The naivité of those divers is troubling, particularly the one guy who already had thyroid cancer (which is closely related to radiation damage) and still thinks that he might have gotten it anyway. Yeah right.

I don’t know if similar jobs exist in the remaining German nuclear power plants. I hope that they don’t send people into contaminated water but have robots do those tasks instead, but again this is not something they’ll likely talk about openly. Still, another reason for getting out of nuclear power is that nobody should have to do such hazardous and possibly lethal jobs.

As for alternatives, the MIT’s Technology Review reports about a cheaper way to store energy generated by solar power plants.

The nuclear meltdown at a plant deemed safe due to the unprecendented combination of a massive earthquake and a tsunami which knocked out the power for the cooling system also called the future of nuclear power into question worldwide.

In Japan itself, which was heavily pro-nuclear power before the earthquake, protests against nuclear power are growing. What is more, many Japanese nuclear power plants that are switched off for regular inspections are not switched on again.  Nuclear power now only covers 3 percent of the total power consumption in Japan, down from 30 percent last year. The downside is that carbondioxide emissions are rising as well, because there are not enough sources of renewable energy, so fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas have to pick up the slack.

Meanwhile, the Japanese nuclear safety authority still considers nuclear power safe, as this interview with a spokesperson in the German paper tageszeitung shows. The taz also interviews Japanese anti-nuclear activist and musician Otomo Yoshihide.

In Germany, the Fukushima disaster prompted the Merkel government to reverse its position on nuclear power and announce the complete shut-down of all German nuclear power plants until 2022, while expanding renewable energy sources. Today, renewable energy makes up 21 percent of all energy produced in Germany and has surpassed nuclear power, whose share has dropped to 15 percent after the oldest power plants were switched off immediately. Though the government recently announced that it would cut the guaranteed feed-in tariffs for solar power, which would halt the expansion of solar energy.

But even though all remaining nuclear power stations in Germany will be switched off until 2022, there were protests today at several of the remaining nuclear reactors as well as at the fuel rod factory in Gronau which still happily manufactures fuel rods for nuclear power stations worldwide.

Also in response to the one year anniversary, Technology Review, a site affiliated with the MIT, asks what we have learned about nuclear safety from Fukushima. If you think the answer is that there is no such thing as complete nuclear safety, you are mistaken, since Technology Review is largely pro-nuclear and a fervent believer in the power of engineering to solve any problem. But at least they admit that more safety measures and backup systems are needed, which is a start.

Nonetheless, the USA are not just still holding on to nuclear power, they are actually building the first new reactor in thirty years and tend to dismiss the German nuclear fade-out as based on irrational fears, because Germans are supposedly known for irrational fears, even though I have rarely seen people more gripped by irrational fears (The terrorists will get us. Obama is a Socialist and wants to destroy the freedom of religion. Gay people will somehow manage to undermine heterosexual marriages. I need a fun because someone could break into my house and rape and kill my family.) than Americans. The tageszeitung takes on the idiocy of dismissing legitimate worries about the safety of nuclear power as irrational fears in this editorial.

While the US and France still hold on to nuclear power, other countries are more attuned to the potential risks. For example, protests of local villagers has forced the halting of the construction of a new nuclear power station in Kudankulam in Southern India. Even safety inspections carried out by the international atomic energy commission have done nothing to appease the villagers.

The days of nuclear power are definitely numbered, as more and more countries become aware of the risks.

Das KWK Wochenende wird von der Firma Senertec organisiert und erlaubt es Besuchern, Kraft-Wärme-Kopplungsanglagen in Aktion und vor Ort zu sehen.

Mehr Informationen gibt es auf der offiziellen Webseite.

Though the US is not the only country still holding on to nuclear power even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s neither cheap nor safe. Just this week, French Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against shutting down the more than thirty year old nuclear power station at Fessenheim in the Alsace region. From a German POV, the refusal to shut down the aging nuclear power plant in Fessenheim is more troubling than whatever the Americans are doing in Georgia, because Fessenheim is very close to the German border and radiation has the unpleasant habit of not giving a shit about national borders.

Finally some potentially good news: British scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a magnetic soap that could help to clean up oil spills.

Meanwhile the phaseout of nuclear and fossil power is continuing elsewhere in the world. For example, Scotland is aiming for 100 percent renewable energy by 2020, supplied mainly by on and offshore windfarms as well as tidal and wave power.

Germany is also well on the way to phase out nuclear power. The share of renewable energy is currently at twenty percent and growing. More importantly, 51 percent of all renewable energy in Germany is generated not by power companies but by private citizens and farmers, i.e. people like us. Indeed, the decentralization of energy generation is another great advantage of the switch to renewable energy, albeit one that’s rarely mentioned.

First of all, a recent report revealed that the French nuclear reactors are not nearly as safe as believed and that massive and expensive safety upgrades are required. I hope they make the upgrades as soon as possible, since France is a lot closer than Ukraine and we did get the Chernobyl fallout back in the day. Particularly, since the French nuclear power company AREVA is also reporting record losses of more than a billion euros due to the drastically decreased support for nuclear power and the drastically increased safety demands post Fukushima. However, I also wonder whether the knowledge that the French reactors are less safe than believed will lower the still considerable support for nuclear power in France.

According to a recent report by a panel instigated by the Japanese government, the response to the Fukushima disaster was severely lacking. Of course, the report is only confirming what everybody already guessed anyway.

More fallout from the Fukushima disaster: In Canada, there are increasing worries about radioactive contaminated fish being imported from Japan and Pacific. After Chernobyl it was mushrooms, now it’s fish. Why does radiation always has to affect the foods I actually like?

What is more, even in Japan experts are beginning to ask whether the world can phase out nuclear power completely, at least according to this article from the Oman Observer. Of course, it must be remembered that as an oil-producing country, Oman is not exactly unbiased with regards to this question.

Though the Oman Observer also reports on alternatives to both nuclear power and fossil fuels, such as this article about the Sultanate of Oman planning to increase its investments in solar power in cooperation with German and Swiss solar power companies. Solar power seems like a very good solution for the Arab peninsula, since the region gets a lot of sun and has a lot of land that has no agricultural or other use.

As alternative methods of energy generation go, this is one of the crazier (and potentially very risky) schemes: US developers are planning to pump 90 million liters of water into a dormant volcano in Oregon to demonstrate their new geothermal energy technology. Somehow I doubt that pumping water into volcanoes will be the future of energy generation. Never mind the dangers to human life, property and the environment, if the volcano turns out to be not quite as dormant as everybody thought.

Thanks to Jay Lake for the volcano and radioactive fish links.

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Wir wünschen all unseren Kunden und Geschäftspartnern fröhliche Festtage and ein erfolgreiches neues Jahr 2012!

However, the US is not only still adhering to its old nuclear reactors, some of which are not considered safe, they are also planning to build new nuclear reactors. Indeed, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved the design of a new nuclear reactor developed by Westinghouse Electric, even though 64 percent of Americans oppose the construction of new nuclear power plants according to a poll carried out earlier this year.

What is more, the Westinghouse CEO claims that their new reactor design is not just safer than the existing designs, but that their reactor could have survived the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima Daiichi plant to go into meltdown.

We can only hope he’s right.

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In Deutschland hat die Fukushima Katastrophe den letzten Anstoss zum endgültigen Ausstieg aus der Atomkraft gegeben. Die Entscheidung wird von der überwiegenden Mehrheit der Bevölkerung unterstützt.

In den USA setzt man allerdings nicht nur nach wie vor auf Atomkraft, obwohl einige der existierenden US Atomkraftwerke als nicht sicher gelten, man plant sogar den Bau neuer Atomkraftwerke. So hat die US Atomregulierungsbehörde gerade das Design eines neuen Atomreaktors, welcher von Westinghouse Electric entwickelt wurde, genehmigt, obwohl auch in den USA 64 Prozent der Bevölkerung laut einer neuen Umfrage gegen den Bau neuer Atomkraftwerke sind.

Außerdem behauptet der Westinghouse CEO, dass ihr neues Reaktordesign nicht nur sicherer als existierende Reaktoren ist, sondern dass ihr Reaktor auch die Erdbeben und Tsunami Katastrophe, welche die Kernschmelze in Fukushima auslöste, problemlos überstanden hätte.

Wir können nur hoffen, dass er Recht hat.

Anyway, here are the solar power yields for November 2011: In November 2011, the photovoltaic solar cell array on our roof generated 294 kilowatt hours of energy. This is actually our best November result ever, but then the month was mostly dry and sunny.

So far autumn seems to be trying to make up for the extremely wet summer of 2011. Though the annual solar power yield is still several percent below the average, because even a record-breaking November cannot make up for a rotten June or July.

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Ich weiß, dass ich diese Blog in letzter Zeit vernachlässigt habe, aber man kann mich immer auf meinem persönlichen Blog sowie auf dem Pegasus Pulp Blog finden.

Außerdem sind hier, etwas verspätet, die Solarenergieertragsdaten für November 2011: Im November 2011 hat die Photovoltaik Anlage auf unserem Dach 294 Kilowattstunden Strom erzeugt. Dies ist tatsächlich unser bisher bestes Novemberergebnis. Allerdings war dieser November auch ungewöhnlich sonnig und trocken.

Es scheint, als ob der Herbst sich bemüht, den extrem nassen and kalten Sommer 2011 etwas auszugleichen. Allerdings liegt der Jahresertrag an Solarenergie einige Prozent unter dem Durchschnitt, da auch ein rekordverdächtiger November leider einen verregneten Sommer nicht aufwiegen kann.

In October 2011, the photovoltaic solar cell array on our roof generated 784 kilowatt hours of energy. This result is very good for October, but then the month was mostly dry and sunny.

It seems as if autumn is trying to make up for the extremely wet summer this year. Though the annual solar power yield is still lower than the average and will remain so, because a good September or October (or November) cannot make up for a rotten June or July.

***

Der November ist zwar schon halb vorbei, aber mir ist gerade aufgefallen, dass ich den monatlichen Solarenergieertrag noch gar nicht geposted habe. Also sind hier, mit einiger Verspätung, die Solarenergieertragsdaten für Oktober 2011:

Im Oktober 2011 hat die Photovoltaik Anlage auf unserem Dach 784 Kilowattstunden Strom erzeugt. Dies ist ein sehr gutes Ergebnis für September, da der Monat überweigend trocken and sonnig war.

Es scheint, als ob der Herbst sich bemüht, den extrem nassen and kalten Sommer 2011 etwas auszugleichen. Allerdings ist der Jahresertrag an Solarenergie immer noch unter dem Durchschnitt und wird es wohl auch bleiben, denn ein guter September oder Oktober oder auch November kann leider einen verregneten Sommer nicht aufwiegen..

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