Obama's new library reminds me of something, can't quite put my finger on it because, well, it's too hot

 

Germany boosts electricity from coal to 10 gigawatts, a drop in the bucket

 Bloomberg, here:

Germany now generates more than a third of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, according to Destatis, the federal statistical office. In the third quarter, its electricity from the fuel was 13.3% higher than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.  

Germany as recently as 2019 still had 40 gigawatts of electricity capacity from coal, and planned to reduce that to 27 by 2022, so obviously Germany has much more capacity available than 10 gigawatts during its present natural gas supply crisis caused by the Ukraine war.

But Germany's more serious mistake than reducing its coal capacity was its voluntary and hysterical reduction of nuclear generation capacity by 40% in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Now it's got just 3 reactors left out of the 17 it had back in the day. 

Meanwhile US electric capacity from coal in 2021 dwarfed the German, at about 210 gigawatts, but that is way down from almost 318 in 2011, a similarly ideologically driven, self-imposed, and illogical reduction of 108 gigawatts, or 33% in ten years.

The foolish growing reliance on unreliable "green energy" in the US and the turn away from coal which began in earnest under Obama has meant increasing unreliability of electric resources during extreme events, and a huge increase in the duration of power outages experienced by customers.

The average customer outage was just north of 8 hours in 2020 vs. about 3.5 hours in 2013, an increase of over 130%.

This will only get worse if America tries to rely on wind and solar at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear.

 

 

Germany remains the cause of and the solution to all of Europe's problems: Flip the switch to "On" and Germany's need for Russian gas ends

... in 2010, when Germany was generating more than 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, Chancellor Angela Merkel extended the phaseout schedule to the mid-2030s. As other politicians had promised in the past, the extension was framed as a “bridge” to help the nation generate cost-effective power until renewables could take over. 

But just a few months later, the Fukushima disaster struck. Germany’s anti-nuclear movement had already been enraged by the phaseout delay; the disaster only fueled their opposition. Germany swiftly closed most of its nuclear reactors and reestablished 2022 as the deadline for the phaseout — called the atomausstieg.

More.

The green ideology in Germany must go, just as Merkel has.

 

 

GE's Obama champion Jeff Immelt took its bonds from AAA to one notch above junk, just like its products

From the story here, which never once mentions the problem of declining product quality:

It’s a bad day for a CEO when he announces he’s retiring and the stock goes up. That was Jeff Immelt’s day on June 12, 2017. ... Its bonds, rated triple-A when Immelt became chief, are now rated five tiers lower at A2 and trade at prices more consistent with a Baa rating, one notch above junk.

Did Immelt run GE into the ground?

Look no further than its light bulb business. While GE-branded lightbulbs shifted to compact-fluorescent technology and then to LED with big promises of longevity which never panned out (trust me, I have BAGS FULL of expensive, failed examples of each), it somehow stopped knowing how to make incandescent lightbulbs which worked, too.

I discovered this with its appliance bulbs. A couple of years ago I had to replace an oven bulb after a few years of service from the original one. None of the GE replacement bulbs lasted more than a day. When I went online I discovered the problem wasn't mine alone. Customers all over the country were having the same problem.

I've had a similar experience with another GE appliance component: gas oven igniters. The OEM part lasted just six years. The OEM replacement? Less than two.

Additionally, GE's long-term care insurance business appears to be tracking the same history. It sold off some of that business not long after 911, and what business it has kept in that line has been in the (bad) news lately as well. GE over-promised on some plans it issued and undercharged for them, not realizing that claims would exceed expectations, making the plans unprofitable. I'm sure that's unsettling to policy holders who trusted GE. How long before the long-term care plans of older customers stop working altogether?

And is it just a coincidence that the Fukushima nuclear reactors were of GE design?

Yeah, sure. Just a coincidence.

German AfD comes in a strong third, Social Democrats crash, Merkel forced to form coalition with FDP and Greens

The UK Telegraph reports here:

The SPD’s decision to return to opposition has limited her options, with a three-way coalition with the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens the only obvious option.

However, the FDP is unlikely to countenance the EU reform objectives of France's Macron, and the Greens want to shut down the coal plants Merkel relies on after she shut down the nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima, which the FDP opposes, making life very difficult indeed for Frau Merkel.

Meanwhile the anti-Islamist AfD is set to take seats in the parliament, the first time the right has been represented there since 1961.

Unimaginably high radiation reading at Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 2: 530 sieverts

Just 8 sieverts will kill you dead.

Story here.

Japan will finally restart one nuclear power reactor tomorrow after 4-year shutdown since Fukushima accident

Reported here:

Japan's 48 functioning reactors have largely been shut since the catastrophe at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011, one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.

Kyushu's Sendai reactor is one of at least 25 expected to restart over the course of the next decade as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aims for nuclear power to generate 20-22 percent of the country's electricity by 2030, compared to 30 percent before the nuclear closures. Another 20 reactors are in various stages of the restart process, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Cesium 134 has made it to within 100 miles of Eureka, California

Reported here:

The group found traces of cesium-134, a radioactive element released by the [Fukushima] power plant [in 2011], 100 miles off the coast of Eureka, California. The amount of radioactive chemicals in the water is still below levels that are harmful to humans and is 1,000 times below limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution predicts contaminant levels could increase over the next two to three years.

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Expect hysterical warnings from the nothinkums.

Japan poised to rise from the dead: nuclear plants finally to begin restart after 2011 Fukushima disaster

The Japan Times reports here:

The Nuclear Regulation Authority is moving toward the first reactor restart under its new safety requirements since the Fukushima disaster started, giving impetus to bond sales by utilities as borrowing costs plunge. ...

“The fact that the government is in favor of restarting reactors is positive because it shows a firm commitment toward the electric power companies,” said Yasuhiro Matsumoto, the senior manager for the financial services industry at ABeam Consulting Ltd. “Once one restart is approved, others will come one after another, and the pace may quicken. You can’t approve one but turn down others.” ...

All 48 of Japan’s functioning commercial reactors are idled for safety checks after a tsunami wrecked Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant on March 11, 2011, and caused the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

Radioactive Water Tank Leaks At Fukushima Produce 2.2 Sv/hr

Reported here:

Readings just above the ground near a set of tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed radiation as high as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv), the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said on Wednesday. The previous high in areas holding the tanks, 1,800 mSv, was recorded on Saturday. Both levels would be enough to kill an unprotected person within hours. The NRA has said the recently discovered hotspots are highly concentrated and easily shielded.

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Normally, 2000 mSv/hr is enough to kill you, but because the story says the radiation is "easily shielded" after it's found, this must mean this is not deadly gamma radiation for the most part. Paper can block alpha and foil can block beta, but gamma requires 2.5 inches of concrete just to reduce intensity by 50%.

350 Radioactive Water Storage Tanks At Fukushima Have Rubber Seals, Not Welded, Just Like The One That's Leaking

There's a line in Heartbreak Ridge which updates snafu. That's Fukushima, except there's nothing normal about pools of leaking radioactive water throwing off 100 millisieverts per hour. 

Story here, by Fukushima Diary, and here by the BBC, which regrettably didn't put Mochizuki on the radio.

Radiation Conditions Near The Fukushima Reactors Almost 2 Years Since The Accident

Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) here provides a useful summary of daily radiation conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex.

A series of 8 monitoring posts recently measured an average air radiation level of just over 5 microsieverts per hour along the perimeter from north to west to the south end of the facility.

On March 4, 2013, the level in the air at the west gate was measured at 6 microsieverts per hour.

At the main gate, the level increased to 20 microsieverts per hour.

On the south side of the main building for the power station, the level leaped to 200 microsieverts per hour, varying little throughout the day, between 191-201 microsieverts per hour. Working at that last location outside for 8 hours a day for just under 4 days would give an American a typical ANNUAL dose of radiation.

Radiation In Namie Town, Japan, Almost 2 Years After Fukushima Meltdowns

The pdf of the latest readings of radiation in the areas surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (marked with an X on the map inset) may be viewed here.

Namie Town remains the hardest hit with one startling sampling point as high as 21.1 microsieverts/hour, which totals to about 185 millisieverts/year. Normal there is 1 millisievert/year.

Americans typically get about 6 millisieverts/year from all sources environmental, travel- and medical-related. In a long lifetime of 80 years one wouldn't accumulate 500 millisieverts, but in Namie you could have theoretically already come close to that if you had stayed there for the two years since the accident because the levels were much higher in the immediate aftermath. 

Radiation From Fukushima Accident Revised Up In New Report

CNN.com reports here:

Japan's largest utility said Thursday that more radiation than previously thought was released into the atmosphere in March 2011, in the days after the nuclear disaster that followed an earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) estimates about 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials were released between March 12 and March 31, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency. ... In one town in the Fukushima area, the estimated thyroid doses to infants are within a dose band of 100 to 200 millisieverts (mSv), the preliminary report said. This level of radiation exposure could be associated with an increased likelihood of developing cancer. However, in the rest of Japan, the estimated thyroid doses are within a dose band of 1 to 10 mSv, the report said. Outside the country, the estimated thyroid doses are less than 0.01 mSv, and are usually far below this very low level, it said.

PBS.org had a fuller report here, comparing the accident's severity to Chernobyl and assessing the health consequences of the radiation releases:

Tokyo Electric, the plant’s operator, said on Thursday that reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant released approximately 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances into the air in the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 accident. By comparison, approximately 5.2 million terabecquerels of total radiation were emitted in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. ... In terms of the accident’s health implications, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that the amount of radiation released fell below cancer-causing levels in nearly all of Japan. Outside of “no-go zones” in Fukushima prefecture, residents were exposed to radiation levels between 1 millisievert and 10 millisieverts, the W.H.O. said. The annual average amount of exposure from naturally occurring background radiation is 2.4 mSv globally, according to the report ... . Cumulative exposure to 100 mSv is generally thought to raise a person’s risk of cancer death by 0.5 percent.

Reuters.com reports here that Namie and Iitate were the two towns hardest hit:

In a preliminary report, independent experts said that people in two locations in Fukushima prefecture may have received a radiation dose of 10-50 millisieverts (mSv) in the year after the accident at the power station operated by TEPCO. ... The areas estimated to have received the highest doses of radiation were Namie town in Futaba county and Iitate village in Soma county, northwest of the stricken plant, the report said. Infants in Namie were thought to have received thyroid radiation doses of 100-200 mSv, it added. The thyroid is the most exposed organ as radioactive iodine concentrates there and children are deemed especially vulnerable.

Follow the labels at the end of this post for this blog's reporting on the accident from the beginning.

One Year Out, Radiation in Futaba Japan 5 km from Nuke Accident Remains Dangerous

Here's a screen shot from Fukushima Diary showing recent, very high radiation readings measured at ground level and in a car in Futaba town, 5 km north and west from the melted-down reactors at Fukushima:

If you reduced a typical American's exposure to radiation in a year from all sources, including medical and flight sources, to an hourly level it would be 0.7 microsieverts per hour. The air level in the car to the left is nearly 45.0, and next to the soil 518.2, nearly 12 times worse, both far in excess of safe. Just breathing the air there for less than two years would give you more than a single lifetime's exposure.

(source)

Here's a map showing the nuke plant on the coast at the lower right and Futaba's Town Office to the northwest of it marked by the green arrow:

Radioactivity 150 Miles From Vermont's Troubled, Aging Yankee Nuclear Plant Blamed on Atmospheric Testing in 1940s and 1950s, and on Chernobyl

Strontium-90 has been found in bass far from Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, according to this story:

Now, new tests of bass caught 150 miles away in northwestern Vermont and outside the area affected by the plant's groundwater show similar levels of Strontium-90, said William Irwin, chief of the Vermont Health Department's radiological division.

The likely source, rather than Vermont Yankee, is residue from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union in 1986, he said.


This report puts it as follows:

Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State.

"The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."


The similar levels of radioactive contamination suggest that the reasons for shutting down an aging plant like Vermont's Yankee Nuclear are distinct in this case, not the least of which is that the design is identical to the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plants which melted down after the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.

Radiation 3km WSW From Fukushima the Day After Christmas 65.10 Microsieverts Per Hour

That's still over 90 times what an American can expect on average from all sources, including natural environmental, medical and transportation-related exposures. Just from normal environmental conditions the level is nearly 600 times normal for Japan at the location measured.

(source)

The Incident at Fukushima Six Months Later

Bloomberg.com has a very affecting story about the aftermath of the earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima.

A brief excerpt:

The area’s [Minami Soma's] biggest festival, Soma Noma Oi, a re-enactment of samurai battles, attracted 200,000 visitors last year. This year 37,000 came. Of the 300 horses typically used in the event, 100 were drowned in the tsunami and another 100 were evacuated due to radiation.

Read all of it here.

Radiation Readings 3km from Fukushima Plant as High as 68 Microsieverts/Hr on 9/22/11

As reported here:

Latest Fukushima Map Shows Four Radiation Hotspots NW of Nuke Plants

As shown on today's map from mext.go.jp/ here, air measurements continue to show values from 15 to 31 microsieverts per hour northwest of the crippled nuclear plants on the coast at four locations beyond the 20 km evacuation zone:

For comparison, note that Iitate, Japan, continues to post values quite a bit lower in the vicinity of 2.6 microsieverts per hour, but that normal values should be more like 0.11 in all areas.