Again – hard to focus on nuclear issues, as extreme climate events continue. Africa is suffering from a crippling drought, as is Indonesia. Europe Faces Another Record-Setting Heat Wave This Week . India cops both flooding and heatwaves. Record high temperatures in America. Australian writer – outlines the plight not only of his country, but of countries across the globe.
Nuclear news – less dramatic, but still important. In USA and UK, how to fund nuclear development is the preoccupation of the industry. The State of Ohio is just about to finalise a vote for a dodgy plan that will subsidise its nuclear plants, while ending incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Meanwhile the UK plan is for consumers to pay upfront through energy bills, for new nuclear projects before they’re even built, – and might not even be built. Alas, we don’t have access to information on Russia and China, but it appears that both countries are more and more relying on selling nuclear reactors overseas, rather than making them economically viable at home.
AUSTRALIA
NUCLEAR. Energy Minister Angus Taylor grilled by Labor, says no to Barnaby’s “free” nuclear fantasy. MP Barnaby Joyce suggests free electricity as an incentive for communities to host nuclear power plants. The National Party’s Barnaby Joyce recommends nuclear power for impoverished rural Australians. The probably insuperable hurdles to Australia getting nuclear reactors. John Quiggan demolishes the case for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in South Australia.
How the Mirrar Aboriginal people, helped by environmentalists stopped uranium mining at Jabiluka.
CLIMATE.
- Five years after carbon price repeal, Australia remains in policy abyss. Australian Greens are focusing on climate change – call for ‘climate emergency‘ this year. Greens push bill to prohibit coal funding.
- Adani coal mine protest: French journalists arrested while filming anti-coal activities. Warning on the likely police surveillance of young climate protestors. Federal Court Adani decision: Wangan and Jagalingou’s rights fight will continue. Adani’s search for scientists’ names – pressure on scientists to shut up about climate change, water scarcity?
No clear answer in sight, for Lynas’radioactive waste problem in rare earths project in Malaysia.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Electricity prices across the grid fall to zero as renewables reach 44% share. Melbourne’s tram network is set to be powered by the state’s largest solar farm. Northern Territory government backs 10GW solar and storage plant, biggest in world . Network plans for Victoria wind and solar sparks outrage from Federal Energy Minister Taylor. Fourth huge solar and battery project approved for South Australia. NSW to loan up to $14,000 to homes for rooftop solar and batteries. Solar industry fights back against surge of climate trolls on social media.
INTERNATIONAL
America’s original moon plan was to explode a nuclear bomb on the moon. A heightened solar cycle, by chance, reduced the exposure of Apollo astronauts to space radiation. Future space travellers will be, in reality, radiation guinea pigs.
Dangerous nuclear arms race to follow, if New Start Treaty is not renewed. World security needs nuclear New Start agreement – USA-Russia, not a distraction about China.
July to be world’s hottest month on record.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano dies at 72.
New research shows how low dose ionising radiation promotes cancer.
The radioactively polluted oceans.
MARSHALL ISLANDS. New revelations on the very high radiation in the Marshall Islands.
IRAN. Iran makes ‘substantial’ nuclear offer in return for US lifting sanctions. Iran’s diplomatic offer on nuclear inspections meets with USA scepticism. U.S. Slaps Sanctions On Nuclear Supply Network for Iran’s Enrichment Program.
NORTH KOREA. North Korea, angered by US military exercises, plans to resume nuclear, missile, tests.
JAPAN. 40 years, $2.5bn costs for 4 Fukushima Daini nuclear reactors to be shut down. Fukushima Upper House candidates face cynical voters despite anti-nuclear platforms. Fukushima: The ‘100 times normal’ radiation area outside exclusion zone – ‘Worrying!’
FRANCE. Climate change continues to affect France’s nuclear power industry. France’s nuclear reactors impacted by latest heat wave. Swedish climate champion Greta Thunberg has received the first Freedom Prize in France.
GERMANY. Activists walk “cease and desist” order into nuclear weapons base.
USA.
- The Pentagon’s scary new nuclear doctrine.
- What are the NRC staff recommendations for scaling back nuclear reactor inspections? Nuclear industry getting its demands – to reduce safety inspections, roll back requirements. Reduced U.S. nuclear safety oversight will save money for the industry.
- Ohio Delays Bill to Bail Out Nuclear and Coal Plants, Gut Renewable Spending. Ohio Senate passes bill to save state’s two nuclear power plants.
- NuScale, realising there’s no real market for small nuclear reactors, pins its hopes on mass orders from tax-payer funded military. Utah communities sign on, rather cautiously, to buy NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
- New type of nuclear fusion plan, but the reality is as far away as ever.
- San Onofre nuclear power station: nuclear waste moves from wet pools to dry storage.
- Repeated earthquakes all too close to proposed U.S. nuclear waste dump site.
- U.S. Bill: the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2019.
GUAM. New bill introduced in U.S. Congress will benefit Guam victims of radiation exposure
CHINA. China faces up to the pollution and radioactive waste problems of rare earths mining and processing.
UKRAINE. Doubts on the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors. Vladimir Shevchenko – heroic photographer of Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WdTF2Qr8&t=3s
UK. Hinkley Pt nuclear station’s cooling system will mean massacres of fish.
TURKEY. A lot of safety worries for Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear plant.
CANADA, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – at least 10 years away – Canadian Nuclear Association.
EUROPE. Secret Locations of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe revealed.
INDONESIA. Strong rejection of nuclear power for Indonesia.
RUSSIA. For the second time in a week, take-down of Russian nuclear reactors, due to malfunction. Uncertainty over safety of Russia’s floating nuclear power plants. Moscow’s Polymetals Plant’s slag heap – an intractable radioactive hazard=- could become Moscow’s Chernobyl?.
SOUTH AFRICA. The sorry history and sorry future of nuclear power in South Africa.
Nuclear Australia 
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