America's idiotic green dream will end up in disaster just like Germany's

 Hans-Werner Sinn, here:

To cushion the twin phaseout of coal and nuclear, and to close supply gaps during the long transition to renewable energy, Germany decided to build a large number of additional gas-fired power plants. Even immediately before Russian forces invaded Ukraine, policymakers assumed that the gas for these facilities would always come from Russia, which supplied more than half of Germany’s needs. ...

Germany’s pledge to abandon coal and nuclear, the very energy sources that would have given it a degree of self-sufficiency and autonomy, has thus placed the country in great danger. Not so long ago, Germany was the world’s second-largest lignite producer, after China. And it easily could have procured the tiny amount of uranium needed to run its nuclear power plants, and stored it domestically for many years. ...

Despite the fact that turbines and photovoltaic panels now dot much of the landscape, in 2021 the share of wind and solar power in Germany’s total final energy consumption, which includes heating, industrial processing, and traffic, was a meager 6.7 per cent. And while wind and solar generated 29 per cent of the country’s electricity output, electricity itself accounted for only about a fifth of its final energy consumption. Germany would not have come close to achieving energy autonomy even if the renewables sector had expanded at twice the speed that it did. ...

If Germany suddenly halted Russian gas imports, gas-based residential heating systems, on which half the German population, approximately 40 million people, rely, and industrial processes that rely heavily on gas imports would break down before replacement energy became available. The government would be unlikely to survive the resulting economic chaos, public uproar, and outrage should gas become unavailable or heating costs rise dramatically. In fact, the likely scale of domestic disruption would call into question the cohesion of the Western response to the Ukraine war.

Tulsi Gabbard keeps her assets in shape, Hillary Clinton just sells America's to Russia

Looks like as much as 5,000 tons of US yellowcake were shipped by Uranium One to Canada and then on to Europe and Asia

From the story here:

NRC memos reviewed by The Hill show ... that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium — the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons — from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show. ...

Rather than give Rosatom a direct export license — which would have raised red flags inside a Congress already suspicious of the deal — the NRC in 2012 authorized an amendment to an existing export license for a Paducah, Ky.,-based trucking firm called RSB Logistics Services Inc. to simply add Uranium One to the list of clients whose uranium it could move to Canada.

The license, reviewed by The Hill, is dated March 16, 2012, and it increased the amount of uranium ore concentrate that RSB Logistics could ship to the Cameco Corp. plant in Ontario from 7,500,000 kilograms to 12,000,000 kilograms and added Uranium One to the “other parties to Export.”

The move escaped notice in Congress. ...

The entire Uranium One episode is getting a fresh look after The Hill disclosed late last month that the FBI had gathered extensive evidence in 2009 — before the mine sale was approved — that Rosatom’s main executive in the United States was engaged in a racketeering scheme that included bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.

FBI and DOJ had evidence of wrongdoing going back to 2009 before Uranium One deal approved in 2010

From the story here:

The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.

But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.

Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn’t comment.

Bribery: Hillary approved Russian uranium deal, her foundation got $2.35 million, and she accuses Trump of being pals with Putin

From the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial, here:

[Special interests] are not paying hundreds of thousands of dollars [to the Clintons] to hear shopworn speeches because they expect to obtain profound insights. They want the Clintons’ help, and they’re willing to pay for it.

That is the obvious conclusion to draw from The New York Times’ 2015 bombshell about how a Russian firm obtained control of one-fifth of all U.S. uranium production capacity from 2009-13 — which required approval from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — while the company’s owner used a Canadian partnership to surreptitiously convey $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation.

China Ups The Ante In The Race For Thorium Reactors

The earth is loaded with thorium, but so is the moon.

The South China Morning Post reports here:

A team of scientists in Shanghai had originally been given 25 years to try to develop the world's first nuclear plant using the radioactive element thorium as fuel rather than uranium, but they have now been told they have 10, the researchers said. ... 

Professor Li, director of the project's molten salt chemistry and engineering technology division, said the smog crisis had provided huge impetus for their research. ...

Western countries such as the United States have experimented with thorium reactors but gave up on the technology because of the engineering difficulties.

Analysts have also suggested the US lost interest in thorium as a fuel for reactors because uranium was a more suitable material to produce nuclear weapons.

Interest, however, has been revived in recent years and research projects have been established in several countries, including the United States, France and Japan.

"This is definitely a race," said Li. China "faces fierce competition from overseas and to get there first will not be an easy task", he said.

h/t Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Bet You Didn't Know Japan Has 44 Tons Of Plutonium

I didn't either.

Story here:

Japan now has 9 tons of plutonium stockpiled at several locations in Japan and another 35 tons stored in France and the U.K. The material is enough to create 5,000 nuclear bombs. The country also has 1.2 tons of enriched uranium. ...

It also has plans to open a new fast-breeder plutonium reactor in Rokkasho in October. The reactor would be able to produce 8 tons of plutonium a year, or enough for 1,000 Nagasaki-sized weapons.

Need for Cooling Water at Fukushima Reactors Due to Leaks, Not Boil-Off

Leaks in the pressure vessels themselves, where the fuel is. In other words, perhaps three of the reactors are technically in a state of meltdown and breached containment.

This appears to be the conclusion this week, ever since repair of a water gauge has resulted in data showing that the water is disappearing at a faster rate than otherwise expected, and apparently accumulating in the lower levels of the plant, in the turbine buildings. Radiation levels where the water is pooling are said in a Wall Street Journal story to be in the range of 1 to 2 Sieverts per hour. A two hour exposure at such levels would kill you in 30 days.

Scientific American has these details via Reuters:

"There must be a large leak," Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility [TEPCO] told a news conference.

"The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged...the pressure vessel itself and created a hole," he added.

Since the surface temperature of the pressure vessel has been holding steady between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, Matsumoto said the effort to cool the melted uranium fuel by pumping in water was working and would continue.

VESSEL HAS A HOLE

Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

Read the full story, here.

China Moves Forward on Discarded American Thorium Reactor Technology

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard had the story over a week ago for The UK Telegraph here, and promptly headed for the hills afterwards:

A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. ...

China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say. ...

Norway’s Aker Solution has bought Professor Rubbia’s patent. It had hoped to build the first sub-critical reactor in the UK, but seems to be giving up on Britain and locking up a deal to build it in China instead, where minds and wallets are more open.

Japan Admits Radiation at Fukushima is Deadly: 4,000 mSv Per Hour

Ten times worse than a previous report, and over 7.5 times the normal lifetime average total exposure of 483 millisieverts, and all in one hour.

The UK Daily Mail has all the details and photos, here, but most pointedly, this:

The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens. ...

Unlike the other reactors which use uranium, Reactor 3 uses a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium, best known as an ingredient in nuclear weapons, is particularly dangerous if released into the environment. In the worst case scenario, exposed fuel will melt, triggering a chemical explosion that will send radioactive dust hundreds of yards into the air. Chinook helicopters flying at less than 300 feet dropped four loads of water over the wrecked building in the hope that some water would seep into the dried-out pool and cool the fuel. However, footage suggested much of the 2,000 gallons of water missed its target. Later, six fire engines and a water cannon tried to spray the building with 9,000 gallons of water from high pressure hoses. However, radiation levels within the plant rose from 3,700 millisieverts to 4,000 millisieverts an hour immediately afterwards. People exposed to such doses will suffer radiation sickness and many will die.

We've been lied to all week while the media in America have been full of apologists for the nuclear industry, soft-peddling the seriousness of this situation.

Fukushima Reactor No. 2 Update: Did the Fire Engine Run Out of Fuel?

The UK Daily Mail has these details, reported here:

There were reports that a fire engine pumping water in to the Number Two reactor failed shortly before last night's explosion -- which would have led to an increase in temperature inside the reactor and could have caused the blast. ...

The latest explosion last night is feared to have cracked the main protective barrier around reactor number two at the plant.

The International Atomic Agency said radioactive material is leaking 'directly' into the air from the stricken plant at a rate of 400 millisieverts per hour.  Anyone exposed to over 100 millisieverts a year risks cancer.

Engineers are using sea water to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods.

That is a sign of the desperation of the situation because the corrosive salt water will put the reactors permanently out of action. It is the first time in 57 years that sea water has been used to cool a reactor.

Although the plant’s three working reactors shut down automatically when the magnitude nine earthquake struck on Friday, the cooling systems which keep the radioactive uranium and plutonium fuel rods cool have been hit by a series of failures. ...

'It is too dangerous to go outside and even if they did they would not be able to be transported to a safe place because we have no fuel for our vehicles,' [the mayor of Fukushima City] said.