PM's flawed arguments for Oi reactor restarts play on fear, hobble reform

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's June 8 news conference on the restart of reactors at the Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture appealed neither to our reason nor our hearts. The message he was trying to convey -- that the Oi plant reactors are safe and need to be brought back online -- was plainly aimed not at the Japanese people, but at Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa, whose okay is needed to flip the switch.

This approach cannot possibly win the support of the public, and there are a number of serious flaws with it. First of all, Noda stated that "accidents can be prevented even if the Oi plant is hit with an earthquake or tsunami on the scale of the one that struck Fukushima," and "even if the plant lost power, this would not result in damage to the reactor cores."

To begin with, the greatest lesson we've learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is that no matter how thorough preparations may be, accidents can still happen. Nevertheless, Noda has gone back to the now broken premise that "accidents can't happen" as a way to push forward with the Oi reactor restarts. In other words, the government has returned to the "safety myth" that underpinned nuclear power in Japan before the Fukushima disaster.

We must also take issue with using "Fukushima-like" as a parameter for defining "guaranteed safety." Whatever shape the next accident takes, it certainly won't be exactly the same as the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Internationally, the safety of nuclear power is generally based on five "layers" of protection...

UK nuclear plans 'need saving by David Cameron and Francois Hollande'
Commons committee chairman Tim Yeo says heads of state must intervene, after EDF casts doubt on its UK investment

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 June 2012 12.10 EDT

The prime minister must step in urgently to rescue the UK's nuclear power programme, or risk it failing, a senior Tory has warned after French nuclear company EDF gave a downbeat report on the prospects for a new fleet of reactors in the UK.

Chairman of the influential energy and climate change committee and former Tory cabinet minister Tim Yeo said that Cameron must speak to his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, in order to decide what conditions are necessary for the state-owned French utility to fulfil its planned investment.

"This is something that can only be done by the heads of government of Britain and France," he told the Guardian. "There may need to be special arrangements for nuclear [separate from the regulation and subsidy of other forms of power]. Given the size of this investment – billions and billions, with a return on investment coming well into the 2020s – this has to involve the heads of government."

Yeo was speaking after the committee's MPs questioned EDF Energy chief executive Vincent de Rivaz and several other energy company senior directors. De Rivaz was "very downbeat" on the prospects for new nuclear power stations, said Yeo...

Must-Read: Scientists Uncover Evidence Of Impending Tipping Point For Earth
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 10, 2012 at 2:42 pm

JR: If we stay anywhere near our current greenhouse gas emissions path, we will cross many climate tipping points this century. There’s the nearby tipping point for an ice-free arctic, with all that means for making our weather much more extreme and for triggering another tipping point, the rapid loss of carbon from the permafrost. There’s the tipping point for the “self-amplifying” disintegration of Greenland and, after that, an ice free planet (though we’d cross the point of no return long before the full melting ever happened). Other lines are blurrier: Dust-Bowlification looks to be a continuous process. But the key point is that the changes that occur are largely irreversible over an extended timeframe (see NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe).
We’re near 400 parts per million atmospheric concentration of C02, rising 2+ ppm a year (a rate that is projected to rise as emissions increase and carbon sinks saturate). While no one knows the exact line of demarcation for the various tipping points, the latest science suggests that if we go substantially above, say, 450 ppm we risk starting the chain of events, while going substantially above 500 ppm seems downright suicidal (see links below). We are, sadly, on track for 800 to 1000 ppm this century, which would be the end of modern civilization as we know it today, according to the most recent science. Long before then, however, we’ll cross all the big tipping points. Indeed, as Dr. Tim Lenton explains in Scientific American, ”The worse case would be that kind of scenario in which you tip one thing and that encourages the tipping of another. You get these cascading effects.”
A major new study has been released on tipping points in Nature, “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere” (subs. req’d). The news release is reposted below.

UC Berkeley professor Tony Barnosky explains how an increasing human population, coupled with climate change, could irreversibly alter Earth’s ecosystem. (Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian)
by Robert Sanders, via UC Berkeley News Center


A prestigious group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.

“It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point,” warns Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of ...

European Commission Calls for Coordinated Approach to Renewables

he European Commission is calling for a more coordinated approach to the support and use of renewables beyond the region-wide target of 20% renewables by 2020.

The Commission urges the establishment of a solid framework beyond that deadline to give regulatory certainty to investors. The “lack of certainty” on the direction of future policies is hindering progress, says the Commission. The approach risks missing out on growth in renewables that generate up to 3 million jobs, boost GDP and save over €500 billion in oil imports.

The EU should be focusing on four main areas for renewed efforts, says the Communication: addressing the energy market and the need for generation incentives that integrate renewables; making support schemes more consistent across the region; encouraging cooperation among member states; and particularly cooperation across Mediterranean states.

“We should continue to develop renewable energy and promote innovative solutions,” commented Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. “We have to do it in a cost-efficient way. This means: producing wind and solar power where it makes economic sense and trading it within Europe, as we do for other products and services.”

Beyond 2020...

Germany Ranks Highest in Renewable Energy Production

European countries, led by Germany, get more of their electricity from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable sources than any other region in the world, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Virginia Lawmaker Says ‘Sea Level Rise’ Is A ‘Left Wing Term,’ Excises It From State Report On Coastal Flooding
By Rebecca Leber on Jun 10, 2012 at 6:59 pm

Virginia’s legislature commissioned a $50,000 study to determine the impacts of climate change on the state’s shores. To greenlight the project, they omitted words like “climate change” and “sea level rise” from the study’s description itself. According to the House of Delegates sponsor of the study, these are “liberal code words,” even though they are noncontroversial in the climate science community.

Instead of using climate change, sea level rise, and global warming, the study uses terms like “coastal resiliency” and “recurrent flooding.” Republican State Delegate Chris Stolle, who steered the legislation, cut “sea level rise” from the draft. Stolle has also said the “jury’s still out” on humans’ impact on global warming:

State Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, who insisted on changing the “sea level rise” study in the General Assembly to one on “recurrent flooding,” said he wants to get political speech out of the mix altogether.
He said “sea level rise” is a “left-wing term” that conjures up animosities on the right. So why bring it into the equation?
“What people care about is the floodwater coming through their door,” Stolle said. “Let’s focus on that. Let’s study that. So that’s what I wanted us to call it.”

There is a resistance to calling science what it is, even in...

Fred Singer Promotes Fossil Fuels Through Myths And Misinformation
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 11, 2012 at 9:45 am
by Dana Nucitelli, via Skeptical Science

Climate contrarians have been busy lately. In the past few weeks we’ve seen two Gish Gallops from Australian geologists (one of which was extremely politically-charged), a gross distortion of reality from another geologist (this one an American), and now we have yet another politically-charged article from another climate contrarian – Fred Singer, who John Mashey documented was linked to the Climate Research ‘pal review’ scandal through his connections with the ‘pal review’ authors via various fossil fuel-funded political think tanks.

In this case, Singer has written a pro-Mitt Romney (the US Republican Party 2012 presidential nominee) editorial, essentially pleading with Romney to pursue an exclusively fossil fuel-based energy policy. As we will see here, Singer’s arguments are based on a number of energy-related myths, as well as climate-related conspiracies.

Singer Invokes Inhofe of all People
Although it was somewhat buried in his editorial, we should start off by highlighting Singer’s lone science-related statement, which invoked Senator James Inhofe of all people:

“Romney should speak out on the “hoax” (to use Senator Inhofe’s term) of climate catastrophes from rising CO2 levels.”

As we noted when discussing Ian Plimer’s Gish Gallop and John Mashey’s pal review research, conspiracy theories are one of the five characteristics of scientific denialism, and few people embody the climate conspiracy theory better than James Inhofe. Thus it’s puzzling why Singer would defer to Inhofe on his only science-related comment in this article.

Regardless, as with his climate contrarian colleagues, Singer is ...

Poll: Public Doesn’t Agree With Conservatives’ Extreme Views On Regulation
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 11, 2012 at 11:31 am
by Ruy Teixeira

When conservatives aren’t talking about cutting taxes for the rich, they’re getting misty-eyed about removing business regulations. Indeed, nothing less than the obliteration of all current restrictions on business would appear to satisfy them. There’s just one problem: The public doesn’t share this commitment.
On the contrary, the public understands that a free market economy needs regulation to serve the common good. And as a matter of fact, that was its verdict by a wide 63-31 margin in the Pew Research Center’s new American Values Survey released in April.



In the same survey, the public called for stricter laws and regulations when it comes to protecting the environment by an overwhelming 74-25 margin.



Conservatives may be convinced ...

Poll: Public Doesn’t Agree With Conservatives’ Extreme Views On Regulation
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 11, 2012 at 11:31 am
by Ruy Teixeira
When conservatives aren’t talking about cutting taxes for the rich, they’re getting misty-eyed about removing business regulations. Indeed, nothing less than the obliteration of all current restrictions on business would appear to satisfy them. There’s just one problem: The public doesn’t share this commitment.
On the contrary, the public understands that a free market economy needs regulation to serve the common good. And as a matter of fact, that was its verdict by a wide 63-31 margin in the Pew Research Center’s new American Values Survey released in April.



In the same survey, the public called for stricter laws and regulations when it comes to protecting the environment by an overwhelming 74-25 margin.



Conservatives may be convinced ...