Preparing the country for nuclear terrorism
Jerome M. Hauer

Jerome M. Hauer has served in cabinet-level positions at the local and state level and as an acting assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness at the US Department of Health and Human Services. Hauer is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Special Operations Medicine and president elect of the Homeland Security Section of the Health Physics Society. He earned his doctorate at Cranfield University, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, has a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University..

The candidates for president of the United States continue to discuss preventing nuclear proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism, yet we hear little about how well prepared the nation is to manage the aftermath of terrorist use of an improvised nuclear device. Some may think the notion of such an attack is apocryphal. So allow me to explain just how likely such a possibility is, how devastating the result of such a detonation would be, and—in particular—just how poorly prepared the United States is to respond.

In 2005, Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, said, “Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction. I wish it were. But unfortunately we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties. Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy ... [creating] a second death toll throughout the developing world.

In 2007, US Sen. John McCain was quoted as saying, “My greatest fear is the Iranians acquire a nuclear weapon or North Korea and pass enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to a terrorist organization. And there is a real threat of them doing that. Just 55 kilograms, roughly 122 pounds of HEU, can be used to make a 10 kiloton IND, similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima."

In 2005, Graham Allison, director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, asked, "Is nuclear mega-terrorism inevitable? Harvard professors are not known for being subtle or ambiguous, but I'll try to the clear. Is the worst yet to come? My answer: Bet on it. Yes.

Matthew Bunn, also at the Belfer Center, argued in 2007...

50 years after 'we almost lost Detroit,' America's nuclear power industry faces even graver doubts
The history of nuclear power in the United States has been marked by numerous milestones, many of them bad — accidents, construction snafus, engineering incompetence, etc., etc.

One anniversary of an incident that has cast a long shadow over the nuclear power industry’s claim for safety will be marked this week. On Oct. 5, 1966 — that’s 50 years ago Wednesday — Detroit Edison’s Fermi-1 nuclear plant suffered a partial meltdown, caused by a piece of floating shrapnel inside the container vessel.

According to subsequent inspections, no radioactivity escaped to the environment. No injuries were reported inside or outside the plant. The worst case scenario of a “China Syndrome” incident in which melted fuel pooled within the containment vessel and reached critical mass didn’t even come close to occurring.

The good intention of making the plant safer actually compromised its safety.
— David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists

Nuclear industry apologists long have resented the public attention given to the Fermi-1 meltdown, especially through novelist John G. Fuller’s 1975 book about the case, “We Almost Lost Detroit” (which itself prompted the song of the same name by the late Gil Scott-Heron). Even industry critics have faulted Fuller’s book for technical inaccuracies and an overly theatrical tone. But it did put its finger on the bureaucratic and ideological forces that gave birth to America’s nuclear power industry and set the stage for decades of wretched management.

In many ways, the accident underscored the flaws in planning and operation of the industry that have dogged it ever since, all but destroying nuclear power’s reputation as a sustainable energy source that might supplant fossil fuel generation and help combat climate change....

Don Blankenship Is an American Criminal
A Notorious U.S. Coal Executive Remains Blindly Unrepentant for His Part in the Deaths of 29 Miners


Donald Leon “Don” Blankenship, the former head of Massey Energy who is serving federal prison time for his role in the deaths of 29 coal miners six years ago in West Virginia, got beaucoup headline treatment this week for issuing a “manifesto” in which he pronounces himself an “American political prisoner.”

Give the man kudos for a stunt that got traction.

There’s his phrase “American political prisoner” on top of a story published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday and on an article disseminated far and wide by the Associated Press. It appears over and over again in the state where it hurts the most — on far-reaching West Virginia Public Broadcasting, on West Virginia Metro News (the “voice of West Virginia) and on small-town news sites hither and yon across the state.

...

He conspired to violate mining health and safety standards in the run-up to the explosion that claimed those 29 lives on April 5, 2010, at the Upper Big Branch mine south of Charleston. That’s why he’s behind bars now, albeit for not that long a time or at that hard core a prison. Blankenship is already midway through his one-year stretch at Taft Correctional Institute, a minimum-security facility in sunny Southern California. He gets out in April.

He was the best-paid U.S. coal-industry executive ...

Mapping coal's decline and the renewables' rise
June 23, 2016 by Francesca Mccaffrey

CoalMap is an online tool that allows users explore the potential effects of various market factors on the cost-competitiveness of coal versus renewable energy. Here, the variable being tested is a carbon price, set to $50/ ton. The map shows the number of coal plants (red dots), wind farms (green dots), and solar photovoltaic plants (yellow dots) that could exist in the market at this price point. Gray dots represent coal plants in the process of retiring, and black dots represent those that have already retired. Credit: Coalmap.com

Even as coal-fired power plants across the U.S. are shutting down in response to new environmental regulations and policy mandates, defenders of the emissions-heavy fuel still have cost on their side. Coal, after all, is cheap—or so it seems. This perception makes it difficult for alternative, low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind to compete.

A new study from MIT researchers, however, shows that coal's economic edge may soon be far thinner than we think. In a working paper for the MIT Energy Initiative, graduate students Joel Jean, David C. Borrelli, and Tony Wu show how replacing current coal-fired power plants with wind and solar photovoltaic generation facilities could provide benefits for the environment and for bottom lines in the near future.

The online tool they've created to help illustrate this argument is CoalMap, a web application that compares the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)—that is, the minimum electricity price a power plant must receive to break even on investment costs over its lifecycle—of existing U.S. coal-fired plants with the expected LCOE of potential new utility-scale solar and wind generation in the same locations. The tool draws on publicly available data sets from sources including the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Users view CoalMap as a map of the continental United States showing the locations of current coal plants, with markers indicating each plant's nameplate capacity and relative cost. As users apply different carbon prices, deployment subsidies, and rates of cost decline for solar and wind, they can observe the effects of these changes on the cost-competitiveness of renewable energy across the country....

Upward revision of global fossil fuel methane emissions based on isotope database

Stefan Schwietzke, Owen A. Sherwood, Lori M. P. Bruhwiler, John B. Miller, Giuseppe Etiope, Edward J. Dlugokencky, Sylvia Englund Michel, Victoria A. Arling, Bruce H. Vaughn, James W. C. White & Pieter P. Tans


Nature 538, 88–91 (06 October 2016)

Methane has the second-largest global radiative forcing impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gases after carbon dioxide, but our understanding of the global atmospheric methane budget is incomplete.

The global fossil fuel industry (production and usage of natural gas, oil and coal) is thought to contribute 15 to 22 per cent of methane emissions to the total atmospheric methane budget.

However, questions remain regarding methane emission trends as a result of fossil fuel industrial activity and the contribution to total methane emissions of sources from the fossil fuel industry and from natural geological seepage which are often co-located.

Here we re-evaluate the global methane budget and the contribution of the fossil fuel industry to methane emissions based on long-term global methane and methane carbon isotope records.

We compile the largest isotopic methane source signature database so far, including fossil fuel, microbial and biomass-burning methane emission sources.

We find that total fossil fuel methane emissions (fossil fuel industry plus natural geological seepage) are not increasing over time, but are 60 to 110 per cent greater than current estimates owing to large revisions in isotope source signatures.

We show that this is consistent with the observed global latitudinal methane gradient.

After accounting for natural geological methane seepage we find that methane emissions from natural gas, oil and coal production and their usage are 20 to 60 per cent greater than inventories.

Our findings imply a greater potential for the fossil fuel industry to mitigate anthropogenic climate forcing, but we also find that methane emissions from natural gas as a fraction of production have declined from approximately 8 per cent to approximately 2 per cent over the past three decades.

New Report by Top Senators Details Financial Ties Between Fossil Fuel Industry and Clean Power Plan Opponents
Sharon Kelly | September 28, 2016




On September 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard oral arguments in a major challenge to the Clean Power Plan, West Virginia v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — an enormously high-stakes legal battle, that could determine whether Obama's climate plan is ever put into effect.

The stakes are high not only for the environment, but for fossil fuel companies — and those companies have poured enormous sums of money into efforts that would help ensure the Clean Power Plan never goes into effect, according to a report issued this week by four members of Congress.

The report is formatted as an amicus curie — or friend of the court — brief but was not filed with the court, and it takes a detailed look at the money that has moved behind the scenes. It's entitled, “The Brief No One Filed.”

....

“The American public is aware of and alarmed by the massive influx of special interest money and considers this a top problem with elected officials in Washington,” the four senators wrote. “More than 80 percent of Americans believe the government cannot be trusted to do what is right most of the time.”

Large sums of money — over $100 million — have been funneled from the fossil fuel industry to key players in the litigation, the report concludes. ...

U.S. scientist warns of risks of pursuing nuclear power
2016/09/24 13:48:16

Taipei, Sept. 24 (CNA) A visiting U.S. scientist and energy expert on Saturday warned about the risks of pursuing nuclear power, saying human beings lack experience handling and storing high-level waste for very long periods of time.

Ashok Gadgil, a professor from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, made the remarks at a press conference held by the Tang Prize Foundation in Taipei, when asked about his take on nuclear power and about the plan by Taiwan's government to phase out nuclear power by 2025.

From the perspective of climate change alone, some scientists consider it to be "the most serious single risk faced by modern civilization" and believe that fossil-fuel power plants should be replaced by renewable or nuclear power plants, said Gadgil, who is visiting Taiwan to receive the Tang Prize in sustainable development on behalf of American energy expert Arthur H. Rosenfeld.

"The other side of the coin, which is also valid, is that nuclear power requires inevitably taking care of high-level waste," Gadgil said. "And we have no experience as a civilization in maintaining something so dangerous for so long in isolation."

In particular, Gadgil said....

2016 Nobel Prize Winner Yoshinori Ohsumi’s Discoveries Could Change How We Treat Disease

Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi, 71, won the 2016 Nobel Prize on Monday for his research on autophagy ― a metabolic recycling process in which cells eat parts of themselves to survive and stay healthy.

His initial work, first started in 1992, focused on the genes behind the autophagy process in yeast cells. Autophagy, however, has implications for several human diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, infectious diseases and diabetes. Now drugs that can target the process are being tested in early-stage clinical trials in human beings, which could fundamentally change everything from the way we treat dementia disorders to how we eradicate cancerous growths.

Autophagy is a normal part of a cell’s lifespan. Individual cells can “eat” parts of themselves, especially old or damaged parts, and recycle the material to help keep themselves healthy. Think of it like recycling: By shedding damaged or dying parts inside the cell, the cell has a new resource from which to repair itself and keep itself running.

Autophagy helps address normal damage and wear and tear to cells, but also plays a role in everything from fighting bacterial or viral infections to in-cell differentiation in embryo development. A dysfunctional autophagy process has also been linked to Type 2 diabetes and other genetic diseases, the Nobel Prize site notes. In particular, it may play an important role in two distinct disease types that are difficult to treat and mysterious in origin: cancer and neurodegenerative disease.

How autophagy affects brain diseases

When autophagy starts to slow down or stop functioning properly, the cell can no longer destroy its abnormal proteins, old cell structures and invasive germs. Currently, ...

GLOBAL ENERGY STORAGE FORECAST, 2016-24

By 2024, roughly 45GW / 81GWh of energy storage will be installed globally, excluding pumped hydro. Although this will represent a tiny fraction of total installed generation capacity, the electricity system will look fundamentally different. At utility-scale, energy storage is being used to displace less efficient generation capacity. Meanwhile, fast growing uptake in behind-the-meter energy storage looks set to transform the relationship between consumers and utilities.

Utility-scale storage deployments dominate in terms of total installed power output (MW) in 2016. They make up 84% of total installed capacity. Behind-the-meter energy storage becomes increasingly important throughout the 2016-24 period, and in 2021 it becomes the larger of the two market segments.

The top five markets are Japan, India, the United States, China, and Europe: other. They represent 71% of the global total in 2024 for storage installed.

Between 2016 and 2024, some $44bn will be invested in storage, compared to $3.9 trillion in power generation capacity.

Solar+Storage Microgrid at US Air Force Forward Operating Base of the Future
20 September 2016

SolarStorage at US Airforce Base
Ideal Power Inc., a developer of power conversion technologies, and EnerDel, a lithium-ion battery manufacturer and energy system integrator, have teamed up to create a mobile hybrid solar plus battery energy storage system for the United States Air Force aimed at reducing the diesel fuel used to power forward operating bases (FOB). Researchers in the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Dayton Research Institute recently launched the joint year-long program where they are demonstrating technologies capable of powering remote military installations that normally depend on the regular delivery of diesel fuel via convoy, often in hostile locations.

EnerDel selected Ideal Power’s Grid Resilient Multi-port 30kW Power Conversion System (30B3) for this project. EnerDel’s Mobile Hybrid Power System (MHPS) integrates the 30B3 with an 8kW tent-mounted solar array to form a portable microgrid. The project supports the U.S. Air Force’s Energy Strategic Plan, which seeks to improve the resiliency of their FOBs and reduce dependence on diesel-powered generators. The project has been successfully operating at the 319th Training Squadron’s Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training (BEAST) facility at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and is currently powering lights and air conditioning systems for ten FOB living quarters. The microgrid has been undergoing rigorous testing for the past seven months and could eventually be deployed at Air Force locations across the globe....

http://www.solarnovus.com/solar-storage-microgrid-at-us-air-force-forward-operating-base-of-the-future_N10374.html