Report: Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline More Of An Economic Liability Than Benefit
by Danielle Droitsch, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard

A new report from the Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute shows how the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is an economic liability with the potential to cause significant job losses from a major tar sands spill.

Because tar sands oil is more corrosive and toxic than conventional oil, it can increase the frequency of pipeline spills. Moreover, a tar sands spill causes far more damage than a conventional oil spill. Take, for example, the 1.2 million gallon tar sands spill on the Kalamazoo River in Marshall Michigan in 2010 where the clean up costs have been 10 times higher than a typical conventional oil spill.

While there has been a lot of attention to the possible jobs created from the Keystone XL pipeline – far less than what proponents claim – there has been very little attention to jobs that could be lost from a tar sands spill. Keystone XL is expected experience up to 91 significant spills over a 50-year period. Which jobs are at risk? Hundreds of thousands of workers in the agricultural and tourism sectors contribute ten of billions of dollars to the economy in the Keystone XL pipeline states. The Cornell report helps illustrate yet one more reason why the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline should be rejected....

Australia passes controversial nuclear waste bill
Radioactive material set to be dumped in remote Aboriginal community, despite ongoing court case into legality of proposal

The Australian government has passed legislation that will create the country's first nuclear waste dump, despite fierce opposition from environmental and Aboriginal groups.


The passage of the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 through the Senate paves the way for a highly controversial plan to store nuclear waste in Muckaty Station, a remote Aboriginal community in the arid central region of the Northern Territory.


The ruling Labor party received support from the conservative coalition opposition to approve the bill, despite an ongoing federal court case over the legality of using the Muckaty site to store radioactive material.


Currently, nuclear waste from the medical and mining industries is stored in more than 100 "temporary" sites in universities, hospitals, offices and laboratories across Australia.


Anti-nuclear protesters ...

Twin Creeks, a solar power startup that emerged from hiding today, has developed a way of creating photovoltaic cells that are half the price of today’s cheapest cells, and thus within reach of challenging the fossil fuel hegemony. The best bit: Twin Creeks’ photovoltaic cells are created using a hydrogen ion particle accelerator.

As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect (when photons hit the silicon, it excites the electrons and generates a charge). There are two problems with this approach: Much in the same way that sawdust is produced when you slice wood, almost half of the silicon block is wasted when it’s cut into 200-micrometer slices; and second, the panels would still function just as well if they were thinner than 200 micrometers, but silicon is brittle and prone to cracking if it’s too thin.



This is where Twin Creeks’ ion cannon, dubbed Hyperion, comes into play. If you look at the picture above, 3-millimeter-thick silicon wafers are placed around the outside edge of the big, spoked wheel. A particle accelerator bombards these wafers with hydrogen ions, and with exacting control of the voltage of the accelerator, the hydrogen ions accumulate precisely 20 micrometers from the surface of each wafer. A robotic arm then transports the wafers to a furnace where the ions expand into hydrogen gas, which cause the 20-micrometer-thick layer to shear off. A metal backing is applied to make it less fragile (and highly flexible, as you see on the right), and the remaining silicon wafer is taken back to the particle accelerator for another dose of ions. At a tenth of the thickness and with considerably less wastage, it’s easy to see how Twin Creeks can halve the cost of solar cells.

According to Technology Review, ion beams have been considered before, but particle accelerators were simply too expensive to be commercially viable. This is the flip side of Twin Creeks’ innovation: It had to make its own particle accelerator which is “10 times more powerful” (100mA at 1 MeV) than anything on the market today.

When all’s said and done, if you buy Twin Creeks’ equipment, it is promising a cost of around 40 cents per watt...

Heritage Foundation Touts Nukes as Vital to American Way of Life

By Press Action

...In one of the industry’s pro-nuclear efforts, the right-wing Heritage Foundation has released a new documentary, “Powering America,” that touts nuclear power as a viable energy source for the 21st century.

In a slick trailer for the documentary film, one of the people interviewed says the public should not fear nuclear power. “Radiation simply is energy in motion. That’s from cosmic rays. That’s from radon that comes out of the ground. That’s from the food you eat,” he says. “The issue is not to be afraid of radiation. The issue is to understand it and to respect it just like any other energy source.”

The talking head correctly notes that almost all rocks in the ground contain natural radioactive compounds. These compounds emit alpha and beta radiation. But the talking head fails to note that most of this radiation gets absorbed by the rocks themselves and never makes it into the air.

Also, naturally radioactive compounds are found in the air, soil and water. So, yes, the food we eat is slightly radioactive. Our bodies are made from the food we eat so we are also a little bit radioactive.

But the ...

One Year Post Fukushima, Americans Are Divided About the Risks of Nuclear Power
Region and age show divides over attitudes on nuclear power


NEW YORK, March 14, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- One year post-Fukushima and the nuclear disaster in Japan, American attitudes about nuclear energy have become polarized. The most recent results show a shift towards believing the risks outweigh the benefits, and now slightly more Americans believe the risks of nuclear energy outweigh the benefits (41% to 40%). In 2009 and 2011, the benefits of nuclear power outweighed the risks (44% to 34% in 2009 and 42% to 37% in 2011). Harris Poll research in 2011 was conducted before the disaster.

...

This research points to some very distinct geographic differences among Americans. Regional differences may be a reflection of familiarity. The South has the greatest concentration of nuclear power plants (almost twice as many as the East) and the highest percentage of adults who believe the benefits outweigh the risks (43%, compared to 33% in the East and 41% in the Midwest and West).

There is also a clear age divide as Baby Boomers (ages 48-66) and Matures (67 and older) are more likely to say benefits of nuclear power outweigh the risks than both Echo Boomers (ages 18-35) and Gen Xers (ages 36-47) are. Party preference is indicative of attitudes about nuclear power as well. Republicans are the most likely to believe the benefits outweigh the risks (51%) and Independents are more likely than Democrats to say the benefits outweigh the risks (43% among Independents and only 32% among Democrats). Democrats seem to be a large driver of the sentiment that risks outweigh benefits for nuclear....

bananas Thu Sep-23-10 05:46 PM
The Bathtub Curve
Nuclear power plants follow a bathtub curve, and these plants are starting to run up the far end of the bathtub curve, where the probability of multiple simultaneous component failures resulting in catastrophic failure skyrockets.
http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue21/hottopics21.htm

IAEA : Older nuclear plants pose safety challenge
REUTERS

VIENNA -- Eighty percent of the world's nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, which could impact safety, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Many operators have begun programs, or expressed their intention, to run reactors beyond their planned design lifetimes, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document which has not yet been made public.

"There are growing expectations that older nuclear reactors should meet enhanced safety objectives, closer to that of recent or future reactor designs," the Vienna-based U.N. agency's annual Nuclear Safety Review said.

"There is a concern about the ability of the ageing nuclear fleet to fulfill these expectations and to continue to economically and efficiently support member states' energy requirements."

The Fukushima tragedy ...

Mainichi scoop on Mongolia's nuclear plans highlights problems in dealing with waste

Coverage on a secret document detailing an international nuclear waste disposal site that Japan and the United States had planned to build in Mongolia, for which I won the Vaughan-Ueda Memorial Prize for 2011, has highlighted the difficulties in dealing with radioactive waste.

The secret plan surfaced as the crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant has stirred controversy over the pros and cons of nuclear power.

I learned that the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and the U.S. Department of Energy had been secretly negotiating the plan with Mongolia since the autumn of 2010 when I interviewed a U.S. nuclear expert on the phone on April 9, 2011.

"Would you please help the Mongolian people who know nothing about the plan. Mongolia is friendly to Japan, Japanese media certainly has influence on the country," the expert said.

I flew to Ulan Bator...

Japan struggles to handle plutonium as fast-breeder reactor project becomes unrealistic


In this file photo, the nuclear reactor Monju is seen in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, on Nov. 16, 2010. (Mainichi)

Japan has been fighting an urgent and difficult battle to dispose of accumulated plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel as it has become increasingly unrealistic to realize the country's long and expensive fast-breeder reactor project.

One gram of plutonium is said to have energy equal to 1 kiloliter of petroleum. If plutonium is mixed with uranium to create "MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel" and is burned at a fast-breeder reactor, more plutonium is produced than consumed. But now that it has become difficult to realize the government's project to build a fast-breeder reactor that was once dubbed a "dream reactor," Japan has been hard-pressed to dispose of accumulated plutonium.

Japan started the construction of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in 1985, and succeeded for the first time in generating power at the fast-breeder reactor in August 1995. But in December 1995, a fire broke out at the facility when sodium used as coolant leaked out. The operation of the reactor was resumed in 2010, but it has been plagued by a series of problems ever since, and therefore it is extremely difficult to put it into commercial use.

Based on the assumption that the fast-breeder reactor project will be carried out in the future, the Japanese government has extracted plutonium from spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants that run on uranium as fuel. As of the end of last December, Japan had about 45 metric tons of accumulated plutonium.

It is unforgivable, however....