Does this mean we have to invade Egypt? Just asking.
The presidents of Russia and Egypt have announced after talks in Cairo, that the two countries are to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant together, as well as boosting natural gas trade among other deals.
Vladimir Putin and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi made the announcement on Tuesday at a joint news conference in the Egyptian capital, where they signed an agreement on the plant’s construction.
“If final decisions are made, it will mean not just building a nuclear power plant, it means the creation of the entire new atomic industry in Egypt,” said Putin.
I’m sure they’ll build one of those newfangled nuclear plants that don’t create weapons-useable material.
Right?
Putin is racing to make friends with any corrupt and despotic country he can install nuclear in now to “punish” the west. What could possibly go wrong.
Btw, I am sure he was laughing for himself after signing the latest peace thing in Minsk too.
Did you see the video of Putin speaking at Minsk? He was more than “laughing for himself”—-he was grinning and displaying “happy puppy” body language all over the place. He is a seriously loose cannon.
And what could possibly go wrong? Helping Middle East and Muslim states take advantage of the “peaceful atom” has never been a problem as far as being “weapons useful” (if one ignores Iran, Pakistan, and Israel, that is).
The first one will likely be built on the Med coast at El Dabaa ~60+ miles west of Alexandria and ~160 miles WNW of Cairo. Hope that’s far enough for any nasty “clouds” to disperse—-evacuating Cairo would be a chore. And hope they learn from Fukushima and build it high enough above sea level to keep the emergency generators dry in case of tsunamis or very high tides. Maybe they’ll build some plants along the Nile where they will have the potential to be flooded and/or pollute the only source of water for lower Egypt. (And if the Egyptians do build it at El Dabaa and don’t play nice with it, think of how easy it will be for Israel to get at it and destroy it, unlike in Iran)
PS Does anyone know how much solar Egypt is developing? That would seem to be a no-brainer
I came across this article on Egypt and rooftop solar last week:
http://www.greenprophet.com/2015/02/loans-for-rooftop-solar-are-heating-up-in-egypt/
Egypt has something like 300,000 square miles of sandy desert which could be the photocell for all of Africa.
John Christian Lønningdal writes above “Putin is racing to make friends with any corrupt and despotic country he can install nuclear in now to “punish” the west.”
Well, actually the Russian state owned Rosatom has got approval from the parliament in Finland to build a nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki on the western coast of Finland together with the Finnish company Fennovoima.
The approval was given the 5th of December 2014 by the Finnish parliament.
Now the Finnish Fennovoima has a deadline until 30th of June 2015 put up in the parliaments (?) decision to show that the NPP will be owned to the main part by the Finns, if they will not show that the plans will be cancelled.
Just days before (the 2nd of December 2014) the decision in the Finnish parliament the Finnish state owned energy company jumped into the game by promising to become a stakeholder in Fennovoima so that the deal could be done and to make a complicated change of ownership in Russian TGC-1 hydropower.
http://www.fortum.com/en/mediaroom/pages/fortum-plans-to-increase-its-hydro-portfolio-by-60-through-the-restructuring-of-tgc-1-subject-to-successful.aspx
and
http://www.tgc1.ru/en/home/
It is important to know that Finland is a democratic country, part of the European Union. Finland has election to the parliament the 19th of April 2015.
So, it is part of “the west”.
There is now a strong grasroots movement in the neighbouring country Sweden and also one in Finland trying to stop this NPP. The NGOs requires that the plans for NPP should be stopped immediately and that we need to go to 100 percent renewable energy.
The easiest way to come in contact with the grasroot NGOs is to join the group in Facebook. Most of people in Sweden and Finland know English quite well and it is possible to ask or share information in English.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/karnkraftsfritt.bottenviken/
Urpo Taskinen
Knows both Swedish and Finnish languages and works for The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Norrbotten county
Oh, can you create weapons-usable material from a nuclear power plant? That’s news to me, and to anyone else who knows Thing 1 about nuclear technology.
This is supposed to be a climate blog. It would be nice if we attacked the problem, which is fossil fuel, instead of attacking one of the solutions.
Call off the negotiations with Iran. Obviously not needed. If only they’d just checked with you first.
Iran has enrichment. Enrichment can be dangerous without international controls.
Egypt does not have enrichment and does not seek it. Their nuclear power plans threaten nobody, and are NOT and CANNOT be a part of any weapons program.
You and Christopher Booker: spreading nonscientific disinformation that helps prevent climate mitigation. Would it be too much trouble to educate yourself before writing nonsense?
You do know that environmental damage in general is pretty important as well. It’s not necessary the threat of nuclear weapons that makes nuclear plants a problem in many of these countries as you might imagine. Not sure what kind of security they have and how easy these new Russian plants are to power down in case of conflict.
Get off your high horse, Keith. If you don’t, I’m going to declare you the new owner of the perfumed sleeve hanky so that you can “sniff in disdain” in real style.
Peter was just being a bit ‘snarky” with this piece, which is not of major importance and just an interesting aside in the discussion. I followed his lead a bit, while redsky and Urpo made more serious contributions.
If you knew anything at all of Peter’s history, you would know that he knows a lot about nuclear power plants, so stop being a flaming anal orifice with BS like “….spreading nonscientific disinformation that helps prevent climate mitigation”, and “Would it be too much trouble to educate yourself before writing nonsense?”, and generally strutting around the barnyard like the demented rooster clucking about your self-imagined superior knowledge.
Do you recall the Arab Spring? Do you recall that things were so out of control in Egypt that some Egyptians grabbed Lara Logan’s boobs? (Horrors!) Do you have enough imagination to envision that future mobs might be able to break into an Egyptian nuke and grab some “stuff” to make dirty bombs with? Or cause it to melt down and hope the “cloud” reaches Israel? Or at least envelop Cairo and causes “regime change”? (You DO know that Chernobyl was deliberate and really the first blow in Russia’s war on Ukraine ?).
JCL speaks to that issue also, and the question of a nuke plant in Egypt is a tiny corner of the larger question of how nukes can play a role in global warming mitigation.
All I know of Peter’s history is what I have read here and on Wikipedia, none of which hints at any education or expertise in nuclear power. If you know more than that, I’d be happy to hear of it.
And if you think that Peter’s conflating of nuclear power and nuclear bombs is correct, or does not deserve to be called out for the ignorant fearmongering that it is, then my opinion of your own expertise is just as low.
That’s it, you have proven yourself a worthy recipient of the Engineer-Poet Narcissist Memorial Sleeve Hanky. I hereby anoint you as its new carrier—-sniff it well!
Perhaps your narcissism makes it hard to read anything but what you want to read in our comments, but I tried to explain what Peter was likely doing with this piece, which was not “conflating” nuclear power and bombs or fearmongering, but more in the vein of a joke. Perhaps you are typical of “sleeve hanky sniffers” in that you don’t have a sense of humor or irony?
As for my expertise and position on nuclear power, I have a couple of science degrees and have been involved in environmental issues since before Earth Day. I was an anti-nuclear power activist back in the 70’s and studied nuclear power in detail then, but have now come full circle to being an advocate—-I agree with Hansen et al that nuclear power needs to be in the mix to help reduce carbon pollution and think the newest plant designs are workable.
You, on the other hand, are a “retired IT specialist” who professes to having enough knowledge to comment on nuclear power, science in general, and climate change issues. I have read some of your stuff, and you have a LOOOOONG way to go IMO. You should be VERY careful cabout casting aspersions on any of us on Crock. Reading the excerpts below would actually cause one to “assume” that you really don’t understand any of it.
Part II
“Let’s assume that we completely decarbonize the global energy supply, and that we accomplish that by using only uranium as a fuel. Currently, nuclear power accounts for just 2.5% of the world’s primary energy supply, but that could be increased to 100% by going to more electric vehicles, by synthesizing liquid fuels, and by using nuclear power for industrial process heat. In that world, we would be using 40 times the amount of nuclear energy we use today.
“Let’s also assume that world population doubles from current levels before stabilizing, and that the average person in the future will use twice as much energy as the current average world citizen. So let’s multiply that 40 times by another factor of 4 to account for that, giving us 160 times as much nuclear power as we use today.
“It would also mean that an average cubic meter of rock, anywhere on earth, would contain $860 worth of uranium. Mining anything would be economic at those prices. (This assumes 1 part per million U and 3.5 tonnes of rock per cubic meter.)
“The other possibility is mining the Moon. Obviously such an enterprise would cost a lot of money up front, but once you have all the equipment in place (likely robotic), sending raw materials back to Earth for processing is surprisingly cheap from the Moon, because of the Moon’s low gravity. An electric mass driver could manage it easily without chemical rockets. And on the Moon, you can mine forever without the slightest environmental damage to good old Planet A”.
Reply to Keith P 6:50 pm comment—-read before Part II above
That’s it, you have proven yourself a worthy recipient of the Engineer-Poet Narcissist Memorial Sleeve Hanky. I hereby anoint you as its new carrier—-sniff it well!
Perhaps your narcissism makes it hard to read anything but what you want to read in our comments, but I tried to explain what Peter was likely doing with this piece, which was not “conflating” nuclear power and bombs or fearmongering, but more in the vein of a joke. Perhaps you are typical of “sleeve hanky sniffers” in that you don’t have a sense of humor or irony?
As for my expertise and position on nuclear power, I have a couple of science degrees and have been involved in environmental issues since before Earth Day. I was an anti-nuclear power activist back in the 70’s and studied nuclear power in detail then, but have now come full circle to being an advocate—-I agree with Hansen et al that nuclear power needs to be in the mix to help reduce carbon pollution and think the newest plant designs are workable.
You, on the other hand, are a “retired IT specialist” who professes to having enough knowledge to comment on nuclear power, science in general, and climate change issues. I have read some of your stuff, and you have a LOOOOONG way to go IMO. You should be VERY careful cabout casting aspersions on any of us on Crock. Reading the excerpts below would actually cause one to “assume” that you really don’t understand any of it.
I gave tried to reply to Keith and it wouldn’t take. Broke it in two and only the second part took. Perhaps WordPress will heal itself and it will all appear in a day or two. In the meantime, digest Part II above.
Part I—-That’s it, you have proven yourself a worthy recipient of the Engineer-Poet Narcissist Memorial Sleeve Hanky. I hereby anoint you as its new carrier—-sniff it well!
Perhaps your narcissism makes it hard to read anything but what you want to read in our comments, but I tried to explain what Peter was likely doing with this piece, which was not “conflating” nuclear power and bombs or fearmongering, but more in the vein of a joke. Perhaps you are typical of “sleeve hanky sniffers” in that you don’t have a sense of humor or irony?
As for my expertise and position on nuclear power, I have a couple of science degrees and have been involved in environmental issues since before Earth Day. I was an anti-nuclear power activist back in the 70’s and studied nuclear power in detail then, but have now come full circle to being an advocate—-I agree with Hansen et al that nuclear power needs to be in the mix to help reduce carbon pollution and think the newest plant designs are workable.
You, on the other hand, are a “retired IT specialist” who professes to having enough knowledge to comment on nuclear power, science in general, and climate change issues. I have read some of your stuff, and you have a LOOOOONG way to go IMO. You should be VERY careful cabout casting aspersions on any of us on Crock. Reading the excerpts below would actually cause one to “assume” that you really don’t understand any of it.