tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/nuclear-10888/articles
Nuclear – The Conversation
2024-02-21T13:18:35Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219950
2024-02-21T13:18:35Z
2024-02-21T13:18:35Z
Potato plant radiation sensors could one day monitor radiation in areas surrounding power plants
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575459/original/file-20240213-24-b1fnxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C3642%2C2714&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fields of genetically modified potato plants could detect radiation. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/f4df32b6c6354b5389fd59adaae707aa?ext=true">AP Photo/John Miller</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While expanding nuclear energy production would provide carbon-free power and can help countries around the world meet their <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement">climate goals</a>, nuclear energy could also come with some inherent risk. Radioactive pollution damages the environment, and it’s nearly impossible to detect without specialized equipment. But what if plants growing in the facility’s surrounding area could detect radiation pollution?</p>
<p>The mechanical radiation detectors currently used, <a href="https://remm.hhs.gov/civilian.htm">called dosimeters</a>, aren’t completely reliable – during previous nuclear <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx">accidents such as Chernobyl</a>, they’ve failed or been <a href="https://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Zhores_Medvedev.html">buried under rubble</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://utia.tennessee.edu/person/?id=11899">Our team</a> of <a href="https://plantsciences.tennessee.edu/racheff/">plant scientists</a> at the University of Tennessee wanted to figure out alternatives to these mechanical radiation sensors to help address their historic failures, so we decided to build a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.14072">plant-based sensor for gamma radiation</a>. The sensor, called a phytosensor, is a potato plant that glows fluorescent green when exposed to radiation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MaaZjoHDvMo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Dosimeters sense how large a dose of radiation something in an area exposed to radiation would absorb.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Historic sensor problems</h2>
<p>Current nuclear energy production is <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/safety-of-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx">considered safe by the World Nuclear Association</a>. But safety failures still happen, whether <a href="https://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Zhores_Medvedev.html">from human error</a> or <a href="https://shop.elsevier.com/books/fukushima-accident/povinec/978-0-12-408132-1">natural disasters</a> such as earthquakes bringing the mechanical sensors offline – and that’s where our plant sensors could come in.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo showing a large explosion hole in a building, from an overhead view." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571529/original/file-20240125-19-dnnjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radiation sensors can help inform responses to nuclear accidents. Pictured is damage from the 1986 Chernobyl accident.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Volodymyr Repik</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mechanical radiation detection equipment needs electrical power and regular maintenance, both of which make them less reliable during emergencies. A plant-based sensor wouldn’t require either of these.</p>
<p>The kinds of disasters that take mechanical sensors offline might damage the potato sensors but most likely wouldn’t kill an entire planted field of potatoes. As long as some plant cells are still alive, the plant could function as a radiation sensor. </p>
<p>Though potato plants are tough, some disasters, like a wildfire, would damage plant sensors more than mechanical sensors. While our sensors could supplement mechanical sensors, they wouldn’t completely replace their use. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two small potato plants in green and two in gray, shown from overhead, in a square pot filled with soil" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568097/original/file-20240106-22-l84j8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genetically modified potato plants acting as radiation sensors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stewart lab</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Plants as sensors</h2>
<p>Unlike mammals, plants can tolerate a lot of radiation before they die.
Potato plants, for example, can survive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.14072">10 times the amount of radiation</a> that would kill a human. </p>
<p>We chose potato as our sensor organism because potato plants can tolerate high levels of radiation, they’re easy to grow using tubers and they can survive in a <a href="https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL/visualize">variety of environments across the globe</a>. </p>
<p>Radiation exposure <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/tx000020e">damages DNA inside an organism’s cells</a>. When this happens in plants, they enter a “red alert” scenario and activate many DNA repair genes to fix the problem. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I co-opted the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2015.00885">DNA damage response pathway</a> in potato plants so that when exposed to radiation, the potato leaves made a green fluorescent protein. This fluorescent protein causes the sensor plants to emit a unique green fluorescent glow when exposed to gamma radiation. </p>
<p>While the human eye can’t see the green signature, drones used for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2023.107737">agricultural and environmental monitoring</a> can. The more green fluorescence produced by the plant, the higher the radiation intensity. So the sensors can tell you “yes, there’s radiation,” as well as roughly how much radiation there is. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.14072">In our tests</a>, the plants reported radiation eight hours after exposure, but that was also the earliest our team was able to check them.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small drone flying over a crop field, with a house in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571530/original/file-20240125-17-ug1yul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drones, like the kinds used for agricultural monitoring, would be able to see whether the plants are lighting up, keeping humans out of the irradiated area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DronesAgriculture/ab91c96f7c134734a9f0fc41c003e93b/photo?Query=agricultural%20drone&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=130&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=17&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span>
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<p>Based on our testing, the current radiation phytosensor can report a minimum total dose of <a href="https://remm.hhs.gov/gray_definition.htm">10 gray of radiation</a> – a very lethal dose for a human. The sensors reported radiation eight hours after exposure to it, and they continued to do so for 10 or more days, depending on dose. </p>
<p>Mechanical sensors can detect far lower radiation levels in real time, rather than as a cumulative dose like the phytosensors detect. This makes mechanical sensors ideal for everyday monitoring of dangerous radiation within a power plant, while phytosensors are better suited to monitor the larger areas of land around a power plant.</p>
<p>The current sensor could monitor radiation levels for the general public in an emergency scenario where radioactive material could be anywhere within a large disaster area. Chernobyl contaminated an area <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/chernobyl/faqs">about the size of Nebraska</a>, while Fukushima contaminated an <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/2/1/39">area about the size of New Jersey</a>. Most of this area had low-level contamination, with some hot spots.</p>
<p>Compared with mechanical sensors, phytosensors are slower and less sensitive, so they wouldn’t save anyone working inside the power plant, even if they were grown indoors. The current sensor could tell first responders where the hottest areas are during a large-scale disaster. After a disaster, it could inform regulators where it is safe for workers, and eventually the public, to return to. </p>
<p>We tested the sensor using an in-lab laser and camera, which are low-power and low-resolution devices. Actual drones with specialized detection systems would likely be able to detect lower radiation thresholds.</p>
<p>In addition to functioning similarly to mechanical radiation sensors, the potato-based radiation phytosensor is a living and growing organism that gets its energy from sunlight. This means that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.14072">the phytosensor is</a> self-repairing, self-propagating and self-powering, unlike mechanical sensors. Since potatoes grow from tubers, they don’t need to be replanted every year.</p>
<p>One obvious downside of the current sensor is that potato plants die in the winter, so during that season you’d lose the sensor. Our sensor gene potentially could be put into an evergreen species like a pine tree, but this sensor would need to be retested to understand its detection minimums and performance over time.</p>
<h2>Potential applications</h2>
<p>When used in combination with more sensitive mechanical sensors, the current radiation phytosensor could act as a fail-safe if a disaster <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx">similar to Fukushima Daiichi</a> were to occur. </p>
<p>While there are many possibilities for incorporating phytosensors into our current monitoring systems, our team still has hurdles to cross before the plants can be deployed in the field. </p>
<p>First, nuclear regulators would have to determine whether this technology is safe and useful, given their expectations for radiation monitoring equipment. Then, the plant sensor would undergo rigorous evaluation by the USDA to determine whether the phytosensors would negatively affect ecosystems if released. </p>
<p>Overcoming these hurdles will require more research, which could take months given the growth time for plants. Despite the work ahead, radiation phytosensors could help protect people and the environment in the future as countries continue producing nuclear energy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neal Stewart receives funding from federal organizations. This work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Neal Stewart is an inventor in plant biotechnology, though none of the technologies described in the Conversation article are patented. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Sears does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What if plants in the area surrounding a nuclear reactor could act as radiation detectors, with the help of a drone?
Robert Sears, Graduate Research Assistant in Plant Science, University of Tennessee
Neal Stewart, Professor of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217354
2023-11-22T20:54:00Z
2023-11-22T20:54:00Z
Are small nuclear reactors the solution to Canada’s net-zero ambitions?
<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/are-small-nuclear-reactors-the-solution-to-canadas-net-zero-ambitions" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>As Canada grapples with the imperative to meet its net-zero carbon emission targets, a new player has emerged on the energy scene: <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs">Small Modular Reactors</a> (SMRs). These compact reactors present a modern twist on traditional nuclear technology, which has <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211003653">languished without significant new developments for three decades</a>. </p>
<p>By promising faster construction, lower costs and enhanced safety, SMRs are not just another alternative energy source. They represent a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-14/us-uk-to-push-pledge-to-triple-nuclear-power-by-2050-at-cop28#xj4y7vzkg">potential game-changer in our energy landscape</a>.</p>
<p>But is this the solution Canada has been waiting for <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html">in our quest for net-zero</a>?</p>
<p>In my academic career exploring the energy transition — from researching <a href="https://news.usask.ca/articles/research/2022/city-usask-projects-target-m%C3%A9tis-history,-clean-runoff,-green-rental-housing.php">energy efficiency in low-income households </a> to fostering <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/september-2023/scale-up-renewable-energy-co-operatives-to-energize-the-nation/">renewable energy co-operatives</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=dYV4k9gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=dYV4k9gAAAAJ:u-x6o8ySG0sC">decentralized energy systems</a> — the most common hurdle I have observied is achieving the right scale and speed of deployment. </p>
<p>SMRs offer an intriguing proposition, potentially overcoming deployability challenges due to their uniquely <a href="https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-03/7560_smr_report.pdf">scalable and flexible implementation</a>. But as with any emerging technology, their promise comes with uncertainties.</p>
<h2>What are small modular reactors?</h2>
<p>SMRs offer a compact alternative to nuclear power, with outputs much smaller than traditional reactors, usually in the range of <a href="https://small-modular-reactors.org/smr-environmental-impact/">10 to a few hundred megawatts</a> — enough to indefinitely power approximately 10,000 to 300,000 homes. This smaller scale and modularity allows for more flexible site placement and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666032620300259#abs0010">potentially faster, more cost-effective construction</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike large-scale renewables, SMRs provide a less visually intrusive and space-consuming option, making them suitable for diverse locations, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032121009138?casa_token=__wKJ8X9D0wAAAAA:WArV8jcyT5GdC0rDWVN0jQaYbg5OYx3vaeAlfajpuheqshVqDda2mL4KQF15yofcDnvv9go">remote areas</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A brief overview of Small Modular Reactor technology produced by Undecided with Matt Ferrell.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The overall life-cycle emissions of SMRs are significantly lower than those of fossil fuels, and comparable to other low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar power.</p>
<h2>Emerging technology concerns</h2>
<p>The primary concerns with SMRs are their largely untested nature on a commercial scale and the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032121011473">speculative nature of their economic projections</a>. The actual costs of building, operating and maintaining these reactors <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032119307270">could differ significantly</a> from initial estimates. For instance, the recently approved <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/08/1067992/smaller-nuclear-reactors/">Oregon-based NuScale</a> cancelled their project, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/deal-build-pint-size-nuclear-reactors-canceled">citing concerns related to its escalating costs</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/small-nuclear-power-reactors-future-or-folly-81252">Small nuclear power reactors: Future or folly?</a>
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<p>Regulatory hurdles also present a challenge, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220312445">necessitating the development of new regulations and standards</a>, which can be a time-consuming and complex process.</p>
<p>Canada’s approach to managing waste from SMRs echoes its <a href="https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/energy-sources-distribution/nuclear-energy-uranium/radioactive-waste/canadas-policy-for-radioactive-waste-management-and-decommissioning/24987">policy for conventional nuclear plants</a>, addressing a key concern in the nuclear debate. </p>
<p>The strategy, shaped by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, integrates <a href="https://www.nwmo.ca/Canadas-plan">community input and focuses on sustainable, long-term disposal solutions</a>. This reflects Canada’s proactive stance on responsible and environmentally conscious nuclear waste management.</p>
<p>For SMRs to succeed in Canada, it’s essential to establish a supportive regulatory environment, ensure financial viability and leverage existing nuclear expertise while focusing on safety and environmental sustainability.</p>
<h2>Economic and environmental potential</h2>
<p>Economically, SMRs present a promising avenue for growth. A <a href="https://www.conferenceboard.ca/product/a-new-power-economic-impacts-of-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-in-electricity-grids/">recent report</a> from the Conference Board of Canada projects that building and operating a fleet of four SMRs could contribute approximately $15.3 billion to Canada’s GDP, with a notable $13.7 billion impact on Ontario’s economy. </p>
<p>According to the Conference Board, this initiative is also expected to sustain 2,000 jobs annually over the next 65 years, marking a significant stride in job creation. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-power-why-molten-salt-reactors-are-problematic-and-canada-investing-in-them-is-a-waste-167019">Nuclear power: Why molten salt reactors are problematic and Canada investing in them is a waste</a>
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<p>Environmentally, SMRs stand out for their potential in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150297%22%22">reducing greenhouse gas emissions</a>, particularly in the heavy industrial sector. <a href="https://cna.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/GHG-Study-Slide-Deck.pdf#:%7E:text=Beyond%20their%20value%20in%20cutting%20GHG%20emissions%20in,to%20%245%20billion%20to%20GDP%20annually%20by%202050.#:%7E:text=Beyond%20their%20value%20in%20cutting,to%20GDP%20annually%20by%202050">Projections suggest</a> that by 2050, SMRs could reduce these emissions by 18 per cent, signifying a considerable step towards Canada’s net-zero goals.</p>
<p>SMRs, alongside renewable energy sources like solar and wind, as well as advancements in energy efficiency, are crucial components to reduce emissions at the scale necessary to reach our national targets.</p>
<h2>The current state</h2>
<p>The journey towards SMR development is marked by strategic initiatives and significant investment. </p>
<p>The Canadian government’s <a href="https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/energy-sources-distribution/nuclear-energy-uranium/enabling-small-modular-reactors-program/24959">Enabling Small Modular Reactors Program</a> underscores this commitment with its funding pool of $29.6 million over the next four years. </p>
<p><a href="https://cib-bic.ca/en/projects/clean-power/darlington-small-modular-reactor/">Financing provided by the Canada Infrastructure Bank</a> for the Darlington SMR project in Clarington, Ont. further positions Canada at the forefront of commercial SMR deployment. Meanwhile, Ontario has <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1003248/ontario-building-more-small-modular-reactors-to-power-provinces-growth">received approval</a> for the development of the first SMR in Canada, the <a href="https://nuclear.gepower.com/bwrx-300">GE BWRX-300</a>, by 2028.</p>
<p>At this crossroads, SMRs represent more than an innovative clean energy solution; they offer a chance for Canada to assert global leadership in a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128239162000229">rapidly evolving energy landscape</a>. </p>
<p>As the world races to mitigate climate change and energy security, Canada has the opportunity to pioneer a technology that could make significant strides to advance the energy transition.</p>
<h2>A collaborative approach</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-premiers-meeting-trudeau-carbon-tax-1.7025799">Amid tensions</a> surrounding Canada’s carbon tax, SMRs are emerging as a point of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/11926422.2022.2116063">collaborative progress</a>. </p>
<p>The Canadian federal government has shown substantial support for SMRs. The <a href="https://smractionplan.ca/">SMR Action Plan</a> was launched in December 2020 with <a href="https://smractionplan.ca/#inline_content">significant progress</a> across sectors: from utilities, municipalities, provincial governments, vendors and universities to Indigenous organizations. </p>
<p>Together, Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Alberta have made a joint strategic plan for SMRs and an inter-provincial <a href="https://publications.saskatchewan.ca/api/v1/products/117374/formats/134796/download">Memorandum of Understanding</a>. These commitments — and more — show strong collaboration.</p>
<p>As Canada ventures into developing SMRs, we find ourselves at a pivotal juncture — a now-or-never moment in our energy transition. This exploration isn’t merely about embracing a new technology; it’s a crucial opportunity to assert leadership in global clean energy innovation and make tangible strides toward our net-zero targets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Boucher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Small modular reactors may hold the key to Canada’s net-zero energy future.
Martin Boucher, Faculty Lecturer, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214067
2023-09-21T10:35:53Z
2023-09-21T10:35:53Z
Grattan on Friday: Albanese government faces an uphill road and angry locals as it drives change to renewables
<p>Fire fear is gripping many Australians, with extremely high temperatures for September.</p>
<p>One day this week some 20 schools on the New South Wales south coast were closed, amid rising weather risk. Sydney national parks were shut. Multiple fires broke out in the eastern states.</p>
<p>The nation is bracing. The memory of that horrendous 2019-20 summer is embedded in our psyche. </p>
<p>The Bureau of Meteorology this week formally declared an El Niño event, looking to a hot dry summer. That will put pressure on ageing coal-fired power stations and thus the power system.</p>
<p>Apart from for a small minority, the argument about global warming is over. But the debate still rages about dealing with climate change and, close to home, Australia’s energy transition, which is under way but accompanied by increasing pain and problems. </p>
<p>Labor scored well politically when it issued its pre-election plan for the transition to renewables. It came with an election promise of an average $275 saving on household electricity bills by 2025. The promise will be unattainable, and in the meantime households face sky-high power bills, with only some benefiting from the government’s relief package. </p>
<p>Most people accept our energy system must move from fossil fuels, especially coal, to renewables as soon as practicable. But there are serious obstacles on the ground – literally.</p>
<p>The government uses the “not in my backyard” scare when the opposition proposes nuclear should be added to the energy mix. Now it is confronted by “not in our backyard” resistance from farmers and local communities to the big transmission cables needed to carry the renewable power. As well, there’s a backlash in some areas to wind turbines.</p>
<p>In 2014, then-Treasurer Joe Hockey was ridiculed when he described wind turbines around Lake George (near Canberra) as “a blight on the landscape”. The then opposition environment spokesman, Mark Butler, said Hockey was making “an utterly ridiculous contribution”. Labor can’t afford to laugh anymore. </p>
<p>Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was in the NSW Hunter region this week to try to calm anger about the government’s declaration of a zone off the coast for future wind projects. Among their objections, locals have raised the harm to birds, sea life and the view. </p>
<p>The South Australian government has argued the proposed Southern Ocean zone for wind farms, off the coast of Victoria and SA, should stop at the Victorian border. </p>
<p>The rows breaking out over power cables and wind turbines are classic examples of major developments clashing with other priorities, whether commercial (tourism, fishing, agriculture), environmental or aesthetic. We’ve seen these battles for decades with mining projects. They’ve now moved into the age of renewables. </p>
<p>Australia is not alone on this issue, which is rearing its head in Britain and elsewhere. The Albanese government’s difficulty is there will be so many breakouts. It remains to be seen whether citizen discontent will translate into voter backlash in particular seats. </p>
<p>Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has felt the heat in her electorate of Ballarat. In a submission earlier this year, made as the local MP, to an Australian Energy Market Operator’s report on the proposed Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector (VNI) West transmission link, she repeated her long-held concerns about the consultative process. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As Australia continues its transition to net zero, there will be increasing need for new projects,“ she wrote. "In rolling out these projects, it will be important to engage thoroughly and honestly with impacted communities all throughout the process – from project conception, to construction and beyond.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In July, Bowen announced a “community engagement review” to improve engagement on renewable energy infrastructure upgrades and new developments, to report
by year’s end. </p>
<p>The process is tortuous and often fractious. And, as the Grattan Institute’s energy expert, Tony Wood, <a href="https://theconversation.com/unsexy-but-vital-why-warnings-over-grid-reliability-are-really-about-building-more-transmission-lines-212603">has pointed out</a>, investment in renewables is stalled because of the slowness in getting the transmission grid in place. </p>
<p>The implications are substantial. The government is committed to having renewables generating 82% of our electricity by 2030. The present level is 35%. Wood says: “We are nowhere near where we need to be. We are way behind in time and way over in cost.” </p>
<p>The transition problems are making the opposition bolder in pushing its case to have nuclear power on the agenda. It argues if nuclear could replace some of the retiring coal-fired power stations, the existing grid could be used, reducing the disruption by new cables. But it has produced nothing specific on how nuclear will feature in its policy. Nor is it clear how politically risky raising the nuclear option is for the Coalition. </p>
<p>In an attempted political hit, Bowen this week issued an estimate that replacing coal-fired stations with nuclear would cost $387 billion. Given all the uncertainties, numbers mean little, although most experts maintain the nuclear path would not be economically viable any time soon. Even so, the government suddenly sounds defensive when rejecting even lifting the present ban on nuclear. </p>
<p>Pushed on Monday on the ABC’s Q+A about the ban, Bowen said that would be “a massive distraction. It would take a lot of our public debate”. This seems an odd argument. Whether nuclear power should be considered surely rests on two basic questions: whether the market believes it viable and whether the public considers it acceptable. </p>
<p>At least the government this week had some good news on the gas front: the latest estimates by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission indicate the country will go into early next year with an adequate supply for the domestic market. Treasurer Jim Chalmers was quick to declare the opposition’s “fearmongering” about the government’s imposition of pricing caps had been unjustified. </p>
<p>On the other hand, gas is coming under mounting attack from climate activists, as the government defends it as a transition fuel.</p>
<p>In political terms, the energy transition will put pressure on Labor on several fronts between now and the next election. </p>
<p>The first, and most obvious, is high power bills, feeding into the cost-of-living crisis. </p>
<p>Second, the localised arguments about the infrastructure will continue. </p>
<p>Third, investors will need more reassurance. </p>
<p>Fourth, the efficiency of the energy system must be maintained through difficult times. </p>
<p>And fifth, the government will need to hold the line against the Greens and the more militant parts of the climate movement that will attack it for not going fast enough to meet the climate challenge. </p>
<p>Those are the knowns. One unknown is whether we’ll get a really bad fire season and the implications that would have.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Most people accept our energy system must move from fossil fuels, especially coal, to renewables as soon as practicable. But there are serious obstacles on the ground – literally.
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212158
2023-08-25T12:21:39Z
2023-08-25T12:21:39Z
Why Japan has started pumping water from Fukushima into the Pacific – and should we be concerned?
<p>Japan’s decision to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/japan-begins-releasing-fukushima-wastewater-into-pacific-ocean">release water</a> from the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been greeted with horror by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/they-wont-buy-it-fish-traders-anxious-after-fukushima-wastewater-release">local fishing industry</a> as well as China and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/04/we-depend-on-our-beautiful-reefs-fukushima-water-release-plan-sparks-concern-across-pacific">several Pacific Island states</a>. China – which together with Hong Kong imports more than <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66613158">US$1.1bn (£866m) of seafood</a> from Japan every year – has <a href="http://www.customs.gov.cn/customs/302249/2480148/5274475/index.html">slapped a ban</a> on all seafood imports from Japan, citing health concerns.</p>
<p>Tokyo has asked for the ban to be lifted immediately. The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, <a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/08/a92c9689bb62-japan-pm-asks-china-to-lift-seafood-import-ban-after-water-release.html?phrase=Park&words=">told reporters</a> on Thursday: “We strongly encourage discussion among experts based on scientific grounds.” Japan has <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/japan-releases-fukushima-water-into-the-ocean-prompting-criticism-seafood-bans/">previously criticised China</a> for spreading “scientifically unfounded claims”.</p>
<p>Japan remains steadfast in its assurance that the water is safe. The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02057-y">discharge process</a>, which will take 30 years, was approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency – the intergovernmental organisation that develops safety standards for managing radioactive waste. And seawater samples taken following the water’s release showed radioactivity levels <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/25/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-plant-china-wastewater-release">more than seven times lower</a> than the drinking water limit set by the World Health Organization.</p>
<p>Since the world’s highest authority on radioactive waste backs Japan’s plan, should we also dismiss the concerns raised by Pacific nations and local fishermen as merely irrational fear of radioactive materials?</p>
<h2>Contaminated water</h2>
<p>In 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the north-eastern coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-of-2011">triggered a tsunami</a> that devastated many coastal areas of the country. Tsunami waves knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s backup electricity supply and caused meltdowns in three of its reactors. The event is regarded as one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.</p>
<p>Since the accident, water has been used to cool the damaged reactors. But, as the reactor core contains numerous radioactive elements, including ruthenium, uranium, plutonium, strontium, caesium and tritium, the cooling water has become contaminated.</p>
<p>The tainted water is stored in more than 1,000 steel tanks at the power plant. It has been treated to remove most of the radioactive contaminants – but traces of the radioactive isotope tritium remain.</p>
<p>Removing tritium from the water is challenging. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that forms water molecules with properties similar to regular water. </p>
<p>It does decay over time to form helium (which is less harmful). But tritium has a half-life of slightly over 12 years. </p>
<p>This is relatively quick in comparison to other radioactive contaminants. But it will still take around 100 years for the radioactivity of the tritium within the tanks at Fukushima to drop below 1%. </p>
<p>To safely store the water that will continue to be contaminated over that time (some <a href="https://apnews.com/article/japan-fukushima-nuclear-radioactive-wastewater-release-fdaed86a7366f68c70eca0397b71b221">100 tonnes of water</a> each day), the plant’s operators will need to construct an additional 2,700 storage tanks. This may be impractical – storage space at Fukushima is fast running out.</p>
<h2>Should we be concerned?</h2>
<p>Studies have, in the past, explored the health effects of tritium exposure. However, much of this research has focused on organisms such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/zebra-fish">zebrafish</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/mussel">marine mussels</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.4650">Research</a> from France, for example, found that tritium – in the form of titrated water – led to DNA damage, altered muscle tissue and changed movement patterns in zebrafish larvae. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the zebrafish were exposed to tritium concentrations similar to those estimated to be in the storage tanks at Fukushima. But the tritium at Fukushima will be significantly diluted before its release, reaching levels almost a million times lower than those that caused health issues in zebrafish larvae.</p>
<p>Marine organisms within the discharge zone will experience consistent exposure to this low concentration over the next 30 years. We cannot definitively rule out potential repercussions from this on marine life. And, importantly, the findings from these studies cannot be universally applied to all animals. </p>
<p>It’s worth noting, however, that organisms can eliminate half of the tritium in their bodies through biological processes in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrr/article/62/4/557/6256015">less than two weeks</a> (known as the biological half-life).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A zebrafish." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544582/original/file-20230824-15-pugylp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evidence that tritium can cause negative health effects in marine organisms is restricted to laboratory experiments on animals like zebrafish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/zebrafish-danio-rerio-planted-aquarium-718879114">NERYXCOM/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>But that’s not everything</h2>
<p>In theory, it’s also possible that the potential health issues linked to tritium could worsen due to the presence of other chemical contaminants. In China, researchers discovered that exposing zebrafish larvae to both tritium and genistein – a naturally occurring compound produced by some plants that is commonly found in water – led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.1001504">reduced survival and hatching rates</a>.</p>
<p>The amount of tritium used in this study was over 3,000 times less than that used in the French study. But it still exceeded the levels being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima by almost 250 times.</p>
<p>Yet it’s possible that other chemical contaminants present in the ocean near Japan or within the storage tanks could interact with tritium in a similar way, potentially offsetting the benefits of dilution.</p>
<p>Given that we lack precise knowledge of the exact chemical pollutants present in Fukushima’s water storage tanks and their potential combined effects with tritium, it could be unwise to casually brush aside the very real concerns raised by Pacific nations and fishermen.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmond Sanganyado receives funding from the Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund (ACSS 23/0012) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (R21-0850929337).</span></em></p>
Japan’s much-criticised plan to release wastewater from Fukushima into the Pacific is underway – and many are concerned.
Edmond Sanganyado, Assistant Professor in Environmental Forensics, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205951
2023-06-07T12:25:18Z
2023-06-07T12:25:18Z
Energy generators’ soaring revenues highlight deep problems in the way Britain prices its electricity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529316/original/file-20230531-23-28jc5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3840%2C2160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All electricity generators in Britain saw their revenues increase last year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/british-pound-symbol-running-down-electricity-2210647521">sp3n/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty-nine billion pounds is a lot of money. It’s how much we estimate the <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/sites/bartlett_sustainable/files/necc_working_paper_2_final_pdf_with_cover40.pdf">total annual revenue to British electricity generating stations</a> increased as a result of last year’s energy crisis – from £20.5 billion before COVID (in 2018 and 2019) to £49.5 billion in 2022. The indications are that these revenues increased by about twice as much as overall generation costs.</p>
<p>Getting at the numbers is not easy. Britain has a competitive market for “wholesale” electricity, the bulk electricity sold by major generating companies from fossil fuel (overwhelmingly gas), nuclear and renewable energy power stations.</p>
<p>The price is set in an auction between the electricity consumers (large industries or electricity suppliers that purchase electricity for their clients) and its generators. Consumers submit the demand they are expecting during the next day, and generators offer a block of electricity to meet this demand for a certain price. The price in this “day-ahead” market reflects the cost of the highest-priced block needed to match demand.</p>
<p>Renewables and nuclear plants are relatively cheap to operate. But fossil fuels, although more expensive, are still required to meet demand nearly all the time. This means that gas largely sets the day-ahead price, with a margin. In 2021, the electricity price followed gas prices <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/sites/bartlett_sustainable/files/the_role_of_natural_gas_in_electricity_prices_in_europe_updated_may_2023.pdf">98% of the time in Britain</a>, despite gas generating only 40% of the country’s electricity. </p>
<p>But this is just the beginning of the pricing complexities. In practice, much gas and electricity is traded through forward contracts. Your electricity suppliers need to know they can buy the electricity their customers will demand, so they “buy forward” from generators on contracts ranging from months to more than a year ahead – usually at prices reflecting conditions at the time of contracting. </p>
<p>On purely day-ahead prices, the total revenue in 2022 would have soared by almost £40 billion. Our best estimate of forward-contract structures brings this down to the £29 billion indicated for last year.</p>
<p>However, this likely means some of the huge day-ahead prices in 2022 have been shifted forward into this year, whatever happens to gas generation costs (in reality, gas prices fell slightly during the first half of 2023). </p>
<p>Furthermore, gas-powered electricity generators buy their gas in advance, to be sure they have the fuel to generate – so a lot of their generation this year could reflect last year’s gas prices.</p>
<p>Our first conclusion: whatever happens to gas prices, don’t expect electricity prices to drop fast.</p>
<h2>Soaring revenues</h2>
<p>A key finding from our research is how revenue changed for different generators, with the growth for renewables of particular note. We estimate their revenue doubled from £7.7 billion pre-COVID to £15.5 billion in 2022 – yet there is no reason to think their costs increased. </p>
<p>Nuclear benefited too – but proportionately less than renewables. Nuclear generators sell more electricity on a year-ahead basis, given its predictable cost and output levels.</p>
<p><strong>How revenues changed for different electricity generators (£ billion/year):</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A table showing how revenues changed for different electricity generators." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530333/original/file-20230606-25-nycs2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/sites/bartlett_sustainable/files/necc_working_paper_2_final_pdf_with_cover40.pdf">Maximov et al. (2023)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the biggest surprise regards gas generation. Since these companies’ costs shot up following the start of the Ukraine war, it seems no surprise that their prices did too. We estimate their total annual revenue rose by about £13 billion, roughly trebling from the pre-COVID average of £6.3 billion. But the evidence suggests that this increase was, in fact, much bigger than the increase in their costs.</p>
<p>An industry metric called the “spark spread” historically gave gas generators an <a href="https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/search?keyword=spark%20spread">operating margin of about £5</a> for each megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated. That quadrupled in 2021 and doubled again in 2022, to an average of over £40 per MWh. This correlates with our best estimate that, while gas generators paid more for gas, their bill rose by a lot less than the £13 billion increase in their total revenue. </p>
<h2>So what happened?</h2>
<p>Electricity is supposed to be a competitive market, with competition holding down prices. But in reality, there is little competition between gas and other generating sources in Britain, since these other sources can’t increase their output or rapidly build more capacity when gas generators put their prices up. </p>
<p>Until at least 2020, a major factor constraining higher prices in the wholesale market was imports through interconnectors from mainland Europe. Yet, factors including post-Brexit trade frictions and <a href="https://timera-energy.com/europes-power-crisis-overtaking-gas-crisis/">low hydro (Norway) and nuclear (France) generation</a> have impeded the <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/sites/bartlett_sustainable/files/the_role_of_natural_gas_in_electricity_prices_in_europe_updated_may_2023.pdf">inflows of competitive electricity</a> from continental Europe over the past few years. </p>
<p>Exacerbated further by the gas crisis in Europe, this meant electricity generators in Britain were able to raise prices further above costs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Aerial shot of the Solbergfoss hydroelectric power station." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529312/original/file-20230531-27-6vo0tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solbergfoss hydroelectric power station, Norway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/askim-indre-kommune-norway-may-23-2307235955">Benjamin Olsen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the final quarter of 2022, the generators also knew that raising their prices even higher would not ultimately matter to customers – because in October last year, the UK government committed to subsidising energy bills down to £2,500 per household through its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support/energy-bills-support-factsheet-8-september-2022">Energy Price Guarantee</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, gas generators are exempt from paying the new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-generator-levy/electricity-generator-levy-on-exceptional-electricity-generation-receipts">Electricity Generation Levy</a> – which imposes a tax of 45% on the revenues of electricity generators for the fraction of electricity they sell at above £75 per MWh each year. This levy is applied only to those generators who were assumed to be benefiting from the exceptional wholesale prices while their costs hadn’t increased.</p>
<h2>Implications for the future</h2>
<p>The real paradox is that all this happened just as non-fossil sources, with stable costs, started to account for <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1147249/Energy_Trends_March_2023.pdf">more than half</a> of Britain’s electricity (56% if we include nuclear). </p>
<p>As renewables expand further, we will start to see more periods when renewables and nuclear can meet electricity demand, so that gas no longer sets the day-ahead price and the wholesale price collapses. By 2030, non-fossil generation is expected to account for more than 75% of total electricity generation in both the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-and-emissions-projections-net-zero-strategy-baseline-partial-interim-update-december-2021">UK</a> and the <a href="https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/96c2ca82-e85e-11eb-93a8-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-219903975">EU</a>. However, most of the time, the day-ahead price will still be set by the sliver of fossil fuels that are still required. </p>
<p>Given the experience of the past year, and what we will see this year in terms of high wholesale electricity prices, this doesn’t really make sense. For how long can the declining fossil fuel tail continue to wag the dog of Britain’s renewables-based electricity system?</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Grubb has received funding from the Aldersgate Group for work on electricity markets, and BEIS/DESNZ for work on the economics of energy transition </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serguey Maximov Gajardo receives funding from the Aldersgate Group for work on electricity markets.</span></em></p>
British electricity generators saw their revenues increase by £29 billion in 2022 – here’s why that happened.
Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, UCL
Serguey Maximov Gajardo, Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Resources, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201757
2023-03-14T04:41:22Z
2023-03-14T04:41:22Z
With AUKUS, Australia has wedded itself to a risky US policy on China – and turned a deaf ear to the region
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515076/original/file-20230314-599-sbpcqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=335%2C26%2C3133%2C2300&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Rousseau/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much has been made of Australia’s renewed engagement with Asia and the Pacific since Labor came to power. </p>
<p>Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/penny-wong-launches-charm-offensive-in-pacific-20220526-p5aow0.html">charm offensive</a>” in the Pacific was seen as the beginning of a new process of listening to the region, not dictating to it. Labor’s Asia-Pacific policy has also been <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/01/penny-wong-australia-foreign-policy/">hailed</a> as striking a balance between the US and China. </p>
<p>In announcing the AUKUS submarine deal in the US this week, <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/aukus-remarks">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese</a> emphasised it was aimed at allowing nations in the region to “act in their sovereign interests free from coercion” and would “promote security by investing in our relationships across our region”. </p>
<p>The reality of the submarine deal is not, however, in that spirit. Instead, it leads Australia towards half a century of armaments build up and restricted sovereignty within a US-led alliance aimed at containing China. </p>
<p>Worse, it hearkens back to a colonial vision of the region as rightfully dominated by Anglophone powers who enjoy a military advantage over others that live there. </p>
<p>In the process, it has also deliberately endangered the spirit – if not the letter of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-southeast-asia-so-concerned-about-aukus-and-australias-plans-for-nuclear-submarines-168260">nuclear non-proliferation agreements</a> – and heightened what our neighbours see as a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/malaysia-warns-aukus-pact-will-spark-nuclear-arms-race-in-indo-pacific-20210918-p58stm.html">destabilising and unnecessary naval race</a> that can only further provoke China. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Penny Wong in the Pacific." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515085/original/file-20230314-24-zvb6yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Penny Wong has promised Australia will be a ‘generous, respectful and reliable’ partner to the Pacific.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Department of Foreign Affairs/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Relinquishing sovereignty of foreign policy</h2>
<p>The deal confirms two things that nations in the region have long suspected. </p>
<p>First, Australia is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/mar/09/media-hype-of-war-with-china-forgets-the-impact-on-australian-society-yun-jiang">incapable of imagining an Asia-Pacific region</a> that is not militarily dominated by the United States. </p>
<p>In addition, the deal suggests we are still politically attached to the United Kingdom – the post-Brexit ghost of a past British empire once again <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/british-subs-could-patrol-indo-pacific-while-australia-procures-its-own-fleet-20220901-p5befb.html">looking east of the Suez Canal</a> towards Asia and the Pacific. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-aukus-pact-born-in-secrecy-will-have-huge-implications-for-australia-and-the-region-168065">The AUKUS pact, born in secrecy, will have huge implications for Australia and the region</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The second is that, despite the window dressing, Australia’s deafness to regional misgivings has not improved since the change to a Labor government. </p>
<p>AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal are far from universally admired in Asia and the Pacific. The ASEAN bloc has repeatedly expressed its wish to avoid an arms race in the region. <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/are-australia-s-neighbours-ready-for-aukus-20230301-p5colo">Regional powers</a> such as Indonesia and Malaysia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/19/we-are-worried-indonesia-and-malaysia-express-concern-over-australias-nuclear-submarine-plan">have made this clear</a> on several occasions. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1440539784087175182"}"></div></p>
<p>Other approaches to regional security do exist. And our neighbours have their own sense of how the Asia-Pacific can best balance the growing influence of both the US and China.</p>
<p><a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/02/why-dont-malaysian-policymakers-view-china-as-a-threat/">Malaysia</a>, for example, has emphasised that so clearly identifying China as an enemy will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. The <a href="https://devpolicy.org/aukus-undermines-australias-pacific-family-20211104/">Pacific states</a> have warned against becoming so clearly aligned with the US and sparking a renewed arms race in the Pacific. <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/kiwis-firmly-remain-anti-nuclear-as-aukus-submarines-draw-near-20230207-p5cih6">New Zealand</a>, too, says it sees no sense in moving towards a nuclear-fuelled foreign policy. </p>
<p>Instead of taking these concerns seriously and engaging in deep regional diplomacy to head off future conflict, Australia seems to have has given up sovereign control of its foreign policy. </p>
<p>Canberra is moving towards what former Prime Ministers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/08/richard-marles-insists-aukus-submarine-deal-will-not-erode-australias-military-sovereignty">Malcolm Turnbull</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/13/paul-keating-speculates-king-charles-could-renounce-uks-claim-on-australia">Paul Keating</a> have respectively called “shared sovereignty” and “outsourced” strategic sovereignty. </p>
<p>Contrary to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/08/richard-marles-insists-aukus-submarine-deal-will-not-erode-australias-military-sovereignty">assurances of Defence Minister Richard Marles</a>, Australia has decided to become absolutely central to the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bc6685c1-6f17-4e9e-aaaa-922083c06e70">US policy of containing and encircling China</a>. Retreating from the assumed military role that comes with this would take the kind of foreign policy courage that has not been seen for many decades.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-southeast-asia-so-concerned-about-aukus-and-australias-plans-for-nuclear-submarines-168260">Why is southeast Asia so concerned about AUKUS and Australia's plans for nuclear submarines?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>War with China is not a certainty</h2>
<p>Th submarine deal also comes against a backdrop of some <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-faces-the-threat-of-war-with-china-within-three-years-and-we-re-not-ready-20230221-p5cmag.html">dangerously incautious media predictions</a> that Australia could be at war with China within three years. </p>
<p>Scarcely to be heard is the view that if war were to occur, it would be a war of choice, not a war to defend Australian sovereignty, even broadly defined. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1635454434120720386"}"></div></p>
<p>Bad assumptions about the future can unfortunately drive bad policy. The assumption of a regional war is in part a consequence of viewing China through the lens of the faulty idea of an inescapable “<a href="https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3158816/us-and-china-war-why-thucydides-trap-or-cold-war-analogies-are">Thucydides Trap</a>”. </p>
<p>For adherents of this belief, war between the US and China is simply a natural fact dictated by history when a rising power challenges an established power, similar to what happened in the war between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece.</p>
<p>Chinese brinkmanship and assertion of control over disputed territories and waters, however, is not a Greek tragedy. And Australian strategic decision-makers should not take for granted that war is coming either between China and Taiwan, or China and the United States – much less with Australia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-does-not-want-war-at-least-not-yet-its-playing-the-long-game-160093">China does not want war, at least not yet. It's playing the long game</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Herein lies the danger of handing over our sovereign foreign policy decision-making to the US and relaxing into the faux security offered by AUKUS. </p>
<p>We are led to the false sense there is no alternative but to be involved militarily wherever the US is in a conflict, whether that be in Iraq, Afghanistan or a future war over Taiwan. </p>
<p>Ceding Australia’s capacity to make serious decisions about war and peace cannot be accepted unless all pretence of Australian sovereignty is abandoned. Australia could have tried to work towards a regional approach with other Asian and Pacific countries. But this week’s agreement makes that all but impossible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT210100448 - Strategic Friendship: Anglo-German Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region). </span></em></p>
Labor has touted a renewed engagement with the Asia-Pacific since coming to power. The submarine deal, however, is not in this spirit.
Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198870
2023-02-01T04:21:06Z
2023-02-01T04:21:06Z
I study how radiation interacts with the environment – and the capsule lost in WA is a whole new ballgame
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507273/original/file-20230131-125-wacbvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4525%2C3021&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>By now, you’ve probably heard about a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing from the back of a truck somewhere in Western Australia. Inside is a small but dangerous amount of Caesium-137, a radioactive chemical element that can harm both people and nature.</p>
<p>My research <a href="https://www.ecu.edu.au/schools/science/research/school-centres/centre-for-marine-ecosystems-research/research-themes/marine-radioactivity-and-tracers2/related-content/lists/reconstruction-of-environmental-change-using-natural-archives">focuses on</a> detecting human-caused radioactive elements in the Australian environment. </p>
<p>These chemicals can <a href="https://www.irsn.fr/EN/publications/technical-publications/Documents/long_term_environmental_behaviour_of_radionuclides.pdf">persist</a> in water, soil, sediments, plants and animals, and even travel up food chains. But the situation of the lost capsule is unique. That makes it hard to predict the environmental damage it might cause.</p>
<p>Should the capsule not be found immediately, we can’t just write it off as lost. A long-term system of surveys and sampling will be needed, across a broad area, to monitor for radiation and protect humans and the environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="rocky hills at sunset" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507275/original/file-20230131-24-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The landscape near Newman in remote WA, where the capsule began its journey. The environmental effects of the accident are unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stay well away</h2>
<p>The radioactive capsule fell from a truck somewhere along a 1,400-kilometre stretch of road between Newman and Perth. Authorities are now searching for it.</p>
<p>The device was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/rio-tinto-apologises-after-radioactive-capsule-lost-australia-2023-01-29/">part of a gauge</a> being used at a Rio Tinto mine in the Kimberley region and was being transported by a contractor.</p>
<p>It contained Caesium-137, a nuclear fission product used in high-tech equipment. The radioactive element is also a byproduct of nuclear weapons and reactors.</p>
<p>The lost device is tiny – just 6mm by 8mm. The Caesium-137 is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abcperth/videos/dfes-are-providing-a-live-update-about-a-current-hazmat-incident/1366569623917214/">contained</a> in ceramic material, which is then encased in a steel outer shell.</p>
<p>The capsule could eventually corrode when exposed to the elements.</p>
<p>People who come across the capsule could become seriously unwell, including developing burns, radiation sickness and, in the longer term, cancer. But plants, animals and ecosystems are at risk, too.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1618912394968981512"}"></div></p>
<h2>How might nature be harmed?</h2>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0265931X96892769">well-documented</a> that caesium can accumulate in food webs. </p>
<p>The capsule was lost in a remote outback area. There, small animals such as insects and rodents could ingest all or part of the capsule, and suffer ill-effects. Plants can also absorb radiation.</p>
<p>If those animals or plants are then eaten by other animals, the radioactive caesium may travel up the food chain.</p>
<p>Research has found lower animal population sizes and reduced biodiversity in high-radiation areas. Radioactive caesium from Chernobyl, for example, can <a href="https://theconversation.com/at-chernobyl-and-fukushima-radioactivity-has-seriously-harmed-wildlife-57030">still be detected</a> in some food products today.</p>
<p>The damage caused by radiation varies depending on the type of radiation emitted, the amount of radiation present, and the ways a person or organism interacts with it. An animal that ingests the capsule, for instance, would suffer more harm than one that briefly walked past it.</p>
<p>My PhD research involves testing for radioactivity in the marine environment of the Montebello Islands off WA, where Britain conducted nuclear tests in the 1950s. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I discovered human-caused radioactive elements including Caesium-137. The elements exceeded “background” levels – in other words, the levels you could expect in the soil in a suburban backyard or in sand at your local beach. </p>
<p>We are currently seeking to understand if these levels pose a risk to people and nature, and how the radioactive elements move around the environment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tiny-radioactive-capsule-is-lost-on-a-highway-in-western-australia-heres-what-you-need-to-know-198761">A tiny radioactive capsule is lost on a highway in Western Australia. Here's what you need to know</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="woman stands in coastal landscape with pipes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507276/original/file-20230131-24-kpf32l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author at the Montebello Islands where she and her team tested for radioactivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kathryn McMahon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The great unknown</h2>
<p>WA authorities are searching for the lost capsule by trying to detect radiation from Caesium-137 in the environment. But this will not be easy. </p>
<p>The radiation was not dispersed over a large area, such as in a mushroom cloud following a weapons test. It was encased and condensed – though it may eventually escape the casing. </p>
<p>Working out what harm the radiation may cause is also difficult. The two most notable releases of Caesium-137 to date have occurred overseas, at <a href="https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28292/chernobyl-chapter-ii-the-release-dispersion-deposition-and-behaviour-of-radionuclides">Chernobyl</a> in Ukraine and <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-9404-2_1">Fukushima</a> in Japan. Both were large-scale releases from nuclear power plants – very different to the current situation in WA.</p>
<p>There have been smaller radioactive releases around the world. But most occurred in environments very different to Australia’s. We don’t have a great deal of information about how Caesium-137, and other radioactive elements, move through hot, arid environments such as ours.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="damaged nuclear power plant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507277/original/file-20230131-16-8nj0xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most Caaesium-137 releases to date have occurred overseas at places such as Fukushima.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/KYDPL KYODO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How long will the radiation last?</h2>
<p>This lost capsule is an entirely different ballgame to Caesium-137 releases in the past. Its radiation is currently 19 billion becquerels (a unit used to measure radioactivity). That is many orders of magnitude greater than what I’m dealing with at the Montebello Islands, for example.</p>
<p>If we apply what’s known as the <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExponentialDecay.html">exponential decay equation</a>, in 100 years’ time the capsule’s radiation level will have fallen to about 1.9 billion becquerels. But even then it might still pose a risk to people or the environment. </p>
<p>Using the same equation, in 1,000 years, the radiation level will be about 1.9 becquerels. This might be too low for our current instruments to detect, and might not necessarily pose a significant safety hazard. However, the risk would still depend on many variables.</p>
<h2>The long game</h2>
<p>At the moment, the search for the lost capsule is in the acute phase. Let’s hope authorities find it soon. </p>
<p>If that doesn’t happen, the next step will be determining how to best keep looking for it. </p>
<p>The current resource-intensive searching – such as scouring highways on foot or slowly by vehicle – can’t go on forever. But if the capsule remains lost, ongoing sampling, surveys and monitoring is needed to protect people and the environment over the longer term. </p>
<p>Understandably, headlines about radiation accidents evoke public concern. But it’s important to stress that, if the device remains on the side of the road, the probability of a person stumbling across it by accident is very small. </p>
<p>Although unfortunately, the same can’t be said for wildlife.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-bananas-really-radioactive-an-expert-clears-up-common-misunderstandings-about-radiation-193211">Are bananas really 'radioactive'? An expert clears up common misunderstandings about radiation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madison Williams-Hoffman receives funding from the federal government RTP Scholarship program, Her PhD has also been partially funded by Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).</span></em></p>
Should the capsule not be found immediately, we can’t just write it off as lost. A long term system of monitoring is needed to protect humans and the environment.
Madison Williams-Hoffman, PhD Candidate in Environmental Radioactivity, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197545
2023-01-13T12:21:31Z
2023-01-13T12:21:31Z
Relying on carbon capture and storage may be a dangerous trap for UK industry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503991/original/file-20230111-32622-svd70p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C3190%2C2122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technologies which can capture carbon from power station chimneys or even directly from the air are being developed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/industrial-smoke-stack-coal-power-plant-607164341">kamilpetran/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are reminded of climate change all the time. Every week seemingly brings a “once in a hundred year” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/18/us-major-winter-storm-expected-christmas">disaster</a> or new scientific evidence saying that the time to act has passed. Had we taken small steps 35 years ago, when climate change first became a public policy issue, the scale of the challenge might not seem so daunting. </p>
<p>But now urgent climate action is required and will involve more than just personal lifestyle choices. Such action will be expensive and involve huge sums of public and private money.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/carbon-capture-technology-and-how-it-works">Carbon capture and storage</a> (CCS) is one climate solution and is held out as the big hope for industrial decarbonisation in the UK and around the world. CCS refers to a range of technologies that capture CO₂ at source, transport and store it – often deep underground – to prevent it permanently from entering the atmosphere.</p>
<p>The UK, having been slow to adopt CCS, is now focusing on the these technologies as a future means of preventing significant amounts of carbon emissions. However, the state of public finances, public scepticism and the risk of being out-competed by the investments of other countries, may derail this process.</p>
<h2>Carbon capture in the UK</h2>
<p>The idea of CCS <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00162777">dates back to the 1970s</a>, but it took until the late 1990s for CCS technology to be deployed commercially. Facing a carbon tax, Norway’s state-owned oil company, Statoil (now called Equinor), set up the world’s first industrial-scale <a href="https://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/sleipner.html">carbon storage facility</a> in 1996. The facility, called Sleipner, removed excess CO₂ from the extracted natural gas and pumped it back into the ground.</p>
<p>By the early 2000s there was growing interest in CCS from the US, UK, Australia and Canada. </p>
<p>But since then, the UK has seen several stuttering attempts to develop CCS capacity. The government launched <a href="https://allouryesterdays.info/2022/11/18/november-19-2007-gordon-brown-announces-first-carbon-capture-and-storage-competition-at-wwf-event/">competitions</a> to build the country’s first CCS facilities in 2007 and 2012. The first petered out and the second was controversially cancelled.</p>
<p>Interviews conducted as part of <a href="https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=419d2d87-f39e-417d-8cb2-af25009f28c9">my research</a> (of which Matthew Lockwood, also of the University of Sussex, is principal investigator) revealed that <a href="http://www.element-energy.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CCS_on_gas_and_industry_2010.pdf">UK heavy industries’</a> interest in CCS accelerated in the years following the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">2015 Paris Agreement</a> – where the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels was established. In 2019, the UK announced a shift in its carbon reduction target to “net zero”, up from 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Until then, various industries had assumed that they would be in the 20% still emitting in 2050.</p>
<p>As a result, there have been a flurry of announcements regarding CCS in the UK in recent years. In 2021, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled an <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/970229/Industrial_Decarbonisation_Strategy_March_2021.pdf">Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy</a>. The strategy targets an emissions reduction of at least two-thirds by 2035 and 90% by 2050, with CCS removing 3 MtCO₂ from the atmosphere by 2030.</p>
<p>Later in the year, two “industrial clusters” were announced - one on England’s east coast (Teesside and Humber) and the the other in the north west, with a Scottish cluster receiving <a href="https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/373002/carbon-capture-project-at-no-advantage-on-reserve-list-claims-expert/">“back-up” status</a>. CCS technologies will be deployed at key industrial sites in these regions by the mid-2020s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A ship in front of the industrial skyline of the Humber Estuary at dawn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504000/original/file-20230111-22-gbnecp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The industrial skyline of the Humber Estuary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dawn-over-industrial-skyline-humber-estuary-719963932">Steve Allen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Failure to launch</h2>
<p>But the development of industrial CCS at scale is not yet a forgone conclusion. There are several factors that could impede the process to the extent that CCS technologies will fail to close the growing gap on the UK’s <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/ccc-uk-must-cut-emissions-78-by-2035-to-be-on-course-for-net-zero-goal/">carbon budget</a> performance. This is the UK‘s share of the global emissions reduction required to limit global heating to 1.5°C by 2050, as agreed as part of the Paris Agreement.</p>
<p>Vast sums of public money will be required to support the development of CCS infrastructure nationwide. The government has already committed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uks-industrial-heartlands-boosted-by-next-stage-of-carbon-capture-clusters">£1 billion</a> towards initial CCS projects, however much more is likely to be required in future years.</p>
<p>The development of CCS technology may also suffer from a lack of public acceptability. Many environmental groups have been either <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Net-Expectations-Greenpeace-CDR-briefing.pdf">publicly lukewarm</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp">actively hostile towards CCS</a>. In 2008, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp">Greenpeace activists</a> occupied Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent because Greenpeace saw early CCS efforts as a way to prolong the coal industry.</p>
<p>Opponents of CCS point to the risk of <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2018.00040/full">CO₂ leakage</a> from stored carbon. Geologists insist storage is safe, but a large-scale accident may dent public acceptance, which for technologies perceived as dangerous, can take years to recover. Nuclear energy, for example, remains a controversial and highly polarising technology decades after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A panorama of the city surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504001/original/file-20230111-25-e073b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The site of the Chernobyl disaster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/panorama-city-pripyat-view-roof-skyscraper-516016276">Damian Pankowiec/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Private investment is pivotal in scaling up CCS infrastructure. Other countries, including the US, are attracting substantial sums of investment in CCS technologies. But this may reduce investors’ willingness to invest in CCS facilities in the UK.</p>
<p>For example, the US <a href="https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/news-media/latest-news/ira2022/#:%7E:text=27th%20August%202022&text=Last%20week%2C%20on%20August%2016,on%20carbon%20capture%20and%20storage.">Inflation Reduction Act</a>, signed into law in 2022, includes an investment of US$369 (£304) billion in climate and energy funding. The bill includes generous subsidies and tax credits aimed at luring investment in CCS capacity to the US. </p>
<p>The UK simply <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/21fe9241-5e1b-409e-8d6e-98f2e4d06793?accessToken=zwAAAYWgpYDVkc8h_pJBXhtAntONbpjy5NBnkw.MEUCIQCvj3-yWOr9-nLkyP3J8ly_D0BZDniiAdSQkInXQZRj_QIgeD0IeHisQUIxfm8NabItp94yr3VX351LXdJncdwpLZE&sharetype=gift&token=8a174a28-61f4-4b12-9b35-d0120e9e6411">does not have pockets deep enough</a> to compete. And in recent weeks, the UK has joined international criticism of Biden’s green energy bill warning that it will harm the development of UK renewable technology.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1125226/industrial-carbon-capture-business-model-summary-december-2022.pdf">UK’s approach</a> involves investors competing for subsidies which are themselves tied to the carbon price. This approach is complex and requires investors to take on risk. </p>
<p>The UK may also be losing its competitiveness in CCS to Europe. Stuart Haszeldine, a Professor of CCS at the University of Edinburgh, <a href="https://publicpolicyprojects.com/">has argued</a> that while the UK “goes slow and makes it very complicated”, its competitors around Europe are speeding up. For example, Denmark and the Netherlands <a href="https://publicpolicyprojects.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2022/11/PPP-Carbon-Capture-Report.pdf">announced</a> new cooperation on CCS in August 2022 with the objective of advancing the development and deployment of CCS in both countries. </p>
<p>Advocates and critics have disagreed over CCS for years. But the reality is that CCS technologies have yet to take off in the UK. This may be changing, but even now the path forward is littered with uncertainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson is employed at the University of Sussex as a research fellow in industrial decarbonisation policy. His post was financed via the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre.
Matthew Lockwood is the principal investigator on the research project Marc Hudson has been working on, and contributed to the drafting of this article.</span></em></p>
The UK is focusing on carbon capture and storage technologies but the future is uncertain.
Marc Hudson, Visiting Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192218
2022-10-12T16:39:06Z
2022-10-12T16:39:06Z
Financing the transition to net-zero – here’s how the EU will advise investors where to put their money
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489057/original/file-20221010-25-lxsokg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scaling up public and private investment will be crucial to finance the transition to net-zero.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/solar-power-station-736731844">Mark Agnor/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ahead of next month’s COP27 climate summit we have been given a stark reminder of the lengths still required to tackle climate change. A new report estimates that investments of <a href="https://www.iea.org/events/breakthrough-agenda-report-2022">US$1 trillion (£904 billion) a year</a> in renewable power will be needed by 2030 to avoid the effects of climate change. Scaling up private and public investment will be crucial in financing this transition.</p>
<p>Yet directing investment to where it can have the most decisive impact represents a challenge. “Greenwashing”, where organisations exaggerate their environmental credentials, is rife and impedes the flow of investment towards truly sustainable projects. One way to address this issue is by ranking activities in terms of how sustainable they are – producing something called a “taxonomy” of sustainable activities.</p>
<p>Set to become law in 2023, the <a href="https://finance.ec.europa.eu/sustainable-finance/tools-and-standards/eu-taxonomy-sustainable-activities_en#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CEU%20taxonomy%E2%80%9D.-,What%20is%20the%20EU%20taxonomy%3F,implement%20the%20European%20green%20deal.">EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities</a> is one recent example of this. Embedded within many different regulations, financing mechanisms and subsidy schemes it is designed to direct investment in line with the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en">European Green Deal</a> – the EU’s strategy for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.</p>
<p>But the EU taxonomy has <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/eu-plan-gas-nuclear-power-sustainable.html">attracted criticism</a>, among them that many of its decisions are subjective and attract intense political lobbying. The decisions to classify gas and nuclear as climate-friendly investments, for example, have <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/42320458-dfeb-4f5e-9655-aba281cef662">angered environmental groups</a> and may be subject to a legal challenge. As the UK considers developing its own green taxonomy, there are concerns that it will suffer from similar issues. </p>
<h2>Making green activities visible to investors</h2>
<p>The taxonomy classifies what activities can be marketed as sustainable investments and provides a standard definition throughout the EU. Rather than having to assess what is sustainable from scratch, investors can simply refer to the taxonomy. </p>
<p>To be deemed as sustainable, an economic activity must contribute to various climate objectives. These range from climate change mitigation, to the sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity restoration and include zero emissions transportation and afforestation. There is a broad consensus on most of the activities classified as sustainable. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A coal-fired power plant with a large chimney in the centre in front of a large wall of coal deposits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489105/original/file-20221011-17-vdu3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The EU taxonomy excludes coal power generation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/jaworzno-silesia-poland-november-24-2019-1584621979">Eva Alex/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If an activity is not on the list, then it is classified as unsustainable and its access to investment is limited. Carbon intensive coal-fired power generation is one such activity. Phasing out coal generation will reduce demand, with further impacts on investment in mines and coal-related infrastructure.</p>
<p>This will carry social and economic implications for coal-dependent economies, such as Poland. In 2019, the Polish coal industry accounted for <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/422202/number-of-employees-mining-quarying-sector-poland/">84,000 jobs</a>, all of which could be at risk.</p>
<h2>Some decisions are contentious</h2>
<p>This is where the main drawback of the taxonomy lies. The power of any list to make or break an industry like coal in Poland means that its construction will be fiercely contested and certain decisions will involve subjectivity. This is particularly true where the criteria can have a profound impact on a country’s future growth.</p>
<p>Agriculture was initially excluded from the taxonomy. The decision was driven by the fear that its inclusion would conflict with the EU’s <a href="https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-glance_en">Common Agricultural Policy</a> and limit farmers’ access to subsidies. The risk of disrupting subsidies worth €58.0 billion (£50.9 billion) and damaging EU food security was considered too high. </p>
<p>This has been subsequently reconsidered, reflecting the possibility that specific animal and crop production practices could make substantial contributions to biodiversity. Crop production often relies on <a href="https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/sustainability/environmental-sustainability/biodiversity_en">natural processes</a> such as pollination, while making the switch to crop production will cause less greenhouse gas emissions than livestock farming. In the future, various farming practices can be included in the taxonomy.</p>
<p>While the EU taxonomy’s construction was a long, carefully orchestrated process, it was also subject to intense political lobbying.</p>
<p>Despite unresolved concerns regarding the disposal of radioactive waste, <a href="https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Report-EU-taxonomy-Out-with-science-in-with-lobbyists-RF.pdf">pro-nuclear lobbyists</a> fought hard to earn nuclear power generation its “green” classification. The inclusion of nuclear power was subject to a detailed series of technical studies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of a nuclear power plant surrounded by pools of water with a large cloud of steam drifting through the sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489114/original/file-20221011-20-sskvjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The inclusion of nuclear in the EU taxonomy is still being contested.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nuclear-power-plant-aerial-view-panorama-1029049147">Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some countries say investments in gas are necessary to transition towards cleaner fuels. Under certain conditions, <a href="https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/3eb4d1ac-1505-11ec-b4fe-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-230246876">natural gas</a> can now be included as a sustainable activity. This will allow the construction of new natural gas plants, locking countries into high-carbon energy generation.</p>
<p>In many cases, politically constructed taxonomies can maintain environmental injustice rather than solve it.</p>
<h2>Lessons for the UK</h2>
<p>Following Brexit, the UK is considering developing its own sustainable taxonomy in line with its growth objectives. But concerns have been raised that any taxonomy in the UK will be constructed to satisfy political short-termism. This could divert investment towards environmentally destructive activities.</p>
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<p>Recent policy announcements, such as the reversal of the 2019 ban on fracking and increased oil and gas production suggest that this is a real possibility. Under a new leader in Liz Truss, the UK government has already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/07/uk-offers-new-north-sea-oil-and-gas-licences-despite-climate-concerns">announced plans</a> to award more than 100 North Sea oil and gas exploration licenses.</p>
<p>But if constructed correctly, a taxonomy for sustainable activities remains a valuable tool as the world searches for sustainability. It holds the key for accessing the resources needed to support a sustainable transition.</p>
<p>Given the power that any taxonomy holds, greater transparency and scrutiny over how these criteria are constructed is needed. A robust independent evidence base for activities that may be considered sustainable is required. This would enable a classification that is closely aligned with climate targets, includes truly sustainable activities, and omits harmful activities that would otherwise continue. A taxonomy may be a list, but it has the power to shape the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Thomson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The transition to net zero will require huge investments, but how do we make sure investment goes to the right place?
Ian Thomson, Director of the Centre for Responsible Business, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190046
2022-09-12T20:27:57Z
2022-09-12T20:27:57Z
With his army on the back foot, is escalation over Ukraine Vladimir Putin’s only real option?
<p>Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going rapidly backwards.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s armed forces have launched two stunningly successful counteroffensives around Kharkiv in the nation’s east, and in the south near the Russian-occupied city of Kherson. Kyiv is now claiming to have recaptured some <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/9/10/russia-ukraine-live-news-2">2,000 square kilometres</a> of its territory, with the potential to <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-7">cut off and trap</a> a sizeable portion of the Russian invasion force.</p>
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<p>By the Kremlin’s own standards, this is hardly winning. Realising Russia’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62231936">war aims</a> – including <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3186482/russia-seeking-regime-change-ukraine-lavrov-says-moscow-expands">regime change</a> and the establishment of a “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/20/is-ukraines-endgame-a-russian-land-bridge/">Crimean corridor</a>” that denies Ukraine access to the Black Sea – would require nothing short of a dramatic reversal of its fortunes.</p>
<p>Putin now essentially has <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/putins-choices-in-ukraine-retreat-attrition-or-escalation/">three options</a>.</p>
<p>First, he can seek a political solution, hoping to hold onto the territory Kremlin proxies captured in the eight years prior to his 2022 invasion. That’s an unattractive choice, especially since a bullish Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hardly <a href="https://twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1569049610756280320?s=20&t=0fDwPan-PplqwasKfXAGyw">in the mood</a> to negotiate favourable terms for Moscow. Internationally, it would be a humiliating blow to Russian prestige: a smaller state defeating a top-tier nuclear power in a major land war.</p>
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<p>Domestically, and more worrying for Putin, it would sharply call his leadership into question. Mounting signs of domestic discontent now even include St Petersburg regional deputies publicly calling for Putin to be <a href="https://theins.ru/news/254850">tried for treason</a>, another group from Moscow calling for him to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/moscow-municipal-lawmakers-demand-putin-resignation/32027762.html">step down</a>, and even <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1569070513909022720?s=20&t=K7rUK26jF0rEm4vKyVq3pg">state media</a> questioning the conflict.</p>
<p>Option two for Putin is to try to reimpose a long and grinding campaign. But even if his forces can blunt the Ukrainian advance, Russia can achieve only a stalemate if the war returns to static artillery duels. That would buy time. It would wear down Ukrainian forces and allow him to test whether <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-using-energy-weapon-white-house-says-about-nord-stream-shutdown-2022-09-02/">using energy as a weapon</a> fragments the European Union’s resolve over the winter. </p>
<p>However, at Russia’s current <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/08/russia-ukraine-deaths-casualties-rises/">rate of losses</a> its conventional forces will be exhausted beyond about 12 months. Both NATO and Ukraine would be well aware of that.</p>
<p>Putin’s third option is to escalate: to send a message to both the West and Ukraine that he means business. Given the dubious nature of his other choices, that may be increasingly likely. But where? And, of equal importance, how?</p>
<h2>Invade Moldova</h2>
<p>Numerous experts have claimed Moscow might <a href="https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-next-war-how-russian-hybrid-aggression-could-threaten-moldova/">seek to annexe</a> Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria, plus further chunks of Moldovan territory. And in early September, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-moldova-not-threaten-its-troops-breakaway-region-2022-09-01/">warned of armed conflict</a> if Moldova threatened the 2,000 Russian troops guarding Transdniestria’s large ammunition dump at Cobasna.</p>
<p>An actual invasion would be difficult, because it would require Russian control over the Ukrainian city of Odesa for land access. But an airborne reinforcement of its Transdniestrian garrison might be tempting, or launching a hybrid warfare campaign to justify doing so.</p>
<p>In April 2022, there were several “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/02/transdniestria-moldova-and-russia-s-war-in-ukraine-pub-87609">terrorist incidents</a>”, including the bombing of Transdniestria’s Ministry of State Security, as potential pretexts for such a move.</p>
<p>That said, invading would arguably be counterproductive, not least because it may prompt Moldova’s close partner Romania – a member of NATO – to become involved.</p>
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<h2>Send a ‘stabilisation force’ to Kazakhstan</h2>
<p>Although unlikely, a Russian incursion into Northern Kazakhstan to “protect ethnic Russians” was commonly nominated by Russia-watchers playing grim games of “where does Putin invade next?”. Or, at least, they did before Ukraine.</p>
<p>Russian forces under the banner of the “Collective Security Treaty Organization” (<a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/03/how-the-intervention-in-kazakhstan-revitalized-the-russian-led-csto/">CSTO</a>), comprising some of the former Soviet states, actually intervened as recently as January 2022 at the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/02/csto-deployment-in-kazakhstan-strategic-shift-or-political-consolidation/">request of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev</a>.</p>
<p>However, that was soon exposed as a ploy to help Tokayev defeat his enemies. Since then, he has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/24/whats-behind-kazakhstan-not-recognizing-ukraines-separatists">drifted towards neutrality</a> on the war in Ukraine.</p>
<p>A new Russian intervention would certainly reinforce to restive Central Asian states that the Kremlin sees the region as its privileged sphere of influence. Indeed, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87652">hinted</a> that northern Kazakhstan was next on Russia’s invasion list. Yet, with many of its forces already tied up in Ukraine, it’s questionable whether doing so would really be worth the effort.</p>
<h2>Full mobilisation</h2>
<p>The significant losses suffered by Russian forces might be covered by putting the nation on a war footing. A general mobilisation would direct the economy towards military production, and provide an unending stream of personnel.</p>
<p>Putin has avoided this so far, choosing a <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-north-caucasus-recruitment/31915842.html">shadow approach</a> instead, which has called up an extra <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/world/europe/putin-russia-military-expansion.html">137,000 Russians</a>.</p>
<p>It does remain a live option, although it would mean admitting the conflict is a war (not a “Special Military Operation”), which would be domestically unpopular and result in untrained and ill-equipped conscripts flooding the front line.</p>
<h2>Draw NATO in</h2>
<p>Apart from the Moldovan scenario, Putin might elect to stage a “provocation” against a NATO state like Estonia. That would be a risky gambit indeed: given what we have seen of the performance of Russia’s conventional forces, even a limited war with NATO would hasten Russia’s defeat, and thus far Putin has assiduously avoided such provocations, apart from bluster and rhetoric.</p>
<p>Perversely, that might allow Putin to salvage some domestic pride by claiming he lost to NATO rather than Ukraine.</p>
<p>Yet his <a href="https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/08/24/six-months-into-the-war-in-ukraine-russian-media-has-a-new-message-either-we-win-or-world-war-iii-begins/">propaganda machine</a> has already been falsely claiming NATO is directly involved in the fight against Russian forces.</p>
<p>And if Putin isn’t prepared to initiate a peace process, then really only one escalation pathway remains.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-fighting-three-undeclared-wars-its-fourth-an-internal-struggle-for-russia-itself-might-be-looming-189129">Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Arrange a radiological ‘accident’</h2>
<p>The Kremlin has obliquely <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/accidents-can-happen-european-nuclear-plants-too-russian-ex-president-says-2022-08-12/">hinted</a> at this for a while.</p>
<p>Russian forces have controlled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant near the city of Kherson since March, turning it into a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-army-turns-ukraines-largest-nuclear-plant-into-a-military-base-11657035694">military base</a>. Rocket and artillery fire is actually not a huge concern, since the plant is heavily <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-war-zone-disaster/">hardened</a>.</p>
<p>But if the plant loses connection to the Ukrainian grid – which has already <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62782497">happened</a> several times – the reactors are only controlled by their own power generation, with no fail safe. </p>
<p>Arranging a false flag “accident” blamed on Ukraine is certainly possible, raising the nightmare prospect of a new Chernobyl.</p>
<h2>Use tactical nuclear weapons</h2>
<p>Look, it’s unlikely. But it can’t be ruled out.</p>
<p>Realistically, using tactical nuclear weapons would be of <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-vladimir-putins-nuclear-threats-a-bluff-in-a-word-probably-187689">dubious military value</a>. There would be no guarantee NATO would back down, or that Ukraine would capitulate. It would be very difficult for Russia’s few remaining partners to continue supporting Putin, either tacitly (like China) or indirectly (like India).</p>
<p>Indeed, while much has been made of Russia’s supposed “<a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia%E2%80%99s-crazy-nuclear-war-strategy-escalationto-de-escalate-180680">escalate to de-escalate</a>” doctrine, involving using nuclear weapons to force others to blink, there’s plenty of evidence it’s a <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/07/myths-and-misconceptions-around-russian-military-intent/myth-9-russian-nuclear-strategy">myth</a> designed to increase fear of nuclear war among Moscow’s adversaries.</p>
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<p>In summary, Putin’s choices remain poor, both domestically and internationally. He may soon feel forced to pick between those that are unpalatable, and those that are risky.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, identifying what he will choose is guesswork: we simply don’t know enough about how Putin’s mind works, or how he prioritises information to make decisions.</p>
<p>But perhaps there’s one hint. Throughout his tenure, Putin has consistently invited NATO and its allies to blink. At this crucial time, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-ukraine-invasion-is-slowly-approaching-an-inflection-point-is-the-west-prepared-to-step-up-186388">the West owes it to Ukraine</a>, and for the sake of its own credibility, to ensure it does not give the Russian president what he wants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Lowy Institute, the Carnegie Foundation, and various Australian government agencies.</span></em></p>
Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going backwards.
Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189429
2022-08-26T12:19:56Z
2022-08-26T12:19:56Z
UN nuclear agency calls for protection zone around imperiled Ukrainian power plant – a safety expert explains why that could be crucial
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483071/original/file-20220906-22-a9szl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C1022%2C714&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Damage at the Zaporizhzhya facility.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/iaea_imagebank/52328919198/">International Atomic Energy Agency</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-united-nations-government-and-politics-d65a057bbb9dc1e59171fdad1fd3c3f0?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_1">called on Russia and Ukraine</a> to set up a “safety and security protection zone” around the embattled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar. The plea, made on Sept. 6, 2022, by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), comes amid mounting concern that the facility – Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – is vulnerable to nearby fighting, and that damage to the site could cause a catastrophic accident.</em></p>
<p><em>Shelling has already <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-93-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine">damaged power and communication lines to the plant</a>, prompting <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-plant-escapes-meltdown-zelenskiy-says-moscow-kyiv-trade-blame-2022-08-25/">fears for the plant’s safety</a> and evoking painful memories in a country still scarred by the world’s worst nuclear accident, at Chernobyl in 1986.</em> </p>
<p><em>In addition, Russian authorities have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/24/revealed-russian-plan-to-disconnect-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-from-grid">developed plans to disconnect the plant</a> from Ukraine’s power grid – in the event of damage to the plant, according to the Russians, as a prelude to switching the plant to the grid in Russian-occupied territory, according to the Ukrainians. Disconnecting the plant from the grid is a risky operation.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://sites.usc.edu/meshkati/">Najmedin Meshkati</a>, a professor and <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/thirty-three-years-catastrophe-chernobyl-universal-lesson-global-nuclear-power-industry">nuclear safety expert</a> at the University of Southern California, to explain the risks of warfare taking place in and around nuclear power plants.</em></p>
<h2>How safe was the Zaporizhzhia power plant before the Russian attack?</h2>
<p>The facility at Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear plant in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It has six <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/pwrs.html">pressurized water reactors</a>, which use water to both sustain the fission reaction and cool the reactor. These differ from the <a href="https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx">RBMK</a> reactors at Chernobyl, which used graphite instead of water to sustain the fission reaction. RBMK reactors are not seen as very safe, and there are <a href="https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx">only eight remaining in use</a> in the world, all in Russia.</p>
<p>The reactors at Zaporizhzhia are of moderately good design, and the plant has a decent safety record, with a good operating background.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qthg5xE196w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant uses pressurized water reactors.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ukrainian authorities tried to keep the war away from the site by asking Russia to observe a 30-kilometer (nearly 19-mile) safety buffer. But Russian troops surrounded the facility and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-everything-you-need-to-know">seized it in March</a>.</p>
<h2>What are the risks to a nuclear plant in a conflict zone?</h2>
<p>Nuclear power plants are built for peacetime operations, not wars.</p>
<p>The worst thing that could happen is if a site is deliberately or accidentally shelled. If a shell hit the plant’s <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/pools.html">spent fuel pool</a> – which contains the still-radioactive spent fuel – or if fire spread to the spent fuel pool, it could release radiation. This spent fuel pool isn’t in the containment building, and as such is more vulnerable.</p>
<p>Containment buildings, which house nuclear reactors, are also not protected against deliberate shelling. They are built to withstand a minor internal explosion of, say, a pressurized water pipe. But they are not designed to withstand a huge explosion.</p>
<p>As to the reactors in the containment building, it depends on the weapons being used. The worst-case scenario is that a bunker-buster missile breaches the containment dome – consisting of a thick shell of reinforced concrete on top of the reactor – and explodes. That would badly damage the nuclear reactor and release radiation into the atmosphere, which would make it difficult to send in first responders to contain any resulting fire. It could be another Chernobyl.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A soldier stands in the foreground as a half dozen people in hazmat suits and gas masks stand near stretchers outside a large tent" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481180/original/file-20220825-26-qlt1zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian Emergency Ministry personnel conducted a drill in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Aug. 17, 2022, to prepare for a possible radiation leak from the nuclear power plant near the city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-emergency-ministry-rescuers-attend-an-exercise-in-news-photo/1242554458">Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the concerns going forward?</h2>
<p>The safety problems I see are twofold:</p>
<p><strong>1) Human error</strong></p>
<p>The workers at the facility are working under incredible stress, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/world/europe/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant.html">reportedly at gunpoint</a>. Stress increases the chance of error and poor performance.</p>
<p>There is a human element in running a nuclear power plant – operators are the first and last layers of defense for the facility and the public. They are the first people to detect any anomaly and to stop any incident. Or if there’s an accident, they will be the first to heroically try to contain it.</p>
<p>This concern was highlighted in the International Atomic Energy Agency report, which noted that the Ukrainian staff at the plant were working under “constant high stress and pressure” – something that could have consequences for nuclear safety.</p>
<p><strong>2) Power failure</strong></p>
<p>The second problem is that the nuclear plant needs constant electricity, and that is harder to maintain in wartime.</p>
<p>Even if you shut down the reactors, the plant will need off-site power to run the huge cooling system to remove the residual heat in the reactor and bring it to what is called a <a href="http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-is-cold-shutdown.html">cold shutdown</a>. Water circulation is always needed to make sure the spent fuel doesn’t overheat.</p>
<p>Spent fuel pools also need constant water circulation to keep them cool, and they need cooling for several years before they can be put in dry casks. One of the problems in the 2011 <a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-after-fukushima-safety-is-still-nuclear-powers-greatest-challenge-155541">Fukushima disaster</a> in Japan was the emergency generators intended to replace lost off-site power got inundated with water and failed. In situations like that, you get “<a href="https://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/nuclear-station-blackout/">station blackout</a>” – and that is one of the worst things that could happen. It means no electricity to run the cooling system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="hundreds of square openings lie at the bottom of a large pool of water in an industrial building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spent nuclear fuel rods are stored at the bottom of this pool, which requires constant circulation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-shows-the-cooling-pool-of-the-switched-off-unit-1-news-photo/524200126">Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that circumstance, the spent fuel overheats and its zirconium cladding can create hydrogen bubbles. If you can’t vent these bubbles, they will explode, spreading radiation.</p>
<p>If there is a loss of outside power, operators will have to rely on emergency generators. But emergency generators are huge machines – finicky, unreliable gas guzzlers. And you still need cooling waters for the generators themselves. </p>
<p>My biggest worry is that Ukraine suffers from a sustained power grid failure. The likelihood of this increases during a conflict because power line pylons may come down under shelling, or gas power plants might get damaged and cease to operate. And though Ukrainian intelligence services <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russia-plans-disconnect-nuclear-plants-blocks-grid-2022-08-19/">claim that the Russians intend to stockpile diesel fuel</a> to keep these emergency generators going, it is unlikely that Russian troops will have excess fuel given their need to fuel their own vehicles.</p>
<h2>How else does a war affect the safety of nuclear plants?</h2>
<p>One of the overarching concerns about the effects of war on nuclear plants is that war degrades <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253947/">safety culture</a>, which is crucial in running a plant. I believe that safety culture is analogous to the human body’s immune system, which protects against pathogens and diseases. Safety culture is pervasive and has a widespread impact. “It can affect all elements in a system for good or ill,” <a href="https://www.safetymattersblog.com/2014/11/a-life-in-error-by-james-reason.html">according to</a> <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/jim-reason-FBA/">psychologist James Reason</a>.</p>
<p>The tragic situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant violates every universally accepted tenet of <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1500/ML15007A487.pdf">healthy nuclear safety culture</a>, especially the maintenance of an environment where personnel can raise safety concerns.</p>
<p>War adversely affects safety culture in a number of ways. Operators are stressed and fatigued and may be scared to death to speak out if something is going wrong. Then there is the maintenance of a plant, which may be compromised by lack of staff or unavailability of spare parts. </p>
<p>Governance, regulation and oversight – all crucial for the safe running of a nuclear industry – are also disrupted, as is local infrastructure, such as the capability of local firefighters. In war, everything is harder.</p>
<h2>So what can be done to better protect Ukraine’s nuclear power plants?</h2>
<p>The only solution is declaring a demilitarized zone around nuclear plants, similar to the the protection zone urged by the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, Russia has previously rejected United Nations Secretary General António Guterres’ <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc15003.doc.htm">plea for declaring a demilitarized zone around the plant</a>. </p>
<p>I believe an optimal though not ideal solution is to bring the two operating reactors to a cold shutdown before any further loss of off-site power and risk of station blackout, store more fuel for emergency diesel generators at different locations at the plant site, and keep only a skeleton caretaker staff to look after the spent fuel pools.</p>
<p>Admittedly, this is only a stopgap measure. In parallel with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s effort under the leadership of its Director, General Rafael Mariano Grossi, I believe that the U.N. Security Council should immediately empower a special commission to mediate between the warring parties. It could be modeled after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations-Monitoring-Verification-and-Inspection-Commission">United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission</a> in 2000, and appoint a prominent, senior international statesman as its head. </p>
<p>I believe the person should be of the caliber and in the mold of the legendary former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, <a href="https://worldleaders.columbia.edu/directory/hans-blix">Hans Blix</a> of Sweden. Blix led the agency at the time of the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and commands respect in today’s Russia and Ukraine.</p>
<p>War, in my opinion, is the worst enemy of nuclear safety. This is an unprecedented and volatile situation. Only through active, pragmatic <a href="https://www.sciencediplomacy.org/sites/default/files/engineering_diplomacy_science__diplomacy.pdf">engineering and nuclear diplomacy</a> can an amenable and lasting solution to this vexing problem be found.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-troops-fought-for-control-of-a-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine-a-safety-expert-explains-how-warfare-and-nuclear-power-are-a-volatile-combination-178588">an article</a> originally published on March 4, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Najmedin Meshkati received research funding from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in mid-1990s.</span></em></p>
Artillery shelling, stressed-out technicians and power supply disruptions increase the chances of catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187712
2022-08-03T17:40:27Z
2022-08-03T17:40:27Z
France struggled to relinquish Algeria as a nuclear test site, archives reveal
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476065/original/file-20220726-10345-2dv4z5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C981%2C970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Explosion in the Hoggar
massif in March 1963 </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Photographe inconnu/ECA/ECPAD/Défense/F63-115 RC19</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Top French officials, including French President Charles de Gaulle, sought to conduct atmospheric nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara following the former French colony’s independence in 1962. These plans, described in recently declassified French documents, never came to fruition. If they had, they would have violated a request made several times by the first Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella and his cabinet not to conduct atmospheric nuclear testing in their country – a call he notably extended to the rest of the world.</p>
<p>The publication in 2021 of <a href="https://www.puf.com/content/Toxique"><em>Toxique</em></a>, the French-language study of French nuclear testing in Polynesia by the physicist Sébastien Philippe and the investigative journalist Tomas Statius, recently highlighted the health and environmental risks taken for the sake of the French nuclear arsenal. <a href="https://moruroa-files.org/en/investigation/moruroa-files">Their analysis</a> revealed much greater radioactive contamination in French Polynesia than Paris had admitted, with French forces conducting nearly two hundred nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and underground between 1966 and 1996.</p>
<p>Together with a round-table event including Polynesian civil society and French officials, the publication prompted <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20210310-france-speeds-up-access-to-secret-algeria-war-archives-emmanuel-macron-classified-files">French president Emmanuel Macron</a> to order an <a href="https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/fr/article.php?larub=371&titre=essais-nucleaires-en-polynesie-francaise">unprecedented declassification of French nuclear archives</a>. The importance of these documents for <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000021625586/2022-07-01/">victims’ rights to compensation</a>, which have been guaranteed by French law since 2010, raises questions about <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-critique-internationale-2022-2-page-172.htm">nuclear secrecy’s compatibility with democracy</a>.</p>
<p>The recent study <a href="https://www.editions-vendemiaire.com/catalogue/nouveautes/des-bombes-en-polynesie-renaud-meltz-alexis-vrignon-dir/"><em>Des Bombes en Polynésie</em></a> (2022), funded by Polynesia’s semi-autonomous government and edited by the French historians Renaud Meltz and Alexis Vrignon, has kept the public’s eyes on the Pacific. Most of the recent French declassifications also pertain to Polynesia.</p>
<p>Yet some of these documents create an opportunity to revisit Algeria’s nuclear history in the wake of the sixtieth anniversary of the country’s independence.</p>
<h2>The Algerian Sahara, the first French test site</h2>
<p>Between 1960 and 1966, France conducted in the Sahara Desert its first nuclear tests, <a href="https://information.tv5monde.com/info/algerie-sous-le-sable-du-sahara-le-lourd-passe-nucleaire-francais-417402">totalling 17 detonations</a>, including four in the atmosphere. </p>
<p>French nuclear ambitions collided with the Algerian War for Independence (1954–62), as the historian Roxanne Panchasi <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/history-of-the-present/article-abstract/9/1/84/155705/No-Hiroshima-in-Africa-The-Algerian-War-and-the">has explained</a>, and then with the construction of the new Algerian state. <a href="https://h-france.net/fffh/reviews/radiation-affects-three-novels-about-french-nuclear-imperialism-in-algeria/">Novelists</a>, <a href="https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/nuclear-powers-frances-atomic-bomb-tests-in-the-algerian-sahara">architects</a>, and <a href="https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2020-07/Collin-Bouveret-2020-Sous-le-sable-la-radioactivite.pdf">activists</a> have also turned their attention to these French explosions in Algeria.</p>
<p>Four atmospheric tests took place near Reggane, an oasis town in the Algerian Sahara, before French underground tests began in 1961 beneath the Hoggar Massif. Underground testing, intended to prevent a radioactive leak produced by the nuclear explosion, <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb433/">did not always achieve this goal</a>. Four underground explosions in the Algerian Sahara “were not totally contained or confined,” according to a <a href="https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/rap-oecst/essais_nucleaires/i3571.asp">French parliamentary report</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Nearly 70 000 readers look to The Conversation France’s newsletter for expert insights into the world’s most pressing issues. <a href="https://theconversation.com/fr/newsletters/la-newsletter-quotidienne-5">Sign up now</a>.</em>] </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/evian-accords-1962">Evian Accords</a>, which established the ceasefire in Algeria in 1962, granted France the rights to continue using both nuclear sites for five years. At least, that was the French interpretation, which several Algerian leaders would go on to contest. The agreement did not include any clause preventing the resumption of atmospheric tests on Algerian territory. But France did not resume atmospheric tests until <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210727-french-polynesians-seek-a-reckoning-as-france-vows-to-open-archives-on-nuclear-testing">1966</a> in Polynesia.</p>
<p>Brought on by the Evian negotiations, <a href="https://www.sfhom.com/spip.php?article3910">the détente in Franco-Algerian relations</a> allowed representatives of the new Algerian state to contest the most harmful of French nuclear plans. </p>
<h2>Saharan fallout and African borders</h2>
<p>The French decision in December 1961 to switch to underground tests would not last. Why worry about a return to atmospheric testing? Following the first French explosion in 1960 radioactive fallout had landed — much to the surprise of French officials and their allies — in independent Ghana led by Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist government and in Nigeria, a British colony also on the verge of independence.</p>
<p>The Ghanaian and Nigerian governments - as the historians <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/atomic-junction/908C8667C97132B19B3DA93B90BCD41A">Abena Dove Osseo-Asare</a> and
<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2018.1519426?journalCode=fcbh20">Christopher Hill</a> have respectively documented - developed systems to measure French radioactivity in their countries. Other neighbouring states, like Tunisia, turned to the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/about">International Atomic Energy Agency</a>, and eventually to the United States, for similar assistance with fallout monitoring. </p>
<hr>
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<p>These African officials wanted scientific proof that the French explosions in Algeria had violated their sovereignty. Controversy notwithstanding, top French officials, including de Gaulle, hoped to retain the possibility of conducting atmospheric tests in the desert near Reggane in Southern Algeria.</p>
<p>In late 1961, French military officials refused to alter air traffic controls above the site, explaining in one document that it was still “<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2150/19610908_-_19760078-72_-_Lettre_de_la_DGA_au_ministre_des_travaux_publics_et_transports_%28Maintien_du_NOTAM_Reggane%29.pdf?1656596734">not possible to predict the characteristics of future tests that could be conducted at Reggane</a>.”</p>
<p>In May 1963, the Algerian President Ben Bella grew impatient with the French refusal to cease nuclear activities in Algeria. French unwillingness to relinquish the test sites at that time threatened his domestic authority and <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199899142.001.0001/acprof-9780199899142">his foreign policy</a>, which both hinged on independence from Paris. He asked Jean de Broglie, France’s State Secretary for Algerian Affairs, if French forces could hasten their departure from Reggane since the site remained unused. De Broglie did not give a straight answer, claiming that “studies” needed to be carried out to determine whether an early departure was possible. </p>
<p>Ben Bella made the same request at least two more times in 1963 to the French Ambassador to Algeria Georges Gorse, who would confirm the French decision to keep the Reggane site several more years. French interest in retaining Reggane, and the possibility of resuming atmospheric tests there, seriously worried the Algerian president, who strongly supported the <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB94/">Partial Test Ban Treaty</a> (1963). France did not sign <a href="https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/15403500322_fr.pdf">this treaty</a>, which outlawed nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water.</p>
<h2>A fifth atmospheric test in Algeria? French plans to reactivate Reggane</h2>
<p>Recently declassified French documents show that, notwithstanding Algerian protests, French officials likely prepared to conduct a fifth atmospheric test at Reggane in 1964. <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1997/12/17/le-general-jean-thiry_3812159_1819218.html">General Jean Thiry</a>, in charge of the French nuclear test sites from 1963 to 1969, alluded in spring 1963 to “<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2151/19630228_-_GR_6_V_9827_-_Lettre_du_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Thiry.pdf?1656597027">the reopening of the Hammoudia polygon [test site] for an atmospheric shot in 1964</a>,” using another name for the blast zone next to Reggane. </p>
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<hr>
<p>Thiry and other top French brass worried about French capabilities to conduct underground tests following the infamous <a href="https://editionsthaddee.com/reportages/23-les-irradies-de-beryl.html"><em>Béryl</em> accident</a> in 1962. Radioactive fallout from the poorly contained shot had contaminated the
French state ministers Pierre Messmer and Gaston Palewski, French soldiers, and nearby Algerian communities.</p>
<p>Thiry was not the only French military officer to discuss new plans for Reggane. In March 1963, the Brigadier General Plenier, in the military engineering division, mentioned “<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2152/19630312_-_GR_6_V_9827_-_Lettre_du_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Pl%C3%A9nier_au_Ministre_des_Arm%C3%A9es.pdf?1656597060">the resumption of [radiation] protection experiments during an atmospheric shot planned for the beginning of 1964</a>.” Even if he had faith in these plans moving forward, he noted that his work would “depend on details, not yet set, of the test conditions,” like the precise location or the altitude of the explosion. On March 29, 1963, the Division General Labouerie, also in military engineering, took his turn celebrating: “<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2153/19630329_-_GR_6_V_9827_-_Lettre_du_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Labouerie_au_Ministre_des_Arm%C3%A9es.pdf?1656597094">It could be possible that favourable conditions might come together for the atmospheric explosion planned for 1964.</a>” </p>
<p>Back then, at least three military officers deep inside the French nuclear program eagerly expected the reactivation of the Reggane site. No atmospheric test took place in 1964, however. In the course of <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1964/03/16/la-rencontre-de-gaulle-ben-bella-permettra-de-mieux-adapter-la-cooperation-franco-algerienne_2118967_1819218.html">his meeting with de Gaulle</a> at the Château de Champs near Paris in May 1964, the Algerian President Ben Bella had asked his French counterpart not to resume, if possible, atmospheric tests in Algeria. De Gaulle refused to guarantee it.</p>
<p>By the end of 1964, he was still discussing with his cabinet the possibility of conducting atmospheric explosions at Reggane, while they awaited the completion of France’s Pacific test site (le <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1963/05/03/le-centre-d-experimentation-du-pacifique-fonctionnera-dans-trois-ans_2213016_1819218.html">Centre d’Expérimentations du Pacifique</a>) in Polynesia.</p>
<hr>
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<p>Even if French officials ultimately respected Ben Bella’s request, in December 1966 a top official at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Jean Viard, <a href="https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/fr/_depot_mdh/_depot_images/TerritoiresExpeditions/Essais_Nucleaires_Polynesie/CEA/S7507098-declassifie.pdf">assessed the potential impacts of reactivating Reggane</a>. Viard did not think the option was optimal. De Gaulle would have wanted to keep the site anyway. In a note to his cabinet in February 1967, he asked them to study how it might be possible to maintain a French presence at Reggane, a site that could, without substantial renovations, facilitate only atmospheric tests.</p>
<h2>Nuclear archives and Algerian independence</h2>
<p>Nothing guaranteed French abstention from atmospheric nuclear tests in independent Algeria. Recent declassifications have revealed French plans to resume these atmospheric tests, notwithstanding the protests from the highest levels of the new Algerian state. </p>
<p>Notwithstanding years of negotiations shrouded in secrecy, French authorities would fail to reach a decision about the use of the Reggane site before the Algerian authorities acquired it. Some French archives, including military and diplomatic files from this period, remain unavailable for historical research. But glimpses suggest the importance of this episode — involving French plans abandoned during bilateral negotiations — for the French nuclear weapons program, for the new Algerian state, and for the détente between these two countries. New access to French nuclear archives, despite gaps, has begun to illuminate little known aspects of Algerian Independence on its sixtieth anniversary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Fraise has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (NUCLEAR project, grant agreement No. 759707).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin R. Cooper ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
The unprecedented declassification of French nuclear archives sheds light upon the nuclear tests in Algeria circa 1960.
Thomas Fraise, Doctorant au sein du projet ERC NUCLEAR, Nuclear Knowledges/CERI, Sciences Po
Austin R. Cooper, Postdoctoral fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185294
2022-06-23T20:07:10Z
2022-06-23T20:07:10Z
Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?
<p>Should Australia join the United States in a war against China to prevent China taking the US’s place as the dominant power in East Asia? Until a few years ago the question would have seemed merely hypothetical, but not anymore. </p>
<p>Senior figures in the Morrison government quite explicitly <a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-says-australia-should-prepare-for-war-so-how-likely-is-a-military-conflict-with-china-182042">acknowledged</a> that the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China could lead to war, and their Labor successors do not seem to disagree. That is surely correct. Neither Washington nor Beijing want war but both seem willing to accept it rather than abandon their primary objectives. </p>
<p>There can be no doubt that if war comes, Washington would expect Australia to fight alongside it. Many in Canberra take it for granted that we would do so, and defence policy has shifted accordingly. Our armed forces are now being designed primarily to contribute to US-led operations in a major maritime war with China in the Western Pacific, with the aim of helping the United States to deter China from challenging the US, or helping to defeat it if deterrence fails. </p>
<p>In fact, the risk of war is probably higher than the government realises, because China is harder to deter than they understand.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-does-not-want-war-at-least-not-yet-its-playing-the-long-game-160093">China does not want war, at least not yet. It's playing the long game</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>The biggest war since WWII</h2>
<p>If war comes, Australians would face a truly momentous choice. Any choice to go to war carries special weight, because the costs and risks that must be weighed against the potential benefits are qualitatively different from those involved in other policy choices. A nation’s leaders must decide whether those exceptional costs and risks are justified by the objectives for which the war is fought. </p>
<p>That is a big responsibility even for the relatively small wars which Australia has joined in recent decades in <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-that-never-ended-ten-years-on-iraq-remains-bloodied-12840">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-occupation-of-afghanistan-was-colonialism-that-prevented-afghan-self-determination-167615">Afghanistan</a>. But a war with China would be nothing like those. Once fighting began, there would be little chance of avoiding a major war, because the stakes for both sides are very high, and both have large forces ready for battle. </p>
<p>This would be the first serious war between two “great powers” since 1945, and the first ever between nuclear-armed states. It would probably become the biggest and worst war since the second world war. </p>
<p>If it goes nuclear, which is quite probable, it could be the worst war ever. A decision to fight in that war would be as serious as the decisions to fight in 1914 and 1939, which were arguably the most important decisions Australian governments have ever made.</p>
<p>It is important to be clear what the decision would be about. If war comes, it will be sparked by a dispute between the United States and China over something like <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-taiwan-rely-on-australia-when-it-comes-to-china-new-poll-shows-most-australians-dont-want-to-send-the-adf-164092">Taiwan</a> or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-is-the-south-china-sea-such-a-hotly-contested-region-143435">South China Sea</a>. </p>
<p>But the specific dispute would not be the reason we would go to war with China, any more than we went to war in 1914 over the fate of Belgium or in 1939 over the fate of Poland. On both occasions the decision for war was driven by our concern to help prevent a defeat in Europe which would destroy British power in Asia, which we then relied on for our security. </p>
<p>We would go to war with China to preserve the US strategic position in Asia on which we depend for our security. That is not quite the same as saying that we would fight to preserve our alliance with the US. Many people assume that that would be our primary objective, because the US might abandon its commitments to us if we failed to support it. </p>
<p>But Washington’s disappointment with us does not threaten our US alliance nearly as gravely as Washington’s defeat by China. As long as they have strategic ambitions in Asia, Washington will have good reasons to help defend Australia. What would destroy the alliance would be American defeat and withdrawal from Asia.</p>
<p>Australia would be profoundly affected by a US–China war whether we joined the fighting or not. That might tempt some to think that our decision didn’t matter much one way or the other. </p>
<p>That obviously overlooks the consequences for those who actually serve, and the possibility that Australia itself could be targeted. But more importantly, it overlooks the possibility that Australia’s decisions would influence decisions elsewhere – including in Washington. </p>
<p>Recent scholarship has highlighted the remarkable weight given to Australia’s attitudes by British policymakers in the crises of 1914 and 1938–39. Douglas Newton has <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/hell-bent-9781925106060">shown how</a>, at a critical moment, Britain’s choice for war in 1914 was nudged by Australia’s eager support, while David Lee and David Bird have shown the influence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-the-bitter-dispute-that-cost-pm-stanley-bruce-his-seat-in-1929-115129">Stanley Bruce</a> and Joseph Lyons on Britain’s innermost councils in 1938 and 1939.</p>
<p>The possibility that Australia’s choices might help to shape the ultimate decisions for war or peace in Asia over the years ahead make it all the more important that we weigh those decisions carefully.</p>
<p>Choices for war are profoundly shaped by historical analogy. Often this is the primary driver of a decision, in part because there is so little else to go on – nothing like the kind of data that can guide decisions on, say, tax policy or health policy. </p>
<p>We decide whether to go to war or not largely by looking at what our predecessors did in previous crises. Much depends, then, on which earlier crises we choose to consider, on how well we understand them, and on how closely yesterday’s crisis resembles today’s. </p>
<p>As Australia considers whether to join a US-China war, it is natural and prudent to look for guidance to the two previous occasions when we have faced comparably serious choices: 1914 and 1939. When we do this, we find an acute contrast between the way these two choices are now understood.</p>
<h2>Two world wars, two lessons</h2>
<p>Today, no one seriously doubts that we – Australia and its allies in the British Empire – were right to go to war in 1939 against Nazi Germany, nor that we were wrong not to go to war over the Czech crisis of 1938. </p>
<p>This was also the seemingly universal view of those who lived and fought through the war. In 1961 the historian A.J.P. Taylor <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-9780140136722">noted</a> how little interest there was in contesting the accepted view of these momentous decisions. The same is true <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551557/appeasement-by-tim-bouverie/">today</a>. The second world war is seen as a war that had to be fought.</p>
<p>The contrast with 1914 could hardly be starker. No one today seems seriously to doubt that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">first world war</a> should not have been fought. Again, today’s judgment matches the verdict of those who lived and fought through the war itself. </p>
<p>Throughout the troubled decades from 1919 to 1939 there was an almost universal belief that the war had been a ghastly mistake and should never have been fought. Ever since, and despite lively debates about details of the debacle that led to war, especially how much of the blame lay with Berlin, the clear consensus has endured that war came that long-ago summer through the collective folly, weakness and ineptitude of the statesmen involved. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The British wartime Prime Minister, Lloyd George, writing soon after the war ended, said the nations of Europe “slithered over the brink” into a war that none of them intended. <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-sleepwalkers-9780141027821">Sleepwalkers</a>, the title of Christopher Clark’s notable recent account of how it all happened, suggests how little those essential judgements have changed.</p>
<p>The intriguing thing about these very different verdicts is that the underlying reason for Britain and the empire going to war was much the same on both occasions. It was to prevent the domination of Europe by a single power that would then be strong enough to threaten Britain itself, and hence Britain’s capacity to defend its empire, including Australia. </p>
<p>Both times Germany threatened to upset the balance of power between the European Great Powers, on which Britain had relied for centuries to safeguard its security across the Channel and thus allow it to project power around the globe to build and defend its <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-empire-is-still-being-whitewashed-by-the-school-curriculum-historian-on-why-this-must-change-105250">empire</a>. After 1918 this seemed a wholly insufficient reason to go to war. And yet when the same strategic logic drove Britain and its empire to war again in 1939, this seemed entirely justified.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">World politics explainer: The Great War (WWI)</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Why the difference? One important reason concerns who did most of the fighting. In the first world war the hardest fighting was done by Britain and France on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-infinity-of-waste-the-brutal-reality-of-the-first-world-war-106593">Western Front</a>. In the second world war it was done by the Soviet Union against Germany in Europe, and (as we all too easily forget) by the Chinese against Japan in Asia. That is why, for all its horrors, the second world war was less horrific for Britain and Australia than the first. </p>
<p>But the main reason is of course the nature of the Nazi regime. During the first world war many lurid things were believed about the evils of Prussian militarism, and some of them no doubt were true. </p>
<p>But no one would compare them with the truly astonishing evil of Nazi Germany, which turned out after the war to be far worse even than most people had imagined. As the liberation of Europe in 1944 and 1945 revealed the reality of life under Nazi rule, it was hard to doubt that this was a challenge that must be defeated.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the lessons that have been drawn from 1914 and 1939 are very different – indeed they are diametrically opposed. After the first world war it was universally accepted by national governments that war on that scale must be avoided at almost any cost. It was therefore always better to compromise and accommodate the ambitions of a country that wanted to change the international system in its favour, rather than fight to defend the status quo. The word they used was “appeasement”. </p>
<p>The lesson drawn from 1939, and especially from the failure of the last gesture of appeasement at Munich in 1938, was never to make concessions to any power that seeks to expand its influence in the international system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, 30 September 1938.</span>
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<p>Accommodation only encourages further demands. An unshakable refusal to compromise, backed by a clear determination to fight if necessary, will probably force the challenger to back off, thus avoiding war. And if they do not back off, then better to fight sooner before the challenger gets any stronger. They will have to be fought sooner or later, before they become too strong to be stopped.</p>
<p>It is not surprising that this stark and simple rejection of the lessons of 1914 should have appealed to people during the six hard years of the second world war. It is a bit more surprising that it has retained such a strong influence ever since. </p>
<p>Today these simple, powerful precepts remain perhaps the most potent element of that vague set of ideas, preconceptions and prejudices that provide the intellectual framework for foreign and strategic policy-making in the Western, and especially the Anglo-American, world. </p>
<p>The ideas that we should always be willing to fight rather than compromise, and that the more willing we are to fight, the less likely we are to have to fight, took on the aura of timeless precepts of universal application. As such, they had, and have, obvious appeal. They make difficult policy decisions look easy, and allow leaders and their advisers to look and sound tough.</p>
<p>But the results have not always been happy. The “lessons of Munich” <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691025353/analogies-at-war">inspired</a> Britain’s debacle in Suez, the US’s defeat in Vietnam, their invasion of Iraq in 2003 and many other mistakes. These failures are easy to explain. </p>
<p>Lessons of history are inevitably tied to the original circumstances of time and place from which they are drawn, and how well they apply to new situations depends on how far and in what ways the new circumstances resemble the original ones. The lessons drawn from the failure of appeasement in 1939 are specific to the circumstances of that failure, and some of those circumstances were very unusual.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The main gate at Auschwitz, known as the Gate of Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stanislaw Mucha/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Above all, the shadow of Nazi Germany was unusual and perhaps unique in several critical ways. One was the sheer evil of the Nazi regime to which we have already referred. Another was its unusually stark and clearly stated strategic ambitions. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://theconversation.com/mein-kampf-publication-the-best-way-to-destroy-hitlers-hateful-legacy-51707">Mein Kampf</a> onwards, Hitler made clear that he planned to do more than build Germany’s position as the leading power in Europe by expanding its influence over other countries. He wanted to destroy other countries by seizing and occupying large tracts of territory to provide <em>Lebensraum</em> for the German people. </p>
<p>A third was its potential to realise its ambitions on the basis of its formidable national power – economic, demographic, technical and organisational – compared to its neighbours. Against this kind of challenge, the only possible response may well be, as the lessons of Munich suggest, unwavering and uncompromising opposition; if necessary, by fighting a major war.</p>
<p>But neither Nasser’s Egypt, nor Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnam, nor <a href="https://theconversation.com/gulf-war-30-years-on-the-consequences-of-desert-storm-are-still-with-us-156140">Saddam Hussein’s Iraq</a> were anything like Hitler’s Germany. The dangers they posed were nowhere near as serious as was assumed, and the costs and risks of resisting them by force turned out to be much higher than expected, and higher than could be justified to avert those dangers. Even more strikingly, however, the lessons of Munich had relatively little influence on a number of much bigger questions. </p>
<p>The postwar architecture hammered out between US president Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at Yalta, based on the United Nations, was premised on a spirit of accommodation and compromise. </p>
<p>Even more strikingly, so was the West’s approach to the one adversary it faced in the postwar decades that was in some ways comparable with Nazi Germany – the Soviet Union. Western leaders sometimes invoked the follies of Munich to advertise and justify hard-line Cold War postures, but their policies were most often guided by a prudent recognition of the need to negotiate understandings with Moscow in order to avert the danger of war.</p>
<p>This was of course all the more imperative as the Soviet capacity for nuclear warfare grew. In the 1950s even the archetypal opponent of appeasement, Winston Churchill, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2713969-negotiation-from-strength">became</a> a fervent advocate of negotiation with Moscow to settle differences in order to avoid nuclear war. </p>
<p>In the darkest moment of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was influenced much more by the lessons of 1914 than by those of 1938–39, which <a href="http://blog.loa.org/2012/03/how-barbara-tuchmans-guns-of-august.html">prompted him</a> to offer the concessions which defused the crisis. In any case, the policy of Détente that evolved in the aftermath of that crisis owed a lot more to the lessons of 1914 than those of 1938–39.</p>
<p>It seems clear that, as a new Cold War looms between the United States and China, the lessons of 1939 loom much larger than the lessons of 1914, both in Washington and Canberra. Washington has made it clear that it has no interest in seeking an accommodation with China that would meet any of China’s aims to expand its influence in Asia and beyond. </p>
<p>Washington’s talk of preserving the “rules-based liberal order” plainly embodies its intention to perpetuate the old status quo of US primacy, and its emphasis on meeting China’s military challenge reflects its willingness to go to war with China rather than to compromise that objective. In Canberra, Scott Morrison made clear the influence of Munich on his policy when, launching his government’s <a href="https://defence.gov.au/ADC/Publications/AJDSS/volume2-number2/prime-minister-address-launch-2020-defence-strategic-update.asp">Defence Strategic Update</a> in 2020, he explicitly compared today’s strategic circumstances to those of the 1930s and early 1940s.</p>
<p>Is this the right way to think about the problem of China? To be clear, the question is not whether we should try to resist China’s ambitions, but how far we should resist them, and at what cost. Should Australia be willing to go to war, whatever the cost may be, to preserve the US-led regional and global order, and block any expansion of Chinese power and influence? Or should we be willing, reluctantly, to accommodate some of China’s ambitions by accepting an expansion of its influence, in order to reduce the risks of war? It is not a simple question.</p>
<p>The lessons of Munich do not seem to offer a very helpful guide to answering it. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-communist-party-claims-to-have-brought-prosperity-and-equality-to-china-heres-the-real-impact-of-its-rule-163350">Chinese Communist Party</a> has many faults and is responsible for much brutality and oppression, but it is not by any stretch comparable to the evil of the Nazi Party. </p>
<p>China today is certainly strategically ambitious, but there is no serious reason to fear that – the special case of Taiwan apart, its claim to which the rest of the world acknowledges – it seeks to conquer and absorb others’ territory. And although China is set to become the most powerful country on earth, it cannot dominate and subjugate such strong neighbours as India and Russia. </p>
<p>Overall, then, the risks that China poses to the regional and global order, though significant, are not like those posed by Nazi Germany, or indeed the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a war with China may well be as costly as the world wars of the 20th century, or even more costly, especially if it becomes a nuclear war. That would be an almost unimaginable disaster even if our side won – a victory, as Churchill <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90230.The_World_Crisis_1911_1918">wrote</a> of the First World War “bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat”.</p>
<p>Moreover, there is no reason to assume that we and our allies would win. Indeed, it is hard to see how a major war with China could be “won” without the kind of full-scale invasion or subjugation of the enemy’s country that brought victory in the two world wars. It is somewhat easier to imagine how China could defeat the United States – by imposing such heavy costs that Washington decides to abandon the war, and withdraw from Asia to the Western Hemisphere. </p>
<p>That raises the very real possibility that a war with China launched to preserve the US’s position in Asia might well end up destroying it, just as the First World War destroyed the empires that went to war to preserve themselves in 1914.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-untold-reaction-to-the-cuban-missile-crisis-10104">Australia's untold reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis</a>
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<h2>The limits to accommodation</h2>
<p>What, then, do the lessons of 1914 offer as a guide to our policy choices today? In the 1920s and 1930s the majority of those who survived the first world war would have been quite clear about that. </p>
<p>They would say that we should avoid war at almost any price, by being willing to go a long way to accommodate China’s ambitions by according it a much larger share of influence and authority in the international system. They would have been confident, however, that China’s ambitions could be constrained by limits imposed, not by armed force, but by a powerful international institution – the League of Nations – and by what they called “international public opinion”. </p>
<p>They repudiated war as an instrument of policy, but they placed great faith in these alternatives to achieve what war, or the threat of war, had long been relied upon to do. Of course, this did not work. </p>
<p>As the historian E.H. Carr <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-349-95076-8">wrote</a> just before war broke out in 1939, their misplaced confidence in these constraints, and what he later called “the almost total neglect of the factor of power” did much to create the crisis which then confronted Britain with no alternative but to go to war again.</p>
<p>We would be wise, then, not to follow their example. Where then to turn? We might begin by noting that the lessons of 1914 and of Munich are both aberrations. They depart from much older traditions of statecraft which had developed over many centuries as the modern European state system had emerged and evolved. </p>
<p>Those traditions do not by any means forswear war. Indeed, as the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one of its foremost contemporary exponents, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50562.A_World_Restored">wrote</a> in the first page of his first book: “those who forswear war will never have peace”.</p>
<p>But the aim is always to achieve the maximum advantages without war, and that entails a willingness to negotiate and accommodate; to appease, in other words. War is not an alternative to accommodation; it is used to set the limits to accommodation and to enforce those limits. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Kissinger, US Presidential National Security Adviser, and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Peking, China, July 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">White House/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This approach prevented any single power dominating Europe for centuries, and after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Congress-of-Vienna/Decisions-of-the-congress">1815 Congress of Vienna</a>, it prevented any Europe-wide wars for almost a century until 1914. Seen in the light of this tradition, the appeasers’ mistake at Munich was not that they accommodated Hitler over Sudetenland, but that they failed to make it absolutely clear that they would go to war to deny him the rest of Czechoslovakia, or any of Poland.</p>
<p>As that example makes clear, the key to this kind of statecraft lies in deciding where to set the limits to accommodation. These are hard decisions to make. As we have seen, one of the attractions of the lessons of Munich as a template for strategic decision-making is its simplicity. But it achieves simplicity by lazily assuming that all ambitious powers are essentially the same and must be treated the same by refusing any accommodation. </p>
<p>Taking a more responsible approach requires careful judgements about the current and probable future extent of an adversary’s ambitions and power, and nuanced assessments of the implications for our future security. Then we can judge how far we can afford to accommodate them before the costs and risks of doing so exceed the costs and risks of the war we would need to fight to stop them.</p>
<p>Looking back, for example, it is interesting and instructive to think about the alternatives to war in August 1914. Had Britain stood aloof, France and Russia may well have been defeated, leaving Germany the unquestioned leading power in Europe. <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-pity-of-war-9780141975832">That</a> appeared an unacceptable outcome to the majority of the cabinet in Whitehall, but a minority argued that Britain could live with it more easily than it could bear the burdens of war, and in the light of events since then they were probably right.</p>
<p>After all, the Germany of 1914 was not Nazi Germany. And Australia might well have been better off had the arguments for peace prevailed in Whitehall. Not only would we have been spared the losses we suffered, but Britain would have remained a stronger global power that was better able to defend its Pacific dominions than it proved to be in 1941.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-would-be-wise-not-to-pound-war-drums-over-taiwan-with-so-much-at-stake-159993">Australia would be wise not to pound 'war drums' over Taiwan with so much at stake</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Rhyming history</h2>
<p>History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. As we face the challenge of a rising China we can hear the clear echoes of the choices faced by our predecessors in the last century and the centuries before that. Those echoes tell us that to meet that challenge we need to do a lot more than mouth slogans about Munich. </p>
<p>We have to think carefully and realistically about the nature of China’s challenge to the old order in Asia, the kind of new order that might be created to accommodate it, the safeguards that would be required to protect our most vital interests in that order, and how that might be achieved at minimum cost and risk. We must also think about how best we can influence our major ally as it addresses the same questions, because its answers will have immense significance for us. </p>
<p>All this is a formidable task. Indeed, it is probably the most demanding foreign policy task that Australia has ever faced. But we should not be surprised by that, when we remember that China’s rise is the biggest shift in Australia’s international setting since Europeans first settled here in 1788.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>In meeting that task, it falls to the present generation of political leaders, policymakers, commentators and, ultimately, citizens around the world to navigate one of the biggest, swiftest, most disruptive and most dangerous power transitions in modern history. </p>
<p>One might say, too, that it falls to the current generation of historians to contribute to that work by offering a deeper understanding of the choices that were made by earlier generations navigating similar transitions. </p>
<p>That is not easy, because the accepted versions of earlier episodes like 1914 and 1938–39 are encrusted with tradition, sentiment and ideology, and few historians have sought to challenge or overturn these accepted versions. Perhaps more will step forward as the nature and seriousness of today’s choices, and the need to illuminate them with lessons from the past, become clearer. </p>
<p>One key element of such work will be the methodologically vexed but undoubtedly stimulating exploration of counterfactual histories. To assess and learn from the decisions of 1914, we need more nuanced and sophisticated views of how Europe and the British Empire would have fared had Imperial Germany dominated the Continent. </p>
<p>To assess and learn from the decisions of 1938 and 1939 we need to better understand what might have happened had different decisions been made. We also need to recognise and meditate on what might have happened had “our side” not won the last two major power wars. Because we might not win the next one.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://unsw.press/books/lessons-from-history/">Lessons from History: Leading historians tackle Australia’s greatest challenge</a>s, edited by Carolyn Holbrook, Lyndon Megarrity and David Lowe (NewSouth).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hugh White warns of a potential war between the US and China, drawing lessons from the first and second world wars to explore how Australia might respond to such a conflict – and where to draw a line.
Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180533
2022-04-07T12:25:17Z
2022-04-07T12:25:17Z
Russia is sparking new nuclear threats – understanding nonproliferation history helps place this in context
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456668/original/file-20220406-24-zj06lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A caution sign marks the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash., where plutonium for nuclear weapons was made.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-environmental-restoration-disposal-facility-is-seen-at-the-30-picture-id53182586?s=2048x2048">Jeff T. Green/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States came close to war over the Soviet’s attempt to install nuclear weapons <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cuban-missile-crisis">in Cuba</a>, 90 miles off the Florida coast.</p>
<p>People in the U.S. feared nuclear war. Children practiced nuclear drills hiding under their desks. Families <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/this-1960s-nuclear-fallout-shelter-is-a-time-capsule-to-the-past--and-offers-lessons-for-the-trump-era/2017/10/17/c2cd67ae-b367-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_video.html">built nuclear bunkers</a> in their backyards. </p>
<p>But later in the 20th century, nuclear war became less likely. Countries committed to diminishing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, or pledged to not pursue nuclear weapons in the first place. </p>
<p>Now, after decades of progress on limiting the buildup of nuclear weapons, Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted renewed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-nato-europe-6d1e374e77504838ba9ca78dd8bce46c">nuclear tensions</a> between Russia and the U.S.</p>
<p>On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085248170/putin-has-threatened-to-use-his-nuclear-arsenal-heres-what-its-actually-capable-">threatened</a> that any country that interfered in Ukraine would “face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.” Many experts and observers interpreted this as <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/03/29/would-russia-really-launch-nuclear-weapons">a threat of nuclear</a> attacks against Ukraine’s defenders. </p>
<p>A single nuclear weapon today in a major city <a href="https://www.icanw.org/modeling_the_effects_on_cities">could immediately kill</a> anywhere from 52,000 to several million people, depending on the weapon’s size.</p>
<p>Understanding these new threats requires an understanding of efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries and the development or stockpiling of nuclear weapons in different countries.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1022718">worked on</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/price-of-peace-motivated-reasoning-and-costly-signaling-in-international-relations/931AC830FEB7D24D26800E22558D9F9D">researched nuclear</a> nonproliferation for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90978-3">two decades</a>. </p>
<p>Convincing countries <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USRussiaNuclearAgreements">to reduce</a> their nuclear weapon stockpiles <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/north-korea-south-africa/539265/">or renounce</a> the pursuit of this ultimate weapon has always been extremely difficult. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young students are seen hiding under their desks and looking out in this black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students at a Brooklyn, N.Y. school conduct a nuclear attack drill in 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/students-at-a-brooklyn-middle-school-have-a-duck-and-cover-practice-picture-id566420175?s=2048x2048">GraphicaArtis/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A history of nonproliferation</h2>
<p>The Soviet Union, U.S., United Kingdom, France, Israel and China <a href="https://doi.org/10.2968/066004008">had active nuclear</a> weapons programs in the 1960s. </p>
<p>Countries recognized the risk of a nuclear war in the future. </p>
<p>Sixty-two countries initially agreed to what’s been called the “<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_12/Weiss">Grand Bargain</a>” in 1967, an essential element of the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>. One hundred and ninety-one countries eventually signed this treaty. </p>
<p>The agreement prevented the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that didn’t already have them <a href="https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/timeline/timeline1960.html">by 1967</a>. Countries with nuclear weapons, like the U.S. and the U.K., agreed to end their nuclear arms race and work toward eventual disarmament, meaning the destruction of all nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>This landmark agreement laid the groundwork for agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to further reduce their nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. It also stopped other countries from developing and <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/test-ban-treaty-at-a-glance">testing</a> nuclear weapons until the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/israel/">Israel</a>, <a href="https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/12/indias-nuclear-arsenal-takes-a-big-step-forward/">India</a> and <a href="https://thebulletin.org/premium/2021-09/nuclear-notebook-how-many-nuclear-weapons-does-pakistan-have-in-2021/">Pakistan</a> never joined the agreement due to regional security concerns. They all now possess nuclear weapons. North Korea <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005-05/features/npt-withdrawal-time-security-council-step">withdrew</a> and developed nuclear <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41174689">weapons</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-russia-nuclear-disarmament-disarmament-777aab2d375f3d3fed15dc7519783826">Other countries gave</a> up their <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/south-africa-nuclear-disarmament/">nuclear</a> weapons, or programs to develop them. </p>
<h2>Some successes</h2>
<p>There have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2020.1824500">major achievements</a> in preventing countries from gaining nuclear weapons and dramatically reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles since the Cold War. </p>
<p>The global nuclear stockpile has been reduced by 82% since 1986, from a peak of 70,300, with nearly all of the reductions in the U.S. and Russia, who held the largest stockpiles at the time.</p>
<p><a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">Globally there</a> are now around 12,700 nuclear weapons, with about 90% held by <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat">Russia and the U.S.</a> – or between 5,000 to 6,000 weapons each.</p>
<p>There are several other countries with nuclear weapons, and most of them have a few hundred weapons each, including China, the United Kingdom and France. <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/nuclear-warheads-by-country-1945-2022/">Newer nuclear countries</a> like India, Pakistan and Israel have around 100 each, while North Korea has around 20. </p>
<p>Starting in the late 1960s, countries agreed to more <a href="https://nuke.fas.org/control/index.html">than a dozen</a> legally binding agreements, known as treaties, that limited new countries getting nuclear weapons and prohibited nuclear weapon testing, among other measures.</p>
<p>But they have not reduced the number of <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/u-s-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons/">nuclear weapons</a> with <a href="https://www.heritage.org/missile-defense/commentary/russias-small-nukes-are-big-problem">short range</a> missiles.</p>
<p>No agreements cover <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00794-y">these weapons</a>, which <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/limited-tactical-nuclear-weapons-would-be-catastrophic/">could also cause</a> widespread destruction and deaths. Russia’s short-range weapons could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tactical-nuclear-weapons-escalation-us-russia-war-animated-strike-map-2019-9#instead-of-the-tactical-weapons-de-escalating-the-conflict-as-proponents-claim-they-would-the-simulation-shows-conflict-spiraling-out-of-control-after-the-use-of-tactical-weapons-3">quickly destroy</a> much of Europe. </p>
<p>The U.S. and Russia have still worked together on reducing nuclear weapons, despite fighting many proxy wars in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/maghis/article-abstract/14/3/20/1015741?redirectedFrom=PDF">Korea</a>, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1996-09-01/soviet-union-and-vietnam-war">and Vietnam</a> at the same time.</p>
<p>They have also jointly <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Security-Council-Resolutions-on-Iran">pressured Iran</a>, <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/UN-Security-Council-Resolutions-on-North-Korea">North Korea</a> and Libya to renounce their efforts to develop nuclear weapons, with some success in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/05/iran-nuclear-deal-russia-ukraine/">Iran</a> <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/LibyaChronology">and Libya</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people wearing suits have large cut out faces of Putin and Joe Biden, They both hold fake ballistic missiles high above their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peace protesters wear masks of Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden with mock nuclear missiles to call for more nuclear disarmament on Jan. 29, 2021, in Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/peace-activists-wearing-masks-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-and-picture-id1230850574?s=2048x2048">John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>U.S.-Russia cooperation declines</h2>
<p>U.S.-Russia engagement on nuclear weapons changed when Russia forcibly <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/crimea-six-years-after-illegal-annexation/">annexed Crimea</a> from Ukraine in 2014. </p>
<p>Russia built up land <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russias-controversial-9m729-missile-system-a-not-so-secret-secret/a-46606193">missiles</a> in <a href="https://baltic-review.com/defence-lithuania-is-preparing-for-a-russian-invasion/kaliningrad-map/">Kaliningrad</a>, an enclave of Russia in the middle of Eastern Europe, in 2014.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2014-09/news/russia-breaches-inf-treaty-us-says">U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46443672">NATO</a> then accused Russia of violating a <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty">1987 nuclear agreement</a> on short- and intermediate-range land missiles. From Russia, these could travel between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (311 to 3,418 miles), hitting targets as far as London. </p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://2017-2021.state.gov/u-s-withdrawal-from-the-inf-treaty-on-august-2-2019/index.html">also terminated</a> this agreement in 2019 due to Russian violations. Now, there are no international nuclear agreements in Europe. </p>
<p>Yet, the main strategic nuclear weapons agreement, known as <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/">New START</a>, remains in place, and will stay so <a href="https://www.state.gov/on-the-extension-of-the-new-start-treaty-with-the-russian-federation/">until at least 2026</a>.</p>
<h2>Impact of Ukraine war</h2>
<p>While Putin has not followed through on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no-russian-muscle-movements-after-putins-nuclear-readiness-alert-us-says-2022-02-28/">his threat</a> of a nuclear strike, the potential for a nuclear attack has meant the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/13/22975269/ukraine-poland-us-mig-fighter-jets-military-aid-escalation">U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18023383">NATO response to Russia’s attacks on Ukraine</a> has landed far short of direct engagement. </p>
<p>This is the first time that nuclear threats have been used <a href="https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/">by one country that’s invaded another country</a> rather than to defend a country. </p>
<p>It also marks a step <a href="https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Korea%20Nuclear%20Report%20PDF.pdf">backward</a> in international work to reduce the threat of nuclear war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina Srinivasan Rathbun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Despite decades of progress on nonproliferation, Russia’s new threats of nuclear strikes bring to mind that convincing countries to reduce their nuclear weapons has long been very difficult.
Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, Professor of international relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178588
2022-03-04T23:36:53Z
2022-03-04T23:36:53Z
Russian troops fought for control of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine – a safety expert explains how warfare and nuclear power are a volatile combination
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450124/original/file-20220304-23-pfhpx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3442%2C2282&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, points to the training facility hit by Russian artillery at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AustriaNuclearRussiaUkraineWar/86fb83c01e9149b3a9bb7c09dccc0157/photo">AP Photo/Lisa Leutner</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Russian forces have taken control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-everything-you-need-to-know">shelling the Zaporizhzhia facility</a> in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar.</em></p>
<p><em>The overnight assault caused a blaze at the facility, prompting fears over the safety of the plant and evoking painful memories in a country still scarred by the world’s worst nuclear accident, at Chernobyl in 1986. The site of that disaster is <a href="https://theconversation.com/military-action-in-radioactive-chernobyl-could-be-dangerous-for-people-and-the-environment-177992">also under Russian control</a> as of Feb. 24, 2022.</em> </p>
<p><em>On March 4, Ukrainian authorities <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-11-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine">reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency</a> that the fire at Zaporizhzhia had been extinguished and that Ukrainian employees were reportedly operating the plant under Russian orders. But safety concerns remain.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://sites.usc.edu/meshkati/">Najmedin Meshkati</a>, a professor and <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/thirty-three-years-catastrophe-chernobyl-universal-lesson-global-nuclear-power-industry">nuclear safety expert</a> at the University of Southern California, to explain the risks of warfare taking place in and around nuclear power plants.</em></p>
<h2>How safe was the Zaporizhzhia power plant before the Russian attack?</h2>
<p>The facility at Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear plant in Europe, and one of the largest in the world. It has six <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/pwrs.html">pressurized water reactors</a>, which use water to both sustain the fission reaction and cool the reactor. These differ from the <a href="https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx">reaktor bolshoy moshchnosty kanalny</a> reactors at Chernobyl, which used graphite instead of water to sustain the fission reaction. RBMK reactors are not seen as very safe, and there are <a href="https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx">only eight remaining in use</a> in the world, all in Russia.</p>
<p>The reactors at Zaporizhzhia are of moderately good design. And the plant has a decent safety record, with a good operating background.</p>
<p>Ukraine authorities tried to keep the war away from the site by asking Russia to observe a 30-kilometer safety buffer. But Russian troops surrounded the facility and then seized it.</p>
<h2>What are the risks to a nuclear plant in a conflict zone?</h2>
<p>Nuclear power plants are built for peacetime operations, not wars.</p>
<p>The worst thing that could happen is if a site is deliberately or accidentally shelled and the containment building – which houses the nuclear reactor – is hit. These containment buildings are not designed or built for deliberate shelling. They are built to withstand a minor internal explosion of, say, a pressurized water pipe. But they are not designed to withstand a huge explosion.</p>
<p>It is not known whether the Russian forces deliberately shelled the Zaporizhzhia plant. It may have been inadvertent, caused by a stray missile. But we do know they wanted to capture the plant.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kK7xG_Q0Tkg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tracer rounds and flames can be seen in this video of the fight for control of the nuclear power plant.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If a shell hit the plant’s <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/pools.html">spent fuel pool</a> – which contains the still-radioactive spent fuel – or if fire spread to the spent fuel pool, it could release radiation. This spent fuel pool isn’t in the containment building, and as such is more vulnerable.</p>
<p>As to the reactors in the containment building, it depends on the weapons being used. The worst-case scenario is that a bunker-buster missile breaches the containment dome – consisting of a thick shell of reinforced concrete on top of the reactor – and explodes. That would badly damage the nuclear reactor and release radiation into the atmosphere. And because of any resulting fire, sending in firefighters would be difficult. It could be another Chernobyl.</p>
<h2>What are the concerns going forward?</h2>
<p>The biggest worry was not the fire at the facility. That did not affect the containment buildings and has been extinguished. </p>
<p>The safety problems I see now are twofold:</p>
<p><strong>1) Human error</strong></p>
<p>The workers at the facility are now working under incredible stress, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-04-22/h_1f73598a8edc48dcd10cea81c3c37be5">reportedly at gunpoint</a>. Stress increases the chance of error and poor performance.</p>
<p>One concern is that the workers will not be allowed to change shifts, meaning longer hours and tiredness. We know that a few days ago at Chernobyl, after the Russians took control of the site, they <a href="https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IAEA-chief-warns-over-pressure-on-Ukraine-nuclear">did not allow employees</a> – who usually work in three shifts – to swap out. Instead, they took some workers hostage and didn’t allow the other workers to attend their shifts.</p>
<p>At Zaporizhzhia we may see the same.</p>
<p>There is a human element in running a nuclear power plant – operators are the first and last layers of defense for the facility and the public. They are the first people to detect any anomaly and to stop any incident. Or if there’s an accident, they will be the first to heroically try to contain it. </p>
<p><strong>2) Power failure</strong></p>
<p>The second problem is that the nuclear plant needs constant electricity, and that is harder to maintain in wartime.</p>
<p>Even if you shut down the reactors, the plant will need off-site power to run the huge cooling system to remove the residual heat in the reactor and bring it to what is called a “cold shutdown.” Water circulation is always needed to make sure the spent fuel doesn’t overheat.</p>
<p>Spent fuel pools also need constant circulation of water to keep them cool. And they need cooling for several years before being put in dry casks. One of the problems in the 2011 <a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-after-fukushima-safety-is-still-nuclear-powers-greatest-challenge-155541">Fukushima disaster</a> in Japan was the emergency generators, which replaced lost off-site power, got inundated with water and failed. In situations like that you get “<a href="https://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/nuclear-station-blackout/">station blackout</a>” – and that is one of the worst things that could happen. It means no electricity to run the cooling system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="hundreds of square openings lie at the bottom of a large pool of water in an industrial building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450128/original/file-20220304-21-hirerv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spent nuclear fuel rods are stored at the bottom of this pool, which requires constant circulation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-shows-the-cooling-pool-of-the-switched-off-unit-1-news-photo/524200126">Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that circumstance, the spent fuel overheats and its zirconium cladding can cause hydrogen bubbles. If you can’t vent these bubbles they will explode, spreading radiation.</p>
<p>If there is a loss of outside power, operators will have to rely on emergency generators. But emergency generators are huge machines – finicky, unreliable gas guzzlers. And you still need cooling waters for the generators themselves. </p>
<p>My biggest worry is that Ukraine suffers from a sustained power grid failure. The likelihood of this increases during a conflict, because pylons may come down under shelling or gas power plants might get damaged and cease to operate. And it is unlikely that Russian troops themselves will have fuel to keep these emergency generators going – they <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60596629">don’t seem to have enough fuel</a> to run their own personnel carriers.</p>
<h2>How else does a war affect the safety of nuclear plants?</h2>
<p>One of the overarching concerns is that war degrades <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253947/">safety culture</a>, which is crucial in running a plant. I believe that safety culture is analogous to the human body’s immune system, which protects against pathogens and diseases; and because of the pervasive nature of safety culture and its widespread impact, according to <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/jim-reason-FBA/">psychologist James Reason</a>, “<a href="https://www.safetymattersblog.com/2014/11/a-life-in-error-by-james-reason.html">it can affect all elements in a system for good or ill</a>.”</p>
<p>It is incumbent upon the leadership of the plant to strive for immunizing, protecting, maintaining and nurturing the healthy safety culture of the nuclear plant.</p>
<p>War adversely affects the safety culture in a number of ways. Operators are stressed and fatigued and may be scared to death to speak out if something is going wrong. Then there is the maintenance of a plant, which may be compromised by lack of staff or unavailability of spare parts. Governance, regulation and oversight – all crucial for the safe running of a nuclear industry – are also disrupted, as is local infrastructure, such as the capability of local firefighters. In normal times you might have been able to extinguish the fire at Zaporizhzhia in five minutes. But in war, everything is harder.</p>
<h2>So what can be done to better protect Ukraine’s nuclear power plants?</h2>
<p>This is an unprecedented and volatile situation. The only solution is a no-fight zone around nuclear plants. War, in my opinion, is the worst enemy of nuclear safety.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Najmedin Meshkati received research funding from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC in mid-1990s.</span></em></p>
The world held its collective breath as Russian troops battled Ukrainian forces at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The battle is over and no radiation escaped, but the danger is far from over.
Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177773
2022-02-24T16:57:08Z
2022-02-24T16:57:08Z
Nuclear fusion record broken – what will it take to start generating electricity? Podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448145/original/file-20220223-25-sliogc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C41%2C3856%2C2616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nuclear fusion is what generates the energy of the sun: scientists are getting closer to controlling a sustained fusion reaction on Earth. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-render-fusion-reactor-nuclear-tokamak-1673334088">Marko Aliaksandr/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientists at a nuclear fusion lab in the UK just broke the world record for the amount of energy produced in a single fusion reaction. In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a>, we ask two experts what this means, and how long it’ll take before we can switch on the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant. </p>
<p>And we talk to a social psychologist about new research into the societal pressure some people feel to be happy. </p>
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<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Scientists first demonstrated the ability to fuse two atoms in lab experiments <a href="https://www.euro-fusion.org/fusion/history-of-fusion/">in the 1930s</a>. Nuclear science has come a long way since then, but we still haven’t managed to harness the energy produced by nuclear fusion to generate electricity. </p>
<p>In early February, scientists at the Joint European Torus (JET) lab in Oxfordshire in the UK <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fusion-energy-record-demonstrates-powerplant-future">announced they’d broken the world record</a> for the amount of energy produced in a nuclear fusion experiment. They produced 59 megajoules of heat energy in a single fusion “shot” that lasted for five seconds. This doubled the previous world record set by JET in 1997, but was still only enough to heat about 60 kettles of water. </p>
<p>So how excited should we be about the latest news? How much closer does this world record take us to getting electricity from fusion power – and what would success mean for the planet’s future energy mix? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-fusion-how-excited-should-we-be-177161">Nuclear fusion: how excited should we be?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The JET experiment is the world’s biggest nuclear fusion device. It uses an approach called magnetic confinement to fuse nuclei at very high speeds and temperatures inside a doughnut-shaped container called a tokomak. </p>
<p>Livia Casali, assistant professor in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in the US, says the latest result from JET confirms some of the choices made for the fusion reactors of the future – particularly around the materials used to line the inside walls of the tokomak. “These results also confirm that we can achieve fusion energy using a deuterium and tritium fuel mix, which is the same fuel mix that we are planning to use for future fusion devices,” she says.</p>
<p>In particular, JET’s results are a proof of concept for <a href="https://www.iter.org/">ITER</a>, a huge fusion reactor under construction in southern France and due to be ready by 2026. </p>
<p>“To make a fusion reaction is very easy, but that doesn’t mean that we’re able to produce energy,” says Angel Ibarra Sanchez, a research professor in fusion technology at the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research in Madrid, Spain’s national fusion laboratory. </p>
<p>Like JET, ITER won’t produce electricity – that will only happen once a demonstration reactor is built. Ibarra says the hope is that the first demo fusion reactor in Europe will be available around 2050. If these demo reactors are shown to work, he predicts the first generation of fusion power reactors could arrive in the 2060s or 2070s. “It will probably not be much faster than this,” he says. </p>
<p>Once fusion power arrives, Ibarra believes the energy it will generate – which releases no carbon dioxide and is dubbed “clean energy” – will be transformational. But he warns us not to pin all our hopes on fusion. “To think that the energy production in the future will be based in a single type of energy sources is not feasible. It’s not realistic,” he says. Instead, Ibarra thinks the energy mix of the future should be “a mix of solar energy, wind energy, and hopefully fusion energy”.</p>
<p>In our second story in this episode, we find out that living in a country that scores highly on global happiness rankings might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. Brock Bastian, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Melbourne in Australia, just co-authored <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-04262-z">new research</a> showing increased social pressure to feel happy in countries that come top of these rankings. And for some people, this social pressure can be linked to poor mental health. “When a lot of people seem to be doing well and happy, it can exacerbate for some people those feeling of low mood,” says Bastian. (Listen from 27m)</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-finds-countries-that-focus-the-most-on-happiness-can-end-up-making-people-feel-worse-177323">Research finds countries that focus the most on happiness can end up making people feel worse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And finally, Eric Smalley, science and technology editor at The Conversation in Boston, recommends some recent analysis on the technology dimensions of the unfolding Ukraine war. (Listen from 37m20)</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-false-flag-attacks-and-could-russia-make-one-work-in-the-information-age-177128">What are false flag attacks – and could Russia make one work in the information age?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/?hl=en">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter?utm_campaign=PodcastTCWeekly&utm_content=newsletter&utm_source=podcast">free daily email here</a>. </p>
<p>Newsclips in this episode are from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fYiNVRmOA4">BBC News</a> and the <a href="https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/fusion-energy-record-demonstrates-powerplant-future/">UK Atomic Energy Agency/Culham Center for Fusion Energy</a>.</p>
<p><em>You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out how else to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angel Ibarra Sanchez receives funds from EURATOM, MICINN and the Junta de Andalucía. He is Director of the IFMIF-DONES Consortium, a public body in charge of managing the Spanish contribution to IFMIF-DONES.
Livia Casali is the U.S. representative of the International Tokamak Activity in support of ITER for SOL and divertor. She is the core-edge Integration Area Leader for the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego, Vice Chair of the Edge Coordinating Committee, Executive member of the Transport Task Force and the U.S. Burning Plasma Organizational Council. Livia Casali is affiliated with the American Physical Society and the Italian Physical Society</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brock Bastian receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
Plus, the social pressure some people feel to be happy in the world’s happiest countries. Listen to The Conversation Weekly.
Daniel Merino, Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173631
2022-01-12T13:38:23Z
2022-01-12T13:38:23Z
A 21st-century reinvention of the electric grid is crucial for solving the climate change crisis
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438574/original/file-20211220-49229-2ukdcl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2461&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Integrating solar panels with farming can provide partial shade for plants.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nrel.gov/">Werner Slocum/NREL</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the summer of 1988, scientist James Hansen <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5127807">testified</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jkY0AAAAIAAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">to Congress</a> that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was dangerously warming the planet. Scientific meetings were held, voluminous reports were written, and national pledges were made, but because fossil fuels were comparatively cheap, little concrete action was taken to reduce carbon emissions.</p>
<p>Then, beginning around 2009, first wind turbines and then solar photovoltaic panels decreased enough in cost to become competitive in electricity markets. More installations resulted in more “<a href="http://www.rapidshift.net/solar-pv-shows-a-record-learning-rate-28-5-reduction-in-cost-per-watt-for-every-doubling-of-cumulative-capacity/">learning curve</a>” cost reductions – the decrease in cost with every doubling of deployment. Since 2009, the prices of wind and solar power have decreased by an astonishing 72% and 90%, respectively, and they are now the <a href="https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/">cheapest electricity sources</a> – although some challenges still exist.</p>
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<p>With the planet facing increasingly intense heat waves, drought, wildfires and storms, a path to tackle the climate crisis became clear: Transition the electric grid to carbon-free wind and solar and convert most other fossil fuel users in transportation, buildings and industry to electricity.</p>
<p>The U.S. is headed in that direction. <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/renewable-electricity-growth-is-accelerating-faster-than-ever-worldwide-supporting-the-emergence-of-the-new-global-energy-economy">Early projections</a> suggest the world just wrapped up a record year of renewable electricity growth in 2021, following a <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/wind-and-solar-defied-the-2020-economic-contraction-in-the-u.s">record 33,500 megawatts</a> of solar and wind electricity installed in the U.S. in 2020, according to BloombergNEF data. Even <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/2022-will-be-a-record-year-for-wind-and-solar-new-report-finds.html">faster growth is expected</a> ahead, especially given the Biden administration’s plans to tap <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-just-set-ambitious-offshore-wind-power-targets-what-will-it-take-to-meet-them-158136">high-value offshore wind resources</a>. But will it be <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">fast enough</a>? </p>
<p>The Biden administration’s goal is to have a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/">carbon emissions-free grid by 2035</a>. One recent study found that the U.S. will need to <a href="https://energyinnovation.org/publication/2030-report-powering-americas-clean-economy/">nearly triple its 2020 growth rate</a> for the grid to be 80% powered by clean energy by 2030. (As difficult as that may sound, China reportedly installed 120,000 megawatts of wind and solar in 2020.)</p>
<p>The foundation of this transition is a dramatic change in the electric grid itself. </p>
<h2>3 ways to bring wind and solar into the grid</h2>
<p>Hailed as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-current-war-directors-cut-shows-how-the-electric-power-system-we-take-for-granted-came-to-be-125916">greatest invention of the 20th century</a>, our now-aging grid was based on fundamental concepts that made sense at the time it was developed. The original foundation was a combination of “base load” coal plants that operated 24 hours a day and large-scale hydropower.</p>
<p>Beginning in 1958, these were augmented by nuclear power plants, which have operated nearly continuously to pay off their large capital investments. Unlike coal and nuclear, solar and wind are variable; they provide power only when the sun and wind are available.</p>
<p>Converting to a 21st-century grid that is increasingly based on variable resources requires a completely new way of thinking. New sources of flexibility – the ability to keep supply and demand in balance over all time scales – are essential to enable this transition. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Wind turbines next to a road on a rugged ridge." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438580/original/file-20211220-19-n7q183.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pine Tree Wind Farm near Tehachapi, California, provides renewable power to Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nrel.gov/">Dennis Schroeder/NREL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are basically three ways to accommodate the variability of wind and solar energy: use storage, deploy generation in a coordinated fashion across a wide area of the country along with more transmission, and manage electricity demand to better match the supply. These are all sources of flexibility.</p>
<p>Storage is now largely being provided by lithium-ion batteries. <a href="https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-to-an-average-of-132-kwh-but-rising-commodity-prices-start-to-bite/">Their costs have plummeted</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/these-3-energy-storage-technologies-can-help-solve-the-challenge-of-moving-to-100-renewable-electricity-161564">new storage technologies</a> are being developed.</p>
<p>Expanded transmission is especially valuable. When the Northeast is experiencing peak electric demand in the early evening, there is still sun in the West. And, with more transmission, the large wind resources in the center of the country can <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-needs-a-macrogrid-to-move-electricity-from-areas-that-make-it-to-areas-that-need-it-155938">send electricity toward both coasts</a>. Transmission studies have shown that <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/seams.html">stronger interconnections among the country’s three power grids</a> are highly beneficial.</p>
<p>Making buildings more efficient and controlling their demand can also play a big role in cleaning up the grid. <a href="https://publishing.aip.org/publications/latest-content/100-renewable-energy-using-building-science/">Buildings</a> use 74% of U.S. electricity. Interconnected devices and equipment with smart meters can reduce and reshape a building’s power use.</p>
<p><iframe id="HNrNh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/HNrNh/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Innovations that make 100% clean power possible</h2>
<p>Many analysts believe the U.S. can cost-effectively and reliably operate a power grid <a href="https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/news/recent-news/the-us-can-reach-90-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-dependably-and-without-increasing-consumer-bills">with 80% to 90% clean electricity</a>, but decarbonizing the last 10% to 20% will be notably more challenging. While short-duration storage, lasting four hours or less, is becoming ubiquitous, we will likely need to provide power during some periods when wind and solar resources are at low levels (what the Germans call dunkelflaute, or “dark doldrums”). An expanded national transmission network will help, but some amount of long-duration storage will likely be needed.</p>
<p>Numerous options are being explored, including <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/big-money-flows-long-duration-energy-storage">alternative battery technologies</a> and green hydrogen.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2021/10/25/scientists-win-4-million-efficient-battery-development">Flow batteries</a> are among the promising approaches that we are working on at the <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/rasei/">Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute</a> at the University of Colorado. In a typical design, liquid electrolyte flows between two storage tanks separated by a membrane. The tanks can be scaled up in size corresponding to the desired storage duration. </p>
<p><a href="https://ideas.ted.com/what-on-earth-is-green-hydrogen-hint-its-a-fuel-that-could-be-the-key-to-a-carbon-free-future/">Green hydrogen</a> is a potential storage option for very long durations. It is produced by splitting water molecules with an electrolyzer powered by renewable electricity. The hydrogen can be stored underground (or in above-ground tanks) and either burned in combustion turbines or converted back to electricity in fuel cells. Green hydrogen is currently very expensive but is expected to become more affordable as the <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiros-stunning-predictions-for-low-cost-battery-storage-and-hydrogen-electrolysers/">cost of electrolyzers decreases</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, new business, market design and grid operator models are emerging. <a href="https://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/solargardens">Community solar gardens</a>, for example, allow homeowners to purchase locally produced solar electricity even if their own roofs are not suitable for solar panels. <a href="https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/grid-modernization-and-smart-grid/role-microgrids-helping">Microgrids</a> are another business model becoming common on campuses and complexes that produce electricity locally and can continue to operate if the grid goes down. Clean microgrids are powered by renewable energy and batteries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man stands on a roof with solar panels and a community in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439156/original/file-20220103-42040-g7xcu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bishop Richard Howell stands near some of the 630 solar panels on the roof of his Minneapolis church. The community solar project provides clean energy to the community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CommunitySolar/19c76868bd6a46e2b6303f0fe8d8f3c1/photo">AP Photo/Jim Mone</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Innovative market designs include <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Feb/IRENA_Innovation_ToU_tariffs_2019.pdf?la=en&hash=36658ADA8AA98677888DB2C184D1EE6A048C7470">time-of-use rates</a> that encourage electricity use, such as for charging electric vehicles, when renewable electricity is plentiful. <a href="https://greeningthegrid.org/integration-in-depth/balancing-area-coordination">Expanded balancing area coordination</a> draws on variable solar and wind resources from a wide region to provide a smoother overall supply. Improved grid operations include <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2020/Jul/IRENA_Advanced_weather_forecasting_2020.pdf%20?%20%20la=en&hash=8384431B56569C0D8786C9A4FDD56864443D10AF">advanced forecasting of wind and solar</a> to minimize wasted power and reduce the need for costly standby reserves. <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/dynamic-line-rating-pushing-the-transmission-grid-envelope-on-clean-energy-capacity">Dynamic line rating</a> allows grid operators to transmit more electricity through existing lines when favorable weather conditions permit.</p>
<p>Across the economy, greater attention to energy efficiency can enable power sector transformation, minimizing costs and improving reliability.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Nuclear power is also essentially carbon-free, and keeping existing nuclear plants running can make the transition to renewables easier. However, new nuclear plants in the U.S. are very expensive to build, have long construction times and may prove too costly to operate in a manner that would help firm variable solar and wind.</p>
<p>In our view, the urgency of climate change demands an all-out effort to address it. Having a 2035 emissions goal is important, but the emissions reduction path the U.S. takes to reach that goal is critical. The No. 1 need is to minimize adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The world already has the tools to get the grid 80% to 90% carbon-free, and technical experts are exploring a wide range of promising options for achieving that last 10% to 20%.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles F. Kutscher has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey S. Logan also works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.</span></em></p>
Renewable energy is expanding at a record pace, but still not fast enough. Here are the key areas to watch for progress in bringing more wind and solar into the power grid in 2022.
Charles F. Kutscher, Fellow and Senior Research Associate, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado Boulder
Jeffrey Logan, Associate Director of Energy Policy and Analysis, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado Boulder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167942
2021-09-15T12:32:52Z
2021-09-15T12:32:52Z
North Korea’s latest missile provocation was entirely predictable
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421187/original/file-20210914-27-gqlfd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2986%2C1980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">North Korea's testing of two long-range cruise missiles was a provocative act – but a predictable one, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/KoreasTensions/38b5b31bdfc2430db551ccae40d050dc/photo?Query=North%20AND%20Korea&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=24239&currentItemNo=6">Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The firing off of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/world/asia/north-korea-cruise-missile-arms-race.html">two long-range missiles</a> by North Korea shows that rather than being unpredictable, the isolationist state is quite the opposite.</p>
<p>Announced on Sept. 13, 2021, the testing of the cruise missiles – which <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/12/1036494952/north-korea-nuclear-test-long-range-missiles-kim-jong-un">reportedly can hit targets roughly 930 miles away</a> (1,500 kilometers) – follows a well-worn playbook for North Korea: act belligerently, fire off missiles and then pivot to post-provocation peace mode and watch the concessions flow in. It was followed up by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/seoul-south-korea-north-korea-pyongyang-1bf74218556e36697983cf6669ec9166">tit-for-tat missile testing</a> on Sept. 15 by North and South Korea, further escalating tensions on the peninsula.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/northeast-asia/2010-08-26/pyongyang-playbook">keen follower of North Korea’s strategic provocations – what I call the “Pyongyang Playbook,”</a> – I have seen this dynamic play out repeatedly over the past three decades. A show of strength by North Korea is especially likely, history has shown, when the U.S. is perceived to be weak internationally, as it is seen to be now following a messy Afghanistan withdrawal.</p>
<p>The concern for the international community now is that with some key North Korean anniversaries coming up – including <a href="https://www.nknews.org/2018/10/a-brief-history-of-north-koreas-party-foundation-day/">Party Foundation Day on Oct. 10</a> – leader Kim Jong Un could mark the occasion by ratcheting up tensions further.</p>
<p>So why fire off the cruise missiles now? The short answer is, it was time. The last missile tests <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/981080005/ballistic-missile-launch-near-japan-pushes-tensions-with-north-korea">were on March 25, 2021</a>. And North Korea, like all other states armed with missiles, periodically needs to test and upgrade its arsenal.</p>
<p>It also came after a rather <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/9/9/in-pictures-north-korea-founding-day-parade">subdued military parade</a> to celebrate the republic’s founding day on Sept. 9, 2021. Previous years have seen North Korea <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-north-koreas-nuclear-tests/story?id=36112252">celebrate its birthday with nuclear tests on or close to the date</a>. But this time, Pyongyang dialed back on the display of military might – there were no ballistic missiles on show, no boasts of nuclear capability. Some <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/9/9/in-pictures-north-korea-founding-day-parade">Korea watchers noted</a> that the aim of the event could have been to offer a glimmer of diplomatic progress to the international community.</p>
<p>But again, such an apparent overture fits into a cycle. I noted in a tweet on Sept. 9 that the low-key parade might be a deliberate move, to be followed by a provocative act: </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1435656442548207619"}"></div></p>
<p>And indeed the very next day, missile tests resumed.</p>
<p>The response by Washington has been muted. Meeting on Sept. 14, senior diplomats from Japan, the United States and South Korea <a href="https://apnews.com/article/japan-asia-united-states-tokyo-south-korea-42eae5df25b9fc693abe4033068869dd">called on North Korea to return to the negotiation table</a> over its nuclear and missile program. U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Sung Kim asked North Korea to “respond positively to our multiple offers to meet without preconditions.”</p>
<p>North Korea replied by firing two short-range ballistic missiles on Sept. 15, marking the 71st anniversary of the <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/korean-war/korea-operations/inchon.html">Inchon Landing</a>, a pivotal event in the Korean War that changed the tide for both Koreas. The South replied by conducting an underwater missile launch.</p>
<p>For North Korea, the timing is ripe for a gradual escalation. The Biden administration is still <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/us/politics/biden-defends-afghanistan-withdrawal.html">reeling from the Afghanistan withdrawal</a>, and history has shown that Pyongyang tends to raise tensions when it perceives military weakness.</p>
<p>When the U.S. was bogged down in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, North Korea <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/10130248">launched several lethal attacks</a> on both American and South Korean targets. Likewise, when George W. Bush was mired in Iraq in 2006, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father and North Korea’s leader at the time, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/asia/09korea.html">ordered his nation’s first nuclear test</a>.</p>
<p>And Pyongyang has been steadily putting pressure on the Biden administration to see how far it can push things. The International Atomic Energy Agency <a href="https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/north-korea-appears-to-have-restarted-nuclear-reactor-at-yongbyon-says-iaea">noted in August 2021</a> that North Korea had restarted the Yongbyon plutonium reactor, one North Korea agreed to shut down in 1994, 2008 and 2018.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The concern of the international community is that Kim could use any one of a number of big anniversaries coming up to further increase tensions. October 10 is Party Foundation Day. It was on the eve of the public holiday in 2006 that North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. Meanwhile, Nov. 29 marks the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/north-korea-fires-1st-missile-months-south-korean/story?id=51437178">fourth anniversary of the country’s biggest intercontinental ballistic missile test</a> to date.</p>
<p>As such, a major weapons test this fall should not be unexpected. It would fall into the pattern of alternatively playing nice, then acting belligerently, that has marked North Korea’s diplomatic routine for decades. And it is entirely predictable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sung-Yoon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
North Korea has tended to ratchet up tensions when the U.S. is seen to be weak and when it feels it can yield greater concessions, a scholar explains.
Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor in Korean Studies, Tufts University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166456
2021-08-25T14:53:50Z
2021-08-25T14:53:50Z
Nuclear fusion breakthrough: what do new results mean for the future of ‘infinite’ energy?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417779/original/file-20210825-27-b8lffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3295%2C2549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The interior of the nuclear fusion reactor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lasers.llnl.gov/media/photo-gallery?id=nif-0806-12609_red.jpg">Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory <a href="https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition">has announced</a> a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion, using powerful lasers to produce 1.3 megajoules of energy – about 3% of the energy contained in 1kg of crude oil.</p>
<p>Nuclear fusion has long been thought of as the energy of the future – an “infinite” source of power that does not rely on the need to burn carbon. But after decades of research, it has yet to deliver on its exciting promise. </p>
<p>How much closer does this new breakthrough bring us to the desired results? Here is a brief overview to put this new scientific advance into perspective.</p>
<h2>What is nuclear fusion?</h2>
<p>There are two ways of using nuclear energy: fission, which is used in current nuclear power plants, and fusion.</p>
<p>In fission, heavy uranium atoms are broken into smaller atoms to release energy. Nuclear fusion is the opposite process: light atoms are transformed into heavier atoms to release energy, the same process that occurs within the plasma core of the Sun.</p>
<p>A fusion reactor amplifies power: the reaction triggered must produce more energy than is needed to heat up the fuel plasma for energy production to occur – this is known as ignition. No one has managed this yet. The current record was achieved in 1997 by the Joint European Torus in the UK, where <a href="https://www.euro-fusion.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Archive/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jeteuropeansucess.pdf">16 megawatts of power were generated</a> by magnetic fusion, but it took 23 megawatts to trigger it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A worker inside the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego, USA." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417797/original/file-20210825-27-f5kjj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inside the fusion chamber of the DIII-D tokamak, San Diego, USA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/2017_TOCAMAC_Fusion_Chamber_N0689.jpg">Rswilcox</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are two possible ways of achieving nuclear fusion: magnetic confinement, which uses powerful magnets to confine the plasma for very long periods of time, and inertial confinement, which uses very powerful and brief laser pulses to compress the fuel and start the fusion reaction. </p>
<p>Historically, magnetic fusion has been favoured because the technology needed for inertial fusion, particularly the lasers, was not available. Inertial fusion also requires much higher gains to compensate for the energy consumed by the lasers. </p>
<h2>Inertial confinement</h2>
<p>The two largest inertial projects are the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA and the <a href="http://www-lmj.cea.fr/">Laser MégaJoule</a> in France, whose applications are mainly military and funded by defence programmes. Both facilities simulate nuclear explosions for research purposes, though the NIF also carries out research on energy.</p>
<p>The NIF uses 192 laser beams that produce a total of 1.9 megajoules of energy for a period lasting a few nanoseconds to trigger the fusion reaction. Fuel is placed inside a metal capsule a few millimetres across, which, when heated by lasers, emits X-rays that heat up and compress the fuel. </p>
<p>It was this process that, on 8 August 2021, achieved the landmark energy production of <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/explosive-new-result-laser-powered-fusion-effort-nears-ignition">1.3 megajoules</a>, the highest value ever recorded by the inertial approach: that is, the closest we have come to ignition. </p>
<p>The overall gain of 0.7 equals the record achieved by JET in 1997 using magnetic confinement, but in this case, the fuel absorbed 0.25 megajoules of energy and generated 1.3 megajoules: fusion therefore generated a good part of the heat needed for the reaction, approaching the point of ignition. </p>
<p>Still, a reactor will have to achieve much higher gains (more than 100) to be economically attractive.</p>
<h2>Magnetic confinement</h2>
<p>The magnetic confinement approach promises better development prospects and is thus the preferred route for energy production so far.</p>
<p>The vast majority of research focuses on <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak">tokamaks</a>, fusion reactors invented in the USSR in the 1960s, where the plasma is confined by a strong magnetic field. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.iter.org/fr/accueil">ITER</a>, a demonstration reactor under construction in the south of France involving 35 countries, uses the tokamak configuration. It will be the world’s largest fusion reactor, and aims to demonstrate a gain of 10 – the plasma will be heated by 50 megawatts of power and should generate 500 megawatts. The first plasma is now officially expected by the end of 2025, with a demonstration of fusion expected in the late 2030s.</p>
<p>The UK has recently launched the STEP project (<a href="https://step.ukaea.uk/">Spherical Tokamak for Electricity Production</a>), which aims to develop a reactor that connects to the energy grid in the 2040s. China is also pursuing an <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/aa686a/pdf">ambitious programme</a> to produce tritium isotopes and electricity in the 2040s. Finally, Europe plans to open another <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920379618302898">tokamak demonstrator</a>, DEMO, in the 2050s.</p>
<p>Another configuration called the stellarator, like Germany’s <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X">Wendelstein-7X</a>, is showing very good results. Though stellarator performances are lower than what a tokamak can achieve, its intrinsic stability and promising recent results make it a serious alternative.</p>
<h2>The future of fusion</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, private nuclear fusion projects have been booming in recent years. Most of them envision a fusion reaction in the next ten to 20 years and together have attracted <a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear-fusion-the-ultimate-deep-tech-now-attracts-billions-in-private-funding/">US$2 billion in funding</a> to outpace the traditional development sector.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417370/original/file-20210823-13-nea0sq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two different nuclear fusion deployment scenarios, compared with wind, solar and nuclear fission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">G. De Temmerman, D. Chuard, J.-B. Rudelle for Zenon Research</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these initiatives use other innovative technologies to reach fusion and could thus very well deliver operational reactors fast, deploying a fleet of reactors throughout the world is bound to take time. </p>
<p>If development follows this accelerated track, nuclear fusion could amount for about 1% global energy demand by 2060.</p>
<p>So while this new breakthrough is exciting, it’s worth keeping in mind that fusion will be an energy source for the second part of the century – at the earliest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg De Temmerman est directeur général du think tank Zenon Research</span></em></p>
A US laboratory has announced an exciting new leap forward in nuclear fusion, but it may be several decades before we see this form of energy come to fruition.
Greg De Temmerman, Chercheur associé à Mines ParisTech-PSL. Directeur général de Zenon Research, Mines Paris - PSL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164138
2021-07-20T12:16:04Z
2021-07-20T12:16:04Z
The US Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years ago – it didn’t go well
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410670/original/file-20210709-23-zyldp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C404%2C5097%2C5783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Part of a portable nuclear power plant arrives at Camp Century in 1960.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-u-s-army-engineers-who-are-installing-a-portable-news-photo/1180258522?adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a tunnel 40 feet beneath the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, a <a href="https://www.west-point.org/class/usma1955/D/Hist/Century.htm">Geiger counter screamed</a>. It was 1964, the height of the Cold War. U.S. soldiers in the tunnel, 800 miles from the North Pole, were dismantling the Army’s first portable nuclear reactor. </p>
<p>Commanding Officer Joseph Franklin grabbed the radiation detector, ordered his men out and did a quick survey before retreating from the reactor. </p>
<p>He had spent about two minutes exposed <a href="https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/arlington-va/joseph-franklin-7323412">to a radiation field he estimated at 2,000 rads per hour</a>, enough to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/emergencies/arsphysicianfactsheet.htm">make a person ill</a>. When he came home from Greenland, the Army sent Franklin to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, <a href="https://www.west-point.org/class/usma1955/D/Hist/Century.htm">he set off</a> a <a href="https://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Understanding%20the%20Atom/Whole%20Body%20Counters.pdf">whole body radiation counter</a> designed to assess victims of nuclear accidents. Franklin was radioactive.</p>
<p>The Army called the reactor portable, even at 330 tons, because it was built from pieces that each fit in a C-130 cargo plane. It was powering Camp Century, one of the military’s most unusual bases. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three people stand at the opening of a trench with a half-round metal cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410664/original/file-20210709-15-qcgv1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Camp Century tunnels started as trenches cut into the ice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Camp_Century_trench_construction.png">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Camp Century was a series of tunnels built into the Greenland ice sheet and used for <a href="https://gombessa.tripod.com/scienceleadstheway/id9.html">both military research and scientific projects</a>. The military boasted that the nuclear reactor there, known as the PM-2A, needed just 44 pounds of uranium to replace a million or more gallons of diesel fuel. Heat from the reactor ran lights and equipment and allowed the 200 or so men at the camp <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnBG37CPDLI">as many hot showers as they wanted</a> in that brutally cold environment. </p>
<p>The PM-2A was the third child in a <a href="https://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Understanding%20the%20Atom/Power%20Reactors%20in%20Small%20Packages%20V.2.pdf">family of eight Army reactors</a>, several of them experiments in portable nuclear power. </p>
<p>A few were misfits. PM-3A, nicknamed <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934">Nukey Poo</a>, was installed at the Navy base at Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. It made a <a href="https://books.google.se/books?id=wwoAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA32&ots=VkjNgAvyhE&dq=PM-3A+Nukey+Poo&pg=PA32&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">nuclear mess in the Antarctic</a>, with 438 malfunctions in 10 years including a cracked and leaking containment vessel. SL-1, a stationary low-power nuclear reactor in Idaho, blew up during refueling, <a href="https://www.osti.gov/sciencecinema/biblio/1122857">killing three men</a>. SM-1 still sits 12 miles from the White House at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. It cost <a href="http://www.virginiaplaces.org/energy/nuclearbelvoir.html">US$2 million to build</a> and is expected to cost <a href="https://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/Article/2328156/army-corps-to-decommission-and-dismantle-historic-deactivated-nuclear-power-pla/">$68 million to clean up</a>. The only truly mobile reactor, <a href="https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc100219/m2/1/high_res_d/metadc100219.pdf">the ML-1</a>, <a href="https://atomicinsights.com/ml1-mobile-power-system-reactor-box/">never really worked</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A truck with a box on a trailer behind it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410448/original/file-20210708-13-16ie7j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Army abandoned its truck-mounted portable reactor program in 1965. This is the ML-1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15141coll5/id/4152/rec/19">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nearly 60 years after the PM-2A was installed and the <a href="https://www.usace.army.mil/Portals/2/Users/071/27/327/Exhibits/x05%2006%20-%20Experimental%20Reactors.jpg?ver=2019-06-13-150102-913">ML-1 project abandoned</a>, the U.S. military is exploring portable land-based nuclear reactors again. </p>
<p>In May 2021, the Pentagon requested $60 million for <a href="https://www.cto.mil/pele_eis/">Project Pele</a>. Its goal: Design and build, within five years, a small, truck-mounted portable nuclear reactor that could be flown to remote locations and war zones. It would be able to be powered up and down for <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40914/the-militarys-mobile-nuclear-reactor-prototype-is-set-to-begin-taking-shape">transport within a few days</a>. </p>
<p>The Navy has a long and mostly successful history of mobile nuclear power. The first two nuclear submarines, the Nautilus and the Skate, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.3.0521#metadata_info_tab_contents">visited the North Pole in 1958</a>, just before Camp Century was built. Two other nuclear submarines sank in the 1960s – their reactors sit quietly on the Atlantic Ocean floor <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/09/f66/NT-19-1.pdf">along with two plutonium-containing nuclear torpedos</a>. Portable reactors on land pose different challenges – any problems are not under thousands of feet of ocean water.</p>
<p>Those in <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2545869/strategic-capabilities-office-selects-two-mobile-microreactor-concepts-to-proce/">favor of mobile nuclear power</a> for the battlefield claim it will provide nearly unlimited, low-carbon energy without the need for vulnerable supply convoys. Others argue that the <a href="https://sites.utexas.edu/nppp/files/2021/04/Army-Reactor-Report-NPPP-2021-April.pdf">costs and risks</a> outweigh the benefits. There are also concerns about <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2020/06/small-military-nuclear-reactors-in-need-of-global-safeguards/">nuclear proliferation</a> if mobile reactors are able to avoid international inspection. </p>
<h2>A leaking reactor on the Greenland ice sheet</h2>
<p>The PM-2A was built in 18 months. It arrived at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland in July 1960 and was dragged 138 miles across the ice sheet in pieces and <a href="https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p266001coll1/id/3968/">then assembled</a> at Camp Century.</p>
<p>When the reactor went critical for the first time in October, the engineers turned it off immediately because the PM-2A leaked neutrons, which can harm people. The Army fashioned lead shields and built walls of 55-gallon drums filled with ice and sawdust trying to protect the operators from radiation. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kUVnYKIUeQU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Big Picture,’ an Army TV show distributed to U.S. stations, dedicated a 1961 episode to Camp Century and the reactor.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The PM-2A ran for two years, making fossil fuel-free power and heat and far more neutrons than was safe. </p>
<p>Those stray neutrons caused trouble. Steel pipes and <a href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4456377/">the reactor vessel grew increasingly radioactive over time</a>, as did traces of sodium in the snow. Cooling water leaking from the reactor <a href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4844195">contained dozens of radioactive isotopes</a> potentially exposing personnel to radiation and leaving a legacy in the ice.</p>
<p>When the reactor was dismantled for shipping, its metal pipes shed radioactive dust. Bulldozed snow that was once bathed in neutrons from the reactor released radioactive flakes of ice.</p>
<p>Franklin must have ingested some of the radioactive isotopes that the leaking neutrons made. In 2002, he had a <a href="https://www.west-point.org/class/usma1955/D/Hist/Century.htm">cancerous prostate and kidney removed</a>. By 2015, the cancer spread to his lungs and bones. He died of kidney cancer on March 8, 2017, as <a href="https://www.west-point.org/class/usma1955/PWP/FranJ.htm">a retired, revered and decorated major general</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in uniform standing in a hangar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410677/original/file-20210709-27-e1viyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Franklin (right) with pieces of the decommissioned PM-2A reactor at Thule Air Base.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Army Photograph, from Franklin Family, Dignity Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Camp Century’s radioactive legacy</h2>
<p>Camp Century was shut down in 1967. During its <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/ancient-soil-secret-greenland-base-suggests-earth-could-lose-lot-ice">eight-year life</a>, scientists had used the base to drill down through the ice sheet and extract an ice core that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nZ6d2zUAAAAJ&hl=en">my colleagues and I</a> are still using today to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-leaves-preserved-under-a-mile-of-greenlands-ice-and-lost-in-a-freezer-for-years-hold-lessons-about-climate-change-157105">reveal secrets of the ice sheet’s ancient past</a>. Camp Century, its ice core and climate change are the focus of a book I am now writing.</p>
<p>The PM-2A was found to be highly radioactive and was buried in an Idaho nuclear waste dump. <a href="https://www.southpolestation.com/oaes/tr__174_camp_century.pdf">Army “hot waste” dumping records</a> indicate it left radioactive cooling water buried in a sump in the Greenland ice sheet.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL069688">scientists studying Camp Century in 2016</a> suggested that the warming climate now <a href="https://theconversation.com/shrinking-glaciers-have-created-a-new-normal-for-greenlands-ice-sheet-consistent-ice-loss-for-the-foreseeable-future-144992">melting Greenland’s ice</a> could expose the camp and its waste, including lead, fuel oil, PCBs and possibly radiation, by 2100, <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/10/17/greenland-warns-denmark-over-thawing-us-military-bases/">relations between the U.S, Denmark and Greenland grew tense</a>. Who would be responsible for the cleanup and any environmental damage?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Diagram of Camp Century reactor in trenches" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410199/original/file-20210707-27-1pxg1qd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A schematic diagram of Camp Century’s nuclear reactor in the Greenland ice sheet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Portable nuclear reactors today</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-nuclear-power-generating-reactors-have-evolved-since-their-birth-in-the-1950s-36046">major differences</a> between nuclear power production in the 1960s and today. </p>
<p>The Pele reactor’s <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20210628a/full/">fuel will be sealed in pellets the size of poppy seeds</a>, and it will be air-cooled so there’s no radioactive coolant to dispose of.</p>
<p>Being able to produce energy with fewer greenhouse emissions is a positive in a warming world. The U.S. military’s liquid fuel use <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/lu-umc061919.php">is close to all of Portugal’s or Peru’s</a>. Not having to supply remote bases with as much fuel can also help protect lives in dangerous locations. </p>
<p>But, the U.S. still has <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2021/03/24/biden-can-jumpstart-u-s-nuclear-waste-strategy/">no coherent national strategy</a> for nuclear waste disposal, and critics are asking <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/the-pentagon-wants-to-boldly-go-where-no-nuclear-reactor-has-gone-before-it-wont-work/">what happens if Pele falls into enemy hands</a>. Researchers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Academy of Sciences have <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/21874/chapter/7#90">previously questioned the risks</a> of nuclear reactors being attacked by terrorists. As proposals for portable reactors undergo review over the coming months, these and other concerns will be drawing attention.</p>
<p>The U.S. military’s first attempts at land-based portable nuclear reactors didn’t work out well in terms of environmental contamination, cost, human health and international relations. That history is worth remembering as the military considers new mobile reactors.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Bierman receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation</span></em></p>
Nearly 60 years after a radiation-leaking reactor was removed from a US Army base on the Greenland ice sheet, the military is exploring portable nuclear reactors again.
Paul Bierman, Fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment, Professor of Natural Resources, University of Vermont
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156827
2021-05-17T12:25:25Z
2021-05-17T12:25:25Z
How much energy can people create at one time without losing control?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397959/original/file-20210429-15-16cifi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1198%2C944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire a set of high-power lasers at a tiny speck of hydrogen isotopes and you can initiate nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/reports-recommend-stepped-up-u.s.-investment-in-fusion-energy">National Ignition Facility</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How much energy can we create at one time without losing control? – Luis, age 9, Brookline, Massachusetts</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Above our heads there is a powerful energy source created by nature, the Sun. Because the Sun is 93 million miles from us, only one-billionth of <a href="https://web.extension.illinois.edu/world/energy.cfm">the Sun’s total energy output</a> reaches the Earth, creating a world blooming with life. The energy that the Sun gives the Earth’s surface every second is more than the total electricity generated from <a href="https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=TPESbySource">all power plants in the world in the entire year of 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Here on Earth, humans power machines mostly by harvesting energy: for example, harvesting the energy of falling water and converting it to electricity in hydroelectric power plants. To create energy, you have to <a href="https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/energy/274180#200190-toc">convert matter to energy</a>. </p>
<h2>Chain reactions</h2>
<p>One way to do that is to split <a href="https://www.ducksters.com/science/the_atom.php">atoms</a>, the basic building blocks of all matter in the universe. Do so controllably and you can produce a steady flow of energy. Lose control and you release a lot of energy all at once in a nuclear explosion.</p>
<p>The core of every atom, the <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Atomic_nucleus">nucleus</a>, is made up of even smaller particles, protons and neutrons. The force holding the nucleus together stores a huge amount of energy. To obtain energy from the nucleus, scientists came up with a process of splitting a heavy atom into lighter atoms. Because the lighter atoms don’t need as much energy to hold the nucleus together as the heavy atoms, energy is released as heat or light. This process is called <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Nuclear_fission">nuclear fission</a>.</p>
<p>When one atom is split, a <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Nuclear_chain-reaction">chain reaction</a> starts: The split atom will trigger another atom to be split, and so on. To make the chain reaction controllable, scientists developed ways to slow down the splitting, such as absorbing some of the split particles. </p>
<h2>Nuclear power</h2>
<p>Nuclear power plants harvest the energy released by splitting atoms controllably. The world’s largest nuclear power plant is the <a href="https://www.power-technology.com/projects/kashiwazaki/">Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station</a> in Japan. It consists of seven nuclear reactors, with a maximum capacity of about 8,000 megawatts. The world’s largest single nuclear reactor is a tie between the the two reactors at China’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-france-nuclear/china-launches-worlds-first-epr-nuclear-project-in-taishan-idUSKBN1OD0Y4">Taishan Nuclear Power Plant</a>. Each Taishan reactor has a capacity of 1,750 megawatts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram showing a nuclear reactor, turbine, generator and condenser, and electric power lines leading to a residential neighborhood" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397901/original/file-20210429-14-1vrkcqz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nuclear power plants use nuclear reactions to heat water to produce steam that drives turbines that in turn drive generators that produce electricity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/nrcgov/32897176197/">Nuclear Regulatory Commission</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This amount of power is much smaller than uncontrolled nuclear reactions, such as atomic bombs. Nowadays, the energy output from detonating an atomic bomb is equivalent to the electricity the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant generates in half a year.</p>
<p>A downside of fission is <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Radioactive_waste">nuclear waste</a>. The split atoms are usually unstable and emit dangerous radiation. Nuclear waste needs to be stored properly for many years.</p>
<h2>Fusion near and far</h2>
<p>Scientists have also discovered another type of nuclear reaction, one that produces energy without nuclear waste. As two lighter atoms combine into a heavy atom, the lost mass converts into energy. This process is called <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Nuclear_fusion">nuclear fusion</a>. Fusion is happening in the core of the Sun. In every second, the Sun burns about <a href="https://www2.nau.edu/%7Egaud/bio301/content/sun/sun.htm">600 million tons of hydrogen into about 596 million tons of helium</a>, yielding <a href="http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/09/05/how_much_energy_does_the_sun_produce/">energy equivalent to trillions of atomic bombs</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cutaway illustration of a massive metal structure with a cylindrical core surrounded by a hollow ring filled with blue light" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397936/original/file-20210429-13-60a8zy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This cutaway illustration shows what the core of a nuclear fusion reactor would look like.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.anl.gov/highenergy-physics-nuclear-physics-and-fusion-energy-science">Argonne National Laboratory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, it is very difficult to achieve nuclear fusion on Earth. Fusion happens only at extreme conditions, such as the very high temperatures and pressure of the Sun. Scientists have yet to effectively demonstrate controllable nuclear fusion that produces more energy than it consumes, but <a href="https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines">they are working hard to do so</a>. One way is to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-powered-lasers-deliver-fusion-energy-breakthrough/">shoot high-power lasers</a> from different directions at a tiny speck of <a href="https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsisotopes">hydrogen isotopes</a>.</p>
<p>Nuclear fusion energy would be a promising energy solution in the future. But don’t forget, we have a huge nuclear fusion reactor above our heads, the Sun. With the improving efficiency of <a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/solar-energy/433607">solar energy</a>, we don’t even need to create energy, just capture more of what the Sun gives us every day.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xuejian Wu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Scientists are working on ways to make lots of energy by converting matter into energy. The trick is keeping the process under control. One possibility is nuclear fusion – the Sun’s power source.
Xuejian Wu, Assistant Professor of Physics, Rutgers University - Newark
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159483
2021-04-30T13:25:22Z
2021-04-30T13:25:22Z
Nuclear power: how might radioactive waste water affect the environment?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396838/original/file-20210423-21-mdo7ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/photos/nuclear-power-plant-cooling-tower-4535761/">Markus Distelrath/Pixabay </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been just over a decade since the fourth most powerful earthquake of the modern era triggered a tsunami that struck <a href="https://theconversation.com/fukushima-ten-years-on-from-the-disaster-was-japans-response-right-156554">Fukushima</a> on the eastern coastline of Japan, causing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fukushima-quake-may-be-an-echo-of-the-2011-disaster-and-a-warning-for-the-future-155293">thousands of deaths</a> and leaving hundreds of thousands unable to return home. That tsunami was also responsible for the world’s worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster. </p>
<p>When the 14-metre wave flooded the Fukushima Daiichi plant, it shut down emergency generators, triggering a series of heat-induced meltdowns. Now, the Japanese government’s <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/04/1089852">decision</a> to allow the release of more than one million tonnes of radioactive water from the plant into the ocean has <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/47207/the-japanese-governments-decision-to-discharge-fukushima-contaminated-water-ignores-human-rights-and-international-maritime-law/#:%7E:text=Tokyo%2C%20Japan%20%E2%80%93%20Greenpeace%20Japan%20strongly,Plant%20into%20the%20Pacific%20Ocean.">divided</a>
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/12/japan-will-release-radioactive-fukushima-water-into-the-ocean/?sh=41a0de7874c4">opinion</a>.</p>
<p>Water is a vital tool for all nuclear power stations: it’s used to cool their heat-generating radioactive cores. During the cooling process, the water becomes contaminated with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/radionuclides#:%7E:text=Radionuclides%20are%20species%20of%20atoms,or%20gamma%20rays%20(%CE%B3)">radionuclides</a> – unstable atoms with excess energy – and must be filtered to remove as many radionuclides as possible. </p>
<p>The filtered water is then stored in huge steel tanks or released into nearby bodies of water. As huge amounts of water are required by every plant, most nuclear facilities are built on coastlines – or, in the case of Chernobyl, surrounded by huge lakes. That way, filtered waste water can be discharged into the ocean or lake once it’s been assessed and confirmed safe by authorities. </p>
<p>This is how workers at Fukushima dealt with waste water while the plant was operating. But since the tsunami hit in 2011, authorities have used more than a <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/japan-to-release-1-million-tonnes-of-contaminated-fukushima-water-into-sea-1.4535983#:%7E:text=Nearly%201.3%20million%20tonnes%20of,and%20space%20is%20running%20out.">million tonnes</a> of water to try and cool the plant’s disabled reactors, which are still hot thanks to the long-term release of energy from the nuclear power source.
All that radioactive water – which is more contaminated than standard waste water – has to go somewhere. The decision to release it into the oceans is – some would argue – the most pragmatic long-term solution. </p>
<h2>What could the impacts be?</h2>
<p>The process of filtering and diluting the huge amounts of water to meet safety standards will take a few years to complete. Then, we’d usually expect the water to be released gradually in small volumes through coastal pipelines. That way, any potential effects of releasing the radioactive waste will be minimised. However, the fact is that we don’t know <em>exactly</em> what those effects will be on marine – or human – life, given the sheer volume of water set to be released from the Fukushima plant.</p>
<p><a href="https://meridian.allenpress.com/radiation-research/article-abstract/177/5/693/150125">Our own research</a> has shown that a number of marine species could have their DNA damaged through extended exposure to radionuclides in seawater. It’s important to note that our conclusions are mostly drawn from studies in the lab, rather than in the real world; when a nuclear accident takes place, human safety takes priority and biological assessment often takes place decades after the original event. </p>
<p>That being said, our experiments with both marine and freshwater mussels found that when radionuclides are present in seawater alongside commonly-occurring metals like copper, the DNA damage caused by radionuclides to the mussels was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09553002.2020.1823032">increased</a>. Much, much more research is needed to understand the effects of exposure to different types of radionuclides on different species.</p>
<p>In the meantime, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56728068">anger</a> towards Japan’s decision from fishing communities is understandable. In a world where global dependence on fisheries for food is <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/982/files/original/Report_food_and_fish_Final.pdf?1484256747">increasing</a> – and at least 10% of the world’s population <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/sites/default/files/publications/contribution_of_fisheries_to_food_and_nutrition_security_0.pdf">depend on fisheries</a> for their livelihood – a potentially contaminated environment could result in a contaminated food chain, raising consumer concerns.</p>
<p>We also know that around 95% of cancers in humans are triggered by <a href="https://www.oatext.com/which-environment-makes-cancer.php">exposure to toxic substances</a> present in the environment, food included. If these substances damage genetic material within our cells, that damage must be repaired. Otherwise, the damaged cell either dies or divides. And when the latter happens, the damage – which can cause genetic mutations – is passed on to dividing cells in a process that may lead to diseases like cancer. </p>
<p>If that genetic damage happens to egg or sperm cells, it may be passed down from parent to child, triggering new diseases in future generations. To neutralise these complex threats, it’s key to ensure that only safe levels of nuclear waste are being released into the ocean.</p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>As new nuclear plants emerge in the effort to tackle climate change, the need for transparency when it comes to nuclear technology has never been greater: especially if we are to build public confidence in the benefits of nuclear energy. </p>
<p>When nuclear reactors are mentioned, it’s disasters which tend to spring to mind. Yet considering the long history of nuclear power generation, serious accidents – involving loss of life and severe damage to the environment – are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132367/">extraordinarily rare</a>. The huge amounts of data gathered from each disaster site have enabled powerful advances in nuclear security, making future accidents even less likely. Meanwhile, waste from the world’s nuclear reactors is being <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx">managed safely</a> every day, although long-term solutions to waste disposal still pose a challenge. </p>
<p>Rapidly developing technology like <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-fusion-building-a-star-on-earth-is-hard-which-is-why-we-need-better-materials-155917">nuclear fusion</a> – mimicking the Sun’s way of generating energy by fusing hydrogen atoms to form helium, and converting that helium into energy – may eventually slash generation of nuclear waste. There’s also room for improvement of our existing nuclear facilities to help minimise waste generation: for example, by forcing radioactive byproducts to decay faster.</p>
<p>But while we still rely on nuclear power, the most urgent priority is to set internationally accepted regulations for radiation exposure levels across different species. After all, we are what we eat: our health as a global community depends on the health of the environment, and a contaminated ocean knows no geographical or political borders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Awadhesh Jha has received funding from the European Commission Horizon 2020, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.</span></em></p>
Why do nuclear plants produce radioactive water – and what happens when that water gets into the ocean?
Awadhesh Jha, Professor of Genetic Toxicology and Ecotoxicology, University of Plymouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151112
2020-12-08T12:15:02Z
2020-12-08T12:15:02Z
Black market meds: how nuclear analysis can fight trafficking of counterfeit medicines
<p>The trafficking of counterfeit and illegal medicines is a growing global challenge, with many criminal organisations involved and huge amounts of cash changing hands. In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121829">recent research</a>, we propose a new method for testing and tracing illegal counterfeit medicines. The solution is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121829">nuclear</a>.</p>
<p>Counterfeit medicines are attractive for criminals. They have high profit margins, with relatively low risks in terms of legal consequences. It is also quite easy to deceive consumers into believing that illegal products are genuine or convince them that they are buying an affordable and effective “alternative”. </p>
<p>The situation is not expected to improve. In fact, Interpol has already seen a rise in fake medical products related to the outbreak of the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/covid/COVID-19_research_brief_trafficking_medical_products.pdf">COVID-19 disease</a>. <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2020/Global-operation-sees-a-rise-in-fake-medical-products-related-to-COVID-19">Operation Pangea XIII</a> seized US$14m (£10.4m) worth of counterfeit face masks, sub-standard hand sanitisers and unauthorised antiviral pharmaceutical products in March 2020. They arrested 121 people, and more than 2,500 websites were taken offline.</p>
<h2>Health is a fundamental right</h2>
<p>From a health perspective, the main problem with illegal medicines is that they are potentially very harmful. Previous experiences with the chemical analysis of these products showed us that what is reported on the label is rarely what the product contains. Illicit medicines often contain the wrong amount of active ingredient. And the undeclared ingredients they contain can lead to serious health problems. Some fake medicines have been found to contain <a href="https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Illicit-goods/Shop-safely/Fake-medicines">mercury, arsenic, rat poison and cement</a>.</p>
<p>When illegal medicines are found, they need to be tested, and rapid early warnings dispersed whenever there is a serious threat to public health. However, this is not the only priority: the way they are tested also needs to incorporate collecting information about the product’s manufacturing and supply chain. This second need is vital for law enforcement agencies globally, for intelligence, investigation and criminal prosecution. </p>
<p>Creating “extensive profiling” methods that incorporate both of these needs is difficult. There are potentially a high number of ingredients in illegal products that are related to their manufacturing. A particularly serious issue is that sharing data across different forensic laboratories is very difficult. It is hard to standardise the techniques currently being used, so laboratories in the same country – let alone in different countries – struggle to create national or international collaborations. This leads to what is known as “linkage blindness”, which is the inability of law enforcement to connect similar unsolved crimes. </p>
<h2>A global police tool for a global threat</h2>
<p>To effectively protect public health and allow criminal investigations, we cannot face global issues with local approaches. Several laboratories must work together and comprehensive testing methods are needed, that aren’t only trying to find possible toxic chemical substances, but also find and share information about where the seized materials came from, and how they were made. </p>
<p>In this regard, we recently proposed a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121829">new approach</a> that proved very promising. We got the idea from a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2019.07.004">previous study</a> carried out by one of the authors of this article. It involves a unique combination of nuclear analytical techniques, specifically ion beam analysis (IBA) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). The latter uses neutron and proton beams respectively, to analyse every ingredient in a particular illicit product of interest. It can then give us an extensive overview of their composition, down to atomic levels.</p>
<p>The advantage of our approach is that it allows for fast characterisation of the chemical nature of the illegal products. This includes an unprecedented assessment of their potential risk on people’s health, as our method can provide early health warnings and the amount of each element identified can be directly measured. We also demonstrated that the data produced by different nuclear reactors can be effectively exchanged between laboratories all over the world. </p>
<h2>More criminal activities to fight</h2>
<p>Our research tested Viagra as it is the most widely counterfeited drug in the world. Due to lower production costs and high street value, it has larger profit margins than heroin. It also has a <a href="https://www.valisure.com/blog/valisure-notebook/viagra-the-worlds-most-counterfeited-drug/">much lower risk</a> of legal consequences if anyone is caught trafficking it.</p>
<p>Our research saw promising results when we were looking for the differences between counterfeit and original samples, and this was on samples from different laboratories. In particular, the approach was found to be very flexible and could be applied to lots of different products. These involve not only medicines but also supplements and foods, as well as illegal drugs. The approach is already tested in Italy to the illegal trafficking of cannabis, cocaine and heroin, which means it could be used to find links between drugs hauls around the world soon. Other laboratories around the world are collaborating and forming an international network. </p>
<p>Today, the biggest challenge in stopping the trafficking of counterfeit medicines is implementing global methods that fight the latest threats as quickly as possible. Criminal organisations are dynamic and laboratories need to keep up. Fake chloroquine, an antimalarial medicine falsely believed to cure COVID-19, is already being sold <a href="https://www.iracm.com/en/2020/04/cameroon-fake-chloroquine-treatment-discovered-cameroon/">in Cameroon</a> and <a href="https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/how-covid-19-is-fuelling-the-trafficking-of-fake-chloroquine-in-senegal">in Senegal</a>. </p>
<p>At a moment, where all eyes are on the subject of medicines and vaccines around the world, further research is pressingly vital - to effectively target global criminal organisations and protect public health worldwide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Trafficking of counterfeit medicines is on the rise, with Interpol seizing £10.4m of counterfeit COVID related products in March 2020
Francesco Saverio ROMOLO, Expert for Forensic Sciences at International Atomic Energy Agency, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Matteo Gallidabino, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147397
2020-10-08T12:32:51Z
2020-10-08T12:32:51Z
Celebrating Sister Ardeth Platte, anti-nuclear activist and ‘peacemaker in a hostile world’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362029/original/file-20201006-18-3weaxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C1991%2C1494&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sister Ardeth Platte, wearing black to honor the international Women in Black movement, being hugged by a supporter ahead of being sentenced in 2003.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Anti-WarNuns/cb8dc0972e5d4bc1b085616715ce0e95/photo?Query=Ardeth%20AND%20platte&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/David Zalubowski</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ardeth-platte-dominican-nun-and-antinuclear-activist-dies-at-84/2020/09/30/a8c5b702-0360-11eb-a2db-417cddf4816a_story.html">Sister Ardeth Platte</a>, who died on Sept. 30 at 84, antinuclear activism was a form of public worship.</p>
<p>Explaining <a href="http://www.jonahhouse.org/archive/platte_openstm.htm">to a federal judge in 2002</a> how she – alongside protest companions <a href="https://www.grdominicans.org/sisters/sister-carol-gilbert/">Sister Carol Gilbert</a> and <a href="https://www.grdominicans.org/sister-inspiration-jackie-hudson/">Sister Jackie Hudson</a> – entered a Colorado nuclear base, tapped on a silo with a hammer and used their own blood to smear a cross on a 100-ton missile lid, Platte said: “Every movement of our body was a liturgy.”</p>
<p>It didn’t stop the court from sending her to prison for <a href="https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/saginaw/2008/06/conviction_documentary_brings.html">obstructing national defense and damaging government property</a>. But Platte wasn’t traumatized by her 41-month sentence or any other she had served. By 2017 she and Gilbert estimated they had spent more than 15 years total behind bars and been arrested about 40 times, by their own tally.</p>
<p>“I was in long enough to see so many deaths, suicides. One woman guard went home from work, put a gun to her head and killed herself. Another man committed suicide by hanging right on the prison grounds,” Platte said in our unpublished 2017 interview. I came to know Platte and Gilbert while living with Sacred Heart sisters they knew at <a href="https://rscj.org/welcoming-communities">Anne Montgomery House in Washington, D.C</a>.</p>
<p>At the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut, Platte used her sentence for ministry by being a chaplain for all faiths, advocating against the unfair sentencing of mostly poor women of color, and helping prisoners study. Her friendship with fellow inmate Piper Kerman inspired the character of <a href="https://orange-is-the-new-black.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Ingalls">Sister Jane Ingalls</a> in Kerman’s book <a href="https://www.globalsistersreport.org/column/ministry/nun-and-actress-behind-orange-new-black-26711">“Orange is the New Black</a>,” later turned into a Netflix series. </p>
<p>Platte felt she had more in common with actor Beth Fowler, who plays Sister Ingalls in the series – and who once hoped to become a Dominican – than with the fictional character. “They put words in my mouth I would never say… I mean, even in the book where Piper says I tied myself to a flagpole. False! I went into a missile silo,” she smilingly told me in 2017, although she did recommend reading the book, which she found accurate about prison life.</p>
<h2>Near-death transformation</h2>
<p>A Michigan native with the broad accent to prove it, Ardeth Platte was born on Good Friday, April 10, 1936. Her mother left before she turned two and her father placed Platte and her brother with relatives while in the Navy in World War II.</p>
<p>She almost died at 12 of an intestinal infection, and under an oxygen tent pledged her life to God if she made it through. A high school valedictorian and star basketball player, she entered the religious order <a href="https://www.grdominicans.org/">Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids</a> in 1954 after freshman year at Aquinas College, a Grand Rapids Catholic liberal arts school.</p>
<p>Drawn to helping impoverished residents in her adopted hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, she administered Upward Bound, a federally funded low-income college preparation program, one summer, and later became principal of St. Joseph’s High School. She walked with the poorest at Civil Rights marches and <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2020/10/sister-ardeth-platte-resisted-war-through-prayer-action-for-four-decades/">protested Vietnam</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=193%2C132%2C3205%2C2613&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361715/original/file-20201005-20-1e7fo70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sister Ardeth Platte’s memorial at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Laffin/Dorothy Day Catholic Worker</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Platte ran for Saginaw City Council at the urging of many disadvantaged residents. Her term from 1973-1985 included time as interim mayor. This allowed her to see firsthand how power structures enforced rather than alleviated poverty.</p>
<p>“It’s all based on death-dealing, not life-giving. I could see everything taking food from the mouths of the poorest… When I do an action regarding nuclear weapons, it relates to poverty, to contamination, to climate disaster, to all of it,” she said in 2017.</p>
<p>She was inducted into the <a href="https://miwf.org/timeline/ardeth-platte/">Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Swords into plowshares’</h2>
<p>Platte’s anti-nuclear activism started in 1983. From 1990 to 1995 she and Gilbert moved next to Strategic Air Command bases at Oscoda and then K. I. Sawyer, holding mock war crimes tribunals. Their “Faith and Resistance” retreats shared ways to conduct successful nonviolent actions.</p>
<p>Although they encountered accusations of being anti-military, the sisters ministered to military people. “[Members of the military] cried and shared stories in our living space after the first Gulf War. We even inherited a dog from one going to South Korea,” said Gilbert. “Our love has grown for military personnel,” said Platte. “We do have a draft, it’s called an economic draft. They join because they need jobs.”</p>
<p>Michigan’s bases were decommissioned after the Cold War, and the sisters moved to Baltimore’s <a href="http://www.jonahhouse.org/">Jonah House</a> in 1995. Named after the Old Testament biblical prophet who served time in the belly of a whale (aka the U.S. prison system), Jonah House teaches civil resistance, modeling how to conduct die-ins at the Pentagon, or what to do when arrested.</p>
<p>Some members of Jonah House also participated in <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/10/17/plowshares-activists-are-trial-anti-nuclear-protest-theologians-say">Plowshares</a>, a direct-action antinuclear movement named after the biblical passage in which prophets Isaiah and Micah state, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”</p>
<p>Platte and Gilbert joined ICAN, the <a href="https://www.icanw.org/">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a>, which won the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2017/ican/facts/">Nobel Peace Prize in 2017</a>. Platte’s final life’s work encouraged nuclear weapons states such as the U.S. – on course to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-arsenal/u-s-nuclear-arsenal-to-cost-1-2-trillion-over-next-30-years-cbo-idUSKBN1D030E">spend US$1.2 trillion over the next three decades</a> – to sign the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Peacemaker in a hostile world’</h2>
<p>After 23 years at Jonah House, Platte and Gilbert moved to the <a href="https://www.catholicworker.org/communities/houses/dc-washington-dd-cw.html">Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House</a> in Washington. This “community of hospitality and resistance” also teaches direct action. There <a href="https://www.grdominicans.org/sister-inspiration-resist-hunger-resist-illness-resist-hate-sow-care-and-community">Platte gardened daily</a>, sharing vegetables with neighbors while preaching peace.</p>
<p>They attended actor <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/08/jane-fonda-fire-drill-fridays-book">Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays</a> – ecological protests in Washington, D.C. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JaneFonda/posts/10158275703879160">Fonda cited Platte</a> as “a staunch and fearless friend.” They also remained in touch with Martha Stewart, whom Gilbert befriended at Alderson Federal Prison Camp.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>On Sept. 29, Platte went to bed to listen to the news. Her headphones were still on when Gilbert tried to wake her the following morning to celebrate that <a href="https://www.icanw.org/malaysia_ratification#:%7E:text=Malaysia%20has%20become%20the%2046th,Lumpur%2C%20on%2030%20September%202020.">Malaysia had ratified</a> the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Platte had slipped away in her sleep.</p>
<p>Sister Ardeth Platte consistently lived the <a href="https://greensboro.com/news/nuns-proudly-recount-protest-against-missiles/article_769582e5-4be3-5deb-a07c-e54f2a845b65.html">prayer all three activist sisters spoke</a> in 2002 when surrounded by military police in Humvees at the Peterson Air Force Base, weapons aimed: “Oh God, help us to be peacemakers in a hostile world.”</p>
<p><em>This article is based on a 2017 interview with Sister Ardeth Platte OP and Sister Carol Gilbert OP, and recent conversations with Sister Gilbert.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carole Sargent does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The lifelong activist and Dominican sister was arrested over 40 times, often with Sister Carol Gilbert, for peaceful actions protesting nuclear weapons.
Carole Sargent, Faculty Director, Office of Scholarly Publications, Georgetown University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144891
2020-08-26T13:03:57Z
2020-08-26T13:03:57Z
US left isolated at UN after bid to reimpose sanctions on Iran – why did it even try?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354677/original/file-20200825-18-tuulju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C62%2C2937%2C1926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mike Pompeo: on his own on Iran. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/us-secretary-state-mike-pompeo-delivers-1782468047">Ringo Chiu/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mike Pompeo was angry. The US secretary of state stood in the UN headquarters in New York on August 20 and <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-at-a-press-availability-11/">proclaimed a new axis of evil</a> between former American allies – the UK, France and Germany – and the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They chose to side with ayatollahs. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria – and indeed, their own citizens as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pompeo’s outburst was prompted by a very bad week for the US in the UN security council. On August 14, only the Dominican Republic <a href="https://eaworldview.com/2020/08/trump-humiliated-iran-arms-embargo/">supported</a> the Trump Administration’s resolution for an extension of the UN arms embargo on Iran, which is due to expire in October. Russia and China voted no. The other 11 members, including the Europeans singled out by Pompeo, abstained.</p>
<p>Then the following week, 13 of the 15 members of the security council objected to the US attempt to invoke “snapback” sanctions on Tehran. </p>
<p>The “snapback” provision was built into <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/2231/background">Resolution 2231</a>, which underpinned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal. If any of the parties believes another had violated the terms, then a dispute resolution mechanism can be activated. If there is still no resolution, then UN sanctions on Iran dating from 2010 can be reimposed.</p>
<p>Pompeo claimed that Iran was in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal it had agreed with the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia). But everyone else – except for the representative of the Dominican Republic, who said nothing – countered that because the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in May 2018 it had no standing to demand UN sanctions. </p>
<p>On August 25, Indonesia, which currently holds the presidency of the UN security council, said <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/25/iran-sanctions-trump-administration-un-security-council">no further action</a> would be taken to impose snapback sanctions, drawing further ire from the US.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1296413933235036160"}"></div></p>
<h2>Hoisted by their hard line</h2>
<p>When the US withdrew in May 2018 and then imposed unilateral, comprehensive sanctions in November that year, Iran was in compliance with the deal. The <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iran/iaea-and-iran-iaea-reports">International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported</a> at quarterly intervals that Tehran remained within the agreed limits for production of low-grade uranium. </p>
<p>The Rouhani government, citing the US sanctions and <a href="https://eaworldview.com/2020/01/iran-daily-rouhani-to-europe-do-you-want-to-make-a-mistake/">failure to establish</a> a European economic link to bypass them, suspended adherence to some provisions from June 2019. In June, the <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2020/06/05/un-agency-says-iran-is-violating-all-restrictions-of-nuclear-deal/">IAEA confirmed</a> that the Iranians are increasing uranium enrichment to 4.5%, breaking the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal. However, Tehran has not returned to its pre-2015 production of 20% uranium.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has no wish to return to what Donald Trump called the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-cutting-off-funds-iranian-regime-uses-support-destructive-activities-around-world/">worst deal ever negotiated</a>” in American history. Instead, its strategy of maximum pressure on Tehran sought to condemn Iran’s regional operations in the Persian Gulf and in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. Then, in early January 2020, a US drone strike assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force responsible for Iranian military operations outside the country. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-next-for-irans-proxy-network-after-killing-of-qassem-soleimani-129303">What next for Iran's proxy network after killing of Qassem Soleimani</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Russia, China, the European powers, and almost all other security council members have reached a different conclusion on Iran. They concurred that the deal has to be maintained to prevent further confrontation throughout the Middle East and central Asia. In June, the UK, German and French foreign ministers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-europe/europe-tells-u-s-we-wont-back-unilateral-iran-sanctions-snapback-idUSKBN23Q1DB">were blunt</a> in their message to the Trump administration: snapback sanctions would have “serious adverse consequences” in the security council and they could not support it.</p>
<h2>Why go it alone?</h2>
<p>But this leaves the immediate question: why, given the inevitability of defeat on both the arms embargo and the snapback sanctions, did the Trump administration push so hard and so vociferously – and continue to do so?</p>
<p>A miscalculation of arrogance by Pompeo can’t be ruled out. And, of course, there is Trump’s relative ignorance of US-Iranian relations and the region – even as his camp were shaking a fist of fury, he was talking about the possibility of <a href="https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/voa-news-iran/kushner-makes-peace-overture-iran-trump-seeks-negotiations-if-re-elected">a high-profile meeting</a> with an Iranian leader.</p>
<p>But career staff in Washington will know that these are fantasies. There is no chance of Trump shaking hands with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, or of the security council agreeing to impose snapback sanctions. </p>
<p>Trump’s circle, having shredded the diplomatic work of the Obama administration, want to box in a future Biden presidency. Their rhetoric about Iranian duplicity, menace and support of “terrorism” seeks to raise the domestic political bar for any resumption of talks, let alone a revised nuclear agreement. </p>
<h2>After November</h2>
<p>Although it’s not being said openly, almost everyone except Trump’s inner circle is awaiting his departure in January 2021 and the arrival of a Biden administration. </p>
<p>That will not bring a simple return to the status quo before the 2015 deal. A Democratic administration, both because of domestic pressure and concerns over Iranian military plans, will want some revision of terms; so will the Europeans, including over Tehran’s missile programs. Tehran will seek assurances against another unilateral US withdrawal from a deal and for the removal of comprehensive sanctions. But a return to acceptance of mutual interest in a deal, and of discussions of regional matters, will shift the priority to negotiations rather than confrontation.</p>
<p>Still, a second Trump term <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">cannot be ruled out</a>. If Trump is reelected in November, then his administration is likely to pile on more pressure with additional unilateral sanctions, attacks on Iranian infrastructure, and threats to knock out more of Tehran’s commanders. The message will be clear: concede or we will break you.</p>
<p>Tehran is likely to reply: try it. Even as the Trump administration pursues its quest in isolation, that will turn the regional kaleidoscope into more collision and fragmentation, and force Iranians to endure more sacrifice for their leaders’ “resistance” to the US.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The US bid to impose so-called ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran was roundly rejected by the UN security council.
Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.