The Iran nuclear deal has received very little scrutiny from the BBC, maybe it should

Here's something that you won't read on the BBC:

'... one of the side deals reached between Iran and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency provides for Iran to carry out its own inspection work at the Parchin military facility where the IAEA has long alleged it experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms.

The Iranians have been strenuously attempting to sanitize the site for years — which is bitterly amusing, since they evidently need not have bothered.

Even the Iranians plainly didn't think they'd get away with a deal this ridiculous. It's akin to having Bernie Madoff scrutinize his own business practices, or Tour de France cyclists conduct their own doping tests… except it has global life-and-death implications.'

Much more here http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-simple-question-for-anguished-democratic-legislators-on-iran/

Hidden at the end

this BBC article entitled 'Iran nuclear: Curbs on uranium enrichment begin' starts 'Iran has begun curbing uranium enrichment under a deal which will also see international sanctions eased, the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) says.

Earlier, centrifuges used for enrichment were disconnected at the Nantaz plant, Iranian TV reported.'

Hidden away right at the end of the report is this somewhat important passage:

'Sounding a note of caution, former IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen said that if Iran decided to renege on the deal, it would only need two to three weeks to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.'

As it's just Israel that needs to worry about Iran's nuclear arsenal, why should the BBC worry?

Now why would Iran be doing that?

USA Today reports that:

'VIENNA (AP) – Iran has rapidly ramped up production of higher-grade enriched uranium over the last few months, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, in a confidential report that feeds concerns about how quickly the Islamic republic could produce an atomic bomb.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran had failed to give a convincing explanation about a quantity of missing uranium metal. Diplomats say the amount unaccounted for is large enough to be used for experiments in arming a nuclear missile.

Iran insists it is not interested in nuclear weapons and says its activities are meant either to generate energy or to be used for research. But the report contained little assurances the country's activities are purely peaceful.

Instead, it also confirmed that two IAEA missions to Tehran within less than a month had failed to dent Iran's refusal to assist an IAEA probe of suspicions that the country has been secretly working on aspects of a nuclear weapons program.'

Does anybody seriously believe that Iran's nuclear programme is entirely peaceful? If you do, please explan to me, why?

The one hundred and sixtieth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

I read that the IAEA has reported that it cannot 'conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities'.

"No shit, Sherlocks"

The BBC - not every power source is held to the same standards

Prior to the today I had stopped listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme as I found it bad for my blood pressure and temper in the morning. Unfortunately I left my car tuned to Radio 4 last night and when I got in this morning it was at the start of a piece about the Cadarache nuclear fusion research centre in Provence, something that I thought might be interesting. The language used (by Evan Davis?) in this report was so biased that I turned off after under a minute. First the project was described as a 'huge gamble' and then we were told that it would be many decades before we knew if this power source was 'economically viable'. Those two statements in isolation would be just about acceptable but ask yourself when the BBC last questioned whether the building of wind farms (especially offshore ones) was 'economically viable', without the huge subsidies they currently receive? Likewise when did the BBC last question whether these wind farms were a practical proposition when they fail to produce power all year round and often fail to do so when it is most needed, thus necessitating the building of other more reliable power producing plants in any case? 


I think a return to my previous policy re the Today programme may be in order...

What's going on at Fukushima and/or Al Jazeera

I have noticed that whilst most of the world's media have stopped covering the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power station following the earthquake and tsunami, there is one media outlet that seems obsessed - Al Jazeera. I am receiving several near apocalyptic tweets a day from Al Jazeera. Recent ones include:

Fukushima: It's much worse than you think http://aje.me/mTe6U5

#Fukushima: At least 966 square kilometers of #Japan will be uninhabitable due to the #nuclear disaster. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

Officials have finally admitted that 3 #nuclear reactors at #Fukushima experienced meltdown. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

Study: There is an unexplained 35% spike in infant mortality in the U.S. northwest after #Fukushima. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

Like BP's #oilspill last year, officials initially underestimated the extent of the #radiation calamity at #Fukushima. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

So-called 'hot particles' of radiation, emitted from #Fukushima, have continued to fall internationally. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

These hot particles of radiation can lodge in the lungs and digestive tract - leading to cancer. #Fukushima http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

The problems of #Fukushima are 'infinite' because the melted #radioactive cores must be stored 'forever.' http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

We're still within a crucial period post-#earthquake. A 'very big' aftershock could further exacerbate #Fukushima. http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

The question will always be: Why weren't #Japan's systems redundant enough? Whose fault was #Fukushima? http://bit.ly/jgPTsn

So are Al Jazeera the only news agency telling the truth about Fukushima? Are all the rest hiding the truth from the world's populace?  Or does Al Jazeera being based in Qatar, where oil and gas account for 50% of GDP, roughly 85% of export earnings, and 70% of government revenues, account for the negative attitude towards nuclear power?

'It's a fact' - Is it really?

The Daily Mail yesterday included a for and against letter in answer to the debate question 'Is Nigel Lawson right on climate change?' Here's part of one of those letters:

'Let's be clear; it is a fact that climate change is a greater threat to the world than international terrorism. It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out. It's a fact that we have already passed peak oil production. It's a fact that the UK is 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels...... Lawson's premise of cutting back on environment policy to ave our economy will be academic if we no longer have  a planet to live on.'

Wow that's a lot of 'facts', I wonder how many are actually substantiatable? The writer of that letter is Alan Aldridge and he signs himself as of 'Romay Renewable Energies, Crawley, Sussex'. So no financial axe to grind there then as a company who describe themselves as 'one of the UK’s leading domestic and commercial renewable solution providers who design, supply and install renewable energy systems' pushes'facts' that are anything but facts.
Let's look at Alan Aldridge's 'facts' and see if they are anything of the sort:

1) ' it is a fact that climate change is a greater threat to the world than international terrorism - This claim is hard to prove one way or another but having lost a friend to Islamic terrorism and having witnessed Islamic terrorists planes flying into the Twin Towers and killing thousands I am sceptical of this 'fact'.

2) 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out.' - Not true and I cannot see how such a claim could be justified. There are reserves of oil that have yet to be exploited, when the price is right they will be extracted. The worldwide reserves of shale oil and gas dwarf current oil reserves and could fuel the world for many years. The doom-mongers have been warning of fossil fuels running out since the 1960s, it has not happened yet and won't for a lot more than 20 years. I am willing to make a bet with Alan Aldridge that fossil fuels will still be being produced in 25 years time; will you accept a £500 bet Mr Aldridge and an apology from whoever is proved wrong?

3) 'It's a fact that we have already passed peak oil production.' - Peak oil was first claimed to have been reached in the 1960s and the same claim has been regularly made ever since by those with an axe to grind. The proponents of the passing of peak oil often ignore the prospect of new discoveries of oil and the advances in extraction techniques. We are probably close to peak oil but that does not mean the same as an end to oil production.


4) 'It's a fact that the UK is 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels' - Absolutely not correct; I make it over 90%. However the solution is not increased reliance on largely unreliable and expensive wind power. Nuclear has a large place in our futures along with energy conservation.

I make that four 'facts' of which one 'fact' is unsubstantiatable, one 'fact' actually an underestimate but I disagree with the implied solution, one 'fact' that may be close to be being correct but is not as important as it sounds and one 'fact' that is laughable wrong. Nice try Alan Aldridge, will you agree to my wager, after all you know that 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out'.

Anyone else feel like having a bet with Alan Aldridge?


I have contacted Riomay with this comment:

'In a letter published in The Mail on friday your Alan Aldridge made four main claims of 'facts'. I disagree with the veracity of all of them, you can read why here - http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-fact-is-it-really.html

So will Alan Aldridge take me up on my offer of a bet regarding his laughable 'fact' that 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out.'

I am willing to make a bet with Alan Aldridge that fossil fuels will still be being produced in 25 years time; will you accept a £500 bet Mr Aldridge and an apology from whoever is proved wrong?'

I wonder what the response will be?

Two interesting global warming related articles

1) James Waterton on Samizdata thinks that 'If global warming is real, it is now inevitable' and backs this up with some observations from Beijing and about China & India:

'The fact is that if AGW is a genuine phenomenon, it is inevitable. There is absolutely no point in the rich world winding back its CO2 output, because China, India and the rest of the developing world will replace any first world CO2 reductions several times over. Despite the occasionally placatory noises about limiting CO2 emissions heard from the likes of the Chinese central government, the fact is that the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, the Brazilians, nor anyone else from the developing world will ever stymy their nations' opportunity to develop by hobbling their industrial output via significant CO2 emissions controls. Nor are the leaders of these countries likely to do anything to incur the wrath of their citizens by curtailing their perfectly reasonable aspirations to own motorcars, motorcycles, air conditioners and enjoy the convenience of air travel - all enormous direct or indirect sources of CO2 emissions. If significant CO2 reduction could be achieved with minimal economic and social cost, then perhaps the developing world would cooperate. However, large-scale CO2 reduction is an extremely expensive and socially disruptive exercise, and this reality will persist for several decades.

And it is too late to roll back the clock - too many people in the developing world have tasted the fruits of development, and quite legitimately demand more. Those governing the aspirational billions are far more likely to be influenced by them than An Inconvenient Truth. Global CO2 emissions are going to continue to grow for many years, there is no doubt about it. The "global warmenists", as the mighty Tim Blair calls them, need to re-evaluate their positions, because what they propose at present is simply an exercise in developed-world wealth destruction on an epic scale. Those insisting on such a state of affairs appear little short of anti-human luddites, as detractors of the green movement have long asserted. Bjørn Lomborg is spot on - any resources allocated towards the AGW issue should be directed towards researching crisis management and developing an appropriate disaster-relief capacity under the circumstances of rapid climate change, even if only as an insurance policy. And the absolute last thing we in the developed world should be doing is hampering the wealth-creating organs of our societies in a futile effort to cut CO2 emissions. If AGW is truly the looming catastrophe that many predict, we need to be as wealthy as possible to plan and make provisions for its impending consequences, and thus deal with them when they start to unfold.'

He's quite right but the ecomentalists in much of the West just won't listen.


2) Frank Furedi at Spiked ponders the matter of 'competitive fearmongering' when it comes to climate change and nuclear power. A fascinating article and well worth a read. Here's a few extracts:

'After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in tsunami-hit Japan, fear appeals based on the alleged threat from nuclear reactors successfully – at least for now – trumped the climate alarmists’ predictions of planetary apocalypse. The German shift shows that even in the midst of a titanic clash of competing calamities, scaremongering can be surprisingly pragmatic.

Historic experience tells us that the success or otherwise of competitive scaremongering has little to with the actual intensity of the alleged threat.

...

Competitive scaremongering is encouraged by a cultural imagination that is far more open to appeals based on fear than on faith in people and the future. That is why even sensible attempts to counteract scaremongering can sometimes get sidetracked by the temptation to respond in kind, with an alternative form of alarmism. This regrettable tendency is strikingly illustrated in the response of some experts to the anti-MMR crusade. The health scare and panic about a bogus association between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism shows that scaremongering can fundamentally alter the way we live our lives. Hundreds of thousands of parents have become needlessly worried about allowing their children to be vaccinated by what is a very safe vaccine. Immunisation rates have sharply declined, with potentially dangerous consequences for children who do not get the vaccine. With so much at stake, it is understandable why some opponents of the anti-MMR crusaders have responded with their own fear appeals, claiming that a measles epidemic could threaten the future health of children across the West.

...

However, the contemporary culture of fear is very selective in its attitude towards invisible contaminants. Official reports suggest that around 10,000 people may have died from cancer as a consequence of the world’s gravest nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986. But that’s a relatively small number compared with the thousands of deaths caused by coal-mining and its associated pollution. Although contaminants released by both technologies have caused death, coal-mining rarely provokes the kind of hysteria that nuclear energy does.'

Do read the whole article and remember it the next time the BBC or Daily Mail are running a scare story based on dodgy science - now why am I thinking about the mobile phones cause cancer stories?

Fukushima what the BBC reports and what it does not

The BBC love to report any negative news arising from the tsunami hitting the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. Search for Fukushima on the BBC news website and there are lots of articles many insinuating that the plant suffered more than has been admitted or just scaremongering. What you will not find is any mention of the IAEA's interim report on the Fukushima incident pdf here. Here are some extracts that I would have thought that an unbiased news organisation would want to report:

'The expert team made several preliminary findings and lessons learned, including:

* Japan's response to the nuclear accident has been exemplary, particularly illustrated by the dedicated, determined and expert staff working under exceptional circumstances;
* Japan's long-term response, including the evacuation of the area around stricken reactors, has been impressive and well organized. A suitable and timely follow-up programme on public and worker exposures and health monitoring would be beneficial;

...

To date no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident.'

It seems that the BBC are a little put out that despite a major earthquake and resultant tsunami that killed tens of thousands of Japanese people, the nuclear plant at Fukushima did not kill many more. In fact whilst the nuclear fuel rods did melt, the resultant radiation was largely contained in the reactors as it was designed to be. There were mass evacuations and the IAEA say that these were 'hard to justify on safety grounds'. They were easy to justify on the grounds that the word radiation causes panic amongst the unscientific majority.

The BBC are not alone in this love of disasters and reporting just bad news BUT they are meant to be unbiased, they are meant to report all the news not just that which fits their world view AND most importantly I am forced to pay for their news reporting so I should be able to hold them to account.

The one hundred and thirty second weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's winners are the International Atomic Energy Authority for their leaked conclusions as reported on Al Jazeera:

'A Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007 was "very likely" to have been a nuclear reactor, the UN atomic agency has said in a report, a conclusion which may lead to Damascus being referred to the UN Security Council.

The confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) threw independent weight behind US allegations that Syria was secretly building a reactor at the Dair Alzour site in the desert, possibly with military aims.'

So the Syrian site bombed by Israel was a nuclear reactor; "No shit, Sherlock"

A sensible article about radiation on the BBC news website

I am in shock there is a sensible article about radiation on the BBC news website. Admittedly it is just a Viewpoint article and it does not get many links to it but it is there. The views expressed by Wade Allison are sensible, rational and well argued but the BBC will still give more time on phone-ins to people with no scientific knowledge who just know that anything nuclear is bad.

The whole article is a definite must read and I will be printing out copies for all the nuclear-phobes that I meet on a daily basis. Here are a few extracts:

'Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

...

A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m - areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl.

The other important radioisotope in fallout is iodine, which can cause child thyroid cancer.

This is only produced when the reactor is on and quickly decays once the reactor shuts down (it has a half life of eight days). The old fuel rods in storage at Fukushima, though radioactive, contain no iodine.

But at Chernobyl the full inventory of iodine and caesium was released in the initial explosion, so that at Fukushima any release of iodine should be much less than 1% of that at Chernobyl - with an effect reduced still further by iodine tablets.

Unfortunately, public authorities react by providing over-cautious guidance - and this simply escalates public concern.

...

To cope with the friendly fire of such nuclear propaganda on the home front, ever tighter radiation regulations were enacted in order to keep all contact with radiation As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), as the principle became known.

This attempt at reassurance is the basis of international radiation safety regulations today, which suggest an upper limit for the general public of 1 mSv per year above natural levels.

This very low figure is not a danger level, rather it's a small addition to the levels found in nature - a British person is exposed to 2.7 mSv per year, on average. My book Radiation and Reason argues that a responsible danger level based on current science would be 100 mSv per month, with a lifelong limit of 5,000 mSv, not 1 mSv per year.

...

Some might ask whether I would accept it if it were buried 100 metres under my own house? My answer would be: "Yes, why not?" More generally, we should stop running away from radiation. '

And who is Wade Allison?

'Wade Allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford, the author of Radiation and Reason (2009) and Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging (2006).'

Radiation levels are scary but not as scary as stupidity

The BBC and much of the rest of the British media are scaring people with their 'radiation leak' stories. Radiation sounds scary and we have been conditioned to think any radiation is dangerous, but is it. Here's a chart that I found yesterday that I think puts the Fukushima radiation leak into perspective..

Many thanks to xcd.com for the chart and this explanation

'There’s a lot of discussion of radiation from the Fukushima plants, along with comparisons to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Radiation levels are often described as “ times the normal level” or “% over the legal limit,” which can be pretty confusing.

Ellen, a friend of mine who’s a student at Reed and Senior Reactor Operator at the Reed Research Reactor, has been spending the last few days answering questions about radiation dosage virtually nonstop (I’ve actually seen her interrupt them with “brb, reactor”). She suggested a chart might help put different amounts of radiation into perspective, and so with her help, I put one together. She also made one of her own; it has fewer colors, but contains more information about what radiation exposure consists of and how it affects the body.

I’m not an expert in radiation and I’m sure I’ve got a lot of mistakes in here, but there’s so much wild misinformation out there that I figured a broad comparison of different types of dosages might be good anyway. I don’t include too much about the Fukushima reactor because the situation seems to be changing by the hour, but I hope the chart provides some helpful context.

Note that there are different types of ionizing radiation; the “sievert” unit quantifies the degree to which each type (gamma rays, alpha particles, etc) affects the body. You can learn more from my sources list. If you’re looking for expert updates on the nuclear situation, try the MIT NSE Hub. Ellen’s page on radiation is here.

Lastly, remember that while there’s a lot of focus on possible worst-case scenarios involving the nuclear plants, the tsunami was an actual disaster that’s already killed thousands. Hundreds of thousands more, including my best friend from college, are in shelters with limited access to basic supplies and almost no ability to contact the outside world. If you’re not sure how to help, Google’s Japan Crisis Resource page is a good place to start.'

This was where I was going to end this piece but then I read George Monbiot's piece in today's Guardian and just had to quote him, especially as he picked up on the same chart that I have:

'You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.'

My worry is that this article is not actually by George Monbiot but is a joke because George Monbiot then goes onto to explain why free-energy solutions won't be able to replace fossil fuels and nuclear:

'Like most greens, I favour a major expansion of renewables. I can also sympathise with the complaints of their opponents. It's not just the onshore windfarms that bother people, but also the new grid connections (pylons and power lines). As the proportion of renewable electricity on the grid rises, more pumped storage will be needed to keep the lights on. That means reservoirs on mountains: they aren't popular, either.

The impacts and costs of renewables rise with the proportion of power they supply, as the need for storage and redundancy increases. It may well be the case (I have yet to see a comparative study) that up to a certain grid penetration – 50% or 70%, perhaps? – renewables have smaller carbon impacts than nuclear, while beyond that point, nuclear has smaller impacts than renewables.

Like others, I have called for renewable power to be used both to replace the electricity produced by fossil fuel and to expand the total supply, displacing the oil used for transport and the gas used for heating fuel. Are we also to demand that it replaces current nuclear capacity? The more work we expect renewables to do, the greater the impact on the landscape will be, and the tougher the task of public persuasion.

But expanding the grid to connect people and industry to rich, distant sources of ambient energy is also rejected by most of the greens who complained about the blog post I wrote last week in which I argued that nuclear remains safer than coal. What they want, they tell me, is something quite different: we should power down and produce our energy locally. Some have even called for the abandonment of the grid. Their bucolic vision sounds lovely, until you read the small print.

At high latitudes like ours, most small-scale ambient power production is a dead loss. Generating solar power in the UK involves a spectacular waste of scarce resources. It's hopelessly inefficient and poorly matched to the pattern of demand. Wind power in populated areas is largely worthless. This is partly because we have built our settlements in sheltered places; partly because turbulence caused by the buildings interferes with the airflow and chews up the mechanism. Micro-hydropower might work for a farmhouse in Wales, but it's not much use in Birmingham.

And how do we drive our textile mills, brick kilns, blast furnaces and electric railways – not to mention advanced industrial processes? Rooftop solar panels? The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment at which you fall out of love with local energy production. A national (or, better still, international) grid is the essential prerequisite for a largely renewable energy supply.'

Do read the rest of George Monbiot's article, the history leson is quite interesting and contains figures that are very interesting indeed for those of you  who think that industrialisation was a mistake! The end of George Monbiot's article is even more interesting and should be spread as when even a green like Monbiot realises this then the essential truth needs spreading:

'But the energy source to which most economies will revert if they shut down their nuclear plants is not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuel. On every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power. Thanks to the expansion of shale gas production, the impacts of natural gas are catching up fast.

Yes, I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry. Yes, I would prefer to see the entire sector shut down, if there were harmless alternatives. But there are no ideal solutions. Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.'

Of course the truth is something that some, not all, Guardian readers do not like to be presented with when it contradicts their prejudices. Here are two who really don't like facing reality:

'

• dirkbruere
  

  21 March 2011 7:47PM
  George Monbiot has been kidnapped and replaced by a nuclear industry shill!
  Or some kind of weird clone.
  Or something.
  TINA

• Ruby4
  

  21 March 2011 7:48PM

  Grow up and do some real research about the dangers of nuclear fission George. These people supporting Nuclear Power do not really invest in or research the alternatives because profit is their main motive. It is true that they would say that it proves you are in perfect health if you manage to not drop dead after your third heart attack. The Japanese people were told their Nuclear Power plants were 'earthquake proof'!
  If you think they are safe I am sure you will prove it by living near one and having the waste buried in your garden.'

  
  

The last one is quite amusing in its deliberate misunderstanding and misstaement of what George Monbiot said and meant.

This fact that the Japanese nuclear industry as a whole has coped brilliantly with the earthquake and tsunami has not been said enough. Fukushima was the only plant damaged and despite experiencing a massive earthquake (far more powerful than the plant was designed to withstand) followed by an enormous tsuanmi that destroyed virtually every building in the area except the nuclear power station and severed all power supply, the plant did not start destructing. Yes the Fukushima plant has major issues but they it is not spewing radiation in any significant levels and not all radiation is dangerous.

This last point brings me to a piece of video I saw this morning, it's Ann Coulter being interviewed about radiation. Now watch the video, all of it and tink about what she actually said

Now read the hysterical comments underneath the video, here's a few examples:

'WTF?! This bitch has gone WAY past just being bad for the collective intelligence, she's now batshit dangerous. How did Bill O, as steeped in the Fox News koolaid as he is, allow her to blather this crap on his show? I'm not kidding, there's got to be a very real risk of liability if some education-challenged idiot goes off and swallows radium for his health.

And hormesis?! Is she fucking serious?! That snake oil crapola?

She needs to be shunned by the media -- completely shut down.
tgrigsby7 4 hours ago
#

@elementguy13 - whew - where does one start? How about if you had small children visiting granny in Japan, and actually thought Ann Coulter was speaking from a place of trying to spread information, because that is what tv journalists are supposed to do, so you say - "hey - no hurry ...".

Now multiply that by millions of panicked people, most of whom have no understanding of nuclear physics! Are you getting the picture why this is a bad thing? It's all about the benjamins.
javamanV3 5 hours ago
#

Radiation is good for you, if you're trying win a bet by getting cancer and dying the fastest. Respect to Bill'O because he's being reasonable and he knows it's irresponsible to let her say crazy shit without clarification.
Deepstarr7020 5 hours ago
#

This is brainwashing for the braindead at it's best. How retarded does she think the general public is?! Also note how she FAILS to mention what kind of radioactive particles are being blown airbourne in Japan. There are ZERO cases of radioactivity coming of particles being good for a human body.. . And she FAILS to mention the fact that it doesn't matter if it's caesium iodine plutonium or uranium if they get stuck in your body you WILL die of cancer, with the latter two very quickly... FAIL!
nixtc 5 hours ago
#

Instead of wasting my bandwidth on porn I had to watch this bulimic demagogue ..... I want my 20MB back.
faceplantpro0 5 hours ago
#

@DementedBeast - Chernobyl is way to clean for her. But since she is speaking of the reactors in Japan, perhaps they are looking for volunteers to help seal up the plants. I am pretty sure that every human being that did that at Chernobyl died within the year. I believe their problem was that they didn't have the theory in USSR that radiation is good for you.

PS Every one heros' of the highest order. They all knew they were to die before they went.

javamanV3 5 hours ago'

She's a fucking Nazi bitch. Maybe not a card-carrying Nazi, but a Nazi by any other name is still a Nazi.
rickschtick 4 hours ago'

Why are these people so angry, so abusive when faced with someone who doesn't agree with their world view? Why the recourse to calling someone a Nazi or a bitch, or indeed both?

Perspective people, perspective.

Now why might that be?

The BBC's environment correspondent reports under the headline 'Nuclear power support in UK falls over Japan fears'. Interestingly the first line of the actual report reveals that 'More Britons support the building of new nuclear power stations than oppose it, despite the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant, an opinion poll says.'

Richard Black's report continues 'But almost a half say they are worried about the safety of nuclear plants.'

After the BBC's scaremongering coverage of the Fukushima plant's problems I am surprised that more people are not worried about nuclear safety. The BBC line has been to ramp up the fears and exaggerate the radiation risks. This has worked, wherever I go I speak with people who think that the Fukushima plant is leaking huge amounts of lethal radiation and that large parts of north east Japan are all but death zones. This is of course mostly rubbish but scary rubbish is good television.

The opinion poll quoted was carried out by Friends of the Earth so I would like to know what the questions were and in what order they were asked. For instance was there a question along the lines of 'How worried are you by the recent leak of radiation at the Fukushima nuclear plant?' asked before the 'How worried are you by UK nuclear safety?' It is very easy to slant opinion poll questions to get the answers that you want. I am not saying that this is what Friends of the Earth have done but I would be very interested to know for sure.

Once you get past the headline and first few paragraphs, and we know that that is as far as many people get, Richard Black does admit that 'The Fukushima crisis has come with disturbing imagery - but the statistics suggest little impact' and 'Although the incident has put the issue of nuclear risk high up the news agenda, proponents can point to the fact that so far there has not been any impact on human health other than a few events involving workers at the power station.'

It is my opinion that the BBC have used the Fukushima incident as a way of pushing nuclear safety up the agenda as a way of helping the wind power industry out. The fact that reliance on wind power for 20% or more of power generation would have left the UK short of power on many days this winter is not something that the BBC and its 'expert' correspondents acknowledge, they have an agenda and they will continue to promote that agenda.

Humanitarian assistance to Japan

I note that, as in Haiti, the field hospital Israel is establishing in Japan is the first to be set up by any nation offering outside assistance. Oddly I can find no mention of this on the BBC News website where they still seem determined to try and convince us that nuclear disaster is only hours away; I have news for you, it almost certainly is not.


Thanks to JPost for the spot.

"onshore wind [turbines] doesn't need subsidy anymore, onshore wind can pay its way."

So claimed Transport Secretary Philip Hammond on Wednesday 1st March's Daily Politics. Andrew Neil has investigated and here are his findings...

Here's an extract that is rather tellig, I woonder if Chris Huhme would care to comment:

'The third sentence confirms that there is indeed a subsidy to onshore wind turbine operators via the legal obligation of electricity companies to buy electricity at artificially high rates (and then pass on the extra cost to us, the electricity consumers).

Note that the DECC does not deny that the Renewables Obligation is a subsidy by any other name.

And remember the context of Mr Hammond's remarks: he was seeking to differentiate between onshore wind (not subsidised, he said) and offshore (which he conceded was subsidised).

In fact they are both subsidised in the same way but to different degrees. Onshore wind gets to charge twice the market price, offshore three times (because it is much more expensive).'

Meanwhile the BBC continue to scare everyone about nuclear power, it's almost like they have an agenda.

Japan earthquake update

Brave New Climate explains what's really happening in Japan's nuclear power plants and it's a tad more complex than the BBC make out! Here's an extract:

'Now, where does that leave us?

• The plant is safe now and will stay safe.
• Japan is looking at an INES Level 4 Accident: Nuclear accident with local consequences. That is bad for the company that owns the plant, but not for anyone else.
• Some radiation was released when the pressure vessel was vented. All radioactive isotopes from the activated steam have gone (decayed). A very small amount of Cesium was released, as well as Iodine. If you were sitting on top of the plants’ chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy. The Cesium and Iodine isotopes were carried out to the sea and will never be seen again.
• There was some limited damage to the first containment. That means that some amounts of radioactive Cesium and Iodine will also be released into the cooling water, but no Uranium or other nasty stuff (the Uranium oxide does not “dissolve” in the water). There are facilities for treating the cooling water inside the third containment. The radioactive Cesium and Iodine will be removed there and eventually stored as radioactive waste in terminal storage.
• The seawater used as cooling water will be activated to some degree. Because the control rods are fully inserted, the Uranium chain reaction is not happening. That means the “main” nuclear reaction is not happening, thus not contributing to the activation. The intermediate radioactive materials (Cesium and Iodine) are also almost gone at this stage, because the Uranium decay was stopped a long time ago. This further reduces the activation. The bottom line is that there will be some low level of activation of the seawater, which will also be removed by the treatment facilities.
• The seawater will then be replaced over time with the “normal” cooling water
• The reactor core will then be dismantled and transported to a processing facility, just like during a regular fuel change.
• Fuel rods and the entire plant will be checked for potential damage. This will take about 4-5 years.
• The safety systems on all Japanese plants will be upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami (or worse)
• I believe the most significant problem will be a prolonged power shortage. About half of Japan’s nuclear reactors will probably have to be inspected, reducing the nation’s power generating capacity by 15%. This will probably be covered by running gas power plants that are usually only used for peak loads to cover some of the base load as well. That will increase your electricity bill, as well as lead to potential power shortages during peak demand, in Japan.

If you want to stay informed, please forget the usual media outlets and consult the following websites:

• http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Battle_to_stabilise_earthquake_reactors_1203111.html
• http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/12/japan-nuclear-earthquake/
• http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2011/03/11/media-updates-on-nuclear-power-stations-in-japan/'

Here's a rather low-key piece of video showing how the earthquakeimpacted some way away from the epicentre; the moving earth from 1:28 is seriously weird.


Meanwhile this link takes you to some seriously scary video of the tsunami flooding through Kesennuma, in Miyagi Prefecture.

PicassaWeb has some interesting photos from Japan and Boing Boing has an interesting 'Nuclear energy 101: Inside the "black box" of power plants' for anyone whose knowledge of nuclear power begins and ends with Homer Simpson's workplace.

But Iran only wants to produce nuclear power not weapons?

The Telegraph reveal that:

'Iran said for the first time that it had domestically produced a batch of uranium yellowcake – the raw material for atomic weapons – as it sought to bolster its position before Monday's international talks on its nuclear programme.'

I presume that the usual suspects will still claim that Iran only wants a peaceful nuclear power programme.

Unfortunately I don't know what, if anything, can be done to stop Iran becoming a nuclear armed power...

Not a good time to be working in the Iranian nuclear programme

First Stuxnet :

'At Natanz, for almost 17 months, Stuxnet quietly worked its way into the system and targeted a specific component -- the frequency converters made by the German equipment manufacturer Siemens that regulated the speed of the spinning centrifuges used to create nuclear fuel. The worm then took control of the speed at which the centrifuges spun, making them turn so fast in a quick burst that they would be damaged but not destroyed. And at the same time, the worm masked that change in speed from being discovered at the centrifuges' control panel.

At Bushehr, meanwhile, a second secret set of codes, which Langner called “digital warheads,” targeted the Russian-built power plant's massive steam turbine.

Here's how it worked, according to experts who have examined the worm:

--The nuclear facility in Iran runs an “air gap” security system, meaning it has no connections to the Web, making it secure from outside penetration. Stuxnet was designed and sent into the area around Iran's Natanz nuclear power plant -- just how may never be known -- to infect a number of computers on the assumption that someone working in the plant would take work home on a flash drive, acquire the worm and then bring it back to the plant.

--Once the worm was inside the plant, the next step was to get the computer system there to trust it and allow it into the system. That was accomplished because the worm contained a “digital certificate” stolen from JMicron, a large company in an industrial park in Taiwan. (When the worm was later discovered it quickly replaced the original digital certificate with another certificate, also stolen from another company, Realtek, a few doors down in the same industrial park in Taiwan.)

--Once allowed entry, the worm contained four “Zero Day” elements in its first target, the Windows 7 operating system that controlled the overall operation of the plant. Zero Day elements are rare and extremely valuable vulnerabilities in a computer system that can be exploited only once. Two of the vulnerabilities were known, but the other two had never been discovered. Experts say no hacker would waste Zero Days in that manner.

--After penetrating the Windows 7 operating system, the code then targeted the “frequency converters” that ran the centrifuges. To do that it used specifications from the manufacturers of the converters. One was Vacon, a Finnish Company, and the other Fararo Paya, an Iranian company. What surprises experts at this step is that the Iranian company was so secret that not even the IAEA knew about it.

--The worm also knew that the complex control system that ran the centrifuges was built by Siemens, the German manufacturer, and -- remarkably -- how that system worked as well and how to mask its activities from it.

--Masking itself from the plant's security and other systems, the worm then ordered the centrifuges to rotate extremely fast, and then to slow down precipitously. This damaged the converter, the centrifuges and the bearings, and it corrupted the uranium in the tubes. It also left Iranian nuclear engineers wondering what was wrong, as computer checks showed no malfunctions in the operating system.

Estimates are that this went on for more than a year, leaving the Iranian program in chaos. And as it did, the worm grew and adapted throughout the system. As new worms entered the system, they would meet and adapt and become increasingly sophisticated.

During this time the worms reported back to two servers that had to be run by intelligence agencies, one in Denmark and one in Malaysia. The servers monitored the worms and were shut down once the worm had infiltrated Natanz. Efforts to find those servers since then have yielded no results.

This went on until June of last year, when a Belarusan company working on the Iranian power plant in Beshehr discovered it in one of its machines. It quickly put out a notice on a Web network monitored by computer security experts around the world. Ordinarily these experts would immediately begin tracing the worm and dissecting it, looking for clues about its origin and other details.

But that didn’t happen, because within minutes all the alert sites came under attack and were inoperative for 24 hours.'

Now I read on Sky News that:

'Iranian state media has reported that a nuclear physics teacher was killed and another injured after coming under attack in Tehran.
The university teacher was killed in a car bomb blast and three people were wounded in another explosion, Iran's al Alam Arabic language television reported.
Al Alam said the dead person and one of the wounded were nuclear physics teachers.
State radio said the attackers planted a bomb on each of the teachers' vehicles.'

Not a good time to be working in Iran on any sort of nuclear project...

Is Leftism/Liberalism a Mental Illness?

A fascinating piece on a blog that I have not previously visited 'Random Observations'. Do read the whole of the article it's interesting, here's an extract:

'Stephen Colbert is fond of asserting "Reality has a well known liberal bias." I've always had trouble seeing that — in economic terms, leftism embraces the fantastic. During the cold war, one could witness East and West Germany, side-by-side: same culture, same ethnicity, same landscape, even the same history — until a fateful choice between left-leaning and right-leaning economic systems. What a world of difference! (And similar observations could be made about China versus Hong Kong or Taiwan, North Korea versus the South, and so on.) Yet at that time, and since, in the face of such plain evidence, many insist we should live more like the East than the West.

The same could be said of the sciences, where today's most important scientific issue (so I am told) is global warming — by which people mean: (a) the world is warming, (b) the primary cause of that warming is man-made, (c) warming is bad, and (d) treaties like Kyoto will reverse said warming. Belief in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) requires every single one of these assertions to be provably true beyond any reasonable doubt.

Yet every single one of these points is either plainly false or easily contestable. (a) World temperature records haven't shown any significant warming for the last decade; (b) CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas, and humanity doesn't seem to be the main driver behind atmospheric CO2; global temperature history shows warming (and cooling) trends long before human influence; (c) warming during the middle ages coincided with economic booms, prosperity, exploration, and innovation — far more people will die from cold on any given year than warmth; and (d) Europe signed Kyoto, whereas the US refused to ratify it — yet European CO2 levels have gone up far faster than the US.

What I'm saying in the previous paragraph is verifiable — yet where is the "liberal bias" there? The "liberal bias" seems to have been in the way the temperature records were massaged in places like the University of East Anglia, and the way computer models (which can show you anything you'd like) have been used as the foundation for transformative global economic policy.

The same could be said of many other beliefs favored by the left. Minimum wages seem to increase unemployment. Unilateral nuclear disarmament doesn't cause aggressor states to abandon their weapons out of shame. The left does far more to restrict and control speech than the right. A fetus, it turns out, is not merely a blob of tissue, somewhat akin to a fingernail. Price controls backfire. Public schools aren't starved for cash, and cash doesn't correlate with a good education. Gun control doesn't cause crime levels to plummet. And on and on and on.'

Go and read the rest...

The 'scam' of Wind Farms

The BBC's coverage of the openning of the Thanet offshore wind farm was mostly a disgrace. Endless 'journalists' repeating that the 100 turbines in the £780m wind farm "are expected to generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes" and rarely a questionning word posed. The reality is of course far different, if you allow for the usual load-factors and more realistic domestic usage figures then you discover that the new wind farm will only supply 131,000 homes. However on a cold windless day, so common in the English winter the actual number of houses supplied with electricity by the wind farm will be a big fat zero. Thus the need for coal or nuclear power stations to supply the power when the wind farms cannot BUT if the other power stations are there and able to supply all the power then why bother with the wind farms at all?

To arrive at the answer you must, as so often is the case, follow the money. On top of the £40 million in electricity sales, the wind farms owners, Vattenfall, will collect at least £60 million a year in Renewable Obligation Certificates. Over the 20 year life of this farm that will make a public subsidy of £1.2 billion which oddly is about the figure required to build a 1GW nuclear power station, which would be capable of producing more than 13 times power than this wind farm. Whay is this point never raised by the green supporting BBC?

Chris Huhne and others witter on about green jobs in the green economy. well it seems that the Thanet wind farm will create a masive 21 jobs. Hmmmm....