Sunday, March 12, 2023
French Nuclear Revival Hits Trouble as New Reactor Defects Found
France’s troubled nuclear industry is supposed to be in revival, but the discovery of further defects at some reactors this week is stoking fears that the year ahead could be just as difficult as the last.
Electricite de France SA’s fleet of 56 atomic power plants has long been the backbone of Europe’s energy system, but in 2022 it was more of a millstone. As reactors were shut down to fix cracked pipes, the company’s nuclear power generation slumped to the lowest since 1988, making the region more dependent on fossil fuels just as Russia squeezed natural gas exports.
The continent is still grappling with the long-term consequences for energy security of the invasion of Ukraine. Everyone from power traders to political leaders had been hoping that France would finally be able to switch from hindrance to help this year, but that’s looking less likely as the country’s nuclear watchdog asks EDF to revise its maintenance program in light of the new flaws.
“If EDF is not able to have a strong comeback in 2023 with a large uptick in generation compared to the very low levels in 2022, the fear is that 2022 can end up being the new normal for the French nuclear generation,” said Fabian Ronningen, a senior analyst for power and renewables research at Norwegian consultant Rystad Energy AS.
As traders digested the week’s news, French power for delivery in 2024 jumped almost a third to about €220 ($235) per megawatt hour, the highest since January.
Following the discovery of so-called stress corrosion cracking at a reactor in late 2021, EDF opened a wide-ranging investigation. The probe found that the company’s 16 newest units were prone to the phenomenon mostly because of the design of the pipes aimed at cooling the reactor in case of an accident. Cracks may also have been caused by welding and other defects.
The utility’s nuclear output sank by 23% in 2022 as it halted about a dozen of its 56 reactors to replace cracked pipes. France went from being a major electricity exporter to its neighbors into a net importer for the first time since 1980.
EDF’s nuclear output hit a low point in August and gradually began to recover. Crucially, a surge of plant restarts in December helped France avoid the blackouts it had been fearing and preparing for during a severe cold snap.
Power generation peaked briefly near 46 gigawatts in early February, but has declined by almost 30% since as more plants were taken offline for safety checks and maintenance, plus the impact of workers’ strikes, according to data from grid operator RTE. Repairs continue at several units and more pipe replacements are planned later this year at a handful of plants. The rest of the fleet is due to be progressively checked up until 2025.
More Problems
These maintenance shutdowns have been uncovering more problems. On Tuesday, France’s nuclear safety authority asked EDF to revise its program of reactor checks following the utility’s discovery of a “significant” corrosion crack at its Penly-1 plant. The defect is located near a weld that had been mended twice during construction of the facility, which was commissioned in the early 1990s.
The watchdog also said EDF would have to extend areas where it looks for signs of so-called thermal fatigue — a different type of defect — after such flaws were found on pipes at the Penly-2 and Cattenom-3 reactors.
So far, the company and nuclear watchdog haven’t been able to give a clear answer on how the discovery of these flaws will affect the recovery in nuclear output.
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British Met Office accused of implausible worst-case climate prediction
A new study by the UK Met Office claims that accelerating global warming will make extreme rainfall events in the UK four times more frequent by 2080 compared to the 1980s.
This story has been widely covered in the news media.
The Met Office claims are derived from computer modelling based on the so-called RCP8.5 emissions scenario, the most extreme pathway for global greenhouse gas emissions, which the Met Office misleadingly describes as “plausible”.
In reality, most credible scientists regard RCP8.5 as implausible given that global emissions data and technological advances essentially rule it out. As a result, the Biden Administration has abandoned using this discredited worst-case scenario.
Moreover, the Met Office offers no empirical data in evidence that an increased trend in extreme rainfall events has actually been observed in line with their modelling. In fact some studies suggest the opposite may have occurred in recent decades.
Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, called on the Met Office to withdraw its fatally flawed study:
“The Met Office should withdraw this grossly misleading and baseless study which is undermining its scientific credibility and integrity and makes it look incompetent.”
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Kamala Harris Brings Environmentalist Hysteria to New Low, Claims Climate is Causing This Illness Among Young People
I can almost picture the drug commercials now.
Envision it with me: A worried millennial walks through a smog-filled park, his/her/their/xir face fixed in a rictus of existential dread. Then comes the voice-over: “Do you have climate mental health issues?”
“Symptoms could include watching MSNBC for hours on end, worrying if your corgi is contributing to rising sea levels, and physically attacking your grandmother during Thanksgiving dinner for neither serving Tofurky nor giving a land acknowledgement to the Native Americans she stole her suburban flag lot from.
“Perhaps it’s time you ask your doctor if Kamala is right for you.”
It sounds like a good drug name, doesn’t it? It also sounds like an inherently ludicrous woman one heartbeat away from the presidency who claims our children are facing “climate mental health” issues and don’t even know whether they can start a family or not.
According to Fox News, Vice President Harris was speaking at the “Aspen Ideas: Climate Conference” in Miami Beach, Florida on Wednesday, where she told the audience that young climate activists are at risk of mental illness thanks to climate change. That’s a new low from an elected official if I’ve ever heard one.
“One of the young leaders was talking to me about climate mental health. I said, ‘Tell me what’s going on with your peers,’” Harris said.
She then repeated what the activist told her: “Climate mental health.”
“I said, ‘I think I can understand that, but unpack it for me.’ And she talked about how her peers are thinking about it,” Harris continued.
“One example is, you know, whether, when they’re ready, could they start a family — worried about what that would mean and the stress of it.”
“They were talking about in terms of their peers trying to figure out, you know, they’re going to have to get a job and they’re gonna have to make a living — but what they can do and how can they adapt the education that they are having now to their activism?” she continued.
Wait — you mean you can’t just stay a college activist for the rest of your life? Yes, Virginia, that’s usually the case. Sometimes you luck out (See: Sanders, Bernie), but most of us have to find something that creates value, and shouting down Exxon-Mobil representatives at a campus job fair or protesting a Ben Shapiro speech hosted by the College Republicans doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Or maybe I have it all wrong. After all, some Twitter users didn’t even get what the heck this was all about:
Others cast doubt upon the story, no doubt aware that Vice President Harris has frequently been more liberal with interpreting reality than even her boss, on occasion:
However, there are two reactions I think best encapsulate just how dumb this was. The first came from Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki, an earth science professor and climate-alarmism skeptic:
“Climate mental health” issues, such as they may exist, aren’t caused by the climate. They’re caused by politicians and unelected bureaucrats who feed on fear like ticks feed on blood — and the more fear they gorge their rhetoric with, the bigger they get. Now, the perpetuation of the species — the most basic biological drive of every living being, no matter how simple — is being met with what our vice president describes as a form of clinical anxiety.
And then there’s the second important takeaway here: This is, yes, our vice president. The heir apparent to Democratic leadership. A woman who very well may become the most powerful leader in the world should President Joe Biden finally give out.
“Fundamentally unserious” is right. But this is the content that sells for Democrats — at least when they’re among other Democrats. You’re not going to see her give this speech among coal miners in West Virginia, I don’t think.
But, whatever. If you’re young, gullible, tightly wound and easily triggered by climate alarmism, ask your doctor if Kamala is right for you. Side effects may include higher taxes, fewer jobs, rampant inflation, out-of-control crime, violations of constitutional rights and laughter from other world leaders.
If you fail to see positive results after four years, talk to your health care provider about voting to double your dosage. While you may not see any change in the earth or your mental health, studies show you may feel more self-righteous for having “done something.”
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Dirty Mining, Slavery, and Child Labor Are at the Core of Elites’ Green Energy Obsession
The much-touted green energy economy and the net zero goals it aims to obtain are built upon a dirty little secret: slavery and child labor.
A large percentage of the rare earth elements and critical minerals required for modern electronics, in general, and green energy technologies in particular, are produced and/or refined in countries where, if labor and environmental standards exist at all--and are enforced if they do—the standards are far short of what is required in developed countries.
The mining, refining, manufacturing, and transportation of the huge amounts of rare earth elements and critical minerals is a dirty business. Yet, they are vital to the magnets used in wind turbines, the cables, and stations used to transform the electricity produced by turbines and solar panels, and transmit it to its final destination, and the battery back-up needed to maintain electric power supply and reliability from those intermittent sources.
The International Energy Agency reports that offshore wind requires more scarce minerals, rare earth elements, and other critical metals per kilowatt hour of energy produced than any other source of electric power generation, renewable and non-renewable alike. Onshore wind and solar are the next most critical-mineral-intensive sources.
The vast majority of these critical minerals and elements are mined abroad, and almost all the refining of them is done by China alone.
A single on-shore wind turbine requires up to three metric tons of copper and magnets. Much larger offshore wind turbines require even more copper and magnets composed of rare earth elements. Thousands of pounds of ore must be mined to produce a single pound of rare earths, much less the combination of rare earths required for the magnets used in wind turbines. In addition, between 200,000 and 1.5 million pounds of earth must be mined and moved to produce the lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and other metals and trace elements necessary to produce a battery pack for a single electric vehicle. Thus, billions of tons will have to be mined and refined to produce the thousands of batteries that will compose the large-scale battery facilities providing backup power when wind and solar facilities are offline.
The conditions under which many of these minerals are produced are appalling. For example, cobalt is a necessary component of the green energy technologies President Biden is pushing on an expedited timeframe. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the largest producer of the cobalt in the world, by far. A large percentage of the cobalt is produced from small mines, where child labor is the norm, not the exception.
What’s more, China is the largest single provider of most of the critical minerals and rare earths used around the globe, and is almost the only refiner of such products. This means minerals and rare earth elements mined elsewhere, often with Chinese funding, are shipped to China for processing into usable materials. Much of the mining and refining of materials in China is produced by forced or slave labor, often of persecuted religious minorities, like Falun Gong followers and Uighurs.
To be clear, those pushing Net Zero goals, like Democrats in Congress, green energy elites profiting from government support in the form of mandates and subsidies, and the Biden administration, know child- and slave-labor are used to produce the minerals their green technologies depend upon. They claim to care about human rights, but their actions belie their words.
The U.S. State Department has a memorandum of understanding with the DRC to reduce the practice of child labor, however, that agreement doesn’t carry the force of law. The United States wants the cobalt and other minerals produced in the DRC, and nearby regions where child labor is also a problem, in large quantities. Indeed, the Biden administration is leaning more on Africa to counter China’s control over U.S. energy. As such, there is little doubt that growing government demand for wind turbines, solar panels, and battery packs in America and elsewhere in the West will increase pressure on cobalt mines to produce more. This will result in either more children being put to work, or existing child laborers being forced to work longer and harder under extremely dangerous conditions.
Concerning China, the Biden administration acknowledged the problem of slave labor, having signed the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021. Still, the reality of today’s globalized supply chain, combined with insufficient intelligence on the ground to track forced-labor manufacturing, and less still the raw materials, makes it almost a certainty the massive green energy transition being pushed by the Biden administration will be built with minerals and parts produced using Chinese slave labor.
In economic terms, Western climate hysteria is imposing severe negative externalities on developing countries. Ethically, the West’s climate obsession is immorally condemning present generations of impoverished peoples and nations to continued penury and early death. Make no mistake, this ruse exists to further enrich people in developed countries while they simultaneously avoid the cost and inconvenience of adapting to future climate conditions.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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