Category: Archive

Domenici offers nuclear waste proposal

admin /29 June, 2006

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

WASHINGTON — The government would store civilian nuclear waste for up to 25 years at federal sites across the country under a proposal in the Senate to deal with growing volumes of used reactor fuel at power plants.

The waste sites could be built to accommodate plants in a region or individual state, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who included the provision in a $30.7 billion spending bill that advanced out of his Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday.

The interim storage approach is aimed at addressing increasing concern about thousands of tons of used reactor fuel accumulating at power plants, waiting to be shipped to an oft-delayed central government repository in Nevada. Industry officials have said the failure to address the waste problem will inhibit investment in new nuclear reactors.

The proposed Yucca Mountain waste site in Nevada – where the used fuel would be kept deep beneath the Earth – has yet to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is not expected to open, even if a license is approved, before 2018, Energy Department officials have told Domenici’s staff.

Barriers to Australia going nuclear

admin /29 June, 2006

Australia faced tough competition in being able to establish a uranium enrichment industry to capitalise on its abundant resources of uranium, a nuclear physicist warned on 28 June, reported The Australian (29/6/2006, p.23).

"You are working against a background of established suppliers who find it relatively easy to expand production," Tom Quirk, a former deputy chair of the Victorian Energy Networks, told a business lunch.

He said a more obvious business opportunity for Australia was developing underground storage for radioactive waste from offshore nuclear reactors. "In the business (of storage) is the great unmet need," he said.

 Quirk said the key to Australia establishing downstream processing of uranium would be potentially rising demand for nuclear fuel in Asia, and securing long-term sales contracts. "The big expansion in demand will probably be in Asia and China, so it might make some sense to build a plant in Australia," he said.

Fuel rod industry too difficult: Quirk said going a step further beyond enrichment, developing an industry in Australia to make fuel rods for reactors would be even harder, since fuel rod production was reactor specific and so undertaken or subcontracted out by nuclear power plant makers. "I think that part of the debate isn’t very sensible. The issues really are regulation," he said.

Nuclear too large for small grids: He also noted that the large generating capacity of nuclear plants could raise difficulties in integrating them into relatively small grids. "You may not be able to integrate into a single NSW, Victoria or Queensland system," he said.

The Australian, 29/6/2006, p. 23

Source: Erisk Net  

Cars from `big three’ US makers have largest CO2 emissions

admin /29 June, 2006

Cars built by America’s big three makers – General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler – were responsible for nearly 75 per cent of the 314 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (COE) emitted by cars and light trucks in 2004, environmental researchers said on Wednesday, 28 June.

230 million tonnes by three manufacturers: Researchers from the watchdog group, Environmental Defense, said vehicles made by these companies emitted 230 million tonnes of CO2 while nine other companies with vehicles on the US market accounted for 84 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Breakdown of emissions by company: The report by the researchers said General Motors vehicles gave off 99 million tonnes (31 per cent of the total), Ford vehicles emitted 80 million tonnes (25 per cent) and DaimlerChrysler vehicles emitted 51 million tonnes (16 per cent).

41 million tonnes of emissions by biggest US electricity utility: By comparison, the largest US electric utility, American Electric Power had emissions of 41 million tonnes.

Aim to show the other culprits: Greenhouse gas emissions have most frequently been associated with coal-fired power plants. The new report aimed to point up comparable emissions from cars.

Sense of pollution being in one place: "The image of the power plant, with a smokestack and stuff billowing out of it, creates that sense of a lot of pollution in one place," John DeCicco, co-author of the report, said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Millions of vehicles part of the problem: "People don’t necessarily understand that the millions of vehicles are part of the problem that is a really comparable scale."

45 per cent of world’s car emissions: With just 5 percent of the world’s population, the US has 30 per cent of the world’s cars and produces 45 per cent of the world’s car CO2 emissions. US cars were driven more and burned more fuel per mile than the international average.

Reference: Digest of latest news reported on website of Climate Change Secretariat of United Nations Framework on Climate Change Control (UNFCCC). 28 June 2006. Address: PO Box 260 124, D-53153 Bonn. Germany. Phone: : (49-228) 815-1005, Fax: (49-228) 815-1999. Email: press@unfccc.int
http://www.unfccc.int

Erisk Net, 29/6/2006

Past the critical threshold: most glaciers to vanish within decades

admin /29 June, 2006

Global climate faced an abrupt change that could lead to the melting of most of the world’s glaciers in the near future, threatening freshwater supplies in the most populous regions on earth. The warning comes from US scientists who have studied the retreat of glaciers at seven sites in the Andes of South America and the Himalayas in Tibet, reported The Australian (29/6/2006, p.5).

Multiple sets of evidence: Evidence from ice cores, aerial photographs, maps and plant remains reveals that the sudden warming began last century and ends a cooling trend that began with a cold snap 5200 years ago. The team, led by glaciologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University in Columbus, reports its findings this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Mass migration to warm, wet spots: According to the group, the cooling event coincided with the rapid rise of cities in the overpopulated Nile Valley in Egypt and Mesopotamia’s fertile crescent. Professor Thompson’s team claims the melting glaciers may "signal that the climate system has exceeded a critical threshold" that will see most glaciers vanish within decades.

The Australian, 29/6/2006, p. 5

Source: Erisk Net  

Most glaciers to vanish within decades

admin /29 June, 2006

Global climate faced an abrupt change that could lead to the melting of most of the world’s glaciers in the near future, threatening freshwater supplies in the most populous regions on earth. Full Story

Floating energy collectors the cheaper option for solar power

admin /28 June, 2006

Floating rafts of solar energy collectors could provide cheaper electrical power than their landlubber cousins, according to New Scientist 24/6/2006, p.29). Standard solar collectors expensive: Standard collectors use lenses to track the position of the sun and concentrate sunlight onto solar cells. To withstand the damaging forces of strong winds, they need to be made Continue Reading →