industryterm:nuclear energy

The Critical Net Critic - New Left Review n° 77 (Rob Lucas)
http://newleftreview.org/II/77/rob-lucas-the-critical-net-critic

Four decades on from the origin of the Internet, and more than twenty years from the birth of the Web, discussions of these technologies retain a strong mystical odour. Prophecies about a coming ‘information society’, or of new technological ruptures comparable to the Industrial Revolution, have long served to conceal any realistic sense of what they most immediately are; the computer can still be portrayed as a thing of magic, a portal onto some other plane of Being; the Net even more so. Mainstream technology pundits have typically played a propaganda role for American hi-tech industries: ‘we have a moral obligation to increase the amount of technology in the world’, Wired magazine ‘Chief Maverick’ Kevin Kelly once declared, while Stewart Brand—founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and a pioneer of the libertarian Californian tech culture with which the Net has been associated since the start—has come out as an advocate for biotech and nuclear energy. At the same time such figures have been central in making a literary genre of the Web’s mystification.

#internet #idéologie_californienne #critique_techno

Why can’t we quit fossil fuels? | Environment | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/17/why-cant-we-give-up-fossil-fuels?CMP=twt_fd

...

Given what is at stake, it is no wonder that governments agree global warming must be stopped. But that is where the common sense ends and the cognitive dissonance begins. Because to have a decent chance of not exceeding the already risky global target, we need to start phasing out fossil fuels now at a fast enough rate to bring down emissions globally by a few percent a year, and continue doing so for decades to come.

Now compare that with what is actually happening. As with the climate, to understand the situation properly it is necessary to zoom right out to see the long-term trend. Doing so reveals something fascinating, worrying and oddly overlooked. As scientists from Lancaster University pointed out last year, if you plot a graph showing all the carbon emissions that humans have pumped into the air, the result is a remarkably clear exponential curve stretching all the way back to the mid-19th century. Zoom back in on the past decade and it is clear that for all the mounting scientific concern, the political rhetoric and the clean technology, nothing has made a jot of difference to the long-term trend at the global level – the system level. The growth rate in total carbon emissions in the past decade, at around 2% a year, was the same as that of the 1850s.

...

This extraordinary double-think is everywhere to be seen. Take the US. Obama boasts that American emissions are now falling due to rising auto efficiency standards and gas displacing dirtier coal in the energy mix. But the US is extracting carbon and flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. Its gas boom has simply allowed it to export more of the coal to other countries such as China – which of course uses it partly to produce goods for US markets. Not happy with increasing US carbon extraction, Obama is also set to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline that will enable Canada to flood the global markets with crude produced from dirty tar sands. So much for carbon cuts.

...

It is not just governments that are in near-universal denial about what needs to happen to the fossil fuel sector. Blithely ignoring the fact that there is already far more accessible fuel than can be safely burned, pension fund managers and other investors are allowing listed fossil fuel companies to spend the best part of $1tn a year (comparable to the US defence budget, or more than $100 for every person on the planet) to find and develop yet more reserves.

If and when we emerge from this insanity, the carbon bubble will burst and those investments will turn out to have been as toxic as sub-prime mortgages. ....

...

Globally, the vast majority of people want climate change dealt with. But can we bring ourselves to prioritise a safe planet over cheap fuels, flights, power and goods? Can we face calling on our leaders to end the double-think and constrain oil, coal and gas supplies on our behalf? Can humanity muster the restraint and cooperation needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground?

Le roi de Jordanie accuse Israël de faire pression pour retarder les projets nucléaires de son pays
Jordan king says Israel disrupted nuclear plans - Zawya
http://www.zawya.com/story/Jordan_king_says_Israel_disrupted_nuclear_plans-ANA20120912T113909ZPIN71/?lok=113916120912&weeklynewsletter&zawyaemailmarketing

The king, whose country needs atomic energy to meet its energy needs and power water desalination plants, said “strong opposition to Jordan’s nuclear energy programme is coming from Israel.”

[...]

“When we started going down the road of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, we approached some highly responsible countries to work with us. And pretty soon we realised that Israel was putting pressure on those countries to disrupt any cooperation with us,” the king added.

“A Jordanian delegation would approach a potential partner, and one week later an Israeli delegation would be there, asking our interlocutors not to support Jordan’s nuclear energy bid,” King Abdullah said.

Il critique les opposants au projet nucléaire en en faisant des suppôts d’Israël (ONG type Greepeace Jordan mais aussi les Frères Musulmans...)

“Against this backdrop, I feel that those who oppose our peaceful nuclear programme for all the wrong reasons are furthering Israeli interests more efficiently than Israel could ever do,” the king said.

La réponse israélienne ne manque pas de piment, de la part d’un pays qui n’a jamais signé le traité de non-prolifération...

An Israeli official in Jerusalem dismissed the charge.

“The king’s accusations sound (like) a hollow excuse,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We were consulted and we always said that of course if this was done according to NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) regulations and supervision and everything, then fine, we have no objection.”

#Israël
#Jordanie
#Traité_de_non_prolifération_nucléaire
#nucléaire
#centrale_nucléaire
#électricité
#désalinisation

Admire un peu ce titre pas malhonnête du Wall Street Journal : « Ce que nous savons des bombes nucléaires iraniennes ». Je vais te le dire, ce que nous en savons : il n’existe rien qui, de prêt ou de loin, puisse être appelé « bombe nucléaire iranienne ».
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577622131793884986.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

What We Know About Iran’s Nukes

Aaaaarhhhghhh !
Japan readies for reopening of nuclear reactors amid safety concerns | World news | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/08/japan-reopen-nuclear-reactors-safety

Japan’s leader has appealed to the nation to accept that two nuclear reactors that remained shuttered after the Fukushima disaster must be restarted to protect the economy and people’s livelihoods.

#nucléaire

#Taiwan, #Japan share atomic power dilemma | The Japan Times Online
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120411f1.html

Taiwan has three nuclear power stations, two in the north and one in the south. All have operated safely and profitably for many years while providing nearly 20 percent of the island’s electricity.

But the facilities are getting old — the oldest is slated for decommissioning in 2018 and another in 2019.

Construction of a fourth plant began in 1998 in New Taipei City on the northeast coast, but various shutdowns due to engineering problems and policy reversals have delayed its completion.

#japon #nucléaire #cdp

Japan Heading for Energy Death Spiral? - Steve Clemons - International - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/japan-heading-for-energy-death-spiral/255266

Tanaka explained that at current levels, Japan consumes about 5 million barrels of oil a day.  Without domestically produced nuclear energy — for which Japan has stockpiled for decades the world’s largest non-weaponized highly processed plutonium reserves — Japan falls about 10% or half a million barrels of oil short of what it must have.

La contestation contre le programme nucléaire de la Jordanie continue et trouve des alliés au sein du régime
Activists, experts hold first ‘anti-nuclear’ conference | Jordan Times
http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=43576
Il s’agit de la princesse Basma Bent Ali (je ne connais pas son lien de parenté excat avec le ROi) ainsi que deux hauts fonctionnaires ayant occupé des postes de direction au sein de la Natural Resources Authority et de la Jordan Nuclear Commission se joignent aux opposants et mettent en avant des arguments techniques et financiers de poids.
D’autre part, afin de mobiliser la population, les opposants en appellent au spectre de la Nakba (catastrophe), établissant un lien entre les conséquences d’un éventuel argument nucléaire et les séismes politiques fondateurs de l’histoire jordanienne (1948 et 1967).

The recent Fukoshima incident in Japan has highlighted the need for officials to take a closer look at safety risks that environmentalists warn will push the Kingdom to “crisis”.

“We are familiar with Nakbehs [catastrophes] - the Nakbeh of 1948, the Nakbeh of 1967 - do we really want a nuclear Nakbeh in Jordan?” Ayoub Abu Dayyeh, energy consultant and conference organiser asked.

#nucléaire
#Jordanie

Innovation & management, par Neal Stephenson | World Policy Institute
►http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

#espace #recherche #court-terme

Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute
►http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

Neal Stephenson sur le rôle de la SF dans l’innovation.

Most people who work in corporations or academia have witnessed something like the following: A number of engineers are sitting together in a room, bouncing ideas off each other. Out of the discussion emerges a new concept that seems promising. Then some laptop-wielding person in the corner, having performed a quick Google search, announces that this “new” idea is, in fact, an old one—or at least vaguely similar—and has already been tried. Either it failed, or it succeeded. If it failed, then no manager who wants to keep his or her job will approve spending money trying to revive it. If it succeeded, then it’s patented and entry to the market is presumed to be unattainable, since the first people who thought of it will have “first-mover advantage” and will have created “barriers to entry.” The number of seemingly promising ideas that have been crushed in this way must number in the millions.

Japan’s A-bomb survivors turn against nuclear energy - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/in-a-switch-japans-a-bomb-survivors-turn-against-nuclear-energy/2011/08/04/gIQALjBzvI_story.html
pour la première fois les hibakusha (survivants de Hiroshima/Nagasaki) demandent la fin du #nucléaire civil

Japan’s nationwide survivors’ group never rallied against nuclear-generated energy as such, perhaps because many saw a redemptive justice in using it peacefully. Reactors could power the country’s economy, they hoped, by harnessing the same force that once caused so much damage. (...) the group called for first time for the “elimination of nuclear power generation.”

IAEA reports Syria to UN Security Council - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201169151210882741.html

Based on that report, the US, backed by 12 allies, drew up the referral to bring Syria before the UN Security Council, insisting that that the reputation of the IAEA, set up by the UN to enforce the peaceful use of nuclear energy, was at stake.

“Syria’s nuclear intentions at Dair Alzour are clear; the reactor there was built for the express purpose of producing plutonium for possible use in nuclear weapons,” Glyn Davis, the chief US envoy to the IAEA, said.

Ben voyons.

The Nuclear Cost Shell Game - IPS ipsnews.net
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55527

le #nucléaire n’existe que parce que l’Etat l’assure (coût caché).

The nuclear energy industry only exists thanks to what insurance experts call the “mother of all subsidies”, and the public is largely unaware that every nuclear power plant in the world has a strict cap on how much the industry might have to pay out in case of an accident.

In Canada, this liability cap is an astonishingly low 75 million dollars. In India, it is 110 million dollars and in Britain 220 million dollars. If there is an accident, governments - i.e. the public - are on the hook for all costs exceeding those caps.

Le déni du nombre de morts causés par le #nucléaire est à la mode.

Ci-dessous un article qui fait une comparaison… en se basant sur le chiffre de 50 morts pour le nucléaire, acceptant comme valeur haute 4000.

Deaths per TWH by energy source
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

But what about Chernobyl ?
The World Health Organization study in 2005 indicated that 50 people died to that point as a direct result of Chernobyl. 4000 people may eventually die earlier as a result of Chernobyl, but those deaths would be more than 20 years after the fact and the cause and effect becomes more tenuous.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/R9rF7NuGzXI/AAAAAAAAAPw/KcnCX7ly6gw/s320/deathTWH.JPG

George Monbiot qui défend cette vision annonce être devenu pro-nucléaire au vu des chiffres et en réponse au risque climatique.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/05/kingsnorthclimatecamp.climatechange

Quant au graphique de xkcd, il a aussi touché beaucoup de monde par son message : « il est plus dangereux de dormir à côté de quelqu’un que d’habiter à proximité d’un réacteur ».

Why earthquake-prone Japan relies on nuclear power - CSMonitor.com
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0314/Why-earthquake-prone-Japan-relies-on-nuclear-power

Why? #Nuclear power is increasingly seen as a way for #Japan to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. That’s the same reason why President Obama has also been pushing the US to build its first nuclear power plant in almost three decades. In his 2010 State of the Union address, he called for “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.”

But as shown by the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan, with two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffering explosions since Friday’s massive earthquake knocked out cooling systems at the plant, there is simply no easy solution to humanity’s need for energy. While fossil fuel raises concerns of climate change, nuclear #energy raises the specter of radioactive contamination.