It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wind farms are cheaper than you think – and could have prevented Fukushima, says global review
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
Offshore wind could have prevented the Fukushima disaster, according to a review of wind energy led by the University of Surrey.
The researchers found that offshore turbines could have averted the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan by keeping the cooling systems running and avoiding meltdown. The team also found that wind farms are not as vulnerable to earthquakes.
Suby Bhattacharya, Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Surrey’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said:
“Wind power gives us plentiful clean energy – now we know that it could also make other facilities safer and more reliable. The global review finds that greener really is cheaper – thanks to falling construction costs and new ways to reduce wind turbines’ ecological impact.”
One of the report’s starkest findings was that new wind farms can produce energy over twice as cheaply as new nuclear power stations.
The lifetime cost of generating wind power in the UK has fallen dramatically, from £160/MWh to £44/MWh. This includes all the costs of planning, building, operating and decommissioning the wind farm over its entire life.
By comparison, the UK Government agreed to pay £92.50/MWh for energy produced at Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
Professor Bhattacharya said:
“What makes wind so attractive is that the fuel is free – and the cost of building turbines is falling. There is enough of it blowing around the world to power the planet 18 times over. Our report shows the industry is ironing out practical challenges and making this green power sustainable, too.”
Although less power is generated in calmer conditions, the electricity generated could be stored in batteries – as planned for the Ishikari project off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan. Or it could be used to produce hydrogen from seawater – giving us the fuel of the future.
Japan’s Nara city is famous for its sacred deer, protected for a millennium as “messengers of the gods” according to Shinto religious tradition, and today also a valuable tourism resource.
In recent years, genetic analysis by Japanese researchers has found that Nara’s protected deer population has become genetically isolated over its history. But a nationwide deer population boom now threatens to end the Nara deer’s long isolation, potentially bringing diseases transmissible to humans, the scientists warn.
In addition, deer overpopulation can harm farmers’ livelihoods and upset the balance of ecosystems. The Nara prefectural government is leading efforts to minimize community conflicts and ecological damage from both protected and “ordinary” deer.
However, the researchers warn that even stronger deer management measures, including installing more deer-proof fences and expanded culling, may be necessary to address conservation and community conflict issues.
Nara, a city in central Japan and an ancient national capital from 710 to 784 C.E., is today perhaps best known for its “sacred” deer.
According to legend, Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto, a deity in the Shinto pantheon, was carried by a sacred deer to Nara’s Kasuga Taisha Shrine upon its founding in 768, more than 1200 years ago, “for the prosperity of the nation and happiness of the people.” Ever since, deer living near the shrine have been protected, more or less, as “messengers of the gods.”
These days, roughly 1,300 sacred deer mingle freely with tourists in the 660-hectare (1,630-acre) Nara Park, a public space that includes Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Buddhist temples and a protected forest. The grounds, shrine and temples draw roughly 13 million visitors annually. As tourists snap photos, the animals eagerly wait to be hand-fed “deer crackers” purchased from park vendors.
Deer living near the shrine have been protected, more or less, as “messengers of the gods” for more than 1200 year ago. Image by Alfonso Jimenez via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
In recent years, Japanese researchers have used genetic analysis to determine whether Nara’s deer are truly unique. They found that the population’s long history of protection has isolated their gene pool, making them genetically distinct, though not a separate species, from the deer in surrounding areas.
However, the strong protection measures have been called into question in recent decades as the Nara deer have been caught up in conservation and community controversy.
Across Japan, populations of sika deer (Cervus nippon) have exploded over the past 40 years, including around Nara. Now, the same researchers who revealed the sacred deer’s genetic distinction have discovered the protected deer are venturing outside the sanctuary and breeding with outside populations. They worry that “ordinary” deer may soon enter the protected area, potentially bringing infectious diseases with them.
Whether sacred or ordinary, protected or not, the overabundance of deer is also creating conflict with the shrine’s surrounding community as the animals damage crops, forests and habitat.
That leaves Nara authorities faced with difficult questions: Should the sacred Nara deer be kept isolated, and, if so, how should the surrounding “ordinary” deer be dealt with to achieve that goal?
(a) The location of Nara city in Nara prefecture, Japan. (b) The research sampling areas and subpopulations examined in a 2024 study. Image courtesy of Takagi et al. (2024). Managing a living, moving ‘monument’
Shrines are sacred places of worship under Shintoism, one of Japan’s major religious traditions. And those shrines have inadvertently been an aid to long-term land conservation, with small groves and even entire mountains declared sacred since ancient times. Kasuga Taisha Shrine, for example, has not only protected the Nara deer, it has forbidden logging for a millennium on Mt. Kasuga, the forested summit behind the shrine and part of Nara Park.
“Often these kinds of aesthetic and spiritual considerations [went] hand in hand with more pragmatic and economic considerations” such as preventing erosion and restricting public access to forest resources, Aike P. Rots, a professor at the University of Oslo who studies the relationship between Shintoism and conservationism, told Mongabay.
Deer are likewise considered sacred animals in Buddhism, Japan’s other major religion, which was entwined with Shintoism until forcibly separated by the Meiji government in 1868. Nara’s Kasuga Taisha Shrine even merged with neighboring Kofukuji Temple at one point in its history.
Despite the rich spiritual heritage of Nara’s deer, Rots said that few Japanese perceive them today as sacred beings, but rather as a cultural tradition and part of the “cute” Nara tourism experience. Still, Nara’s four-legged icons are “definitely different from other deer — definitely out of the ordinary,” he said.
So special, in fact, that the Nara deer were protected by the Japanese government as “Natural Monuments” in 1957, with Kasuga Taisha Shrine renouncing ownership over the animals.
A modern protection and management plan for the Nara deer was created in 1985 as the result of a lawsuit with farmers who sued over crop damage. That settlement created four concentric zones around Kasuga Taisha Shrine: zones A and B cover the protected Nara Park; zone C acts as a buffer where deer may be removed but not harmed; while the deer population is subject to control measures in zone D, although culling didn’t begin there until 2017.
Experts note that, historically, deer in zones C and D were not considered sacred. However, to complicate matters, some of the land in those two zones was included in the 1957 Natural Monument designation, making population control measures there a delicate business
.
Differences in the way people deal with Japanese sika deer in Nara city: (a) Deer are a tourist resource in the protected areas and tourists feed them. But (b) In the management area, deer are seen as pests and are prevented from feeding on crops by fences and other means. Images courtesy of Harumi Torii via Takagi et al. (2024).
The researchers analyzing the Nara deer’s DNA warn that more decisive action may be needed. In a 2024 paper, they reported that while only deer of the protected lineage were found inside zones A and B, both ordinary deer and deer of mixed lineages roam in zone D.
Importantly, in the near future, “Interbreeding populations may expand into the sanctuary,” the authors wrote. “Ordinary deer could soon replace the deer revered and protected by the people of Nara.”
The reason for this deer demographic shift is Japan’s fast-expanding wild deer population, study lead author and Kobe College lecturer Toshihito Takagi told Mongabay. The boom was likely due to natural habitat expansion, as Japan’s forest industry and rural population declined, as the nation shifted its fuel sources from wood to electricity and gas, and as wildlife protection policies changed.
The country’s deer population (excluding Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands) rose from 250,000 individuals in 1989 to a peak of 2.5 million in 2014, with its range expanding by roughly 70%. By 2021, culling had reduced deer numbers to 2.2 million.
“No one thought deer would multiply to such an extent, whether across Japan or in Nara,” Takagi said. He emphasized that practices to conserve Nara’s protected deer and control the ordinary ones “need to be modified to fit the situation.”
“Keeping deer out of Nara’s management zone — which doesn’t mean just culling, but also installing further deer-proof fences — would help prevent agricultural damage and guard against disease transmission from animals to humans by keeping the Nara Park population isolated,” Takagi explained, calling such measures “a return to the traditional approach.”
A Fukushima University press release fancifully depicts Nara deer wandering near the shrine, grazing in meadows, woods and neighborhood fields. Protected for more than a millennium, and a valuable tourism resource, deer overpopulation — including both protected and “ordinary” deer — can also have negative consequences for ecosystems and nearby farms. Image by ANSAI Shun via Fukushima University (CC BY-NC 4.0). Deer overpopulation disrupts agriculture, ecosystems
In the eyes of farmers in and around Nara, the deer are often seen as crop-munching pests. Ryhan M.Y., a student at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Agriculture who previously worked on a farm near Nara, told Mongabay that ordinary (not protected) deer would strip the farm’s new yuzu saplings of fresh green shoots within a day of being planted. In springtime, the deer also fed on the young shoots of tea plants, an “infuriating” experience for the farmer who worked hard to grow tea organically.
“My boss … was very peeved because there was nothing he could do at that point because he wasn’t certified to cull deer,” M.Y. said. “The best you can do is just put up an electric fence to keep the deer out.”
Among M.Y.’s local acquaintances were some who were quite attached to the protected deer, while others (especially drivers encountering them on roads) felt “like they’re a bit of a pest,” she said. “There’re just so many of them, they’re not just confined to Nara Park anymore.”
Nara authorities are trying to keep the peace between all their constituents: farmers and deer-friends alike.
In 2016, Nara prefecture relied on an expert committee to revamp its deer management plan, installing deer-proof fences and beginning a culling program in zone D. In the past, various factors had hindered action, including the lack of a central entity responsible for the deer, fear that culling would harm tourism, and poor communication between authorities and farmers.
Although the management plan has reduced the agricultural damage, Takagi and his colleagues’ 2024 paper warns that the deer problem still could “become more serious” unless officials beef up countermeasures. Nara’s agricultural cooperative didn’t respond to Mongabay’s request for comment.
In addition to grazing on crops, deer overpopulation poses a threat to Japan’s ecosystems, with the hungry mammals preventing forest regeneration and causing erosion
In addition to grazing on crops, deer overpopulation poses a threat to Japan’s ecosystems, with the hungry mammals preventing forest regeneration and causing erosion. Image by Jen Morgan via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).
In the 2000s, experts raised an alarm, saying that understory grazing by Nara’s protected deer may be impeding the growth of young trees in the long-protected forest on Mt. Kasuga behind Kasuga Taisha Shrine, altering the fully protected forest ecosystem. Since 2016, Nara prefecture’s deer management plan has included installing deer-proof fences on Mt. Kasuga; the prefecture also has a separate conservation plan and expert committee dedicated to the forest.
Their vigilance may be working. A 2023 survey of deer understory damage in and around Nara Park found that, overall, the deer were having a small impact, a Nara prefecture official who asked not the be named told Mongabay. The prefectural government and its expert committee are proceeding cautiously as they discuss how to continue protecting “sacred” deer while repelling other deer.
“The expert committee is currently considering whether deer in the buffer zone [zone C] should also be subject to culling, in order to prevent agricultural damage and maintain standards for protection and management,” the official said.
They noted that researchers involved in the DNA analysis work are also included on the expert committee, with their scientific findings weighed alongside community, cultural and spiritual concerns.
Banner image: One of the roughly 1,300 sacred Nara deer seen close up. This sika deer (Cervus nippon) population has been isolated and protected by both Shinto and Buddhist religious traditions for more than 1,000 years. Image by Annelise Giseburt.
Citations:
Abe, H., Kume, T., Hyodo, F., Oyamada, M., & Katayama, A. (2024). Soil erosion under forest hampers beech growth: Impacts of understory vegetation degradation by sika deer. CATENA, 234, 107559. doi:10.1016/j.catena.2023.107559
Takagi, T., Murakami, R., Takano, A., Torii, H., Kaneko, S., & Tamate, H. B. (2023). A historic religious sanctuary may have preserved ancestral genetics of Japanese sika deer (Cervus nippon). Journal of Mammalogy, 104(2), 303-315. doi:10.1093/jmammal/gyac120
Takagi, T., Torii, H., Kaneko, S., & Tamate, H. B. (2024). The sacred deer conflict of management after a 1000‐year history: Hunting in the name of conservation or loss of their genetic identity. Conservation Science and Practice, 6(3). doi:10.1111/csp2.13084
Takatsuki, S. (2009). Effects of sika deer on vegetation in Japan: A review. Biological Conservation, 142(9), 1922-1929. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.02.011
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Much more than a world first image of radioactive cesium atoms
UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
IMAGE:
FIGURE 1. (LEFT) A STRUCTURE MODEL OF POLLUCITE AND A SIMULATED HAADF-STEM IMAGE USING MACTEMPAS. (RIGHT) A HIGH RESOLUTION HAADF-STEM IMAGE OF IRON-RICH POLLUCITE IN THE CSMPS. THE CS ATOMS IN THE IMAGE APPEAR AS BRIGHT SPOTS (CIRCLED IN THE IMAGE). APPROXIMATELY HALF OF THE CS ATOMS IN THE STRUCTURE ARE RADIOACTIVE. RADIOACTIVE CS ATOMS HAVE NOT BEEN IMAGED BEFORE FROM ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLES.
Thirteen years after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP), a breakthrough in analysis has permitted a world first: direct imaging of radioactive cesium (Cs) atoms in environmental samples.
The groundbreaking analysis, completed by a team of researchers in Japan, Finland, America, and France, analyzing materials emitted from the damaged FDNPP reactors, reveals important insights into the lingering environmental and radioactive waste management challenges faced in Japan. The study, titled ““Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant” has just been published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. It can be accessed here for free.
The Fukushima Daiichi Meltdowns: A Continuing Engineering and Environmental Puzzle
In 2011, after the Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, 3 nuclear reactors at the FDNPP underwent meltdowns due to a loss of back-up power and cooling. Since then, extensive research efforts have focused on understanding the properties of fuel debris (the mixture of melted nuclear fuels and structural materials), found within the damaged reactors. That debris must be carefully removed and disposed of.
However, many uncertainties remain concerning the physical and chemical state of the fuel debris and this greatly complicates retrieval efforts.
Attempts to Understand the Chemistry of Radioactive Cesium Results in a World First
A significant amount of radioactive Cs was released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in particulate form. The particles, termed Cs-rich microparticles (CsMPs), are poorly soluble, small (< 5 µm) and have a glass-like composition.
Prof. Satoshi Utsunomiya from Kyushu University, Japan, led the current study. He explained that the CsMPs “formed in the bottom of the damaged reactors during the meltdowns, when molten nuclear fuel impacted concrete.”
After formation, many CsMPs were lost from the reactor containment into the surrounding environment.
Detailed characterization of CsMPs has revealed important clues about the mechanisms and extent of the meltdowns. However, despite abundant Cs in the microparticles, direct atomic scale imaging of radioactive Cs in the particles has proven impossible.
Prof. Gareth Law, a study collaborator from the University of Helsinki, explained that “this means we lack full information on the chemical form of Cs in the particles and fuel debris.”
Utsunomiya continued, “whilst Cs in the particles is present at reasonably high concentrations, it is often still too low for successful atomic scale imaging using advanced electron microscopy techniques. When Cs is found at a high enough concentration, we have found that the electron beam damages the sample, rendering resulting data useless”. However, in the team’s previous work using a state-of-the-art high-resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscope (HR-HAADF-STEM), they found inclusions of a mineral called pollucite (a zeolite) within CsMPs. Law explained that “in past analysis we showed that the iron-rich pollucite inclusions in the CsMPs contained >20 wt.% Cs. In nature, pollucite is generally aluminum-rich.
The pollucite in the CsMPs was clearly different to that in nature indicating it formed in the reactors.” Utsunomiya continued, “because we knew that most of the Cs in CsMPs is fission derived, we thought that analysis of the pollucite could yield the first ever direct images of radioactive Cs atoms”.
Zeolites can become amorphous when subjected to electron beam irradiation, but that damage is related to the composition of the zeolite, and the team found that some pollucite inclusions were stable in the electron beam.
Learning this and informed by modelling, the team set about pain-staking analysis that saw Utsunomiya, graduate student Kanako Miyazaki, and the team finally image radioactive Cs atoms.
Utsunomiya explained:
“It was incredibly exciting to see the beautiful pattern of Cs atoms in the pollucite structure, where about half of the atoms in the image correspond to radioactive Cs.”
He continued: “this is first time humans have directly imaged radioactive Cs atoms in an environmental sample. Finding concentrations of radioactive Cs high enough in environmental samples that would permit direct imaging is unusual and presents safety issues. Whilst it was exciting to make a scientific world first image, at the same time it’s sad that this was only possible due to a nuclear accident.”
Scientists collected samples of contaminated soil near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors.
CREDIT
Satoshi Utsunomiya
More than an Imaging Breakthrough
Utsunomiya emphasized that the study's findings are broader than mere imaging of radioactive Cs atoms: “Our work sheds light on pollucite formation and the likely heterogeneity of Cs distribution within the FDNPP reactors and the environment.”
Law further underscored relevance: “we unequivocally demonstrate a new Cs occurrence associated with the materials emitted from the FDNPP reactors. Finding Cs containing pollucite in CsMPs likely means it also remains in the damaged reactors; as such, its properties can now be considered in reactor decommissioning and waste management strategies.”
Collaborator Emeritus Prof. Bernd Grambow from Subatech, IMT Atlantique Nantes University, added that: “we should now also begin to consider the environmental behavior or Cs-pollucite and its possible impacts. It likely behaves differently to other forms of Cs fallout documented thus far. Also,the effect on human health might have to be considered. The chemical reactivity of pollucite in the environment and in body fluids is certainly different than that of other forms of deposited radioactive Cs”. Finally reflecting on the study's significance, Prof. Rod Ewing from Stanford University underscored the pressing need for continued research to inform debris removal strategies and environmental remediation: “yet again, we see that the pain-staking analytical efforts of international scientists really can unlock the mysteries of nuclear accidents, aiding long-term recovery efforts.”
The study, titled "Invisible radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant," is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. The work was supported by bilateral funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Research Council of Finland.
Citation of the Article
Title: “Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Authors: Kanako Miyazaki, Masato Takehara, Kenta Minomo, Kenji Horie, Mami Takehara, Shinya Yamasaki, Takumi Saito, Toshihiko Ohnuki, Masahide Takano, Hiroyuki Shiotsu, Hajime Iwata, Gianni F. Vettese, Mirkka P. Sarparanta, Gareth, T. W. Law, Bernd Grambow, Rodney C. Ewing, and Satoshi Utsunomiya
Journal: Journal of Hazardous Materials
Link to paper (free access): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389424006836
“Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Friday, May 17, 2024
Nuclear waste to be buried 650ft under the English countryside
Jonathan Leake Thu, 16 May 2024 New pit will ease pressure on the 17 nuclear waste disposal plants, the largest of which is the Sellafield site in Cumbria - Stuart Nicol
Swathes of nuclear waste are set to be buried in the English countryside after ministers agreed to dig a 650ft pit starting this decade.
The facility, which has yet to be allocated a site, will hold some of the 5m tonnes of waste that was generated by nuclear power stations over the past seven decades.
The largest facility is the Sellafield site in Cumbria.
Plans for the 650ft pit will see it house so-called intermediate-level waste, possibly in a mine on a pre-existing nuclear site to minimise planning objections.
The facility will be separate from the much deeper geological disposal site that will hold the UK’s most dangerous waste, such as plutonium, which is unlikely to be built until after 2050.
Concerns are particularly acute as the Government is currently planning to build at least three new nuclear power stations.
This will put the country at odds with the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was accumulating nuclear waste so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.
Ministers want to brand nuclear energy as a “green” and “sustainable” fuel.
However, experts on the Government’s own advisory body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, have said such terms are misleading if there is no safe place to store radioactive waste.
Plans for a nuclear waste pit were recently published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnz), headed by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho.
A government spokesman said: “In addition to long-term plans to dispose of the most hazardous radioactive waste in a geological disposal facility hundreds of metres underground, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will explore a facility closer to the surface for less hazardous radioactive waste.
“While a geological disposal facility is not expected to be ready until the 2050s, a shallower disposal facility – which is up to 200m below ground – could be available within 10 years.”
Nuclear waste can remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years, with fears of disposing of it underground stemming from the fact water can flow through waste, carrying radioactivity back to the surface.
However, once buried and sealed with cement, such waste will be practically impossible to reach should there be such a problem.
Nuclear accidents are rare but when they do happen the consequences can be deadly and extremely expensive.
This was evidenced by the disastrous fire at the Sellafield site in 1957, which released radioactivity across the UK and Europe.
Other accidents at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 were even more devastating.
The Government’s proposals come after policymakers recently announced the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years.
Hinkley Point C is already under construction in Somerset at an estimated cost of £46bn, while Sizewell C in Suffolk is also about to start with a similar price tag.
A third giant nuclear station is also being planned alongside a fleet of so-called small modular reactors.
Andrew Bowie, the minister for nuclear energy, said: “We’re taking sensible steps to manage our radioactive waste, while reducing the burden on the environment and taxpayer.”
David Peattie, chief executive officer at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, added: “We will maintain the highest standards of safety and environmental protection to deliver our nationally important decommissioning mission.”
As for the much larger geological disposal facility, which will hold the UK’s deadliest waste, this will soon become Britain’s biggest and most expensive infrastructure project ever.
Two sites are under consideration for the facility, which is expected to be 3,500ft deep.
One lies off the coast of Lincolnshire and the other is off the coast of Cumbria around Copeland.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Medics at UCLA protest say police weapons drew blood and cracked bones
Molly Castle Work and Brett Kelman
USA TODAY Updated Wed, May 15, 2024
Inside the protesters' encampment at UCLA, beneath the glow of hanging flashlights and a deafening backdrop of exploding flash-bangs, OB-GYN resident Elaine Chan suddenly felt like a battlefield medic.
Police were pushing into the camp after an hours-long standoff. Chan, 31, a medical tent volunteer, said protesters limped in with severe puncture wounds, but there was little hope of getting them to a hospital through the chaos outside. Chan suspects the injuries were caused by rubber bullets or other “less lethal” projectiles, which police have confirmed were fired at protesters.
“It would pierce through skin and gouge deep into people’s bodies,” she said. “All of them were profusely bleeding. In OB-GYN we don’t treat rubber bullets. … I couldn’t believe that this was allowed to be (done to) civilians — students — without protective gear.”
The UCLA protest, which gathered thousands in opposition to Israel’s ongoing bombing of Gaza, began in April and grew to a dangerous crescendo this month when counterprotesters and police clashed with the activists and their supporters.
In interviews with KFF Health News, Chan and three other volunteer medics described treating protesters with bleeding wounds, head injuries, and suspected broken bones in a makeshift clinic cobbled together in tents with no electricity or running water. The medical tents were staffed day and night by a rotating team of doctors, nurses, medical students, EMTs, and volunteers with no formal medical training.
At times, the escalating violence outside the tent isolated injured protesters from access to ambulances, the medics said, so the wounded walked to a nearby hospital or were carried beyond the borders of the protest so they could be driven to the emergency room.
“I’ve never been in a setting where we’re blocked from getting higher level of care,” Chan said. “That was terrifying to me.”
Three of the medics interviewed by KFF Health News said they were present when police swept the encampment May 2 and described multiple injuries that appeared to have been caused by “less lethal” projectiles.
Less lethal projectiles — including beanbags filled with metal pellets, sponge-tipped rounds, and projectiles commonly known as rubber bullets — are used by police to subdue suspects or disperse crowds or protests. Police drew widespread condemnation for using the weapons against Black Lives Matter demonstrations that swept the country after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Although the name of these weapons downplays their danger, less lethal projectiles can travel upward of 200 mph and have a documented potential to injure, maim, or kill.
The medics’ interviews directly contradict an account from the Los Angeles Police Department. After police cleared the encampment, LAPD Chief Dominic Choi said in a post on the social platform X that there were “no serious injuries to officers or protestors'' as police moved in and made more than 200 arrests.
In response to questions from KFF Health News, both the LAPD and California Highway Patrol said in emailed statements that they would investigate how their officers responded to the protest. The LAPD statement said the agency was conducting a review of how it and other law enforcement agencies responded, which would lead to a “detailed report.”
The Highway Patrol statement said officers warned the encampment that “non-lethal rounds” may be used if protesters did not disperse, and after some became an “immediate threat” by “launching objects and weapons,” some officers used “kinetic specialty rounds to protect themselves, other officers, and members of the public.” One officer received minor injuries, according to the statement.
Video footage that circulated online after the protest appeared to show a Highway Patrol officer firing less lethal projectiles at protesters with a shotgun.
“The use of force and any incident involving the use of a weapon by CHP personnel is a serious matter, and the CHP will conduct a fair and impartial investigation to ensure that actions were consistent with policy and the law,” the Highway Patrol said in its statement.
The UCLA Police Department, which was also involved with the protest response, did not respond to requests for comment. Police face-off with pro-Palestinian students after destroying part of the encampment barricade on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. Police deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses on May 1 after forcibly clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel's war with Hamas.
Jack Fukushima, 28, a UCLA medical student and volunteer medic, said he witnessed a police officer shoot at least two protesters with less lethal projectiles, including a man who collapsed after being hit “square in the chest.” Fukushima said he and other medics escorted the stunned man to the medical tent then returned to the front lines to look for more injured.
“It did really feel like a war,” Fukushima said. “To be met with such police brutality was so disheartening.”
Back on the front line, police had breached the borders of the encampment and begun to scrum with protesters, Fukushima said. He said he saw the same officer who had fired earlier shoot another protester in the neck.
The protester dropped to the ground. Fukushima assumed the worst and rushed to his side.
“I find him, and I’m like, ‘Hey, are you OK?’” Fukushima said. “To the point of courage of these undergrads, he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s not my first time.’ And then just jumps right back in.”
Sonia Raghuram, 27, another medical student stationed in the tent, said that during the police sweep she tended to a protester with an open puncture wound on their back, another with a quarter-sized contusion in the center of their chest, and a third with a “gushing” cut over their right eye and possible broken rib. Raghuram said patients told her the wounds were caused by police projectiles, which she said matched the severity of their injuries.
The patients made it clear the police officers were closing in on the medical tent, Raghuram said, but she stayed put.
“We will never leave a patient,” she said, describing the mantra in the medical tent. “I don’t care if we get arrested. If I’m taking care of a patient, that’s the thing that comes first.”
The UCLA protest is one of many that have been held on college campuses across the country as students opposed to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza demand universities support a ceasefire or divest from companies tied to Israel. Police have used force to remove protesters at Columbia University, Emory University, and the universities of Arizona, Utah, and South Florida, among others.
At UCLA, student protesters set up a tent encampment on April 25 in a grassy plaza outside the campus’s Royce Hall theater, eventually drawing thousands of supporters, according to the Los Angeles Times. Days later, a “violent mob” of counterprotesters “attacked the camp,” the Times reported, attempting to tear down barricades along its borders and throwing fireworks at the tents inside.
The following night, police issued an unlawful assembly order, then swept the encampment in the early hours of May 2, clearing tents and arresting hundreds by dawn.
Police have been widely criticized for not intervening as the clash between protesters and counterprotesters dragged on for hours. The University of California system announced it has hired an independent policing consultant to investigate the violence and “resolve unanswered questions about UCLA’s planning and protocols, as well as the mutual aid response.”
Charlotte Austin, 34, a surgery resident, said that as counterprotesters were attacking she also saw about 10 private campus security officers stand by, “hands in their pockets,” as students were bashed and bloodied.
Austin said she treated patients with cuts to the face and possible skull fractures. The medical tent sent at least 20 people to the hospital that evening, she said.
“Any medical professional would describe these as serious injuries,” Austin said. “There were people who required hospitalization — not just a visit to the emergency room — but actual hospitalization.” Police Tactics ‘Lawful but Awful’
UCLA protesters are far from the first to be injured by less lethal projectiles.
In recent years, police across the U.S. have repeatedly fired these weapons at protesters, with virtually no overarching standards governing their use or safety. Cities have spent millions to settle lawsuits from the injured. Some of the wounded have never been the same.
During the nationwide protests following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, at least 60 protesters sustained serious injuries — including blinding and a broken jaw — from being shot with these projectiles, sometimes in apparent violations of police department policies, according to a joint investigation by KFF Health News and USA TODAY.
“They’re called less lethal for a reason,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief of Redlands, California, who now leads the Future Policing Institute. “They can kill you.”
Bueermann, who reviewed video footage of the police response at UCLA at the request of KFF Health News, said the footage shows California Highway Patrol officers firing beanbag rounds from a shotgun. Bueermann said the footage did not provide enough context to determine if the projectiles were being used “reasonably,” which is a standard established by federal courts, or being fired “indiscriminately,” which was outlawed by a California law in 2021.
“There is a saying in policing — ‘lawful but awful’ — meaning that it was reasonable under the legal standards but it looks terrible,” Bueermann said. “And I think a cop racking multiple rounds into a shotgun, firing into protesters, doesn’t look very good.”
This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
EDF secures 'green' financing for extended operation of reactors
French utility EDF has signed green bank loans for a total amount of about EUR5.8 billion (USD6.3 billion), which will be used to finance the life extension of its existing nuclear power plant fleet in France.
The Tricastin plant comprises four 900 MWe PWRs (Image: EDF/Toma/M Hake)
The loans - which have maturities of between 3 and 5 years - have been arranged with major international banks, including BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Crédit Agricole CIB, ING, Natixis CIB, Société Générale and Wells Fargo.
EDF announced its Grand Carénage life extension programme for the existing fleet in France in 2011. Under this investment programme, the company planned to spend around EUR55 billion by 2025 on upgrading its plants to improve their performance and enable their continued operation beyond 40 years. The programme also includes safety upgrades in response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan.
The investment was optimised and revised to EUR45 billion in 2018, and in 2020 EDF adjusted the programme's cost to EUR49.4 billion.
A green bilateral loan worth EUR1 billion was announced by EDF and Credit Agricole CIB in November 2022.
EDF noted that the investments in the extension of the operation of its reactors "are aligned with the European taxonomy".
In July 2022, the European Parliament voted to include certain nuclear and gas activities within the European Union's list of officially approved "green" investments.
In February 2021, the country's nuclear safety regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), set the conditions for the continued operation of EDF's 900 MWe reactors beyond 40 years. The regulator said it considered the measures planned by EDF combined with those prescribed by ASN will ensure the safety of the units for a further 10 years of operation.
In August 2023, unit 1 of the Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France became the first French power reactor licensed to operate beyond 40 years.
EDF operates three pressurised water reactor designs, known as the 900 MWe, the 1300 MWe and the 1450 MWe N4. Its 32 operating 900 MWe reactors came into commercial operation between 1977 and 1988, and include the oldest of the country's current nuclear fleet. Such reactors are in operation at EDF's Blayais, Bugey, Chinon, Cruas-Meysse, Dampierre, Gravelines, Saint-Laurent and Tricastin nuclear power plants.
ASN said the improvements and measures will be applied to each reactor individually during their fourth periodic safety reviews, scheduled to run until 2031. These reviews will take the particularities of each facility into account, it said. The measures planned by EDF for each reactor will be subject to a public inquiry.
13 May 2024
Authorisation issued for Flamanville EPR commissioning
08 May 2024
France's nuclear regulator has authorised the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR reactor, which has a summer 2024 target for connection to the grid.
Flamanville (Image: Screengrab from EDF/Youtube)
The authorisation from the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) means EDF can now load nuclear fuel into the reactor and carry out start-up tests and then operation of the reactor. Within hours of the authorisation being announced EDF said it had begun to load nuclear fuel assemblies into the reactor vessel - adding that it would take several days to load the 241 fuel assemblies.
The ASN decision follows a public consultation which ran from 27 March until 17 April.
ASN issued technical requirements alongside the authorisation saying it would supervise the performance and monitoring of installation start-up tests after fuel loading and also specify methods for acting on feedback from other EPR-type reactors around the world. The first EPR units came online at Taishan in China, where unit 1 became the first EPR to enter commercial operation in 2018 followed by Taishan 2 in September 2019. In Europe, Olkiluoto 3 in Finland entered commercial operation in 2023 and two units are under construction at Hinkley Point C in the UK.
Construction work began in December 2007 on the 1650 MWe unit at the Flamanville site in Normandy - where two reactors have been operating since 1986 and 1987. The dome of the reactor building was put in place in July 2013 and the reactor vessel was installed in January 2014. The reactor was originally expected to start commercial operation in 2013. In December 2022 the total cost at completion of the project was estimated by EDF to be EUR13.2 billion (USD14.2 billion).
China and France aim to strengthen nuclear energy cooperation
09 May 2024
China's CGN and France's EDF have signed a Letter of Intent on deepening and expanding cooperation on nuclear energy - it came as President Emmanuel Macron hosted a visit to France by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
(Image: China Xinhua News/X)
Acording to the Chinese Foreign Ministry report on the talks, President Xi said the two countries should step up cooperation in a number of areas, including "nuclear energy, innovation and finance", with President Macron responding that France was "ready to step up cooperation with China" in areas including "nuclear energy for civilian use".
During the visit there were a number of business cooperation agreements outlined, with the Letter of Intent on Deepening Related Cooperation in the Nuclear Energy Field signed by Yang Changli, Chairman of China General Nuclear (CGN), and EDF Chairman and CEO Luc Raymond.
According to CGN the letter of intent means "the two parties will further expand and strengthen cooperation in aspects such as nuclear power engineering construction, talent training, EPR operations and leadership training in the field of nuclear power operations to achieve common development".
CGN and EDF have worked together over many years, dating back to the Daya Bay nuclear power plant's construction, which began in the 1980s, and CGN said that deepening and expanding cooperation areas "is of great significance to the development of civil nuclear energy in both countries and the business development of the two groups".
China and France are two of the world's biggest generators of nuclear energy, with both having large-scale plans to expand capacity in the coming years. According to World Nuclear Association figures, both countries currently have 56 operable reactors. China's have a capacity of 54 GW and it has 27 more reactors under construction which would provide 28.9 GW more capacity. France currently has 61 GW nuclear energy capacity, with one more 1.6 GW reactor under construction.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
Monday, May 13, 2024
Campaigners say “no thanks – no more nukes” outside US embassy in London
“It’s absolutely essential that we are not participating in a further nuclear escalation. Our view is no more U.S. nuclear weapons, no thanks.”
Kate Hudson, CND General Secretary
Labour Outlook’s Sam Browse reports from this weekend’s demonstration against US nuclear weapons at Lakenheath.
On Saturday, to music and song, demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms, London, to send a clear message that new US nuclear weapons are not welcome in the UK.
The protest follows the announcement that US nuclear weapons would be returning to the UK after campaigners had successfully pushed for their removal in 2008.
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the organisers of the demonstration, told Labour Outlook, “we’re here today, outside the US embassy, to say that we don’t want US nukes to come back to Britain. We know that later in the year, most likely, they’re going to be bringing nuclear weapons to Lakenheath airbase in East Anglia. That’s a disaster for the local community, but it’s not just a local or regional issue; this is something that affects the whole of Britain because those nuclear weapons put us on the US nuclear frontline in any war that they are conducting and it makes not only Lakenheath but the whole of Britain a target.”
“At a time when we have two conflicts in the world, in Ukraine and Gaza, where nuclear weapons are a factor – where nuclear weapons could be used – it’s absolutely essential that we are not participating in a further nuclear escalation.”
“Our view is no nuclear weapons, no more U.S. nuclear weapons, no thanks.”
Lindsey German, the convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, told the gathered audience “we need to get across how severe this threat is and how much our government and the United States are escalating the threat of nuclear war”.
“When you think what they’re trying to do at Lakenheath, they’re trying to bring back nuclear weapons that we got rid of in 2008 – and that was a great victory for the movement. We need to remember these victories, but we shouldn’t let them bring back nuclear weapons by stealth”.
Jess Barnard, a peace activist and member of Labour’s NEC, told the crowd, “I can’t think of a more urgent time for us to be resisting allowing the UK to be a pawn for the US war machine. As bombs continue to rain down on Gaza and we are witnessing the crime of genocide being committed against Palestinians, the UK and the US who have continued to arm Israel will forever be remembered for their complicity.”
Jess Barnard, Labour NEC members’ representative addresses the CND demonstration outside the US embassy on May 11th, 2024. Photo credit: Labour Outlook
“Just yesterday the US conceded its weapons may have been used to commit war crimes against the Palestinian people. We have to say ‘enough is enough’. What more evidence do we need that the UK should not allow the US to put us on the nuclear frontline?”
However, she also had strong words for the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer: “the words of the Labour leader and his appalling record on defending the rights of Palestinians do not represent Labour members or the kind of government a Labour government should strive to be. They do not represent the world we should aspire to be a part of.”
Campaigners also made connections between nuclear weapons and the dash for nuclear power, with Sam Mason, coordinator of the Climate Justice Coalition trade union caucus, pointing to how both domestic and military nuclear programmes were interlinked. Shigeo Kobayashi of Japanese Against a Nuclear UK, similarly argued “we cannot assume that there will be no more nuclear accidents. Nuclear power is currently neither green nor cheap”. The campaign organise regular vigils outside the Japanese Embassy in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.
As today’s speakers reminded us, we must continue to demand a nuclear-free world, and say loudly and clearly: no to new nukes in the UK!
Sam Browse is a regular columnist for Labour Outlook and an organiser of Arise Festival. You can follow Sam on Twitter/X here.
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The Tricastin plant comprises four 900 MWe PWRs (Image: EDF/Toma/M Hake)
Flamanville (Image: Screengrab from EDF/Youtube)
(Image: China Xinhua News/X)
