WTF Climate Change News

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Perhaps you are not aware that granite is already radioactive. It typically contains a few parts per million of uranium.

Still a huge difference if there's just granite being down below somewhere, or tons of highly radioactive Uranium/Plutonium and other stuff, so a much larger scale in terms of radioactivity and scale.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Mh, that was quick. Australia started first, small experiments on local geoengineering to protect the great barrier reef by cloud brightening.

 

[danielravennest]

Just keep in mind that we still have no idea on predicting long term geological processes. Radioactive waste will still be super dangerous for way more years than have passed since we lost good olde Doggerland.

Those two sentences are both incorrect and comparing apples and oranges. The cores of continents, called cratons, have been stable for over 500 million years. Continental edges can get smashed up on time scales of tens of millions of years, but the cores remain largely unaffected. Doggerland was drowned at the end of the last glaciation, about 15,000 years ago. That's an entirely different time scale. If you are implying that climate change could drown future places, then if all the world's ice melted, the oceans would rise 70 meters.

So put your waste repository more than 70 meters above sea level and on a stable continental core. Such locations would be stable enough for long-term storage. There is a type of reactor designed to "burn up" nuclear waste, though I don't think any have been built yet. That would be a permanent solution and likely happen before long term storage would make the material inert.

 

[danielravennest]

Still a huge difference if there's just granite being down below somewhere, or tons of highly radioactive Uranium/Plutonium and other stuff, so a much larger scale in terms of radioactivity and scale.

Take a cubic km of granite, either a cubical block, or ten square km x 100 m thick. Granite has a density of 2.75 tons/cubic meter, so a cubic km is 2.75 billion tons. Your average granite contains 4 ppm uranium, and 12 ppm thorium, so you have 44,000 tons of those radioactive elements.

Plutonium 239 is a fissionable isotope with a half life of 24,000 years. Since it is fissionable, it should be mixed into reactor fuel and burned up to get rid of it.

Uranium isn't "highly radioactive". The two main isotopes have half-lives of 700 million and 4.5 billion years. What makes used reactor fuel highly radioactive is the short-life fission products. These decay on time scales of seconds to millennia, much shorter than the original fuel. Therefore per kg they emit more radiation. If you bury them deep in a hole in a granite formation, you are not increasing the total radiation by much, and the rock provides shielding so it doesn't get out.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Take a cubic km of granite, either a cubical block, or ten square km x 100 m thick. Granite has a density of 2.75 tons/cubic meter, so a cubic km is 2.75 billion tons. Your average granite contains 4 ppm uranium, and 12 ppm thorium, so you have 44,000 tons of those radioactive elements.

Plutonium 239 is a fissionable isotope with a half life of 24,000 years. Since it is fissionable, it should be mixed into reactor fuel and burned up to get rid of it.

Uranium isn't "highly radioactive". The two main isotopes have half-lives of 700 million and 4.5 billion years. What makes used reactor fuel highly radioactive is the short-life fission products. These decay on time scales of seconds to millennia, much shorter than the original fuel. Therefore per kg they emit more radiation. If you bury them deep in a hole in a granite formation, you are not increasing the total radiation by much, and the rock provides shielding so it doesn't get out.

I have to say that, when you consider the amount of damage humanity has inadvertently done to the planet to make it increasingly hostile to us over a mere couple of hundred years simply by suddenly generating a lot of CO2, which was already present in the environment in huge quantitites anyway and people didn't initially realise could cause serious damage, I'm really hesitant about solutions that depend on generating waste we know is going to be hazardous for millennia (so, probably longer than recorded history).

It may be that there's no alternative, but if it really is the least bad option, then the others must really be dreadful.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I've heard the French have a good solution involving glass [iirc - I could ask my source, but eh.... he's playing fallout now].

But reusing it would be even tidier.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

50 years.

It Took a Village of Hippies: the Founding of Greenpeace

A great deal has been written about the beginnings of Greenpeace. The running gag being that you can find a founder in every bar in Vancouver. I would

www.counterpunch.org

 

[WolfEyes]

There's an Antarctica-Sized Hole in the Ozone Layer (msn.com)

 

[danielravennest]

It may be that there's no alternative, but if it really is the least bad option, then the others must really be dreadful.

Nowadays nuclear is the most expensive option. That's why they aren't building any more in the US once they finish the two reactors in Georgia that were started in 2009. Existing reactors are relatively low cost to operate, since they use small amounts of fuel compared to coal or natural gas. It's the building of them that costs so much and takes a long time.

On the other hand, solar has grown exponentially as the cost has come down. Even a conservative source like Bloomberg expects it to keep growing.

 

[WolfEyes]

Just going to leave this here since it goes under climate change as well.

Louisiana’s Native Tribes Were Crushed by Hurricane Ida. They Feel Forgotten. – VICE

The United Houma Nation and other Native tribes in Louisiana aren’t federally recognized, which cuts them off from help they need after Hurricane Ida.

www.vice.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Life at 50C: Mexico's struggle for water

Climate change is causing once-mighty rivers to dry up and temperatures to rise to deadly levels in Mexico.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Beebo Brink]

The Ground Is Literally Exploding Due to Climate Change in Siberia, and It’s Going to Get Worse

“It is a pure stroke of luck” that none of the explosions and their giant craters have "caused loss of life or infrastructure damage,” said one scientist.

www.vice.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Drivers clash with Insulate Britain activists blocking three London roads

Protesters stop traffic at Hanger Lane, the Blackwall tunnel and Wandsworth Bridge

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Beebo Brink]

Dry summer emphasizes threat of climate change to Yellowstone National Park

In June, some areas of Yellowstone National Park received less than one quarter the amount of precipitation compared to the 30-year average.

The lack of rain in June and throughout much of the summer meant the park saw some of its driest conditions since the 1930 Dust Bowl era, said Cam Sholly, superintendent, in a webinar sponsored by the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds

Trillions of dollars a year are ‘adding fuel to the fire’ of the climate crisis, experts say

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

This paper provides a comprehensive global, regional, and country-level update of: (i) efficient fossil fuel prices to reflect their full private and social costs; and (ii) subsidies implied by mispricing fuels. The methodology improves over previous IMF analyses through more sophisticated...

www.imf.org

 

[Beebo Brink]

Over two feet of rain fell in Italy in only half a day, something not seen in Europe before | CNN

Extreme, climate-fueled rainfall broke records this week in a part of Italy known for its rain and an area in Oman not known for rain at all.

www.cnn.com

On Monday, a series of storms put on the parking brakes over northwestern Italy, unleashing rainfall rates never before seen in all of Europe after over 29 inches (742 mm) of rain fell in just 12 hours. In Oman, a rare tropical cyclone dumped years' worth of rainfall, bringing deadly floods to the desert landscape that rarely sees much rain in an entire year.

 

[WolfEyes]

Over two feet of rain fell in Italy in only half a day, something not seen in Europe before | CNN

Extreme, climate-fueled rainfall broke records this week in a part of Italy known for its rain and an area in Oman not known for rain at all.

www.cnn.com

They got more than half their annual rainfall within 24 hours. That is bad.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘The water used to be up to your armpits’: birds starve as Turkey’s lakes dry up

Drought, rising temperatures and poor farming practices are taking a devastating toll on the country’s wildlife

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

National Grid in talks over plan for energy island in North Sea

UK firm says windfarm project that could help power British homes could be completed by 2030

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

(Not going to get into an argument about whose wind it is).

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/google-bans-ads-denying-climate-change-1.6204593

Google prohibits ads that promote or make money from climate change denial