Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
NNadir
NNadir's Journal
NNadir's Journal
October 20, 2021
Well, honestly, when driving through the West Virginia panhandle, I refused to get out of the car.
I told my son, "Wait'll we get to Maryland..."
But anyway...John Denver's still dead, but sorta lives on.
October 19, 2021
Figure 1:
The caption:
The prevalence of immediate family member incarceration in the US population.
Percentage of respondents who have ever had any immediate family members or a child, parent, or sibling, specifically, incarcerated by age (18–39, 40–59, and 60+ years old) and race or ethnicity (non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, non-Hispanic white), per the 2018 Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). To download the FamHIS data, see https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/ipoll/study/31115615. For further information and the FamHIS data, see (6).
It is well worth a read I think, and when I have time, I hope to come back to the paper for deeper study.
This article is part of a policy forum in Science which includes this paper with a thought provoking title:
Exclusion and exploitation: The incarceration of Black Americans from slavery to the present
What is discussed here is acts as immoral as acts of unprovoked war, any war is immoral. We often hear of people concerned with a "race war," breaking out. A "race war" has broken out here, and has been underway in this country for 400 years. The bad guys are winning.
Criminal Injustice: Assessing mass incarceration's effects on families
I've been attending a conference, and have been extremely busy, but without much time to discuss it, I thought I should like to post a link this review article, which is open sourced, I think, in the current issue of Science: Assessing mass incarceration’s effects on families
Some excerpts:
In a little more than a year, in 2023, mass incarceration reaches a major milestone: its 50th birthday (1). The degree to which mass incarceration has transformed the lives of American men—and especially African American men with little education living in poor neighborhoods—during this time can hardly be overstated. For African American men who did not finish high school and are approaching midlife, incarceration at some point in their lives is a modal outcome, with upward of 70% having been to prison (2). Incarceration is also consequential, and a large literature catalogs the myriad damages that men face after release as a result of doing time (3); and this is to say nothing of what they experience while they are confined to a cell. As such, most contemporary research on the direct effects of incarceration on individuals underestimates the toll that mass incarceration has taken in terms of human suffering.
In this Review, we explore how incarceration affects not the men for whom this event has become so common but their families. We see this shift in focus as important for four reasons. First, the family members of the incarcerated have rarely (if ever) been involved in the crimes that their incarcerated family members have committed and, as a result, are the collateral damage of the criminal justice system in a very real and tangible way. Second, many of them did not choose to have a criminally active or justice-involved family member, making the harms caused by the incarceration of a family member all the more problematic. Third, and as we have argued before, the indirect consequences of mass incarceration, experienced by family members, are likely more sizable than those for the men who experience incarceration (4, 5). Finally, the interests of individuals who experience incarceration and their families may, simply put, be misaligned in some instances, a possibility that complicates policy in ways that merely looking at the average effects of family member incarceration on individuals and families may not allow us to see...
...Crushingly common, shockingly unequally distributed.
Until mass incarceration came into being in the early 1970s, prison and jail incarceration were so uncommon that while they were tragic outcomes for individuals and those tied to them, their broader social importance would have simply paled in comparison to other institutional contacts. This could hardly be less the case now. In Fig. 1, we use the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS), which we designed in collaboration with a number of our colleagues and have described elsewhere (6), to show the percentage of adults (by race or ethnicity) from three large birth cohorts (ages 18–39, 40–59, and 60+) who have ever experienced immediate family member (defined as biological, step, or foster parents, siblings, or children, or current romantic partners or anyone the respondent ever had a child with) incarceration generally and the incarceration of a parent, sibling, or child specifically...
In this Review, we explore how incarceration affects not the men for whom this event has become so common but their families. We see this shift in focus as important for four reasons. First, the family members of the incarcerated have rarely (if ever) been involved in the crimes that their incarcerated family members have committed and, as a result, are the collateral damage of the criminal justice system in a very real and tangible way. Second, many of them did not choose to have a criminally active or justice-involved family member, making the harms caused by the incarceration of a family member all the more problematic. Third, and as we have argued before, the indirect consequences of mass incarceration, experienced by family members, are likely more sizable than those for the men who experience incarceration (4, 5). Finally, the interests of individuals who experience incarceration and their families may, simply put, be misaligned in some instances, a possibility that complicates policy in ways that merely looking at the average effects of family member incarceration on individuals and families may not allow us to see...
...Crushingly common, shockingly unequally distributed.
Until mass incarceration came into being in the early 1970s, prison and jail incarceration were so uncommon that while they were tragic outcomes for individuals and those tied to them, their broader social importance would have simply paled in comparison to other institutional contacts. This could hardly be less the case now. In Fig. 1, we use the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS), which we designed in collaboration with a number of our colleagues and have described elsewhere (6), to show the percentage of adults (by race or ethnicity) from three large birth cohorts (ages 18–39, 40–59, and 60+) who have ever experienced immediate family member (defined as biological, step, or foster parents, siblings, or children, or current romantic partners or anyone the respondent ever had a child with) incarceration generally and the incarceration of a parent, sibling, or child specifically...
Figure 1:
The caption:
The prevalence of immediate family member incarceration in the US population.
Percentage of respondents who have ever had any immediate family members or a child, parent, or sibling, specifically, incarcerated by age (18–39, 40–59, and 60+ years old) and race or ethnicity (non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, non-Hispanic white), per the 2018 Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). To download the FamHIS data, see https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/ipoll/study/31115615. For further information and the FamHIS data, see (6).
...Deep disadvantage often precedes family member incarceration
Stratification in the risk of family member incarceration across a host of facets of American inequality—race or ethnicity, level of educational attainment, and neighborhood context, to name just three—as well as additional factors such as a history of mental health problems, addiction disorders, and prior criminal justice contact, is pronounced (2, 7–10). Figure 2 uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to show how families that will experience parental incarceration (paternal only, maternal only, or both) in the coming years differ from those that will not on a range of factors that reflect both existing disadvantages families are exposed to and existing disadvantages that can possibly be amplified by family member incarceration...
Stratification in the risk of family member incarceration across a host of facets of American inequality—race or ethnicity, level of educational attainment, and neighborhood context, to name just three—as well as additional factors such as a history of mental health problems, addiction disorders, and prior criminal justice contact, is pronounced (2, 7–10). Figure 2 uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to show how families that will experience parental incarceration (paternal only, maternal only, or both) in the coming years differ from those that will not on a range of factors that reflect both existing disadvantages families are exposed to and existing disadvantages that can possibly be amplified by family member incarceration...
It is well worth a read I think, and when I have time, I hope to come back to the paper for deeper study.
This article is part of a policy forum in Science which includes this paper with a thought provoking title:
Exclusion and exploitation: The incarceration of Black Americans from slavery to the present
What is discussed here is acts as immoral as acts of unprovoked war, any war is immoral. We often hear of people concerned with a "race war," breaking out. A "race war" has broken out here, and has been underway in this country for 400 years. The bad guys are winning.
October 17, 2021
An interesting finding on using US News and World Report for University Rankings.
My feeling is that most of us here at DU, for better or worse, are older people. It would seem the young folks are somewhere else.
Probably not many of us here are involved in college searches anymore, but if someone is or will be, well...
I was a late onset father, so my youngest son only graduated from his university last December, as a materials science engineer, is finishing up a one year masters program offered under an academic scholarship and is looking to enter a Ph.D. program in Nuclear Engineering, a topic I've discussed with him in some detail over his lifetime.
He's really crunched with coursework, research, gathering recommendations, etc., so I offered to survey Nuclear Engineering faculties at well know nuclear engineering schools to point to research groups that might offer innovative approaches that we've discussed over the years in nuclear engineering, since it is a discipline that will be important to saving what is left to save from climate change, to give him a kind of short hand in the form of a spreadsheet with links to each professor's page, and my brief comments, with the really innovative stuff (at least in my opinion) in red.
Of course, I immediately went to the MIT site - he'll apply there - and to UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan, Ann Ann Arbor, NC State, as well as the University of Tennessee, because my son loved his internship at Oak Ridge National Lab. (UT is a very good nuclear engineering school because of its proximity to that great National Laboratory.) The faculties at these institutions all feature members who are on the cutting edge of nuclear engineering, and it would be a thrill, I think, to work with many of these fine engineering scientists in every department on advanced reactor design.
Although Texas A&M is also known as a very good nuclear engineering school, I'm not willing to participate in sending my son to a very dangerous place where guns are not regulated and women are chattel.
To see if I missed anything I googled "Best Nuclear Engineering Graduate Schools" and came across the US News and World Report Rankings.
#6 is Georgia Tech in these rankings, so I went to the faculty page there. It's huge, because they list all of the technical support people, instrument makers, coordinators, etc, and adjunct faculty - who don't train graduate students. There are some very cool materials scientists listed in the department, and fine scientists in the area of radiation biology, and mechanical prosthetic devices, fluid dynamics, robotics, computer modeling etc. Some of these topics are relevant to nuclear engineering, but not really focused on it. However, in opening twenty or so faculty pages, I found no one who actually is involved in the engineering of nuclear reactors.
US News and World Report ranks a department notably short on nuclear engineering faculty as the #6 nuclear engineering school in the country.
Um...um...um...
You can't believe everything you read.
We actually have a crisis in Nuclear Engineering Education and staffing in this country, and if we are to participate in saving the world from itself, it's definitely something we need to remedy.
October 17, 2021
This isn't going anywhere. We live in a time where ignorance is transcendent, and in fact, celebrated.
Germany will burn coal this winter, as will many other countries in Europe except France, which lacks a coal infrastructure entirely.
An open letter to the German Public written by climate activists pleads with them to not be stupid.
It's not going to turn out well.
Germans asked to keep reactors in operation
The letter - titled Dear Germany, please leave the nuclear power plants on the grid and published on 13 October in Welt - notes a recent draft government report that predicts that, based on the policies in place in August 2020, Germany will largely miss its target of a 65% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. "It is very difficult to imagine that the measures adopted since then will completely close this gap," it says.
The authors add: "However, Germany is not exhausting all the options available to the country. The elephant in the room is that Germany is increasing the carbon emissions of its energy system by stepping out of nuclear power. And this at a time when the decarbonisation of the electricity industry is the main strategy for effectively achieving an energy system with net-zero emissions."
Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan in March 2011, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel decided it would phase out its use of nuclear power by the end of 2022 at the latest. Prior to the accident, Germany was obtaining around one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear power.
In August 2011, the 13th amendment of the Nuclear Power Act came into effect, which underlined the political will to phase out nuclear power in Germany. As a result, eight units were closed down immediately: Biblis A and B, Brunsbüttel, Isar 1, Krümmel, Neckarwestheim 1, Phillipsburg 1 and Unterweser.
By the end of this year, Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C are scheduled to shut down, with the country's final three units - Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 - set to close at the end of 2022.
"This loss of low-carbon electricity generation with an installed capacity of 8 GW, which currently accounts for 12% of Germany's annual electricity production, will inevitably lead to around 60 million tonnes of additional carbon emissions per year because more fossil fuels have to be burned in order to provide the necessary replacement service," the letter states. "This will increase national emissions by 5% compared to the reference year 1990..."
...Among the signatories of the letter are: physicist Wade Allison from the University of Oxford; energy analyst Malcolm Grimston of Imperial College London; climate researcher James Hansen of Columbia University; Rainer Klute, chairman of German pro-nuclear group Nuklearia; British environmentalists and writers Mark Lynas and George Monbiot; Rauli Partanen, founder of Finland's Think Atom; US documentary filmmaker Robert Stone; Geraldine Thomas, molecular biologist and director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, Imperial College London; and Myrto Tripathi, founder of France's Voix du Nucléaire.
The authors add: "However, Germany is not exhausting all the options available to the country. The elephant in the room is that Germany is increasing the carbon emissions of its energy system by stepping out of nuclear power. And this at a time when the decarbonisation of the electricity industry is the main strategy for effectively achieving an energy system with net-zero emissions."
Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan in March 2011, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel decided it would phase out its use of nuclear power by the end of 2022 at the latest. Prior to the accident, Germany was obtaining around one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear power.
In August 2011, the 13th amendment of the Nuclear Power Act came into effect, which underlined the political will to phase out nuclear power in Germany. As a result, eight units were closed down immediately: Biblis A and B, Brunsbüttel, Isar 1, Krümmel, Neckarwestheim 1, Phillipsburg 1 and Unterweser.
By the end of this year, Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C are scheduled to shut down, with the country's final three units - Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 - set to close at the end of 2022.
"This loss of low-carbon electricity generation with an installed capacity of 8 GW, which currently accounts for 12% of Germany's annual electricity production, will inevitably lead to around 60 million tonnes of additional carbon emissions per year because more fossil fuels have to be burned in order to provide the necessary replacement service," the letter states. "This will increase national emissions by 5% compared to the reference year 1990..."
...Among the signatories of the letter are: physicist Wade Allison from the University of Oxford; energy analyst Malcolm Grimston of Imperial College London; climate researcher James Hansen of Columbia University; Rainer Klute, chairman of German pro-nuclear group Nuklearia; British environmentalists and writers Mark Lynas and George Monbiot; Rauli Partanen, founder of Finland's Think Atom; US documentary filmmaker Robert Stone; Geraldine Thomas, molecular biologist and director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, Imperial College London; and Myrto Tripathi, founder of France's Voix du Nucléaire.
This isn't going anywhere. We live in a time where ignorance is transcendent, and in fact, celebrated.
Germany will burn coal this winter, as will many other countries in Europe except France, which lacks a coal infrastructure entirely.
October 16, 2021
I am used to reading scientific papers, and may not notice how straight forward it is for untrained people (who nonetheless hold strong opinions) to read, but I don't think the news article in Nature - which I believe is open sourced - can be regarded with a measure of contempt as "badly written jargon."
Again, the full article is available at the link above. Some excerpts:
The bold in the sentence "We found the laboratory origin hypothesis too important to ignore" was added by me.
Further on the authors continued...
Again I added the bold.
The authors then went on to describe the criticisms they endured - "endured" is the right word - because their report did not tell people, including an orangutan colored person who somehow stumbled into the Oval Office, shitting and peeing all over it, what they wanted to hear, that there was someone Chinese to blame.
Again, it's open, anyone who cares can read the whole thing, written by scientists who were on the ground, this, at the time, at great risk to themselves.
Let's be clear on something, OK? There were good reasons for scientists to be working on the SARS type viruses before the outbreak of Covid, in particular because of the near misses of major epidemics in connection with MERS and related syndromes. MERS was stopped in its tracks by competence. No one at the time of MERS thought that an incompetent clown dressed up the color of an orangutan - again I do not mean to insult orangutans, a valuable and wonderful species, with the comparison - would bring childish ignorance, incompetence, and petulance into the office then occupied by Barack Obama.
Labs all over the world, in Los Angeles, in New York, in San Diego, in Boston, in London, in Paris, in Moscow, and in Dacca work with dangerous virus, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus, because it is essential to do so.
Chinese scientists are by and large excellent scientists. I've personally had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with many of them who were first rate. They are not slobs, and they are not out to take over the world.
A fucking opinion piece in a Murdoch publication has nothing to offer anyone. In my opinion - take it for what it's worth - anything in a Murdoch publication is either propaganda, prurient, and/or sensationalist, in that order.
Have a nice weekend.
WHO Authors of the March report into Covid-19 emergence warn against further delay. Nature Aug 2021.
Recently in this space someone posted in this space a piece linked to an opinion piece in Murdoch publication, The Wall Street Journal, saying that the cause of the Covid-19 was a laboratory week from a lab in Wuhan.
This was stated as a "done deal." Of course, Murdoch publications and media, which consist entirely of opinion pieces, sometimes disguised as "news," are famous for firing up often violent support of a very stupid racist overly entitled man who spent an entire sybaritic life behaving like an petulant tantrum prone child, and who for some reason - his only real mystery - liked to paint himself the color of an orangutan, thus insulting orangutans world wide, both in the shrinking wild and in zoos around the world. The petulant child, referred to Covid-19 as the "China Virus," this while being allowed to occupy the office of the President United States.
If one types the terms - Origin of sars cov 2 infection - into Google Scholar, without the use of quotation marks, one will get 142,000 hits in a less than seconds. If one uses quotation marks, and the various names for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and/or disease, one can get different large numbers. However, they are large numbers.
It's a little difficult with even a shred of critical thinking to believe that an opinion piece in a Murdoch publication is "the last word."
I personally do not have the time or inclination to read thousands or even hundreds of papers about the origins of Covid, although virology may be somewhat peripheral to my line of work albeit mostly in connection with AAV vectors. I do, however, scan the table of contents of many major scientific journals and if a paper catches my eye - I will open it; I'd guess I open about five or ten Covid papers a month, particularly as I'm on a personal quest to understand the details of immunology.
However the major journals do have nice science focused news sections, in particular both Nature and Science do, and they can offer insight (and often, almost always, references) to the deeper scientific literature with some discussion of social and political implications.
The World Health Organization (WHO) sent a team of highly trained scientists to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 at a time when the petulant orangutan colored child was pulling the United States out of that August organization while claiming that he "knew more than the scientists do," cheered on by Murdoch Goebbels wannabes.
They issued a comprehensive report on what they evaluated, and what they learned, stating that given the complexity of the issue they had not yet found a definitive answer to the question. That's science. People can spend their entire lives working on a problem and never reach a definitive answer, although one can make serious advances to the answer.
Nature published a news article focusing on this international team. It is here: Origins of SARS-CoV-2: window is closing for key scientific studies.
Here is the subtitle:
Authors of the March WHO report into how COVID-19 emerged warn that further delay makes crucial inquiry biologically difficult.
I am used to reading scientific papers, and may not notice how straight forward it is for untrained people (who nonetheless hold strong opinions) to read, but I don't think the news article in Nature - which I believe is open sourced - can be regarded with a measure of contempt as "badly written jargon."
Again, the full article is available at the link above. Some excerpts:
Our group was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2020. We have been the designated independent international members of a joint WHO–China team tasked with understanding the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Our report was published this March1. It was meant to be the first step in a process that has stalled. Here we summarize the scientific process so far, and call for action to fast-track the follow-up scientific work required to identify how COVID-19 emerged, which we set out in this article.
The window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast: any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible. Understanding the origins of a devastating pandemic is a global priority, grounded in science.
The mandate
We, all the members of the international expert team, each submitted detailed, confidential statements to the WHO on potential conflicts of interest, including funding, collaborative studies, public statements and other issues around the origins of COVID-19 that could be perceived as conflicts. After the WHO had reviewed these, team members were appointed in their individual capacity, not as representatives of their employers.
So far, our mission has been guided by terms of reference agreed between the WHO and China in 2020, before our involvement1. These terms tasked us with making a detailed reconstruction of the early phase of the pandemic, beginning in Wuhan, China, where the first known cases were reported. Our mandate was to conduct a collaborative study with leading scientists in China to review data they had generated on the basis of initial questions from the WHO. We refined the generic list of questions described in the mandate into a detailed workplan described in the mission report1 (see also Annex A; go.nature.com/3k26jzx)...
...This January, we undertook a 28-day mission to Wuhan to interview clinical, laboratory and public-health professionals and visit institutions involved in the early epidemic response and subsequent investigations. Our work was supported by a team of staff from the WHO China office and from WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; staff from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE); and a WHO-appointed team leader1. The huge burden of preparatory work was shouldered by the team in China, including more than 1,000 health-care professionals who collected, analysed, presented and discussed data and study outcomes during our joint mission.
Scientific discussions between the international and Chinese teams during this mission were lively. Large amounts of information were exchanged on the basis of the work carried out. It took days of discussion to develop recommendations on essential further work and ongoing data sharing. We drafted a model of the potential ‘pathways of emergence’ to structure our thoughts. We listed current evidence for and against these pathways (see Fig. 1 of ref. 1)
We found the laboratory origin hypothesis too important to ignore, so brought it into the discussions with our Chinese counterparts. And we included it as one of the hypotheses for SARS-CoV-2 origin in our report.
We had limited time on the ground in Wuhan and a limited mandate. So we prioritized understanding the role of labs in the early days of the epidemic, the overall lab biosafety procedures and potential staff illness or absenteeism owing to respiratory disease in the late part of 2019. We spoke to the leadership and staff at the three Wuhan labs handling coronaviruses: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Wuhan, and the Hubei provincial CDC. We reviewed published work from these labs to assess their scientific history of working with coronaviruses related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The Chinese team was and still is reluctant to share raw data (for instance, on the 174 cases identified in December 2019), citing concerns over patient confidentiality...
The window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast: any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible. Understanding the origins of a devastating pandemic is a global priority, grounded in science.
The mandate
We, all the members of the international expert team, each submitted detailed, confidential statements to the WHO on potential conflicts of interest, including funding, collaborative studies, public statements and other issues around the origins of COVID-19 that could be perceived as conflicts. After the WHO had reviewed these, team members were appointed in their individual capacity, not as representatives of their employers.
So far, our mission has been guided by terms of reference agreed between the WHO and China in 2020, before our involvement1. These terms tasked us with making a detailed reconstruction of the early phase of the pandemic, beginning in Wuhan, China, where the first known cases were reported. Our mandate was to conduct a collaborative study with leading scientists in China to review data they had generated on the basis of initial questions from the WHO. We refined the generic list of questions described in the mandate into a detailed workplan described in the mission report1 (see also Annex A; go.nature.com/3k26jzx)...
...This January, we undertook a 28-day mission to Wuhan to interview clinical, laboratory and public-health professionals and visit institutions involved in the early epidemic response and subsequent investigations. Our work was supported by a team of staff from the WHO China office and from WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; staff from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE); and a WHO-appointed team leader1. The huge burden of preparatory work was shouldered by the team in China, including more than 1,000 health-care professionals who collected, analysed, presented and discussed data and study outcomes during our joint mission.
Scientific discussions between the international and Chinese teams during this mission were lively. Large amounts of information were exchanged on the basis of the work carried out. It took days of discussion to develop recommendations on essential further work and ongoing data sharing. We drafted a model of the potential ‘pathways of emergence’ to structure our thoughts. We listed current evidence for and against these pathways (see Fig. 1 of ref. 1)
We found the laboratory origin hypothesis too important to ignore, so brought it into the discussions with our Chinese counterparts. And we included it as one of the hypotheses for SARS-CoV-2 origin in our report.
We had limited time on the ground in Wuhan and a limited mandate. So we prioritized understanding the role of labs in the early days of the epidemic, the overall lab biosafety procedures and potential staff illness or absenteeism owing to respiratory disease in the late part of 2019. We spoke to the leadership and staff at the three Wuhan labs handling coronaviruses: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Wuhan, and the Hubei provincial CDC. We reviewed published work from these labs to assess their scientific history of working with coronaviruses related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The Chinese team was and still is reluctant to share raw data (for instance, on the 174 cases identified in December 2019), citing concerns over patient confidentiality...
The bold in the sentence "We found the laboratory origin hypothesis too important to ignore" was added by me.
Further on the authors continued...
... The Chinese team was and still is reluctant to share raw data (for instance, on the 174 cases identified in December 2019), citing concerns over patient confidentiality. Access to data on these cases was not specified in the mandate, although the WHO had demanded it during the investigation, and has done so since . The legal and possible other barriers could not be addressed in the short time frame of our visit. Also, by then, it was clear that the 174 cases were not likely to be the earliest ones, so we considered them less urgent for understanding origins.
It was therefore agreed that a second phase of studies would address these concerns and review these data.
It was therefore agreed that a second phase of studies would address these concerns and review these data.
Again I added the bold.
The authors then went on to describe the criticisms they endured - "endured" is the right word - because their report did not tell people, including an orangutan colored person who somehow stumbled into the Oval Office, shitting and peeing all over it, what they wanted to hear, that there was someone Chinese to blame.
...Our critics have also suggested that the report dismisses the possibility of a lab leak. A laboratory origin hypothesis is presented in the pathway model in Figure 5 on page 119 of the report; we explicitly state in the report that it is possible. We held frank discussions with key scientists in the relevant Wuhan institutions — a line of inquiry that exceeded our original mandate. When we reviewed the responses to our questions on this issue, and all other available data, we found no evidence for leads to follow up; we reported this fact.
In our report, we state that if evidence supporting any of the hypotheses becomes known following publication, phase 2 studies should carefully examine this. For instance, we described that there was evidence of the presence of live animals in the market at the end of December 2019, but that the data presented to the team did not show definitive evidence of live mammals. This evidence came to light after publication3 (as we discuss in more detail later in this article).
Another criticism was that the potential for introduction of SARS-CoV-2 through frozen food was included owing to pressure from China. The report addressed this hypothesis for three reasons: analysis showed that frozen food imported from all over the world was sold at the Wuhan market, including frozen wild-animal meat; foodborne viral-disease outbreaks are widely documented, including occasionally from frozen foods; and SARS-CoV-2 can remain infectious when frozen4. Therefore, the team felt it could not rule out introduction from undercooked meat from infected animals...
In our report, we state that if evidence supporting any of the hypotheses becomes known following publication, phase 2 studies should carefully examine this. For instance, we described that there was evidence of the presence of live animals in the market at the end of December 2019, but that the data presented to the team did not show definitive evidence of live mammals. This evidence came to light after publication3 (as we discuss in more detail later in this article).
Another criticism was that the potential for introduction of SARS-CoV-2 through frozen food was included owing to pressure from China. The report addressed this hypothesis for three reasons: analysis showed that frozen food imported from all over the world was sold at the Wuhan market, including frozen wild-animal meat; foodborne viral-disease outbreaks are widely documented, including occasionally from frozen foods; and SARS-CoV-2 can remain infectious when frozen4. Therefore, the team felt it could not rule out introduction from undercooked meat from infected animals...
Again, it's open, anyone who cares can read the whole thing, written by scientists who were on the ground, this, at the time, at great risk to themselves.
Let's be clear on something, OK? There were good reasons for scientists to be working on the SARS type viruses before the outbreak of Covid, in particular because of the near misses of major epidemics in connection with MERS and related syndromes. MERS was stopped in its tracks by competence. No one at the time of MERS thought that an incompetent clown dressed up the color of an orangutan - again I do not mean to insult orangutans, a valuable and wonderful species, with the comparison - would bring childish ignorance, incompetence, and petulance into the office then occupied by Barack Obama.
Labs all over the world, in Los Angeles, in New York, in San Diego, in Boston, in London, in Paris, in Moscow, and in Dacca work with dangerous virus, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus, because it is essential to do so.
Chinese scientists are by and large excellent scientists. I've personally had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with many of them who were first rate. They are not slobs, and they are not out to take over the world.
A fucking opinion piece in a Murdoch publication has nothing to offer anyone. In my opinion - take it for what it's worth - anything in a Murdoch publication is either propaganda, prurient, and/or sensationalist, in that order.
Have a nice weekend.
October 15, 2021
Biden's CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality) Restores Rules Rescinded by Trump for Power Plants.
I subscribe online to Power Magazine via email. From a recent issue:
A commentary from it: CEQ Proposes to Restore Impactful NEPA Provisions
Some excerpts:
The federal government’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on Oct. 7 issued a proposed rulemaking to rescind several Trump-era regulatory amendments that limit the scope of environmental reviews completed by federal agencies under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). If finalized, the proposed rule would restore agencies’ discretion to broaden the scope of NEPA reviews.
NEPA is a procedural law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental, cultural, aesthetic, and other impacts of their proposed actions, including permit approvals for energy and related infrastructure projects. These requirements are intended to ensure that both federal agencies and the public are adequately informed about the anticipated impacts of a proposed agency action before the action occurs.
CEQ, which is within the executive office of the president, “coordinates the federal government’s efforts to improve, preserve, and protect America’s public health and environment.” In this role, CEQ has adopted NEPA regulations to guide federal agencies’ implementation of NEPA. As a supplement to CEQ’s regulations, many federal agencies have adopted their own NEPA regulations based on their unique roles, responsibilities, and organizational structures...
...According to CEQ, the 2020 NEPA Rule’s language improperly limits the statement of purpose and need to the applicant’s goals and thereby excludes other important factors, including the public interest, regulatory requirements, desired conditions on landscape or other environmental outcomes, and local economic needs. The proposal therefore would restore the preexisting regulatory language, providing that “[t]he statement shall briefly specify the underlying purpose and need to which the agency is responding in proposing the alternatives including the proposed action.” Based on this change, the proposal would make corresponding revisions to the regulatory definition of “reasonable alternatives...”
...Conclusion
Besides restoring impactful regulatory provisions that existed before the 2020 NEPA Rule, the proposal gives industry and the public a good insight into how the Biden administration plans on implementing NEPA. The proposal, for example, is laden with statements hinting at robust analyses of impacts related to climate change and environmental justice. Relatedly, it highlights an example where a federal agency could select the “no action alternative” instead of a proposed action related to fossil-fuel leasing (the Bureau of Land Management is currently undergoing a review of its coal-leasing program.). In short, the writing is on the wall when it comes to NEPA reviews, and power companies will need to plan and adapt accordingly.
NEPA is a procedural law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental, cultural, aesthetic, and other impacts of their proposed actions, including permit approvals for energy and related infrastructure projects. These requirements are intended to ensure that both federal agencies and the public are adequately informed about the anticipated impacts of a proposed agency action before the action occurs.
CEQ, which is within the executive office of the president, “coordinates the federal government’s efforts to improve, preserve, and protect America’s public health and environment.” In this role, CEQ has adopted NEPA regulations to guide federal agencies’ implementation of NEPA. As a supplement to CEQ’s regulations, many federal agencies have adopted their own NEPA regulations based on their unique roles, responsibilities, and organizational structures...
...According to CEQ, the 2020 NEPA Rule’s language improperly limits the statement of purpose and need to the applicant’s goals and thereby excludes other important factors, including the public interest, regulatory requirements, desired conditions on landscape or other environmental outcomes, and local economic needs. The proposal therefore would restore the preexisting regulatory language, providing that “[t]he statement shall briefly specify the underlying purpose and need to which the agency is responding in proposing the alternatives including the proposed action.” Based on this change, the proposal would make corresponding revisions to the regulatory definition of “reasonable alternatives...”
...Conclusion
Besides restoring impactful regulatory provisions that existed before the 2020 NEPA Rule, the proposal gives industry and the public a good insight into how the Biden administration plans on implementing NEPA. The proposal, for example, is laden with statements hinting at robust analyses of impacts related to climate change and environmental justice. Relatedly, it highlights an example where a federal agency could select the “no action alternative” instead of a proposed action related to fossil-fuel leasing (the Bureau of Land Management is currently undergoing a review of its coal-leasing program.). In short, the writing is on the wall when it comes to NEPA reviews, and power companies will need to plan and adapt accordingly.
October 14, 2021
The Boxer
October 13, 2021
I bolded the sentence containing the words, "...the naïve hope of displacement with renewables isn't supported by evidence."
Facts matter.
So called "renewable energy" has always been nothing more than lipstick on the dangerous natural gas pig, and now the pig owns the world.
We hear a lot that so called "renewable energy" has been killing coal, but now coal prices are following gas prices and going through the roof.
U.K. Turns to Coal as Low Wind Output Increases Power Prices
The decline of coal is entirely a function of the rise of gas, and nothing else.
Gas is not clean; it is not "green." It's a dangerous fossil fuel, and it is becoming clear that it can't keep this big lie, the one about how so called "renewable energy" will save the world, from exposing the obvious reality, reality reflected in the rapidly rising, first and second derivative, concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere.
There is no good reason for energy poverty or the destruction of the planetary atmosphere other than the lies we tell ourselves. It is not true that "nuclear energy is 'too dangerous'" but climate change isn't "too dangerous."
Let's be clear: Our reliance on fantasy rather than facts is quite literally killing the planet, quickly.
Facts Matter.
Here's an opinion piece from the former head of the Estonian Geological Survey who cofounded a company, Fermi Energia.
Viewpoint: Energy crisis demands quickly-scalable SMRs
In January 2019, I decided to quit my job as Deputy Director of the Estonian Geological Survey and incorporate a great team of Estonian nuclear engineering PhDs and a former CEO of our national power utility into our new company, Fermi Energia. The reason was that, from my own PhD studies, I became deeply convinced that Europe's climate policy and decarbonisation goal would lead to very high carbon prices and loss of competitiveness of fossil fuels...
...This year started with a new administration in the USA, which shortly after swearing in President Biden, re-entered the Paris Agreement on climate change. New pragmatic diplomacy combined with a joint push from the G7 meetings in June are now clearly impacting the future of coal generation, which is now in terminal decline. Even China is committed to climate neutrality, and coal power generation is in significant decline due to banks and investors being unwilling to finance new mines, plants and equipment providers.
But coal still dominates power generation and the naïve hope of displacement with renewables isn't supported by evidence. The reality of the switch to gas has driven up global gas demand and has led to the energy price crisis of 2021. Power retailer bankruptcies, industrial closures and energy poverty are the new reality that the nuclear industry has long warned the European decision makers about.
This is a significant mid-term problem as the quantity of coal power generation is 8735 TWh globally. In the EU, we still burn about 250 million tonnes of coal annually for power. In comparison, China burns 400 million tonnes of coal for district heat with the national aim to switch to cleaner fuels. Thus, the demand for gas will be very, very strong for decades, creating a very supportive investment environment for nuclear energy, with power prices potentially remaining well above EUR80/MWh for the period of high gas demand. Price of power in Western Europe as of 7 October this year, prior to the closure of three German nuclear power plants, reached EUR302/MWh. Many industries are about to shut down. Political ramifications are about to unfold...
...This year started with a new administration in the USA, which shortly after swearing in President Biden, re-entered the Paris Agreement on climate change. New pragmatic diplomacy combined with a joint push from the G7 meetings in June are now clearly impacting the future of coal generation, which is now in terminal decline. Even China is committed to climate neutrality, and coal power generation is in significant decline due to banks and investors being unwilling to finance new mines, plants and equipment providers.
But coal still dominates power generation and the naïve hope of displacement with renewables isn't supported by evidence. The reality of the switch to gas has driven up global gas demand and has led to the energy price crisis of 2021. Power retailer bankruptcies, industrial closures and energy poverty are the new reality that the nuclear industry has long warned the European decision makers about.
This is a significant mid-term problem as the quantity of coal power generation is 8735 TWh globally. In the EU, we still burn about 250 million tonnes of coal annually for power. In comparison, China burns 400 million tonnes of coal for district heat with the national aim to switch to cleaner fuels. Thus, the demand for gas will be very, very strong for decades, creating a very supportive investment environment for nuclear energy, with power prices potentially remaining well above EUR80/MWh for the period of high gas demand. Price of power in Western Europe as of 7 October this year, prior to the closure of three German nuclear power plants, reached EUR302/MWh. Many industries are about to shut down. Political ramifications are about to unfold...
I bolded the sentence containing the words, "...the naïve hope of displacement with renewables isn't supported by evidence."
Facts matter.
So called "renewable energy" has always been nothing more than lipstick on the dangerous natural gas pig, and now the pig owns the world.
We hear a lot that so called "renewable energy" has been killing coal, but now coal prices are following gas prices and going through the roof.
U.K. Turns to Coal as Low Wind Output Increases Power Prices
The decline of coal is entirely a function of the rise of gas, and nothing else.
Gas is not clean; it is not "green." It's a dangerous fossil fuel, and it is becoming clear that it can't keep this big lie, the one about how so called "renewable energy" will save the world, from exposing the obvious reality, reality reflected in the rapidly rising, first and second derivative, concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere.
There is no good reason for energy poverty or the destruction of the planetary atmosphere other than the lies we tell ourselves. It is not true that "nuclear energy is 'too dangerous'" but climate change isn't "too dangerous."
Let's be clear: Our reliance on fantasy rather than facts is quite literally killing the planet, quickly.
October 13, 2021
The thermodynamics of variable coal use are a sight to behold, not that anyone gives a rat's ass about thermodynamics. It's not quite as popular as the idea of making energy dependent on the weather while weakly addressing the destabilization of the weather with wishful thinking and outright denial.
U.K. Turns to Coal as Low Wind Output Increases Power Prices
Bloomberg: U.K. Turns to Coal as Low Wind Output Increases Power Prices
U.K. power prices rose after a coal power plant switched on Monday to make up for a shortfall in wind generation and limited flows on two power cables to Ireland.
Britain is set to end the use of coal within three years and to make power generation fossil fuel-free by 2035. For now the nation is still reliant on coal when the wind drops or demand increases and this winter is set to be even tighter than grid operator National Grid Plc expected.
High gas prices are making coal generation more profitable and capacity cuts on two interconnectors to Ireland are limiting one source of potential imports. The Irish network operator has cited “system security reasons” for restrictions.
“We’re already seeing in times of tightness in interconnected countries that imports to the U.K are constrained,” Adam Lewis partner at Hartree Solutions said. “This differs from National Grid’s Winter outlook assumptions that the U.K. will always be able to incentivize imports.”
The baseload power price for Tuesday rose 16% to 253.67 pounds (298.96 euros) per megawatt-hours on N2EX-exchange. The U.K. has not seen a daily power price below 100 pounds per megawatt-hour since the middle of August. Intraday prices were 248.10 pounds for the 30-minute period to 9 a.m. on Epex Spot.
The nation doesn’t use coal all the time but it is needed when markets are tight. National Grid asked Uniper to switch on a unit at its Ratcliffe coal-fired power plant to help make up the shortfall in wind. The U.K. has burned 2 terawatt-hours of coal this year, about 2% of total power generation, according to data from Fraunhofer ISE.
U.K. power generation from coal in October
U.K. wind output dropped as low as 4,416 megawatt on Monday, down from high of 13,396 megawatt reached on Tuesday last week, according to National Grid data. The forecast looks set to decline to Wednesday.
Chart of Bloomberg’s U.K. wind model:
European energy markets swung wildly on Monday with the benchmark Dutch gas contract gaining as much as 8.3% to 94.91 euros per megawatt-hours before dropping to 87 euros on ICE Endex. The German power contract for next month recovered some of its earlier 15% loss to trade 5.1% down at 178 euros, while benchmark for next year added 0.5% to 119.50 euros.
Britain is set to end the use of coal within three years and to make power generation fossil fuel-free by 2035. For now the nation is still reliant on coal when the wind drops or demand increases and this winter is set to be even tighter than grid operator National Grid Plc expected.
High gas prices are making coal generation more profitable and capacity cuts on two interconnectors to Ireland are limiting one source of potential imports. The Irish network operator has cited “system security reasons” for restrictions.
“We’re already seeing in times of tightness in interconnected countries that imports to the U.K are constrained,” Adam Lewis partner at Hartree Solutions said. “This differs from National Grid’s Winter outlook assumptions that the U.K. will always be able to incentivize imports.”
The baseload power price for Tuesday rose 16% to 253.67 pounds (298.96 euros) per megawatt-hours on N2EX-exchange. The U.K. has not seen a daily power price below 100 pounds per megawatt-hour since the middle of August. Intraday prices were 248.10 pounds for the 30-minute period to 9 a.m. on Epex Spot.
The nation doesn’t use coal all the time but it is needed when markets are tight. National Grid asked Uniper to switch on a unit at its Ratcliffe coal-fired power plant to help make up the shortfall in wind. The U.K. has burned 2 terawatt-hours of coal this year, about 2% of total power generation, according to data from Fraunhofer ISE.
U.K. power generation from coal in October
U.K. wind output dropped as low as 4,416 megawatt on Monday, down from high of 13,396 megawatt reached on Tuesday last week, according to National Grid data. The forecast looks set to decline to Wednesday.
Chart of Bloomberg’s U.K. wind model:
European energy markets swung wildly on Monday with the benchmark Dutch gas contract gaining as much as 8.3% to 94.91 euros per megawatt-hours before dropping to 87 euros on ICE Endex. The German power contract for next month recovered some of its earlier 15% loss to trade 5.1% down at 178 euros, while benchmark for next year added 0.5% to 119.50 euros.
The thermodynamics of variable coal use are a sight to behold, not that anyone gives a rat's ass about thermodynamics. It's not quite as popular as the idea of making energy dependent on the weather while weakly addressing the destabilization of the weather with wishful thinking and outright denial.
October 7, 2021
The CANDU reactor is a heavy water moderated reactor (HWR), which allows for continuous operation with natural (unenriched) uranium. To my knowledge, the two existing reactors at Cernavoda are the only HWR reactors operating in Europe.
This puts Romania in the "cat bird" seat in Europe because of the remarkable properties of these reactors. (Of all thermal nuclear reactors, these are by far, my favorite.)
All of Canada's nuclear power reactors are of this type but the biggest player in the world for this design is India, which originally purchased reactors from Canada before deciding to manufacture reactors of the same design domestically. South Korea also utilizes a few HWR type reactors, I believe of Canadian design. India has been interested in this reactor because of its huge supply of thorium. Fueled with thorium, because of the high neutron efficiency of the HWR, coupled with the reasonably high value of the value of "Eta" for uranium-233 which is made from thorium, HWR can act as breeders, albeit with a much lower breeding ratio than fast reactors running on plutonium.
When run on natural uranium, the HWR has low "burn ups" of around 7000 MWd/ton. (MWd = Megawatt days, a unit of energy, not power.) "Burn ups" can be thought of as fuel efficiency, sort of like miles per gallon. PWRs and BWRs which dominate the world nuclear fleet have much higher burnups. Modern fuel management techniques have allowed for burn ups in the range of 30,000 - 40,000 MWd/ton.
HWRs can also run on uranium discharged from other types of moderated reactors, such as the far more common PWR's and BWRs, thus turning so called "nuclear waste" into a fuel source. This fuel cycle is called the DUPIC cycle. It offers a very special tool for avoiding uranium mining. (I argue that pathways exist to eliminate the need for uranium mining indefinitely; the uranium and thorium already mined have an energy content sufficient to sustain all of humanity's energy needs for centuries.)
One of the major advantages of the DUPIC cycle is its ability to provide neptunium and plutonium-238, since once through uranium contains (via neutron capture rather than fission of U-235) significant quantities of U-236. As a result any plutonium produced in the reactor will have a considerable heat load from plutonium-238 - the isotope that powers space craft - making it useless for use in nuclear weapons.
In fact, an option that I feel should be explored would be to denature weapons grade plutonium by running CANDU type reactors on a ternary mixture of weapons grade plutonium, once through uranium, and thorium. Under these circumstances, very high burn ups, perhaps much higher than those found in PWRs and BWR may be achieved. If I recall correctly, I've seen figures of 60,000 MWd/ton.
Nicolae Ceaușescu was, of course, a monster, a Trumpian/Stalinist figure, but the reactors at Cernavoda are nonetheless, a positive resource for humanity and I'm very pleased that Romania has an energy policy that will exploit these resources for all of Europe and all of humanity, irrespective of a tragic history by which they came. This is especially important given the high gas prices in Europe because the wind stopped blowing. These reactors will soften the blow of future Dunkelflaute events like those being experienced presently in Europe and California, softening the climate impacts of the wind/gas pair as well as the economic impact which disproportionately effects the poor.
It is notable, also included in the same article, that Romania plans to develop lead cooled fast reactors. This should put Romania at the center of any European effort to avoid the need for uranium mining for generations.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
Romania plans to double nuclear capacity.
Romanian energy policy will see nuclear doubleThe Romanian government has adopted an integrated energy plan that calls for two new CANDU reactors at Cernavoda by 2031 and the refurbishment of an existing unit there in 2037. It would double the country's nuclear power supply in a decade.
Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said the Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate Change is a "comprehensive document, which has been developed and adapted to the latest realities." It was adopted at a government meeting yesterday, the Ministry of Energy announced.
The plan is designed to address the five main aspects of collective energy policy for countries in the European Union: energy security, decarbonisation, energy efficiency, the internal energy market, and research, innovation and competitiveness. Drafts of the document have been commented on by professionals and civil society groups, as well as by the European Commission. The final version is now to be logged with the EU.
Nuclear energy already plays a major strategic role in Romanian power supply, with two CANDU reactors at the Cernavoda power plant supplying about 19% of electricity, and under this plan it would double in size. Construction of Cernavoda started in 1983 under the regime of former President Nicolae Ceaușescu and the two units were completed in 1996 and 2007. Two more CANDUs were always planned for the site and it is Romania's firm policy to complete them.
The plan approved yesterday foresees these new units - Cernavoda 3 and 4 - starting up in 2030 and 2031, respectively, with capacities of 675 MWe each. Romania has already signed a range of agreements towards this project with international partners, including the USA, France and Canada...
...Refurbishment of Cernavoda 1 and 2 is also part of the plan. Unit 1 could undergo the procedure in around 2027-8 and unit 2 after 2037, granting each unit an extra 30 years of operation. This is "an effective solution" the plan said, given service life extension "is done at costs around 40% of new equivalent capacity." By doing this the country can "ensure the supply of electricity without greenhouse gas emissions, with minimal impact on the environment, at competitive costs, thus contributing sustainably to the decarbonisation of the energy sector and achieving Romania's energy and environment targets for 2030, in line with the objectives assumed at European and even global level (Paris Agreement)", the plan states.
Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said the Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate Change is a "comprehensive document, which has been developed and adapted to the latest realities." It was adopted at a government meeting yesterday, the Ministry of Energy announced.
The plan is designed to address the five main aspects of collective energy policy for countries in the European Union: energy security, decarbonisation, energy efficiency, the internal energy market, and research, innovation and competitiveness. Drafts of the document have been commented on by professionals and civil society groups, as well as by the European Commission. The final version is now to be logged with the EU.
Nuclear energy already plays a major strategic role in Romanian power supply, with two CANDU reactors at the Cernavoda power plant supplying about 19% of electricity, and under this plan it would double in size. Construction of Cernavoda started in 1983 under the regime of former President Nicolae Ceaușescu and the two units were completed in 1996 and 2007. Two more CANDUs were always planned for the site and it is Romania's firm policy to complete them.
The plan approved yesterday foresees these new units - Cernavoda 3 and 4 - starting up in 2030 and 2031, respectively, with capacities of 675 MWe each. Romania has already signed a range of agreements towards this project with international partners, including the USA, France and Canada...
...Refurbishment of Cernavoda 1 and 2 is also part of the plan. Unit 1 could undergo the procedure in around 2027-8 and unit 2 after 2037, granting each unit an extra 30 years of operation. This is "an effective solution" the plan said, given service life extension "is done at costs around 40% of new equivalent capacity." By doing this the country can "ensure the supply of electricity without greenhouse gas emissions, with minimal impact on the environment, at competitive costs, thus contributing sustainably to the decarbonisation of the energy sector and achieving Romania's energy and environment targets for 2030, in line with the objectives assumed at European and even global level (Paris Agreement)", the plan states.
The CANDU reactor is a heavy water moderated reactor (HWR), which allows for continuous operation with natural (unenriched) uranium. To my knowledge, the two existing reactors at Cernavoda are the only HWR reactors operating in Europe.
This puts Romania in the "cat bird" seat in Europe because of the remarkable properties of these reactors. (Of all thermal nuclear reactors, these are by far, my favorite.)
All of Canada's nuclear power reactors are of this type but the biggest player in the world for this design is India, which originally purchased reactors from Canada before deciding to manufacture reactors of the same design domestically. South Korea also utilizes a few HWR type reactors, I believe of Canadian design. India has been interested in this reactor because of its huge supply of thorium. Fueled with thorium, because of the high neutron efficiency of the HWR, coupled with the reasonably high value of the value of "Eta" for uranium-233 which is made from thorium, HWR can act as breeders, albeit with a much lower breeding ratio than fast reactors running on plutonium.
When run on natural uranium, the HWR has low "burn ups" of around 7000 MWd/ton. (MWd = Megawatt days, a unit of energy, not power.) "Burn ups" can be thought of as fuel efficiency, sort of like miles per gallon. PWRs and BWRs which dominate the world nuclear fleet have much higher burnups. Modern fuel management techniques have allowed for burn ups in the range of 30,000 - 40,000 MWd/ton.
HWRs can also run on uranium discharged from other types of moderated reactors, such as the far more common PWR's and BWRs, thus turning so called "nuclear waste" into a fuel source. This fuel cycle is called the DUPIC cycle. It offers a very special tool for avoiding uranium mining. (I argue that pathways exist to eliminate the need for uranium mining indefinitely; the uranium and thorium already mined have an energy content sufficient to sustain all of humanity's energy needs for centuries.)
One of the major advantages of the DUPIC cycle is its ability to provide neptunium and plutonium-238, since once through uranium contains (via neutron capture rather than fission of U-235) significant quantities of U-236. As a result any plutonium produced in the reactor will have a considerable heat load from plutonium-238 - the isotope that powers space craft - making it useless for use in nuclear weapons.
In fact, an option that I feel should be explored would be to denature weapons grade plutonium by running CANDU type reactors on a ternary mixture of weapons grade plutonium, once through uranium, and thorium. Under these circumstances, very high burn ups, perhaps much higher than those found in PWRs and BWR may be achieved. If I recall correctly, I've seen figures of 60,000 MWd/ton.
Nicolae Ceaușescu was, of course, a monster, a Trumpian/Stalinist figure, but the reactors at Cernavoda are nonetheless, a positive resource for humanity and I'm very pleased that Romania has an energy policy that will exploit these resources for all of Europe and all of humanity, irrespective of a tragic history by which they came. This is especially important given the high gas prices in Europe because the wind stopped blowing. These reactors will soften the blow of future Dunkelflaute events like those being experienced presently in Europe and California, softening the climate impacts of the wind/gas pair as well as the economic impact which disproportionately effects the poor.
It is notable, also included in the same article, that Romania plans to develop lead cooled fast reactors. This should put Romania at the center of any European effort to avoid the need for uranium mining for generations.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleCurrent location: New Jersey
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 33,512
