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Post by kasuku on Dec 5, 2011 19:57:31 GMT 3
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 5, 2011 23:30:22 GMT 3
Kasuku:
What do you mean my sister?
Onyango Oloo Nairobi
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Post by mank on Dec 6, 2011 6:24:54 GMT 3
There is no prize for silliness. Nuclear is no child's play! We can have a trillion trillion shillings for the program but if we are not disciplined then we are only courting trouble.
Look, we have shown no commitment for running anything efficiently! Political fraud, financial fraud, land fraud ... we create it all and solve none. Fortunately we can live with the fowl results of all that. We may not live with nuclear fowl ... Kenya, keep hands off this stuff! There are enough dirty games to play before going into this one!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2011 8:00:52 GMT 3
There is no prize for silliness. Nuclear is no child's play! We can have a trillion trillion shillings for the program but if we are not disciplined then we are only courting trouble. Look, we have shown no commitment for running anything efficiently! Political fraud, financial fraud, land fraud ... we create it all and solve none. Fortunately we can live with the fowl results of all that. We may not live with nuclear fowl ... Kenya, keep hands off this stuff! There are enough dirty games to play before going into this one! Really bad idea. Kenyans have to refuse this one too. It is way up there on the list of must not do. The country is already messed up enough and can ill afford to push the boundaries of continuing on that trajectory.That route will only give up destruction. Kenyans, we can't sort of go back on nuclear waste. And that's just one humongous problem with this nuclear adventure. Remember Chernobyl? Besides If countries around the world including Japan can't handle it, what business does Kenya have going nuclear? Maybe someone wants to store their nuclear waste in Kenya. Maybe that's what we get from Israel. I don't know. But I do know that Israel has nuclear waste to deal with. Where does Israel store nuclear waste? Maybe Israel can school Kenya on this one as in security.This is really,really bad.
Chernobyl:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
The G.M.Os are another place we should not be going at all. Disconcertingly, Raila Odinga, Kenya's main candidate for President come 2012, is on record as supporting the GMOing of Kenya.
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Post by stibin on Dec 6, 2011 8:10:28 GMT 3
Another pipedream if you ask me. I thought it’s more prudent to 1st deal with the basics e.g heathcare, poverty, unemployment …, And where is the one trillion to be sourced? From development partners again?
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Post by einstein on Dec 6, 2011 21:56:38 GMT 3
Best Chernobyl Documentary 2006 The Battle of Chernobyl (HQ) 1hr 32min 1 clip
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Post by tnk on Dec 7, 2011 7:48:57 GMT 3
thanks einstein a must see for everyone. knowing how inept our response systems are (let alone emergency). considering how reckless and careless those in charge of fuel pipelines and transportation have so far demonstrated (sinai, salgaa ) the magnitude of disaster they can visit upon us expecting otherwise from nuclear energy plants - we need to evacuate the entire east africa. Best Chernobyl Documentary 2006 The Battle of Chernobyl (HQ) 1hr 32min 1 clip
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Post by einstein on Dec 8, 2011 0:23:42 GMT 3
Thanks TNK,
This is another chance for those who have not seen the documentary.
They are not going to simply bury this one under the Chernobyl rubble. No way!!
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Post by b6k on Dec 10, 2011 13:33:13 GMT 3
Japan, which is still reeling from the effects of the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima caused by an earthquake & tsunami double whammy has yet another unfolding disaster. The Genkai power plant in the south of the country has had a major 2 ton leak of radioactive water. NB this has nothing to do with the quake, for those who erroneously believe nuclear power poses no threat to KE because we are not on a quake zone (forgetting the Rift Valley is a giant crack in the earth thanks to volcanic & seismic activity, not just a scenic viewing point!). www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/report-radioactive-water-leaks-inside-nuclear-plant-in-southwestern-japan/2011/12/09/gIQAoWNKjO_story.htmlA couple days ago Meiji Corporation had to pull baby formula (milk) from the shelves as it was moderately contaminated from Fukushima Cesium fallout. Only Kenyan leaders, with their eye firmly on the TKK they will personally benefit from, can willingly push KE into accepting this poisonous & deadly technology even when we can't effectively manage the hydro we have on the grid. If a tech power like Japan cannot handle nuclear energy, KE has no business dabbling in it at all.
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Post by kamalet on Dec 10, 2011 13:40:58 GMT 3
Aeroplanes crash...but still the safest mode of transport!
Nuclear power stations leak ...but till most efficient way of generating electricity!
Rather than kill it, how about make it safer and available?
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Post by b6k on Dec 10, 2011 14:10:09 GMT 3
Kamale, that's precisely the problem. There's no such thing as safe nuclear power! That's why a country that is highly lacking in a culture of maintenance like KE should never go nuclear. If the highly disciplined Japanese cannot handle it then our lackadaisical, business as usual in Africa ways is bound to end in bitter tears.
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Post by podp on Dec 11, 2011 13:10:17 GMT 3
From reading your responses only Kamalet appears sober and less emotive. OO asks a question and no one gives it a rational reply.
However all questions asked are important and must be addressed by GoK and especially the NEDP. With my knowledge of energy let me also contribute.
First before Kenya goes nuclear for electricity generation bilateral agreements with countries that host nuclear vendors must be in place. Additionally Kenya has to sign and ratify a number of binding international legal instruments and deposit them with among others IAEA.
Locally the people of Kenya, cabinet, parliament, friendly NGOs and private stakeholders will have to support nuclear energy. After the NE programme starts in earnest potential sites in selected counties that can host the NE plants will need to be identified.
Issues like corruption, nepotism and impunity are unacceptable in nuclear energy projects. No vendor country will avail or/and transfer the nuclear technology knowhow to a country not adhering to tenets associated with safe, responsible and sustainable use of nuclear energy. Matters of radioactive waste management, and in future nuclear spent fuel safe handling, storage and sometimes in the future disposal are guided by proven technology practised in over 30 countries that host more than 420 nuclear power plants operating now. More than 65 NP plants are now being built and there are plans to construct much more as it downs on electricity users that oil, coal and gas are exhaustable.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2011 6:22:39 GMT 3
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Post by b6k on Dec 13, 2011 13:10:52 GMT 3
French energy & nuclear power provider, Areva, is expected to announce massive losses for the year, thanks in a large measure to people's aversion to nuclear power in a post Fukushima world. Highlight: "Areva said its earnings would also be hurt by a drop in the number of new reactors being built around the world following the Japanese nuclear disaster. This will also depress the price of uranium, which will have further negative impacts on Areva's earnings, the company said." www.thestreet.com/story/11342066/1/french-nuclear-giant-areva-to-post-large-loss.htmlWith more information on the expected $2 billion writedown highlighted here by the WSJ below: "Areva was built as a one-stop nuclear shop with business interests ranging from uranium mining to nuclear-reactor construction. Former Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon bet on a nuclear renaissance and loaded up the company with debt and expanded its operations. However, that nuclear renaissance never quite happened. Areva's premium EPR reactors, which sell for around €6 billion apiece, didn't attract the commercial interest expected." online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203518404577093840595649740.html Let us not forget our high-powered PM led delegation to France earlier in the year to clinch a deal for a nuclear build in KE to help this ailing industry. Are we really heading into this "cheap" power with Kenyan job creation in mind or to save 1,500 jobs in Europe? Do we have the €6 billion to build one of these white elephants?
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Post by einstein on Dec 30, 2011 15:52:46 GMT 3
There’s nothing cheap or clean about nuclear power option; ask the Japanese Both print and electronic media have of late been dominated by news features and documentaries highlighting the efforts Kenya is making towards developing nuclear energy. The reports attributed to the Nuclear Electricity Project Committee (NEPC), chaired by Mr Ochillo Ayacko, paint a romantic picture of nuclear energy and promise nuclear power by 2022. The NEPC warns of the energy deficit facing Kenyans and projects that the country will have to generate about 25 per cent of its energy needs from nuclear plants if Vision 2030 is to be realised. A further justification stated by among others, Mr Francis Maliti, the director of Vision 2030 in charge of manufacturing, is that nuclear energy is clean and cheap (at least in the long run). These nuclearphilics argue that “although capital intensive, nuclear energy is an attractive option that Kenya cannot ignore”. However, these experts are not telling Kenyans why the great industrialised countries like Germany, Switzerland and now Japan are phasing out this “clean and cheap nuclear energy option”. To refer to nuclear energy as clean is a great fallacy or simply a display of fatal ignorance. Nuclear power plants produce radioactive waste, whose disposal is a nightmare even for the developed countries. It is not possible for any sincere group of “experts” to deliberate on nuclear energy without reference to the problem of radioactive nuclear waste material disposal. In addition to the disposal problem, nuclear power plants require an enormous amount of water to cool the heating rods. Not only is the supply of this water a problem, but its discharge into the surface water bodies is a major threat to the ecosystem. Any discussion of nuclear energy, and therefore nuclear power plants, is grossly inadequate and deliberately slanted if it fails to address the reality of possible nuclear accidents such as happened at Chernobyl in Russia in 1986, and recently in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Japan nuclear power plants were badly damaged and despite its technological advancement and experience with atomic energy and radiation, the Japanese are still struggling to contain the radioactive leakage from one of the plants in Fukushima. The residents of the surrounding area are exposed to radioactive foodstuff, radioactive water and they breathe radioactive air. Mr Ayacko’s team may avoid mentioning these effects of nuclear energy, but the reality is that even now, there are several drugs that can treat cancer and would be in use, were it not that the patient may die of their adverse effects long before cure. Similarly, the prospect of nuclear power may be exciting, but the tragedy of radiation is that it travels far and wide, not only in physical distance, but it also traverses genetic frontiers into generations yet unborn. Our great grandchildren will carry birth defects attributed to our misadventure. Of course, as the developed world opens its eyes to the dangers of nuclear radiation and turns to safer and cleaner energy alternatives, this second-hand technology is becoming cheaper and more readily available. Unfortunately, Third World countries, like Kenya, will be the dumpsite of the vestigial technology, with the usual international brokers waiting in the wings to make a killing from the mitumba. The NEPC team must offer Kenyans more convincing arguments in support of their project and this should be subjected to scrutiny by an independent group with no stake in the business. It is well-known that the nuclear energy option has been dangled as a bribe by the nuclear weapons states: “Keep off the nuclear weapon and we shall give you the nuclear energy technology”. For a country like Kenya that cannot even manage garbage collection in its cities, the question is, where shall you dump the nuclear waste? This is an important social responsibility question for which I believe majority of Kenyans, if they know the truth, will answer ‘Not in my neighbourhood!’ Dr Odhiambo is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and a member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Walter.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke)www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/1297192/-/mpra1az/-/index.html
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Post by podp on Dec 30, 2011 19:33:42 GMT 3
Einstein
Please some a rejoinder with colered being my response.
Both print and electronic media have of late been dominated by news features and documentaries highlighting the efforts Kenya is making towards developing nuclear energy.
Yes the documentaries have been trying to explain the efforts and debate is most welcome
The reports attributed to the Nuclear Electricity Project Committee (NEPC), chaired by Mr Ochillo Ayacko, paint a romantic picture of nuclear energy and promise nuclear power by 2022.
If hydro and geothermal power generation stations that are now providing electricity, albeit not enough, were products of romanticism is this not a good way forward?
The NEPC warns of the energy deficit facing Kenyans and projects that the country will have to generate about 25 per cent of its energy needs from nuclear plants if Vision 2030 is to be realised.
Actually it is the least Cost Power Development Plan (LCPDP) team that has been incorporating nuclear electricity in the energy mix from as early as 2008/9 that started the ball rolling. The National Economic and Social Council (NESC) caught the bug in 2009. The NEPC is a creation of the Ministry of Energy in 2010 and its role is to implement realization of nuclear electricity. A further justification stated by among others, Mr Francis Maliti, the director of Vision 2030 in charge of manufacturing, is that nuclear energy is clean and cheap (at least in the long run). Other than the Kenya Association of Manufacturers who have reported industries relocating from Kenya to destinations with cheaper electricity, the NESC in making the executive decision is simply trying to stop the flow of industries out of Kenya and hence negate the aims of Vision 2030. The load forecast in the 2010-2030 LCPDP Update was done using a macro econometric model with the main driving factor for the electricity projections being future GDP growth. Although approach was acceptable, it presented a drawback due to its global approach which prevented in-depth investigations within the electricity demand. For this reason it was decided that this year’s update uses a more disaggregated approach the Model for Analysis of Energy Demand (MAED) software, a tool developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its member states. However due to data challenges it was not possible to run the model and instead an excel model was developed using MAED principles and assumptions which indicate that the nature and the level of demand for goods and services are driven by several determinants including; • Population • Household size • Specific consumption (kWh/household/year) Expected social and economic evolution of the country including the saving from the energy efficiency programmes. • Impact of major projects outlined in The Vision 2030; hereunder, these projects are referred to as flagship projects.
Flagship projects have an impact on both GDP growth and electricity consumption. This enables scenarios (low, medium and high) being projected as possible futures. Dr. Odhiambo should rest assured that in planning one can assume nothing happens, say in electricity generation while say population continues to increase with the projected social unrest outcomes which would ensure that he is busy treating the wounded instead of a projection that assures excess supplies of electricity that would result in him treating lifestyle diseases like cancer, diabetes, hypertension etc. instead of bullet and machete wounds.
These nuclearphilics argue that “although capital intensive, nuclear energy is an attractive option that Kenya cannot ignore”.
True true
However, these experts are not telling Kenyans why the great industrialised countries like Germany, Switzerland and now Japan are phasing out this “clean and cheap nuclear energy option”.
Did Germany, Switzerland and Japan tell Kenyans why they were going nuclear? Did they say they plan to revert to scenarios where they are an agrarian economy depending on exports of agricultural produce and fish harvests? Who will be manufacturing the Mercs (from Germany), keeping money in volts from present and past and future 3rd world dictators (Switzerland) and take over Toyota manufacturing (Japan)? Kenya with nuclear electricity!
To refer to nuclear energy as clean is a great fallacy or simply a display of fatal ignorance. Nuclear power plants produce radioactive waste, whose disposal is a nightmare even for the developed countries.
Currently there are more than 441 nuclear power plants in 31 countries producing 374 GW electricity (almost 15% of the total electricity production) and more than 65 nuclear power plants are being constructed in 14 countries. Is Dr. Odhiambo trying to say all those countries are constructing out of fatal ignorance?
It is not possible for any sincere group of “experts” to deliberate on nuclear energy without reference to the problem of radioactive nuclear waste material disposal.
In addition to the disposal problem, nuclear power plants require an enormous amount of water to cool the heating rods. Not only is the supply of this water a problem, but its discharge into the surface water bodies is a major threat to the ecosystem.
Basic nuclear reactor design ensures that all wastes (low, medium and high) level have engineering barriers that guarantee compliance with regulatory requirements aiming at minimizing worker, public and environmental exposure. Any discussion of nuclear energy, and therefore nuclear power plants, is grossly inadequate and deliberately slanted if it fails to address the reality of possible nuclear accidents such as happened at Chernobyl in Russia in 1986, and recently in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Japan nuclear power plants were badly damaged and despite its technological advancement and experience with atomic energy and radiation, the Japanese are still struggling to contain the radioactive leakage from one of the plants in Fukushima. Lessons learn from Chernobyl (for your information the site had 4 nuclear power plants each generating 1,000 MW and as of now 3 are still providing electricity to the Ukraine’s grid….a country that generates close to 50% of its electricity from 15 nuclear power plants). Remember Kenya Airways lost one plane in a terrible accident and as of now its planning to acquire more airplanes not sell out and fold! As for Japan it is the 3rd largest (after USA with 105 and France 58) with 54 nuclear power plants generating in excess of 55% of its electricity! You are truly seeing them (Ukraine and Japana) shut down all that and burn oil and coal which are dirtier?
The residents of the surrounding area are exposed to radioactive foodstuff, radioactive water and they breathe radioactive air.
Here is where the tragic natural catastrophe (earthquake and tsunami) that resulted in over 14,000 deaths and over 6,000 missing yet no one had died from the radiation needs to be explained. We need to get real and dwell on that fact. No one has yet died from radiation and here we need to salute the nuclear technology and remember that the most damaged nuclear power plant was operational for over 40 years and that current designs and future ones will be able to withstand the combined catastrophe that may be visited by a similar earthquake and tsunami.
Mr Ayacko’s team may avoid mentioning these effects of nuclear energy, but the reality is that even now, there are several drugs that can treat cancer and would be in use, were it not that the patient may die of their adverse effects long before cure.
Similarly, the prospect of nuclear power may be exciting, but the tragedy of radiation is that it travels far and wide, not only in physical distance, but it also traverses genetic frontiers into generations yet unborn. Our great grandchildren will carry birth defects attributed to our misadventure.
Here the good doctor is being economical with truth. Even after the terrible nuclear bombs of 1940 annihilating in excess of 100,000 Japanese of those surviving (and they are now in the 2nd and 3rd generations) how many display the birth defects that are referred above vis a vis the general population? We are not watching a science fiction movie but of the 200 million Japanese how many (%age wise) display the horror the good doctor is painting? How come they have built more than 54 nuclear power plants even after the events of the 1940s. Get real even in dreams please.
Of course, as the developed world opens its eyes to the dangers of nuclear radiation and turns to safer and cleaner energy alternatives, this second-hand technology is becoming cheaper and more readily available.
Unfortunately, Third World countries, like Kenya, will be the dumpsite of the vestigial technology, with the usual international brokers waiting in the wings to make a killing from the mitumba.
While it is true Kenya is flooded by ex Dubai and ex Japan used cars no country on earth has acquired an obsolete or untested nuclear power plant. The technology owners ensure that they transfer what is tested and is current and hence the high cost of nuclear power plants. Its not like buying a vintage car either. One has to acquire the state of the art!
The NEPC team must offer Kenyans more convincing arguments in support of their project and this should be subjected to scrutiny by an independent group with no stake in the business. It is well-known that the nuclear energy option has been dangled as a bribe by the nuclear weapons states: “Keep off the nuclear weapon and we shall give you the nuclear energy technology”.
This sounds like a conspiracy theory! Any proof of a country that was bribed?
For a country like Kenya that cannot even manage garbage collection in its cities, the question is, where shall you dump the nuclear waste?
No country even those advanced as USA dumps nuclear waste! It is stored in engineered barriers so that it does not interact with the eco system
This is an important social responsibility question for which I believe majority of Kenyans, if they know the truth, will answer ‘Not in my neighbourhood!’
This is where it will get exciting. A county like Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu will for example not be a candidate site for a nuclear power plant. But many more will be, especially those with water bodies (along the Coast of Indian Ocean, close to lakes and along perennial rivers). It would make interesting debate for those in such counties to continue with life as it is now and consider scenarios of industrializing with them as hosts of nuclear power generating facilities with the attendant spinoffs i.e. jobs for the inhabitants, factories adding value to current basic products from agriculture and fish harvesting…..the possibilities are endless and the chorus may be ‘in our neighborhoods’!
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Post by kasuku on Dec 30, 2011 21:41:51 GMT 3
12 years ago I asked a Scientist Friend of mine whether it’s possible that Kenya could become a rich high-technologist country in a short time. He said yes.
I asked him, to write it in summary. Thus, a kind of abstract for a master plan for Kenya was started.
That a poor country can be a rich High-tech country in a short time - and by that I mean in 10 to 15 years - sounds at first glance completely crazy, but it is not.
There are countries that have achieved exactly that, most interesting, IMO is Finland the latest example, which was until the collapse of the Soviet bloc a poor agricultural country, which sold its Agra products to the Eastern Bloc. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc Finland had also lost its markets and was de facto bankrupt.
In this existential and very threatening situation, the Finns decided to be a rich high-technology country in 10 years - the rest is history. Today, Finland is a rich high technology country, has one of the best educational systems in the world, it has a budget surplus in State finances and plays very well in front with the rest high-tech countries.
From Finland you can IMO, learn what it takes to get a poor country, in a short time, to a rich high-technology one. With the absolute will to succeed and a well-thought-General - or master plan that describes how the transition into a high technology - society should be made in detail and what time frame must be adhered to.
A fundamental question for the transition into a high-technology company is with what a country can become rich with. Every economist knows that there are three option: • Valuable raw materials, energy • High Technology • Both together Among the participating scientists, economists, forecasters, political scientists, etc., it is already consensus, that by far the highest value in the high technology and technical progress, research and development and a more efficient education system are the growth engine. (See for example the work of economist Robert Solow)
Imo, is the third possibility the most intelligent solution for Kenya,: a blend of raw materials / energy and high technology.
To understand this in the first point, it is important to realize that Kenya is potentially a very rich country - comparable to the countries in the world with the largest crude Oil - Only with the difference that the energy cannot be taken out of the earth, but falls every day just like that from the sky and need only be used.
You could say: in Kenya every year billions of dollars are falling from the sky, but nobody has yet noticed it.
It is important to know that the sunlight that falls in a year from the sky is 15,000 more the amount of energy consumed by the people currently living on the earth. The same goes for any other unit of time, as day, month, etc. For example, the entire amount of energy consumed per unit time in Kenya, gained from the sunlight that falls ON THE economically wasted land. Or on the roofs and facades. Even crude oil as a fuel is nothing more than chemically bound sunlight.
A central role in the Finn master plan to move into a high technology company came to the specification of a technology or a product of class, with which to do that with.
After thorough analysis and consideration, the Finn chose the mobile phone as an introduction into the high-n technology to make - and it succeeded. It should be remembered that their mobile phone at that time were still not a mass product and advanced versions because they were only in a laboratory.
Here we are at a crucial question: What technology / product could be the class for Kenya- which or Finland was the mobile phones?
IMO, a renewable energy technology, the solar cells is it. For the solar cells, there are many very good arguments, including:
• Solar cells make up only one available resource potential / energy a commercially available raw material / energy. You will require the implementation of the earlier mentioned combination of valuable raw material / energy with high technology
• Solar cells can now be produced fully automatically, which in turn is a necessary condition for the mass production and, ultimately, to achieve the "magic limit" where electricity is from solar cells cheaper than electricity from any previous generation systems. After exceeding this limit the path to the global mass market is unstoppable.
• The worldwide market for solar cells is growing faster than many other markets. The path to the global multi-billion dollar market has long been predicted.
Since the late 90’s,a transition to exponential growth is also observed, a sure draw for the transition from niche markets to mass markets.
For solar cells finally speaks, what goes into this century. The non-renewable energy is definitely over, regardless of which crude oil, it will takes 40 or 60 years, then its eventually over. On the other hand, there is the growing number of people in the world and everybody needs energy. Solar cells are therefore something everyone can use in the future and as always - in view of an economist it is an ideal product.
Solar cells are a technology, among many other technologies that use solar energy. All technologies for the utilization of solar energy in turn belong to the technologies that use renewable energy sources, i.e. technologies that are essentially inexhaustible in use, in contrast to the now unused non-renewable energy technologies, the finite, time-limited energy sources such as coal and petroleum. In addition to the solar-Techno, there are still the following Renewable Energy: • Wind energy • Hydropower • Geothermal • Bioenergy The most important technologies for the utilization of solar energy are the following: • Simple solar cookers • Simple solar power plants • Large-scale solar power plants e.g. Solar towers, parabolic trough plant • energy conversion technologies • Solar cells / Photovoltaic * There are solar panels that are now available in a wide variety, ranging from those films to stick to high-performance cells, an efficiency that is significantly above the previous limit of 30% .*
For the transition to mass production and for developing the markets, it is important to find an intelligent mix of different types of solar cells, and to be able to make this offer. Equally important is the continued cost reduction and improving the efficiency and flexibility of the manufacturing process of solar cells.
This is inter alia to further integration of the classical methods of robotic technology and artificial intelligence methods of, IMO; this requires even an entirely new approach to modeling Mental processes in artificial intelligence. This applies especially to the Artificial Intelligence-action planning, and implementation and monitoring of actions.
Another way to use solar energy is (also called a heat exchanger), the use of energy conversion technologies, IMO the most interesting is called OTEC - Equipment (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)
understand this one must take the sun through the irradiation in tropical oceans around the equator where a daily amount of energy into the sea reaches the 40 million gallons of crude oil equivalent, i.e. a multiple of what all people of the world consume...
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Post by b6k on Dec 31, 2011 6:42:57 GMT 3
Podp, I present to you Helen Caldicott, MD. She's a US based physician & a staunch anti-nuclear advocate. Below is a link to her article "Unsafe At Any Dose" that originally was posted on the NY Times on 1st May 2011. Feel free to follow other links on her blog. Learn how exposure to nuclear radiation as experienced by the residents of Fukushima can render men temporarily infertile & lead to cessation of the menstrual cycle for anything between 40,000 to 200,000 women; some of them permanently. Read up on how exposure to radiation can lead to miscarriages to such an extent that your comment on "no one has died" is callous because you in effect end up with a scenario in which millions die before they can even be born. "As we know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it takes years to get cancer. Leukemia takes only 5 to 10 years to emerge, but solid cancers take 15 to 60. Furthermore, most radiation-induced mutations are recessive; it can take many generations for two recessive genes to combine to form a child with a particular disease, like my specialty, cystic fibrosis. We can’t possibly imagine how many cancers and other diseases will be caused in the far future by the radioactive isotopes emitted by Chernobyl and Fukushima." www.helencaldicott.com/2011/05/unsafe-at-any-dose/#more-285Meanwhile, what does the cleanup road map & decommissioning for Fukushima look like? "In the next cleanup "road map" revealed on Wednesday, removal of spent fuel from the facility will begin within the next two years, the government said, with removal of melted fuel debris from the damaged reactors starting within 10 years. It said the decommissioning could take 30 to 40 years." Nice! So it takes 40 years to shut down a plant that's been operating for 40 years. "The cleanup road map unveiled on Wednesday is for the Daiichi plant alone, with a massive cleanup also needed outside the complex if residents are to be allowed to go home. The Environment Ministry says about 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated, an area roughly the size of Luxembourg." NB, that's roughly the same size of the ENTIRE Kenyatta family landholdings! Imagine cleaning it all up with high powered hoses. Just how long would that take & what would it cost? Let's look at the cost of decommissioning the nuclear plant: "An official advisory panel has estimated it may cost about cost 1.15 trillion yen (15 billion dollars) to decommission the plant, though some experts put it at 4 trillion yen or even more." The Yen & the KES are virtually at par (shilling is just marginally weaker) so you are looking at a decommissioning bill either just north of our recent much hyped trillion shilling budget OR in a worst case scenario, 4 times the national budget! For one plant! knowledge.allianz.com/?uNewsID=1450Let's get real, Podp. This technology does not suit third world nations that operate begging bowl in hand while touting useless pipe dreams like Vision 2030. Oh, & by the way, the head of operations of the TEPCO Fukushima Daichi plant during the crisis quit his job 3 weeks ago. Reason? He's been diagnosed with cancer...
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Post by kasuku on Jan 1, 2012 3:09:27 GMT 3
The Curse of Gorleben
Germany's Endless Search for a Nuclear Waste Dump
By SPIEGEL Staff
Germany has been looking for a permanent storage site for its nuclear waste for over 30 years. The history of the Gorleben salt dome, a potential nuclear repository, is one full of deception and political maneuvering. And if opponents to the plans have their way, the search might even have to start again from scratch. Info
The ride down into the Gorleben salt dome takes less than two minutes. When the elevator stops at 840 meters (2,755 feet) below ground, the folding gates open onto a scene that looks like it could be in a modern art museum.
A sculpture made of old soft drink cans and other scrap metal welcomes visitors as they step out of the elevator. The artwork is meant to symbolize society's unresolved waste disposal problem.
"Trash People" is the name of the work, a creation by the Cologne-based conceptual artist HA Schult. Of the army of similar scrap metal sculptures he installed a few years ago in the site, which is earmarked as a possible permanent repository for radioactive waste, one remains today as a warning, next to an information panel describing Schult's "happening," called "Quiet Days in Gorleben."
The force behind the subversive artworks was Green Party politician Jürgen Trittin, who was German environment minister under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's coalition government of the center-left Social Democrats and Green Party. But the art is not the only legacy of the SPD-Green Party era. What is more significant is the research moratorium that the former administration imposed on Gorleben in 2000, putting a stop to research into whether the salt dome was suitable for use as a storage site for nuclear waste.
The drilling machines have been idle since then, and life only returns to the site, which is located in the Wendland region of the northern state of Lower Saxony, when groups of visitors arrive. They are driven through the seemingly endless tunnels in a Mercedes SUV. Anyone who is so inclined can lick the grayish-white salt from the walls. It is apparently of the highest quality.
Bone of Contention
But now the new government plans to allow research activities to resume as soon as possible, and instead of artists and salt dome tourists, the site could soon be buzzing with geologists and nuclear physicists once again. Germany's new coalition government of the center-right Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democrats wants to continue with research into the suitability of Gorleben as a national permanent repository for radioactive waste.
But that isn't likely to happen any time soon, because the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party will not hand over the salt dome to the conservatives without a fight. This month, they plan to petition for the establishment of an investigative committee to look at the Gorleben project. The issue of radioactive waste is set to become a major bone of contention between the government and the opposition.
As the petition states, the purpose of the investigative committee will be to uncover errors and omissions made over a period of three decades "as completely as possible," as well as to investigate "undue exertion of political influence" and "conflicts of interest within the federal government" due to its close ties to industry. Was political manipulation involved in the selection of Gorleben as a site? "The suspicions are very clear," says Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, the Green Party's nuclear policy spokeswoman, who initiated the investigative committee together with other members of her party.
Documents and studies from three decades will now be carefully scrutinized, as will the roles of a number of chancellors, state governors and cabinet ministers.
The commission will be asking a number of important questions. For instance, why did planners decide on Gorleben early on? Why weren't alternatives seriously considered, and why aren't they being considered today? And what happens if the salt dome turns out to be unsuitable?
Back to the Drawing Board
The fact-finding commission will do more than revisit the past. It also has the potential to disqualify Gorleben as a potential storage site once and for all, to take the search for permanent repositories back to the drawing board and put the brakes on the current administration's nuclear policy. The commission will be examining a decades-long history of trickery and deception. It will be confronting the lie that the German nuclear industry is based on, namely the constant postponement and suppression of its waste problem.
Previously unknown documents and interviews with contemporary witnesses already reveal that instead of geology and nuclear physics, partisan politics and power struggles shaped the search for permanent repositories from the start, which is why a feasible solution hasn't been found to this day. But the industry's spent fuel rods will have to be disposed of somewhere. Germany's mountain of radioactive waste, which is growing from one year to the next, cannot be kept in ordinary warehouses forever.
The Germany-based independent expert and research organization GRS, which analyses reactor safety, estimates that German atomic power plants consume about 400 tons of nuclear fuel per year, producing highly toxic waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years. If Germany's nuclear phase-out continues as planned, at least 17,200 tons of spent fuel rods will have to be disposed of, not to mention the irradiated tubes, filters and parts of the reactor vessels of decommissioned nuclear power plants.
In one of the two above-ground buildings at Gorleben, there are currently 3,500 steel, cast iron and concrete containers of mildly and moderately contaminated waste -- such as cleaning rags, radioactive sludge and moderately radioactive scrap metal -- which are scheduled to be buried in the Konrad repository in Lower Saxony soon. The second storage building contains 91 Castor, TS 28 V and TN85 metal containers of used fuel elements and reprocessing waste. This is highly radioactive waste that officials hope will eventually be permanently stored underground somewhere.
In the coming years, another 43 containers of highly radioactive waste from two reprocessing plants, La Hague in France and Sellafield in Great Britain, will be brought to the Gorleben depot on ships, trucks and trains. Because the transport of Castor containers had repeatedly been met with heated protests, the former SPD-Green Party government in 2002 ordered the nuclear industry to build interim storage sites for used fuel elements next to nuclear power plants, to reduce the need for shipments. As a result of this policy, a portion of Germany's radioactive waste is still being kept in 12 of these interim storage buildings, distributed throughout the country, pending the discovery and development of a permanent repository.
The Welfare of Future Generations
But where should the radioactive waste go? Two former environment ministers are at the center of this dispute, Angela Merkel and Sigmar Gabriel. Both know exactly how polarizing the subject of nuclear energy is. Now Merkel is the chancellor and Gabriel is the chairman of the SPD, and radioactive waste stands a good chance of becoming the focus of their rivalry.
Once again, politics, and not the welfare of future generations, is at the center of the nuclear waste issue. To protect those generations, a site must be found where radioactive waste can be allowed to slowly decay over hundreds of thousands of years, far away from any living creatures. This permanent repository will still have to be impervious in the year 8010, not to mention the year 308,010. Otherwise its contents could poison the living beings of the future if they discovered the contaminated containers, or the waste could gradually seep out and destroy the local environment.
The question, then, is why exactly Gorleben was chosen as the most suitable location to fulfill this role.
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Post by kasuku on Jan 1, 2012 3:13:09 GMT 3
Part 2: Politicians Vs. Geologists
The first politicians who clashed over the long-term storage issue in the late 1970s were then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Ernst Albrecht, the governor of Lower Saxony at the time. Neither of the two men was particularly well versed in geology or nuclear physics.
At the time, after the first oil crisis, West Germany was developing ambitious plans for nuclear energy. Politicians hoped that by building 50 nuclear power plants, the country could create a source of cheap and inexhaustible electricity. To fulfill this vision, a large permanent repository for radioactive waste was needed. It was also clear what this entailed: a good salt dome, a kind of geological structure deep beneath the earth's surface, which is believed to be particularly stable and impervious to water.
This was bad news for Lower Saxony, which is home to hundreds of salt domes. The federal government's demand to the state's geological research agency was simple: Pick one.
In what resembled a clandestine commando operation, drilling teams arrived in the western Emsland region, near the village of Börger, in early 1976, claiming to be searching for oil. But village residents soon figured out what was going on and quickly formed action groups and drafted resolutions. Local dairy farmers staged protests, fearing that their milk might become tainted by waste from a radioactive storage site and would then be unmarketable.
Eight potential sites were identified, three of them in Lower Saxony. Gorleben was not one of the sites, at least from the perspective of geologists, who believed that sites at Börger, Ahlden and Fassberg were more suitable. But geologists are no politicians.
The Perfect Spot
The governor, Ernst Albrecht, soon decided that he had had enough of the ensuing unrest in his state. Elections were coming up, and Albrecht, who reasoned that the sight of protests at various salt domes in his state would have been his political undoing, wrote a furious letter to Chancellor Schmidt in Bonn. The drilling operations, he wrote, required "significant police protection involving large numbers of personnel." Unfortunately, he continued, this was something he "could not guarantee at adequate levels at the present time."
Albrecht decided to take a pro-active approach to solving the problem and instructed his state geological research agency to search for a suitable site. That was how the name of Gorleben came up. The village was located in a thinly populated area near the border with East Germany. Given the underdeveloped local economy, Albrecht reasoned, the locals would surely welcome a major project. In other words, Gorleben was the perfect spot for a long-term radioactive waste storage site -- from a politician's standpoint. But politicians are no geologists.
In their assessment, the geologists pointed out that Gorleben was located in a level 1 earthquake zone -- the only one of the potential sites in such a zone. The experts also noted with some concern that the Gorleben salt dome was beneath the Elbe River. Finally, they wrote that it was highly likely that "there is a natural gas deposit located at a depth of about 3,500 meters below the salt dome," and that any attempts to recover the gas could lead to "large-scale subsidence of the soil." They added that when East Germany drilled for gas across the border, there were "explosions" that destroyed a drilling rig.
Earthquakes, natural gas, explosions? These aren't exactly the words one likes to hear when searching for a permanent repository site designed to last for several hundred thousand years.
Real Dangers
Chancellor Schmidt argued that the Gorleben site was also unsuitable for international political reasons. His government feared that East Germany could even take control of the Gorleben permanent repository in a surprise attack. Bonn ruled that Albrecht's choice could "not be considered."
In politics, there are abstract risks and very real dangers. The fear of earthquakes or an invasion by the East German National People's Army is relatively abstract. But protests at several salt dome sites, on the other hand, represented a very real danger. Albrecht sensed that the fight over a radioactive waste storage site would be "much more contentious" than the controversy over "any nuclear power plant." He clearly outlined the risks in his draft bill: "The nature and size of the potential deployment area, the unpredictable duration of the expected demonstrations and the predictable, extremely determined, methodical and violent actions of nationally coordinated radical groups will require a police operation on an unprecedented scale."
In other words, the less densely populated an area was, the less likely it was that protests would be significant, and the easier it would be to control those protests. Based on these arguments, Gorleben was chosen in February 1977.
The next few years would bring both conflict and benefits to the region. The local hospital argued it needed a new annex, while the fire department said it required 10 new fire trucks, due to the "elevated risk of forest fires." The federal government was happy to pay up, with officials reasoning that a "certain generosity" could only promote local acceptance of the project. Lower Saxony, Gorleben and the neighboring villages received a total of about 500 million German marks (about €256 million), some of it contributed by the nuclear industry.
Thus Gorleben became a pawn in the hands of politicians and business leaders -- a fact that both characterizes and hampers the search for a permanent repository to this day.
---continued...
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Post by kasuku on Jan 1, 2012 3:15:55 GMT 3
Part 3: Sounding the Alarm
Since then, generations of politicians, scientists and civil servants have been embroiled in the debate. For some people, it became a subject they could never forget.
One of them is Helmut Röthemeyer, a professor and physicist. There is probably no one in Germany who has devoted so much of his energy to studying the geology of the Wendland region. Röthemeyer, 71, is now retired and lives at the end of a dead-end street, less than two kilometers from his former office in the northern German city of Braunschweig. He has written a number of books on the subject. He has helpfully laid them out on his dining table, next to stacks of old documents.
Röthemeyer, a tall, gaunt man, walks to the table with a stoop, and he trembles slightly as he flips through the documents -- his life's work. The heading on one page reads "Schedule for 1977," while another reads "Opening in 1990, operations begin in 1994."
The documents reflect the belief held at the time that everything would happen quickly and smoothly. Röthemeyer, a department head at the Braunschweig-based National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB), was responsible for the Gorleben file. But no matter what the professor and his experts concluded in their analyses, they were constantly confronted with political problems.
It began with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whose Chancellery used the initial research results to sound the alarm in 1981. According to a Bonn memo, there was reason to believe "that the salt dome is not ideal from a geological standpoint." The experts took the hint. But Schmidt's SPD-FDP coalition government, anxious not to jeopardize the project's support within the Lower Saxony state government, did not take the necessary action.
A Precautionary Measure
Two years later, in the spring of 1983, Röthemeyer and the PTB institute submitted another interim report. By this time, geologists had examined the layers of rock above the salt dome and concluded that it was possible that they were not impermeable. "In light of the unknowns surrounding Gorleben, I wanted to suggest in the report that investigations be conducted at other sites as a precautionary measure," Röthemeyer recalls today.
But that was unacceptable. Once again, there was trouble with Bonn, this time because the experts' proposal was not what the new conservative administration of then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to hear. The new chancellor's staff sent Röthemeyer a telex, in which they wrote: "The question about other sites should be removed from the document." Determined not to allow a search for alternative storage sites to trigger nationwide unrest at any cost, they decided to focus their efforts on the struggle over Gorleben. It was a battle they waged using every tool in the state's arsenal against the anti-nuclear activists who were protesting there-- including water cannon and police cordons.
It was only Kohl's successor, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, who put an end to the controversy when his administration abandoned the investigation in Gorleben in 2000, as part of a deal reached between the SPD/Green Party coalition government and energy companies to phase out nuclear power. The government argued that it was essential to clarify what was going to happen with the country's radioactive waste, and that alternative sites should also be considered.
Röthemeyer's opinion was no longer in demand. "In the past, we Germans were highly sought-after at international conferences, because Gorleben put us at the forefront of the global radioactive waste storage issue," he says. According to Röthemeyer, no country was as far along in its research on long-term radioactive storage as Germany was. But the government's decision to suspend the research changed everything. The Swiss and the Finns are now setting the tone, and experts at international conferences have little to say to Röthemeyer these days.
Tighter Rules
In Germany's last national election campaign, nuclear energy was one of the few polarizing issues. Then-Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel had placed the storage site issue on the agenda, accusing the members of the former Kohl administration of manipulation and insinuating that Chancellor Merkel may have also played a role. "I think Ms. Merkel has good reasons to distance herself from her predecessor," Gabriel said, to raucous applause from his supporters. He was elected chairman of the SPD soon afterwards.
As environment minister, Gabriel drastically tightened the requirements for the planned German radioactive waste storage site. The new rules require, for example, that "no more than very small amounts of hazardous materials can be released from the permanent repository" for more than 1 million years -- a substantial increase over the previous figure of 10,000 years.
According to another of the new requirements, "the recovery of waste from the permanent repository" must be possible in an emergency, and over the long term. The underground technology must remain accessible and modifiable for future generations. In contrast, the intent of the previous set of standards was to bury the radioactive waste in the salt dome in such a way that it would be irretrievable and ultimately inaccessible.
Given these requirements, a search for alternative sites is in fact inevitable. And politically speaking, at least from the standpoint of the SPD, it is highly desirable, because such a search can only harm the Christian Democrats. If scientists began looking for alternative storage sites in other parts of Germany today, it would trigger as much unrest as the supposed oil exploration teams did in Lower Saxony in the 1970s.
Not in My Back Yard
Gabriel knows from experience how burdensome the waste issue can become. The controversies over the annual Castor transports were already a thorn in his side when he was governor of Lower Saxony. "Those who think nuclear energy is so wonderful should take on its waste," he once told a group of CDU state governors.
Gabriel cleverly put forward regions that were earthquake-proof and where clay deposits offered impermeability to water -- regions that, as he argued, might be more suitable than the salt dome in Lower Saxony. It just so happened that these more desirable geological formations were particularly prevalent in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, states which were governed by the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
Not surprisingly, many conservatives were horrified when, under the CDU-SPD grand coalition government which was in power from 2005 to 2009, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) published a study on possible permanent repository sites in Germany. In Baden-Württemberg alone, the institute identified two regions as being "worth investigating."
One of those regions is Donautal near Ulm in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg. Although studies have only identified the region's Opalinus clay deposits as potentially suitable as a permanent repository site, local resistance soon developed, with activists quickly finding counter-arguments against the BGR's analysis. "Baden-Württemberg is one of the most seismically active regions in Germany," says one of the movement's leaders, Karl-Ernst Lotz. "The last quakes were quite noticeable."
Federal Research Minister Annette Schavan (CDU), whose electoral district could possibly be the location of a future Donautal repository, has also weighed in. "A suitable site has already been found," she says. "So far, no one has been able to plausibly demonstrate that the Gorleben salt dome is not suitable."
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Post by kasuku on Jan 1, 2012 3:18:32 GMT 3
Part 4: Bowing to Pressure from the South
Another potential permanent repository site, near the Swiss border, would be adjacent to the election district of the Christian Democrats' floor leader, Volker Kauder. He, too, is keen to sing Gorleben's praises. "A suitable permanent repository site has already been found in Lower Saxony, and that project should finally be realized," he says. The state Environment Ministry in Stuttgart, for its part, was quick to issue a statement pointing out that the Opalinus clay formation in the whole of Baden-Württemberg is "unsuitable."
And then there is Bavaria, which could also offer alternatives, such as sites in the Fichtelgebirge mountain range or in the Bavarian Forest, with its solid granitic layers. "There is not a single site in Bavaria that is as well suited as Gorleben," claims Markus Söder (CSU), the state's environment minister. "That has been the conclusion of every study."
Nine of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants currently in operation are located in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, and the governors in Munich and Stuttgart have traditionally supported nuclear power. Why, then, are these two states refusing to take responsibility for the radioactive waste produced there? "It's not a question of federalism, but of geology," says Kauder, who isn't exactly known as a geological expert.
The Chancellery in Berlin has also bowed to pressure from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, despite its initial willingness to look into other possible repository sites. "Merkel's then-chief of staff, Thomas de Maizière, had initially indicated that the chancellor also supported a search for alternative sites," says Gabriel, recalling his tenure in the grand coalition. But then, he adds, the southern state governors balked.
Their position on radioactive waste reflects the view held by most Germans. According to a 2002 survey by the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), 73 percent of Germans felt that a permanent repository for radioactive waste was urgently needed, but only 19 percent said they would tolerate one in their state.
These attitudes are reflected in the fierce reactions of those most affected by the issue: the residents of the Wendland region around Gorleben. After a number of relatively quiet years, protests have become more strident since the last election.
A Blast from the Past
At about 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening last fall, for example, five tractors, honking their horns, suddenly emerged from a forest and proceeded toward the gate marking the beginning of a restricted area surrounding the Gorleben site. The first of the tractors came to a stop only a few centimeters in front of a police officer. Suddenly 100 activists were facing off against a handful of nervous police officers, while the Italian partisan song "Bella Ciao" blared from speakers on one of the tractors. The protestors were carrying signs that read: "Block. Sabotage. Destroy." It was a scene reminiscent of the heated anti-nuclear protests of the 1980s and 1990s.
In the dark, masked figures stealthily walked up to the security fence, cut the wire mesh and stormed the site. Within a few minutes, bonfires were burning on the grounds, casting a blood-red glow on the drilling tower, which contains an elevator that is supposed to eventually transport radioactive waste into the depths of the storage site. The activists calmly took control of the premises, spraying the walls with graffiti. Police reinforcements did not arrive for another hour, when they pursued the protestors and arrested some of them.
It appears that the days of sit-ins and water cannons are about to return. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen (CDU) has until March to submit a bill on the planned permanent repository to the cabinet, a deadline that will mark the end of a 10-year research moratorium. There is no doubt that the government will reopen the salt dome and allow the research activities to resume. "We have to concentrate on Gorleben now," says Röttgen.
But even without the investigative committee, the nuclear industry is not in a position to simply pick up its work at the Gorleben salt dome where it left off. First it will have to hire and train new employees, revise its plans and dust off its drilling machinery. According to a "Plan for the Resumption of the Gorleben Permanent Repository Project" developed by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), the work could not resume before 2013 -- and even then only if the federal government approves an annual budget of between €150 million and 200 million ($217-290 million). In other words, as the plan states, the entire endeavor will be extremely "costly and time-consuming."
And then, say the BfS officials, a certain legal problem will be a "top priority." What about the legal rights of use for the salt dome? Put differently, whose permission does the government require in order to dig additional tunnels underground?
The problem stems from the fact that the land above the salt dome is privately owned, by farmers, aristocratic landowners and church parishes. Some of the 125 owners have always opposed the project, while others awarded the federal government only limited rights of use in the 1980s. These agreements expire in 2015 -- at which point the owners can simply tell the government to get lost.
An Obligation to Future Generations
Andreas Graf von Bernstorff is driving his Land Rover along a sandy path near the research site, through a pine-and-birch forest. "I own the forest," he says.
Many years ago, the auto industry wanted to buy his forest and install a waste storage site on the land. It was a very attractive offer: 27 million German marks for 670 hectares of sandy, wooded property, 10 times as much as the forested land was worth. But Bernstorff decided not to sell.
Bernstorff is an affable, absentminded country gentleman with a penchant for hats and cigars. "I tend to be conservative," he says. He was a member of the CDU when the debate over nuclear power erupted for the first time. On the other hand, as a member of the aristocratic Bernstorff family, Bernstorff, who holds the title of count, also had obligations. A family rule stipulates that he is required to pass on his lands to future generations in as pristine a condition as possible. In short, he feels obligated to both his ancestors and his descendants. Bernstorff has tried to convince local farmers to take his side, but, as he says, not all could resist the "temptations" of the nuclear industry.
Environmentalists and hippies came to his forest and built an "anti-nuclear village" to protest nuclear energy. "We tried everything," says the stubborn count, "and at some point we even had an Indian here who cursed the place." He is referring to Chief Archie Fire Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man. Bernstorff climbs down from his Land Rover and runs his hand across a weathered totem pole. Every other Sunday, to this day, anti-nuclear activists meet at the site and pray.
But it isn't just this spiritual resistance that the federal government will have to overcome. Before proceeding with any further investigations on the site, it will have to make a deal with Bernstorff, or at least with the farmers in his vicinity, and that will be expensive. "The price has to be right," says Klaus Wohler, a member of an organization called the Interest Group of the Owners of Salt Rights.
Legal Setbacks
In addition to the property owners, the government will have to contend with residents from the surrounding communities. Up until now, the federal government and the industry has carried out its research at the salt dome behind closed doors. But it now appears that planning permission hearings, in which citizens would be involved, may be required in Gorleben in the future. The process could lead to tens of thousands of objections and a public hearing, which could turn into an anti-government forum reminiscent of the large-scale protests against the construction of a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf in the 1980s.
If planning permission is ever granted for Gorleben, a wave of lawsuits seems inevitable. In the absence of an objective comparison of different sites and scientific criteria for the selection process, no decision to build a permanent repository at Gorleben would stand up in court. The chancellor, on the other hand, believes that "an exploration of alternative sites is unnecessary at this time." That doesn't sound like a very scientific approach.
But what happens if scientists determine, in five or 10 years' time, that the Gorleben salt dome is not suitable, or if the popular protests become too loud? How confident can the government be that a project that was approved in 1980, under the conditions that applied at the time, will still hold up in court in 2025? If it doesn't, Germany, after decades of research work and billions of euros in investments, will have to start all over again.
Even within the Christian Democrats, there are cabinet ministers who expect that to be the outcome. "If you ask me, our highly radioactive nuclear waste will not end up in Gorleben one day," says one minister, who preferred not to be named, "but in a Russian repository built according to Western standards."
SVEN BECKER, MICHAEL FRÖHLINGSDORF, FRANK HORNIG, CHRISTOPH SCHEUERMANN, CHRISTIAN SCHWÄGERL (15 Jan 2010 by Spiegel team)
PS: Meanwhile latest News on the subject....
Germany’s search for a permanent nuclear waste storage site may take 18 years and cost about 1.6 billion euros ($2.1 billion), the Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing a government document.
Examining each potential site will cost about 400 million euros, the FTD said, citing a reply from the Environment Ministry to a request from the Green Party. The government may initially scrutinize as many as four sites, the newspaper said.
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Post by kasuku on Jan 1, 2012 3:49:01 GMT 3
French nuclear energy Under pressure
France wants to export nuclear reactors. Who will buy them?
FOR France, nuclear power has long been a source of national pride. Its European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) is the world’s most advanced nuclear reactor and some consider it the safest. But since the nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan, potential buyers have been having second thoughts (although the plant in question was not French.)
On December 12th Areva, France’s state-owned nuclear champion, said it would take a €2.4 billion ($3.1 billion) charge against profits. This will give the firm its first ever operating loss, of perhaps €1.6 billion for 2011. That hurts.
Areva is the world’s only one-stop nuclear shop, selling everything from uranium to fuel recycling. Much of the charge came from a slump in the value of UraMin, a uranium-mining firm bought for a giddy price in 2007, when nuclear power was surging. The price of uranium, which fuels reactors, tumbled afterwards. Before Fukushima, Areva’s managers went on a hiring binge, expecting rapid growth in sales to rich and emerging markets alike. Now the firm will cut costs and investment, fire workers and sell assets.
In Europe, Areva’s most profitable market, people are newly nervous about nuclear power. Germany, Switzerland and Belgium have all opted to abandon it. Lower natural-gas prices have made it less competitive. And serious carbon curbs, which would boost a business that emits virtually no carbon dioxide, are nowhere in sight.
Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, has reaffirmed the country’s commitment to nuclear power. But François Hollande, his Socialist rival in the presidential election next spring, says that if elected he would reduce nuclear’s share of the national energy mix from 75% to 50% by 2025. That would mean shutting roughly 24 reactors.
Mr Hollande would be unlikely to shut more than a couple of reactors during a first term. Still, even that, together with a freeze on new building, would signal that France no longer believes in nuclear power, says Francis Sorin of SFEN, a nuclear-research group. That would make it harder for French firms to sell reactors overseas.
Even before Fukushima, France’s EPR plans had hit snags. Projects in France and Finland were (and remain) over-budget and behind schedule. And the EPR’s steep price was deterring customers. Abu Dhabi opted last year to buy cheaper South Korean reactors.
Some say that Fukushima proved the value of paying extra for safer reactors, such as the EPR. But others argue that the Japanese accident highlighted the need for fully passive safety systems—ie, ones that need no external power—which the EPR does not have.
The biggest customers for nuclear power in the coming years will be developing countries, for which price is crucial. The International Atomic Energy Agency now predicts that nuclear capacity in western Europe could fall by as much as a third by 2030. (Before Fukushima, it said it would expand.) Capacities in Asia, by contrast, will more than double.
Areva may face trouble at home, too. Last month La Tribune, a newspaper, said that Electricité de France (EDF), Areva’s biggest customer, was preparing to dump the EPR and design a smaller, cheaper reactor with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp, for international export. The Chinese firm is already building two EPRs in China. The report caused a storm.
EDF angrily denied that it wanted to abandon the EPR. But it is indeed co-operating with the Chinese firm to design a smaller and cheaper reactor. The EPR is very powerful, but for some countries its capacity of 1,750MW is too much, says Hervé Machenaud, EDF’s head of generation and engineering. Local grids can’t handle that much power.
A new Franco-Chinese reactor could strain relations between EDF and Areva, which have in the past fought bitterly. Both wish to lead the French nuclear export drive. Areva is already marketing a smaller reactor, the ATMEA-1. It wants a new Franco-Chinese reactor to be based on its ATMEA design. The two firms are also trying to redesign the EPR to make it far cheaper.
Politics will make all of this harder. Hardly anyone wants to invest in EDF until it becomes clear whether Mr Hollande’s plan will be implemented, says Per Lekander, an analyst at UBS, a bank, in Paris. Britain’s government, meanwhile, is expected soon to make a final decision on whether to build four EPRs.
For Areva, the best sales pitch would be to have its French, Finnish and Chinese EPRs up and running, argues Pierre Derieux, a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris. “Then you show them to potential customers from Poland, the Czech Republic and elsewhere and you make it clear that you can deliver on time and on budget,” he says.
Luc Oursel, Areva’s boss, gamely promises to sell ten EPRs in the next five years. Areva will soon compete in tenders to build power stations in South Africa, the Czech Republic, Poland, Finland and elsewhere. The pressure is on.
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Post by kasuku on Jan 3, 2012 20:59:37 GMT 3
Searching for news on the alleged Nuclear waste Dumbing in the NEP, Following is all i came across from different Groups. Strangely the Nation and the standard has no news in their Archievs although they are the ones who reported the news those days (80's, 90's and lastly 2005)
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OPINION (Horumar Online) I saw this story from Kenya many years back, and I just don’t know. Should you be pissed off at the company(ies) doing this, or our esteemed politicians who let this Rot go down?
“There was tremor of excitement in Kenya during the early 80s when word emerged that there would be a feasibility study on oil exploration in North EasternProvince.
The excitement reached fever pitch in 1983 when an American company sent an advance team to sample possible locations for drilling across 126,692 square kilometres of the semi-arid province. Notable sites included Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in Garissa District, Gal Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in Mandera District.
And the belief that the prospectors would finally strike oil became a foregone conclusion when then President Moi symbolically endorsed the project by visiting Arbajahan in 1988. “At last, oil in Kenya” screamed a headline in the State newspaper the next day.
The developments elicited high expectations especially among the impoverished residents of the remote region, who believed that their new found resource would turn their fortunes around.
It meant the province, with only four kilometres of tarmacked roads and one of the highest poverty rates in the country, would be transformed into the backbone of the economy after edging out agriculture. Kenya also looked forward to claim her rightful position in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).
According to a resident, Mudey Sambul Hassan, the locals were even contemplating negotiating with the prospecting company for a tangible share of the oil, now that it was in their ancestral land.
But all this has since turned out to be castles in the air. No oil was ever discovered in North Eastern and it is further suspected that the American company came to the country with ulterior motives. There are widespread fears that the company was dumping toxic waste in the arid region under the guise of exploring for oil. The anguished residents are now up in arms and want the Government to dispel speculation that the company deposited nuclear waste at the sites.
A visit to the region reveals that the company excavated deep trenches and later covered them with concrete slabs. Residents who were employed by the company as casuals during the purported exploration confided that they would be unceremoniously laid off whenever the depth of the trenches reached a certain level.
“The top company managers would herd us from the site whenever the project reached a certain stage,” says Hassan, who was one of the casual labourers.
He further intimated that huge loads from trucks would be offloaded at the sites just before the labourers were laid off, fuelling speculation that the company did not wish the locals to see the contents.
Most residents living near the sites have been complaining of strange and incurable diseases, which they claim are caused by the alleged presence of radioactive material.
Mrs Nuriya Abdullahi, an official with a local non-governmental organisation, Wajir Peace and Development Agency, says some of the alleged victims have been admitted to the district hospital with “very strange deformities.”
“During the former regime, no one could raise a finger for fear of reprisal from brutal government forces,” she says. The company is believed to have left the unknown substances buried in the area and herdsmen have steered clear of it for fear that their animals will die.
During a tour by a team from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) recently, the residents claimed that hundreds of their cattle had died after drinking water from points within the precincts of the alleged dumping sites.
Nema board chairman Prof Canute Khamala said it was possible for a company to deposit nuclear waste products without the knowledge of the locals.
He said he was aware of claims that the alleged rogue company had established a separate road network for its shipment from the Indian Ocean.
The authority’s director-general, Prof Retemo Michieka, said the board would petition the Radiation Board of Kenya to bring experts to the sites with radioactive detectors to authenticate the claims. He said a fact-finding mission along the Kenyan coastline indicated that some species of fish and sea plants had been devastated by radio-active leakage from the said dumping site in nation. Michieka said the mysterious substances buried in NEP would be dug up to establish their nature.
Nema also heard that residents in the affected areas had suffered from strange skin illnesses, throat cancer, barrenness and giving birth to children with deformities. Their livestock too gave birth to strange young ones, they claimed.
A spot check further revealed that the vegetation around the alleged dumping sites had long withered, leaving bare fields. Wild animals are also said to have been affected and have allegedly moved to other grazing areas.
Although the Government has to-date neither dispelled nor confirmed the presence of the alleged nuclear dumping site, residents believe a senior government official gave the Canadian company the green light to carry out its dirty work.
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Post by kasuku on Jan 3, 2012 21:02:46 GMT 3
From a yahoo group
The Kenya Community Abroad joins fellow Kenyans in expressing our displeasure and concern over the allegation that an American company dumped nuclear waste in our beloved country. There are widespread concerns in Kenya that an American company dumped toxic waste in North Eastern Province under the guise of exploring for oil in the 1980's.
It is further claimed that a former powerful Cabinet minister in the Kanu regime acquired the sites and allowed the American firm to dump the suspected nuclear waste. This is also quite disturbing.
KCA is ready to partner with the government to solve this mystery by utilizing the expertise of fellow Kenyans in the Diaspora specializing in various professions, amongst them, nuclear scientists.
According to the residents of North Eastern part of Kenya, the company excavated deep trenches, which they later covered with concrete slabs. The company officials also allegedly off-loaded huge consignments of mysterious goods at the sites whose contents they did not want the locals to see. If confirmed, these toxins have the capability to expose the lives of Kenyans, livestock, and environment to some serious risk.
It has been reported in the local news that residents in the affected areas have been complaining of strange and incurable diseases, which they claim are caused by the alleged presence of radioactive material. We are calling on the Kenyan government to investigate and establish the truth in an expeditious manner so that the victims can receive the right treatment while protecting further victims.
According to press reports, the sites in question are Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in Garissa District, Gal, Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in Mandera District. However, due to the nature of toxic substances in the environment, contamination in far distance areas is possible.
KCA demands action against the American company and politician who is alleged to have acquired the land used for dumping toxins. We hope our government will bring this matter to some meaningful conclusion in an accountable and transparent manner.
John Maina
For KCA ---
My question to KCA and maina, what happened to your promise above? Have you gathered specialists within your group to take on Independed Research?
Greetings and happy new year, Kasuku
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