.S. is the Northeast, which is projected to warm by 3 degrees C when global warming reaches 2 degrees C.” The southwest U.S. also is projected to warm at a “much faster rate” than the southeast or southern Great Plains.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168697

[NNadir]

1. I'm sure that the next 2,178,309 breathlessly announced "solar breakthroughs" here will stop...

...climate change in its tracks, even if the last 1,346,269 breathlessly announced "solar breakthroughs" we learned about in the last quarter of a century or so, didn't.

Don't worry. Be happy.

[GliderGuider]

2. At least renewables are growing.

Renewables are now growing fast enough to equal or surpass nuclear generation within the next 5 years.
Neither one is going to save the day, of course, but renewables are making a far better showing than nukes.



Together, all low-carbon electricity sources generate about 1 TW of power.
The world uses about 18TW of primary energy in total.
Accounting for low-carbon sources, about 17 TW of world primary power comes from fossil fuels.

You need to discount that 17 TW number by about ~50% to get closer to an apples-to-apples comparison of end-use energy from different sources: unlike low carbinon electricity, the primary energy from fossil fuels needs to be converted to other forms prior to use, with significant losses due to waste heat.

Therefore, about 8.5 TW of end-use energy comes from fossil fuel, and about 1 TW from low carbon sources.

As a result, we can calculate that low carbon electricity sources currently supply about 10% of the world's total end-use energy. That breaks down as follows:

Hydro: ~5%
Nuclear: ~3%
Renewables: ~2%

Nuclear advocates' contempt for renewable energy is largely a case of whistling past the graveyard.

[NNadir]

3. What "Graveyard" are you talking about?

The one represented by the atmosphere, or the one represented by half a century of propaganda directed against the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy?

We just, as I never tire of pointing out, spent over one trillion dollars on so called "renewable energy" in ten years. This squandering is moving faster, not slower, and is almost keeping pace with the degradation of the atmosphere.

Have you come back here after announcing that you've checked out to state that this all worked out great?

Are you here to announce that if we had spent the same trillion dollars on well established and mature nuclear technology that things would be worse than they are now?

If this is the case, you know less about mathematics, and less about sustainability than I thought.

So called "renewable energy" would die in a day without access to dangerous natural gas. The untoward dangerous faith based belief in it has done nothing to delay the race past 400 ppm, and the longer we sustain this faith, the faster we will move toward 500 ppm.

I know that you don't care. You were very holy and had no children, but I'm different. I was very self absorbed and fathered two sons, now young men.

The future matters to me, even after I die, which will be soon enough, because I very much love some people who will live in it, love them more than I can tell.

Have a great day. Say Hello to Amory Lovins and any other gas bags you may know for me.

[GliderGuider]

4. To everything, spin, spin, spin

There is a season, spin, spin spin...

I'm not in favour of renewables. Never have been, never will be.
I'm not in favour of nuclear power. Never have been, never will be.
I'm not in favour of fossil fuels. Never have been, never will be.

I'm in favour of the collapse of the human experiment that is destroying the planet.

Perhaps that's the "graveyard" you thought I meant? If so, energy advocates of all stripes are IMO as guilty of whistling past it as you are.

[NNadir]

5. No. You're not in favor of anything. That's clear enough.

It's rather easy to be a nihilist. No one can ever blame you for anything that goes wrong, since you do nothing other than to say nothing matters.

It's more difficult though, to believe in something like the future.

That's the big, big, big, big, bid difference between you and me, and it is, indeed, not going to be bridged.

I've spent thirty years using most of my free time to try to advance things that, um, work. Since reading your rhetoric, I've become familiar with your less difficult assertion that nothing works.

I couldn't care less about your belief that nothing works. Frankly it's useless and it doesn't work, at least not for me. If I did buy into that cynical - and frankly amoral - belief system, I wouldn't have bothered spending the tens of thousands of hours I've spent learning how things do work.

I am trying to work with those who will live with the future, the future provided by nihilists and their opposites alike. I could have spent lots of time watching TV, or playing golf, or sitting back pulling intellectual lint out my navel.

But I didn't.

I get my compensations though. Why just this week, I had the privilege of sitting up with two 17 year olds discussing the structure of a neuramidase protein. That was, frankly, much more rewarding than any conversation I've ever had here, the present one included.

I care far more about the 17 year olds than I do the tired old farts here.

Have a nice weekend.

[GliderGuider]

6. Yes, you're a classsic product of civilization.

I'm glad you've found something that gives you a strong sense of identity and self-worth. It's too bad that it's so tightly tied to specific narrow domains, technologies and behaviours, but leopards, spots and all that. All we can do is enjoy our lives and who we are to the best of our abilities, within the psychological boundaries we construct for our self-protection.

[NNadir]

7. Well, I'm happy that you're enjoying your life, sitting at your high tech computer with a knife...

...in your teeth in your bearskin coat, bear meat roasting over your open fire under the stars, with a little in your teeth, spitting out the broken flint from the spear, under the stars decrying "civilization" and "technology."

It sounds like fun, a little bit of an affectation, but fun, not for me, but fun, I'm sure for you.

What I'm a product of, history, should history exist, will judge. It may not be pretty.

[GliderGuider]

8. Straw man much?

I thought you were more insightful than that.

[NNadir]

9. No, I'm not very insightful.

I can't even see the "straw man."

I often hear about "straw men," lacking insight as I do, and confusing "cutting to the chase" with, um, the "real" argument. Or, perhaps, I am simply confused about what is and is not wit.

Of course, the "real" argument can, and often should be distilled into its apparent essence, at least in my less than insightful opinion.

Some arguments are too tortured and laborious to engage the subtleties theirs authors deign to suggest.

When I, in my less than insightful way, distill your argument, it is "nothing works," consisting entirely of what I regard as naive and false equivalents that have no technical insight whatsoever, like um, nuclear energy is as useless as so called "renewable energy."

Now, if it were true that everyone believed that "nothing works," there would be a 100% probability that nothing would work, and we could just sit around, again, picking lint out of her navels waiting for the inevitable end of the world.

Being, again, less than insightful, I'm not there yet.

I kind of agree with Theodore Roosevelt, even though he's dead: "It's not the critic who counts..."

The Sorbonne Speech

To steal a phrase from T.S. Eliot, I'd more than willing to "Criticize the Critic."

[GliderGuider]

10. The straw man is this:

...sitting at your high tech computer with a knife in your teeth in your bearskin coat, bear meat roasting over your open fire under the stars, with a little in your teeth, spitting out the broken flint from the spear, under the stars decrying "civilization" and "technology."

It's not just a straw man, but an ad hominem argument where the "hominem" is a straw man. It's an amusing image, I grant you, but that doesn't negate the fact that it's a multi-fallacy argument.

I get that you disagree with me - not just my conclusions about the world, but my whole attitude about life seems to rub you the wrong way. I can't help that, we are who we are. But in the past we've had productive exchanges when we made the effort to treat each other as human beings, not just as electronic stereotypes.

You're a smart, caring guy who believes deeply in the possibility of making a better world through the ethical use of science and technology. It seems to me that it shouldn't be too difficult to find some sort of meeting ground if we start from that point - so long as we leave our knee-jerk reactions to each other on the sidelines.

[NNadir]

11. Thank you. I would say though, that this conversation began with a knee jerk reaction.

Specifically this:

Renewables are now growing fast enough to equal or surpass nuclear generation within the next 5 years.
Neither one is going to save the day, of course, but renewables are making a far better showing than nukes.

Which has the "better showing" you base, like a "renewables will save us fool" on a prediction, not a reality.

One thing about "renewables will be great" predictions.

A graph from the BP Statistical Review, otherwise unreferenced, is not an argument at all.

Now I put some graphs up on another website, a pie chart, this one, which shows the true state of affairs over many decades of people trashing nuclear energy while praising the so called "renewable energy" scam:

?w=444&h=294

Current World Energy Demand, Ethical World Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come

It contains 54 references, most of them from the primary scientific literature, including the reference for the graph.

This also, in this exchange, the difference between you and me.

I am not saying that renewable energy is not producing any energy; I am saying that two trillion dollars in ten years is wasted when we look at how much energy is produced as a result.

Your own graph shows that nuclear is currently, prediction free, still, larger than "other renewables" for electricity, this while being the object of negative propaganda, while the so called "renewable energy" industry has not had to answer any questions about its sustainability at all, even though it not sustainable.

I have, by the way, long favored high temperature reactors as opposed to water boiling reactors, to increase efficiency. There is no intrinsic reason from an engineering standpoint for all "waste heat," to be "waste."

Have a nice week.

[GliderGuider]

12. My point doesn't need a lot of references.

It was simply a reference to the recent performance of the various low-carbon electricity sources, data that BP presents quite accurately.

In the last dozen years (2003-2015) renewable energy has been on a compound growth curve of 15.5% per year. Hydro has had a linear growth trend over the same period, adding ~100 TWh per year. Nuclear power output has been flat, showing no net growth whatsoever since 2003. That was my only point.

Nuclear power might wake up and get back in the growth race, but it hasn't shown any signs of doing so for over a decade. Meanwhile hydro has been forging steadily ahead, and renewable energy has been accelerating very strongly.

If you're looking for the largest low-carbon source, one that is still growing strongly, the winner, hands-down, is hydro, not nuclear power. But only a sucker bets against a compound growth curve like the one shown by renewable energy, at least in the short run. To which I would add parenthetically, only a fool bets for a compound growth curve over the long run.

These physical observations are entirely separate from my philosophical position on the value of increasing energy consumption.

[NNadir]

14. You're make broad generalized statements without references? Don't need 'em?

I certainly read a great deal about energy, and I don't think you know what you're talking about.

The last time that happened, Amory Lovins, who also didn't need references, told us that nuclear power was dead, (Lovins, Lovins and Ross, Foreign Affairs 1980) and that solar energy would be providing 10-20% of our energy by the year 2000. (Lovins 1976)

His nonsense made him famous, but mostly it was bad, poorly informed, thinking, that "didn't need references" but only vague undefined reference to "one study" and "another study." It did great damage the future in which we all now live.

Hydro, by the way, is hardly "climate change gas free," and, I note that we are entirely out of major rivers to destroy.

Sorry, but I can't take hand waving seriously.

[GliderGuider]

15. Making observations about past trends of energy production is hand-waving?

How so?

[NNadir]

16. Again, you lack context, references and make technically oblivious statements like this:

In the last dozen years (2003-2015) renewable energy has been on a compound growth curve of 15.5% per year. Hydro has had a linear growth trend over the same period, adding ~100 TWh per year. Nuclear power output has been flat, showing no net growth whatsoever since 2003. That was my only point.

You arbitrarily choose a small set of data points in a arbitrarily limited time frame, and use absurd "percent" talk. Renewable energy's percent growth is a function of the fact that it is a failure; it does not produce significant energy. It's easy to grow your assets by 100% per year for ten years if you start with two dollars. You only need to make $2048 dollars. You can do that part time working as a senile greeter at Walmart. It more difficult if you start with two million dollars. In that case you need to make $2,048,000,000.

And again, is completely absurd to talk about hydro being a "winner," particularly when it depends on access to stable weather patterns in these times. Hydro is not sustainable, as any fool looking at the state of the Himalayan glaciers, for just one example, or the Alpine glaciers, for another, or the last ten year trends in California energy production, can see. Thus like wind and solar it is not actually "renewable" and even doubling its place in the energy equation would not only be an unprecedented environmental disaster, but is not even predictable or reliable.

As for nuclear's growth rate, as I noted in the link in my earlier post here, here reproduced, with references to the OECD key energy statistics the following:

In 2011, we were using 1,216% as much nuclear energy as we used in 1973, but it was hardly enough.

The anti-nuclear argument consists largely of people announcing - as I often point out - that what has already occurred is impossible.

Moreover, their are 61 reactors now under construction in places that don't give a rat's ass about what lazy North Americans think.

Every single one of those reactors will be easily capable of producing more energy in a single building than all the wind turbines in Denmark.

I also note that nuclear energy is currently producing close to 30 exajoules of primary energy and there are now many well known engineering solutions, published in oodles of engineering and scientific journals, to raising the amount of primary energy converted into exergy, significantly.

Thus comparing nuclear energy to forms of energy that have not, are not, and will not ever reach this level of energy production, so called "renewable energy" is disingenuous at best, fraudulent at worst.

And frankly, to have bet the planetary atmosphere on these kinds of (regrettably oft repeated) kinds of intellectually dishonest shell games is fraud.

I kind of believed you were smarter than that, to offer up weak hand waving rhetoric and smugly walk away.

Moreover, in the same place, using the same reference relinked above, I also noted that:

As for conservation, in 2011 we were using 147% of the dangerous petroleum we used in 1973, 286% of the dangerous natural gas we used in 1973, and 252% of the dangerous coal we used in 1973. The rise in average figures of per capita energy consumption, as well as total energy consumed worldwide, show that energy conservation as an energy strategy has not worked either.

.

This is called, um, data, with the reference to the data being given in the link, the IEA report. Of course, this is not the only reference possible, and as a matter of fact, one can, as I have, accumulate thousands of references on the subject of energy, so many that one can become truly knowledgeable so long as one so desires.

And if you are knowledgeable, you can see that the use of fossil fuels is growing, not falling, and that historical, current and future contribution to stopping this by so called "renewable energy" has proved, is proving, and always will prove useless.

Returning to the fossil fuel trend, as opposed to your weak evocation of the "renewables" are "at least" "growing" nonsense, maybe you think that the status quo is inevitable and acceptable, but, once again, I am decidedly not a nihilist and I thus hold this kind of thinking, "what we are doing right now is the only possible outcome and nothing will change," is ethically bankrupt, intellectually bankrupt and frankly, conservative.

Of course, it's not reactionary - as are the schemes orange asshole who is now starting out on his vast plunder schemes, making America "great" again for robber barons, racists and other people with their heads of their asses - but it is conservative.

But, on reflection, being a conservative is not really alien to any of your other "nothing works" rhetoric. It's wholly consistent. Lazy, solipsistic, and unenlightened, but consistent. A conservative is, after all, a person who believes that nothing can change.

Listen, what the world is doing now, and what it was doing in the "great" times that the orange asshole reactionary is proposing is/was not ethically acceptable. What we are doing now, and what we were doing in the times to which the orange reactionary asshole appeals, is a crime against all future generations, and crime against human beings, and frankly a crime against many things that are not human.

Frankly, you're talking like a "renewables will save us" airhead. You've been very weak in this exchange, sorry to say.

It's disappointing, but then, so is the state of the world right now. None of this had to be, needs to be, or always will be necessary. Unfortunately, the "always will be" part falls upon future generations, who, from what I see of the young people around me, will be, already are, smarter than we were, even though we have screwed them in ways that history will not forgive.

As Lincoln remarked in another context, but worthy of repeating in this context:

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

In the current context, I would substitute the word "world" for "country."

You are clearly not thinking "anew," but the young people I know, might be better at than you could ever hope to be. And in seemingly hopeless times, that is just that, hope. Even though I'm an old man at the end of my life, I am still young enough, not at all desiccated enough, to believe in hope.

Have a nice weekend.

[kristopher]

13. Nuclear hasn't and can't - renewables can and are.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127107620

Nothing can compete with renewable energy, says top climate scientist
Prof John Schellnhuber says that if countries implement their pledges made for Paris climate summit it will give huge boost to wind, tidal and solar power

Damian Carrington @dpcarrington Monday 9 November 2015 08.06 ES

Climate scientist, Prof John Schellnhuber, has advised Angela Merkel and Pope Francis. Photograph: Patrick Pleul/CorbisT


Catastrophic global warming can be avoided with a deal at a crunch UN climate change summit in Paris this December because “ultimately nothing can compete with renewables”, according to one of the world’s most influential climate scientists.

Most countries have already made voluntary pledges to roll out clean energy and cut carbon emissions, and Prof John Schellnhuber said the best hope of making nations keep their promises was moral pressure.

Schellnhuber is a key member of the German delegation attending the Paris summit and has advised Angela Merkel and Pope Francis on climate change.

He said there was reason for optimism about the Paris talks, where at least 80 heads of state are expected. “That is a very telling thing - a sign of hope - because people at the top level do not want to be tainted by failure,” he said.

If a critical mass of big countries implement their pledges, he said in an interview with the Guardian, the move towards a global low-carbon economy would gain unstoppable momentum...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/09/clean-energy-is-key-successful-climate-deal-in-paris-says-top-scientist

See also (Open Access) at journal Science
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/06/science.aam6284.full

The irreversible momentum of clean energy
Barack Obama

Email: [e-mail]. After 20 January 2017: [e-mail]
Science 09 Jan 2017:

DOI: 10.1126/science.aam6284

Abstract

Private-sector incentives help drive decoupling of emissions and economic growth.
The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to human activity is increasing global average surface air temperatures, disrupting weather patterns, and acidifying the ocean (1). Left unchecked, the continued growth of GHG emissions could cause global average temperatures to increase by another 4°C or more by 2100 and by 1.5 to 2 times as much in many midcontinent and far northern locations (1). Although our understanding of the impacts of climate change is increasingly and disturbingly clear, there is still debate about the proper course for U.S. policy—a debate that is very much on display during the current presidential transition. But putting near-term politics aside, the mounting economic and scientific evidence leave me confident that trends toward a clean-energy economy that have emerged during my presidency will continue and that the economic opportunity for our country to harness that trend will only grow. This Policy Forum will focus on the four reasons I believe the trend toward clean energy is irreversible.

ECONOMIES GROW, EMISSIONS FALL... <snip>

PRIVATE-SECTOR EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS... <snip>

Market Forces in the Power Sector... <snip>

Global Momentum... <snip>

CONCLUSION

We have long known, on the basis of a massive scientific record, that the urgency of acting to mitigate climate change is real and cannot be ignored. In recent years, we have also seen that the economic case for action—and against inaction—is just as clear, the business case for clean energy is growing, and the trend toward a cleaner power sector can be sustained regardless of near-term federal policies.

Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community. Prudent U.S. policy over the next several decades would prioritize, among other actions, decarbonizing the U.S. energy system, storing carbon and reducing emissions within U.S. lands, and reducing non-CO2 emissions (23).

Of course, one of the great advantages of our system of government is that each president is able to chart his or her own policy course. And President-elect Donald Trump will have the opportunity to do so. The latest science and economics provide a helpful guide for what the future may bring, in many cases independent of near-term policy choices, when it comes to combatting climate change and transitioning to a clean-energy economy.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/06/science.aam6284.full




And then there is this Wikilist:

In listing civilian nuclear accidents, the following criteria have been followed:
There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage or contamination.
The damage must be related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.
To qualify as "civilian", the nuclear operation/material must be principally for non-military purposes.
The event should involve fissile material or a reactor.

December 12, 1952 — INES Level 5 - Chalk River, Ontario, Canada - Reactor core damaged
A reactor shutoff rod failure, combined with several operator errors, led to a major power excursion of more than double the reactor's rated output at AECL's NRX reactor. The operators purged the reactor's heavy water moderator, and the reaction stopped in under 30 seconds. A cover gas system failure led to hydrogen explosions, which severely damaged the reactor core. The fission products from approximately 30 kg of uranium were released through the reactor stack. Irradiated light-water coolant leaked from the damaged coolant circuit into the reactor building; some 4,000 cubic meters were pumped via pipeline to a disposal area to avoid contamination of the Ottawa River. Subsequent monitoring of surrounding water sources revealed no contamination. No immediate fatalities or injuries resulted from the incident; a 1982 followup study of exposed workers showed no long-term health effects. Future U.S. President Jimmy Carter, then a nuclear engineer in the US Navy, was among the cleanup crew.[1][2]

May 24, 1958 — INES Level needed - Chalk River, Ontario, Canada - Fuel damaged
Due to inadequate cooling a damaged uranium fuel rod caught fire and was torn in two as it was being removed from the core at the NRU reactor. The fire was extinguished, but not before radioactive combustion products contaminated the interior of the reactor building and to a lesser degree, an area surrounding the laboratory site. Over 600 people were employed in the clean-up.[3][4]

October 25, 1958 - INES Level needed - Vinča, Yugoslavia - Criticality excursion, irradiation of personnel
During a subcritical counting experiment a power buildup went undetected at the Boris Kidrich Institute's zero-power natural uranium heavy water moderated research reactor [5]. Saturation of radiation detection chambers gave the researchers false readings and the level of moderator in the reactor tank was raised triggering a criticality excursion which a researcher detected from the smell of ozone [6]. Six scientists received radiation doses between 200 to 400 rems 7. An experimental bone marrow transplant treatment was performed on all of them in France and five survived, despite the ultimate rejection of the marrow in all cases. A single woman among them later had a child without apparent complications. This was one of the first nuclear incidents investigated by then newly-formed IAEA. [8]

July 26, 1959 — INES Level needed - Santa Susana Field Laboratory, California, United States - Partial meltdown
A partial core meltdown took place when the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) experienced a power excursion that caused severe overheating of the reactor core, resulting in the melting of one-third of the nuclear fuel and significant releases of radioactive gases. [9]
[edit]1960s

October 5, 1966 — INES Level needed - Monroe, Michigan, United States - Partial meltdown
A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor (Enrico Fermi-1 fast breeder reactor). The accident was attributed to a zirconium fragment that obstructed a flow-guide in the sodium cooling system. Two of the 105 fuel assemblies melted during the incident, but no contamination was recorded outside the containment vessel. [10]

Winter 1966-1967 (date unknown) – INES Level needed – location unknown – loss of coolant accident
The Soviet icebreaker Lenin, the USSR’s first nuclear-powered surface ship, suffered a major accident (possibly a meltdown — exactly what happened remains a matter of controversy in the West) in one of its three reactors. To find the leak the crew broke through the concrete and steel radiation shield with sledgehammers, causing irreparable damage. It was rumored that around 30 of the crew were killed. The ship was abandoned for a year to allow radiation levels to drop before the three reactors were removed, to be dumped into the Tsivolko Fjord on the Kara Sea, along with 60% of the fuel elements packed in a separate container. The reactors were replaced with two new ones, and the ship re-entered service in 1970, serving until 1989.

May 1967 — INES Level needed - Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, United Kingdom - Partial meltdown
Graphite debris partially blocked a fuel channel causing a fuel element to melt and catch fire at the Chapelcross nuclear power station. Contamination was confined to the reactor core. The core was repaired and restarted in 1969, operating until the plant's shutdown in 2004.[11] [12].

January 21, 1969 — INES Level needed - Lucens, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland - Explosion
A total loss of coolant led to a power excursion and explosion of an experimental nuclear reactor in a large cave at Lucens. The underground location of this reactor acted like a containment building and prevented any outside contamination. The cavern was heavily contaminated and was sealed. No injuries or fatalities resulted. [13][14]
[edit]1970s

February 22, 1977 — INES Level 4 - Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia - Fuel damaged
Operators neglected to remove moisture absorbing materials from a fuel rod assembly before loading it into the KS 150 reactor at power plant A-1. The accident resulted in damaged fuel integrity, extensive corrosion damage of fuel cladding and release of radioactivity into the plant area. The plant was decommissioned following this accident. [15]

March 28, 1979 — INES Level 5 - Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States - Partial meltdown
Equipment failures and worker mistakes contributed to a loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station 15 km (9 miles) southeast of Harrisburg. While the reactor was extensively damaged on-site radiation exposure was under 100 millirems (less than annual exposure due to natural sources), with exposure of 1 millirem (10 µSv) to approximately 2 million people. There were no fatalities. Follow up radiological studies predict at most one long-term cancer fatality. [16][17][18]

March 13, 1980 - INES Level 4 - Orléans, France - Nuclear materials leak
A brief power excursion in Reactor A2 led to a rupture of fuel bundles and a minor release (8 x 1010 Bq) of nuclear materials at the Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor was repaired and continued operation until its decommissioning in 1992. [19]

March, 1981 — INES Level 2 - Tsuruga, Japan - Overexposure of workers
More than 100 workers were exposed to doses of up to 155 millirem per day radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant, violating the company's limit of 100 millirems (1 mSv) per day. [20]

September 23, 1983 — INES Level 4 - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Accidental criticality
An operator error during a fuel plate reconfiguration in an experimental test reactor led to an excursion of 3×1017 fissions at the RA-2 facility. The operator absorbed 2000 rad (20 Gy) of gamma and 1700 rad (17 Gy) of neutron radiation which killed him two days later. Another 17 people outside of the reactor room absorbed doses ranging from 35 rad (0.35 Gy) to less than 1 rad (0.01 Gy).[21] pg103[22]

April 26, 1986 — INES Level 7 - Prypiat, Ukraine (then USSR) - Power excursion, explosion, complete meltdown
A mishandled reactor safety test led to an uncontrolled power excursion, causing a severe steam explosion, meltdown and release of radioactive material at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant located approximately 100 kilometers north-northwest of Kiev. Approximately fifty fatalities resulted from the accident and the immediate aftermath most of these being cleanup personnel. An additional nine fatal cases of thyroid cancer in children in the Chernobyl area have been attributed to the accident. The explosion and combustion of the graphite reactor core spread radioactive material over much of Europe. 100,000 people were evacuated from the areas immediately surrounding Chernobyl in addition to 300,000 from the areas of heavy fallout in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. An "Exclusion Zone" was created surrounding the site encompassing approximately 1,000 mi² (3,000 km²) and deemed off-limits for human habitation for an indefinite period. Several studies by governments, UN agencies and environmental groups have estimated the consequences and eventual number of casualties. Their findings are subject to controversy.
See also: Chernobyl disaster

May 4, 1986 – INES Level needed - Hamm-Uentrop, Germany (then West Germany) - Fuel damaged
A spherical fuel pebble became lodged in the pipe used to deliver fuel elements to the reactor at an experimental 300-megawatt THTR-300 HTGR. Attempts by an operator to dislodge the fuel pebble damaged its cladding, releasing radiation detectable up to two kilometers from the reactor. [23]

November 24, 1989 — INES Level needed - Greifswald, Germany (then East Germany) - Fuel damaged
Operators disabled three of six cooling pumps to test emergency shutoffs. Instead of the expected automatic shutdown a fourth pump failed causing excessive heating which damaged ten fuel rods. The accident was attributed to sticky relay contacts and generally poor construction in the Soviet-built reactor. [24]
[edit]1990s

April 6, 1993 — INES Level 4 - Tomsk, Russia - Explosion
A pressure buildup led to an explosive mechanical failure in a 34 cubic meter stainless steel reaction vessel buried in a concrete bunker under building 201 of the radiochemical works at the Tomsk-7 Siberian Chemical Enterprise plutonium reprocessing facility. The vessel contained a mixture of concentrated nitric acid, uranium (8757 kg), plutonium (449 g) along with a mixture of radioactive and organic waste from a prior extraction cycle. The explosion dislodged the concrete lid of the bunker and blew a large hole in the roof of the building, releasing approximately 6 GBq of Pu 239 and 30 TBq of various other radionuclides into the environment. The contamination plume extended 28 km NE of building 201, 20 km beyond the facility property. The small village of Georgievka (pop. 200) was at the end of the fallout plume, but no fatalities, illnesses or injuries were reported. The accident exposed 160 on-site workers and almost two thousand cleanup workers to total doses of up to 50 mSv (the threshold limit for radiation workers is 100 mSv per 5 years)[25]. [26] [27]

June, 1999 — INES Level needed - Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan - Control rod malfunction
Operators attempting to insert one control rod during an inspection neglected procedure and instead withdrew three causing a 15 minute uncontrolled sustained reaction at the number 1 reactor of Shika Nuclear Power Plant. The Hokuriku Electric Company who owned the reactor did not report this incident and falsified records, covering it up until March, 2007. [28]

September 30, 1999 — INES Level 4 - Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan - Accidental criticality
Workers put uranyl nitrate solution containing about 16.6 kg of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass, into a precipitation tank at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokai-mura northeast of Tokyo, Japan. The tank was not designed to dissolve this type of solution and was not configured to prevent eventual criticality. Three workers were exposed to (neutron) radiation doses in excess of allowable limits. Two of these workers died. 116 other workers received lesser doses of 1 mSv or greater though not in excess of the allowable limit. [29] [30][31] [32]
See also: Tokaimura nuclear accident and 5 yen coin

April 10, 2003 — INES Level 3 - Paks, Hungary - Fuel damaged
Partially spent fuel rods undergoing cleaning in a tank of heavy water ruptured and spilled fuel pellets at Paks Nuclear Power Plant. It is suspected that inadequate cooling of the rods during the cleaning process combined with a sudden influx of cold water thermally shocked fuel rods causing them to split. Boric acid was added to the tank to prevent the loose fuel pellets from achieving criticality. Ammonia and hydrazine were also added to absorb iodine-131. [33], [34]

April 19, 2005 — INES Level 3 - Sellafield, England, United Kingdom - Nuclear material leak
Twenty metric tons of uranium and 160 kilograms of plutonium dissolved in 83,000 litres of nitric acid leaked over several months from a cracked pipe into a stainless steel sump chamber at the Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. The partially processed spent fuel was drained into holding tanks outside the plant. [35].

November 2005 — INES Level needed - Braidwood, Illinois, United States - Nuclear material leak
Tritium contamination of groundwater was discovered at Exelon's Braidwood station. Groundwater off site remains within safe drinking standards though the NRC is requiring the plant to correct any problems related to the release.

March 6, 2006 — INES Level needed - Erwin, Tennessee, United States - Nuclear material leak
Thirty-five liters of a highly enriched uranium solution leaked during transfer into a lab at Nuclear Fuel Services Erwin Plant. The incident caused a seven-month shutdown and a required public hearing on the licensing of the plant.[36] [37]

^ [1] http://www.cns-snc.ca/history/nrx.html
^ [2] http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionD.htm#x
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^ [21] http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-3611.pdf
^ [22] http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1983/in83066s1.html
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^ [27] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5165736.stm
^ [28] http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/business/nuke.php
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^ [30] http://www.uic.com.au/nip52.htm
^ [31] http://www.isis-online.org/publications/tokai.html
^ [32] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5165736.stm
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^ [34] http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1347615,00.html
^ [35] http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectionCode=132&storyCode=2029958
^ [36] http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2007_register&docid=fr04my07-111
^ [37] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/us/06cnd-nuke.html