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Australia’s Case for Fossil Fuels Weakens as Solar and Wind Set Records

Rob Verdonck, Bloomberg News

Jul 2, 2021

Installation of solar panels on a rooftop in Sydney. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Solar and wind power are continuing to set records in Australia, pushing down electricity prices and reducing the profitability of fossil fuel generation.

Wind last year overtook natural gas in power generation for the first time, and together with solar helped cut wholesale prices to their lowest since 2015, the Australian Energy Regulator said Friday in its annual State of the Energy Market report. A record 2.5 gigawatts of rooftop solar entered the National Electricity Market, which covers most of the nation, further eroding the margins of fossil fuel plants.

“When rooftop solar PV generation is high in the middle of the day, the demand for electricity from the grid falls significantly,” AER said. “This phenomenon drives down prices at these times, challenging the economics and operating capability of coal fired generators, which are not engineered to run at low levels of output.”

About 27% of buildings in Australia had solar systems on their roofs at the end of 2020, the highest proportion in the world, according to figures from BNEF. The high uptake led to a record 3,662 instances of negative prices in the NEM, according to Friday’s report.

Wholesale power prices in the NEM’s regions fell by 23% to 58% from 2019, with the average annual price slipping below A$70 ($52) a megawatt-hour for the first time since 2015.

Australia’s pro fossil-fuel government has pushed for a gas-fired recovery and said in May that it would spend A$600 million on a new gas power plant to help replace aging coal-fired ones after utilities declined to do so by the deadline.

Coal remains the nation’s biggest provider of electricity, good for almost two-thirds of the total, although the competitiveness of coal and gas power is increasingly on the wane, according to Friday’s report.

“The substantial cost reductions for wind and solar technologies have made them the most economic options for new build generation and competitive with the operational costs of the current fleet of conventional generators,” it said.

However, the energy transition has weakened system strength in the NEM and “market interventions to maintain system security have risen sharply in recent years, at significant cost to consumers, according to Friday’s report. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s use of directions to manage security were in place for more than a third of the year.

“As the generation mix changes, new approaches are needed to provide essential system services,” according to the report, which highlighted technology solutions including spinning machines and batteries.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Canadian institute launches nuclear hydrogen feasibility study

WNN 11 June 2021

A Canadian innovation organisation has launched a new study into the role of nuclear power in supporting a growing hydrogen economy. The Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII) study will be the first of its kind in Canada to evaluate the technical viability and business case for hydrogen production from emissions-free nuclear power.

(Image: NII)

Work on the study will be led by design, engineering and consultancy company Arcadis, supported by NII and project partners Bruce Power and Greenfield Global. Bruce is a founding members of Ontario-based NII, a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2018 as a platform for accelerating innovation in the Canadian nuclear industry.

"Hydrogen is poised to play a key role in a net-zero future," David Campbell, director of NII's Bruce Power Centre for Next Generation Nuclear, said. "This project will provide a unique exploration of how nuclear power can provide the clean, affordable hydrogen that Ontario will need to continue decarbonizing our economy."

The new study will continue the Centre for Next Generation Nuclear's research into the potential for hydrogen production and use in Ontario, and will investigate the viability of a local pilot project to demonstrate the economics of the technology, in preparation for the rapid growth of the hydrogen economy. It aims to explore the "significant benefits" a hydrogen project could bring to the region, including new export opportunities, trade partnerships between local vendors, and the creation of high-paying jobs. The study will also benefit governments "at all levels" as they work on their own hydrogen strategies, the NII said.

The Canadian government last year launched its Hydrogen Strategy for Canada to spur investment and partnerships to establish Canada as a global supplier of hydrogen. That strategy sees low-carbon and zero-emission hydrogen fuel technology as a key part of the nation's path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Bruce County is "well positioned" to advance the hydrogen economy, the organisations said.

"Thanks to Bruce Power and the nuclear industry, Ontario has a deeply decarbonised electricity system," Bruce Power President and CEO Mike Rencheck said. "We can leverage that system as a competitive advantage to attract new investment in innovation and to decarbonise other sectors of the economy through the production and use of hydrogen as a clean fuel alternative."

Bruce Power previously announced a 2021 initiative to evaluate the opportunity for mass production of hydrogen using nuclear technology and opportunities for alignment with the oil and gas, transportation and electricity generation sectors. Utlilising nuclear power generation for clean fuels and transportation, including a national hydrogen and clean fuels strategy, is one of the five pillars in the company's NZ-2050 strategy to contribute to a net-zero Canada while growing the economy and supporting innovation.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Cameco evacuates Cigar Lake as wildfire precaution

WNN 02 July 2021

Production at Cigar Lake has been suspended and Cameco is evacuating all non-essential personnel from the uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan as a precaution due to the proximity of a nearby wildfire. Some 230 workers are being transported off site, the company said yesterday, with about 80 essential personnel remaining on-site to maintain the facility in a safe state.

Cigar Lake (Image: Cameco)

"Should the wildfire threat grow considerably at site, a plan is in place to ensure their safety," Cameco said. The decision to evacuate was made in conjunction with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.

The situation is complicated by extremely warm, dry weather, resulting from the 'heat dome' that has settled over western Canada in recent days, along with variable wind and smoke conditions, the company said. Precautions have been implemented at Cigar Lake to limit the risk posed by the wildfire, and Cameco is working closely with provincial wildfire management personnel from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, who are on-site assessing the situation on an ongoing basis.

Cigar Lake is the world's highest grade uranium mine and has produced a total of over
93 million pounds U3O8 since it was commissioned in 2014. Ore from Cigar Lake is processed at the McClean Lake mill, 70 kilometres from the mine, which is operated by Orano. Uranium production at Cigar Lake was suspended due to restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic for five months from March 2020, and for a second time in December, resuming in April.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Nuclear energy faces hurdles to be included in clean energy investments

WNN 02 July 2021

Nuclear energy has been excluded from the UK government's Green Financing Framework, while several EU Member States have written to the European Commission to oppose nuclear's inclusion in the bloc's green taxonomy.

The UK's Green Financing Framework describes how the government plans to finance expenditures through the issuance of green gilts and the retail Green Savings Bonds that it says will be critical in tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. The framework, which was produced and published yesterday by the Treasury, sets out the basis for identification, selection, verification and reporting of the green projects that are eligible for such financing.

Under 'exclusions', the document says: "Recognising that many sustainable investors have exclusionary criteria in place around nuclear energy, the UK government will not finance any nuclear energy-related expenditures under the Framework."

It adds: "The UK government, however, recognises that reaching net zero emissions will require all energy to be delivered to consumers in zero-carbon forms and be derived from low-carbon sources. Nuclear power is, and will continue to be, a key part of the UK’s low-carbon energy mix alongside solar and wind generation and carbon capture and storage. All these technologies are important in tackling climate change and diversifying the UK’s supply, contributing to the UK’s energy security and sustainable growth."

The Framework aligns with the 2021 International Capital Market Association Green Bond Principles.

"To enable investors to follow the progress and positive impact delivered," the Treasury said it intends to publish an allocation report on its Eligible Green Expenditures on an annual basis and an impact report setting out the environmental impacts and social benefits at least biennially.

The UK is also in the process of developing its own 'green taxonomy'.

Germany-led opposition

Meanwhile, a group of five EU Member States, led by Germany, have written to the European Commission asking for nuclear energy to remain excluded from the EU Taxonomy on Sustainable Finance.

Their letter follows the assessment of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), whose mission is to support EU policies with independent evidence throughout the whole policy cycle, that nuclear energy does no more harm to human health or the environment than any other power-producing technology considered to be sustainable.

The letter - signed by the environment or energy ministers of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain - points to “shortcomings” in the JRC report, which was published in April.

The ministers said the JRC's conclusion was "a misconception" and based on "two grave methodological shortcomings".

The JRC "neglects to address the residual nuclear risk, assessing only the normal operation of nuclear power plants" and "disregards the life-cycle approach", according to the ministers.

"We recognise the sovereign right of Member States to decide for or against nuclear power as part of their national energy systems. However, we are concerned that including nuclear power in the Taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness," they wrote.

The two expert groups tasked by the European Commission with the review of the JRC report on the sustainability of nuclear energy published their assessments today. They are here and here.

The Article 31 group largely agrees with the conclusions of the JRC report, while the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks recognises its own lack of the requisite expertise to conduct this assessment but raises some concerns about the conclusions of the JRC report.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Germany leads call to keep nuclear out of EU green finance taxonomy

By Frédéric Simon | EURACTIV.com
Jul 2, 2021 

“We are concerned that including nuclear power in the Taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness,” warns the letter, signed by German environment minister Svenja Schulze and four colleagues from other EU member states. [EPA-EFE/MAJA HITIJ]

A group of five EU member states led by Germany have sent a letter to the European Commission asking for nuclear energy to be kept out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

The letter – signed by the environment or energy ministers of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain – points to “shortcomings” in a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre published on 2 April, which concluded that nuclear energy is safe.

“Nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s ‘do no significant harm’ principle,” the ministers wrote, urging the Commission to keep nuclear out of the EU’s green finance rules.

“We are concerned that including nuclear power in the taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness,” they warned.

The letter is undated but EURACTIV understands it was sent to the Commission on Wednesday (30 June). Signatories include: Svenja Schulze (Germany), Leonore Gewessler (Austria), Dan Jørgensen and Simon Kollerup (Denmark), Carole Dieschbourg (Luxembourg), Teresa Ribera Rodríguez and Nadia Calviño Santamaría (Spain).

It argues that the European Commission’s assessment of the safety of nuclear power installations is flawed.

“We were disconcerted to learn that in the opinion of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), there were no indications that the high-risk technology that is nuclear power is more damaging to human health and to the environment than other forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar energy,” the ministers wrote.

“Nuclear power, however, is a high-risk technology – wind energy is not. This essential difference must be taken into account,” they insisted, saying the Commission report deliberately ignored the possibility of a serious incident.

The European Commission’s in-house scientific body, the Joint Research Centre, released its much-awaited report on nuclear power on 2 April, just before the Easter break.

Its conclusions were clear: nuclear power is a safe, low-carbon energy source comparable to wind and hydropower, and as such, it qualifies for a green investment label under the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

“The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies,” the JRC report said.

LEAK: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label

Experts tasked with assessing whether the European Union should label nuclear power as a green investment will say that the fuel qualifies as sustainable, according to a leaked document.

Nuclear energy advocates saw the report as a green light for a potential nuclear renaissance in Europe and called on the European Commission to take the necessary steps to include nuclear in the taxonomy.

A green investment label under the EU taxonomy would lower the cost of new nuclear projects, said Jessica Johnson, communications director at Foratom, the trade association representing the nuclear industry in Brussels.

But the five EU countries dispute this, saying the inclusion of nuclear in the taxonomy would undermine its credibility.

“Many savers and investors would lose faith in financial products marketed as ‘sustainable’ if they had to fear that by buying these products they would be financing activities in the area of nuclear power,” the ministers warned.

In addition, the letter said the JRC report also “disregards the life-cycle approach” to environmental risk assessment when it comes to geological storage of nuclear waste.

“After more than 60 years of using nuclear power, not one single fuel element has been permanently disposed of anywhere in the world,” the letter pointed out, saying there is currently “no operational experience with deep geological repositories for high active waste”.

Nuclear faces ‘a lot of uncertainty’ as EU green evaluation looms

The industry is growing increasingly nervous about European Commission plans to evaluate the safety of radioactive waste handling as an expert report is expected next month on how to classify nuclear energy under the EU’s green finance taxonomy.


The European Commission had three months to submit the JRC report to the scrutiny of two expert committees – the first on radiation protection and waste management under Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty, and the second on environmental impact by the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks.

Those evaluations are expected to be made public today.

They will be “rigorous,” an EU spokesperson told EURACTIV at the time, saying that “the credibility of this assessment is crucial.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]


> Read the full letter download here.

Germany, four others oppose classing nuclear as green in EU
Reuters

View of the reactor of the nuclear power plant that will be dismantled in Muelheim-Kaerlich, Germany, May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen

BERLIN, July 2 (Reuters) - Germany has gathered support from four European Union countries around its opposition to classifying nuclear energy as "green" and sustainable for investment purposes, a letter to the Commission seen by Reuters on Friday showed.

By making green investments more visible to investors in its new rule book, or taxonomy, Brussels hopes, from next year, to help steer huge sums of private capital into activities that support EU climate goals. read more

Spain, Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg joined Germany in saying investors concerned about nuclear waste storage could lose confidence in financial products labelled green if they included nuclear energy without their knowledge.

"We worry that including nuclear power in the taxonomy will damage its integrity and credibility, and therefore its usefulness," the countries' ministers said, adding that every EU country has the right to choose its own form of energy.

Countries like nuclear-reliant France and some eastern European states favour nuclear because it emits no climate-harming carbon.

The Commission has published climate-related criteria for green investments ranging from building renovations to the manufacture of cement, steel and batteries.

The nuclear issue, which is being dealt with separately, finds mixed responses even inside the Commission. The letter cited the fact that the question of final nuclear waste storage is not yet clarified.

Germany, already committed to phasing out nuclear energy 20 years ago over safety concerns, responded to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan by accelerating its national exit scheme for reactors. read more

Impact of nuclear energy needs more study before getting green label, EU told

Kate Abnett Simon Jessop
July 2, 2021

A mustard field is seen in front of the cooling towers of the Temelin nuclear power plant near the South Bohemian city of Tyn nad Vltavou April 12, 2014. REUTERS/David W Cerny/Files


BRUSSELS, July 2 (Reuters) - The European Union should do more research on the potential harm caused by nuclear power before deciding whether to label it as a sustainable investment, one of the two expert committees tasked with assessing the fuel's green credentials said on Friday.

Brussels is mulling a decision on whether to include nuclear energy in its sustainable finance taxonomy, a list of economic activities that will from next year define which can be labelled as green investments.

The EU's science arm said in March that nuclear power should get a green label.

However, given disagreement among other experts over whether its low CO2 emissions make up for a lack of analysis on the environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal, two expert committees were later tasked with scrutinising its findings.

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On Friday, environment experts on the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) said they backed many of the initial report's findings, but were concerned about others.

To be considered green, activities must "do no significant harm" to specific environmental aims, yet SCHEER said the original report had instead considered whether nuclear would "do less harm" than other energy technologies.

"It is the opinion of the SCHEER that the comparative approach is not sufficient to ensure 'no significant harm'," it said in its report, posted on the Commission's website.

The second report, from a group of experts on radiation protection and waste management, was broadly supportive of the original findings.

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The Commission said it will now follow up on the findings of both expert reports.

"The inclusion of nuclear in the taxonomy regulation has been subject of intense debate," a spokesperson said in emailed comments.

"While nuclear energy is consistently acknowledged as a low-carbon energy source, opinions differ notably on the potential impact on other environmental objectives, such as the environmental impact of nuclear waste."

EU countries are split over nuclear energy, with some, including France, Hungary and Poland, in favour of the fuel, while others, including Austria, oppose it.
Editing by Jan Harvey

Our Standards: The Thomson

Climate change is killing us

By Max Fawcett | Opinion | July 2nd 2021

NATIONAL OBSERVER

A Salvation Army EMS vehicle is set up as a cooling station as people line up to get into a splash park while trying to beat the heat in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, June 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

The small town of Lytton, British Columbia, has always been one of the hottest places in Canada. But this week, with the temperature hitting a high of 49.6 C, it’s one of the hottest in the world — and it’s giving the rest of the country a preview of what our climate future might look like. In the midst of a brutal heat wave that has engulfed the Pacific Northwest this week, and killed nearly 500 people already in Canada alone, Lytton’s record-breaking heat and the subsequent wildfire that destroyed much of the town and surrounding First Nations stands out as a terrifying reminder of just how deadly-serious climate change can be.

B.C. Premier John Horgan seems to need that reminder more than most. Earlier this week, he told reporters that “fatalities are a part of life,” a comment that he was forced to walk back almost immediately. But this heat wave is another indication that climate-driven fatalities are going to be an even bigger part of our lives going forward. And as bad as it is in places like Kamloops and Lytton, it’s worse in other parts of the world. Take the approximately 200,000 people living in Jacobabad, Pakistan, where, as The Telegraph’s Ben Farmer wrote, “its mixture of heat and humidity has made it one of only two places on Earth to have now officially passed, albeit briefly, a threshold hotter than the human body can withstand.” That list of places is sure to grow in the years and decades to come, and while Canada won’t be on it any time soon, we will have to contend with the impact of hotter and more humid summers.

Vancouver's scorching hot temperatures this week were hard on people and pets. Devon O'Donnell kept her cats cool with wet towels frozen in the fridge. Photo courtesy of Devon O'Donnell


Unfortunately, the worst may be yet to come for Western Canadians with this particular heat wave. That’s because B.C. and Alberta’s forests getting put under the broiler has massively increased the risk of forest fires, which could very quickly send Jason Kenney’s “best summer ever” up in smoke. As Yan Boulanger, a forest ecologist for Natural Resources Canada, told the Canadian Press, Western Canada’s wildfire risk maps are “extremely extreme right now.”

Once this so-called “heat dome” lifts and we can all get back to thinking a bit more clearly, we need to ask some pointed questions about how we’re going to adapt to this new normal — and what it means for climate policy going forward. The federal government’s decision to move up the timeline on the phaseout of fossil fuel vehicle sales by five years, to 2035 from 2040, is a step in the right direction. But it should be clear to all but the most stubborn holdouts that we need to be taking bounds, not steps, if we’re going to get ahead of this slow-motion disaster.



Two bodies discovered in the small town north of Hope
By Nick Wells | News, Politics | July 4th 2021Wildfires

That means a hard stop on catering to climate skeptics who have retrenched from outright denial to now accepting the science but ignoring its conclusions. They will point to China or the United States or some other actor’s behaviour as an example of why we don’t need to act decisively, move quickly or behave boldly. And while it might be tempting to assume the evidence right in front of our sweating faces will be enough to convince them to abandon this sort of climate filibustering, it’s far more likely they will double down on their logical fallacy of choice. If they insist on living in the past, so be it.

It will be left to the rest of us to push the broader climate conversation past promises about net-zero emissions targets that are 20 or 30 years in the future and focus far more on what we can do today to actually reach them. We’re at the point where that doesn’t just mean other people making sacrifices. We all have to entertain the possibility of changes to our own lives, whether it’s giving up some long-distance travel, getting rid of a car, or finding ways to use less energy.

The choice on the table isn’t between making sacrifices and maintaining the status quo, much as some people might want to believe otherwise. It’s between making relatively small sacrifices now or much bigger ones in the future — or worse, saddling our children and grandchildren with our sorry legacy. The sooner we come to terms with the reality we’ve helped create, the better we’ll be able to adapt. If there’s one thing that’s a near-certainty, it’s that the records getting broken this week won’t be the last of their kind.

Scientists call Northwest heatwave the 'most extreme in world weather records'
Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
July 04, 2021

U.S. government scientists concluded in a new report that last month was the hottest June on record. (Photo: Angelo Juan Ramos/Flickr/cc)

A pair of climate scientists on Thursday said the record-high temperatures that have ravaged the northwestern U.S. and western Canada over the past week—killing hundreds and sparking dozens of wildfires—represent the "world's most extreme heatwave in modern history."

"It's not hype or exaggeration to call the past week's heatwave the most extreme in world weather records."
—Bob Henson, Jeff Masters

"Never in the century-plus history of world weather observation have so many all-time heat records fallen by such a large margin than in the past week's historic heatwave in western North America," meteorologist Bob Henson and former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane scientist Jeff Masters wrote for Yale Climate Connections.
Chris 

"It's not hype or exaggeration to call the past week's heatwave the most extreme in world weather records," they argued. "The only heatwave that compares is the great Dust Bowl heatwave of July 1936 in the U.S. Midwest and south-central Canada. But even that cannot compare to what happened in the Northwest U.S. and western Canada over the past week."

In British Columbia, the chief coroner said her office has received nearly 500 reports of "sudden and unexpected" deaths since last Friday, many of which are believed to be connected to the record temperatures that the region has suffered in recent days.

Residents of the small British Columbia village of Lytton—which on Tuesday recorded Canada's all-time high temperature of 121°F—were forced to evacuate Wednesday as a wildfire ripped through the area and quickly engulfed the small town, destroying homes and buildings.

"Our poor little town of Lytton is gone," Edith Loring-Kuhanga, an administrator at a local school, wrote in a Facebook post. "Our community members have lost everything."
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Henson and Masters called Lytton—90% of which was burned—the "poster community" of the "horrific" heatwave.

Weather historian Christopher Burt told the two scientists that "this is the most anomalous regional extreme heat event to occur anywhere on Earth since temperature records began."

"Nothing can compare," Burt added.


To emphasize the "extremity of this event," Henson and Masters highlighted just some of the temperature records that have fallen in Canada and the United States since late last week.

Portland, Oregon, broke its longstanding all-time record high (107°F from 1965 and 1981) on three days in a row—a stunning feat for any all-time record—with highs of 108°F on Saturday, June 26; 112°F on Sunday; and 116°F on Monday. That 116°F is one degree higher than the average daily high on June 28 at Death Valley, California.

Quillayute, Washington, broke its official all-time high by a truly astonishing 11°F, after hitting 110°F on Monday (old record: 99°F on August 9, 1981). Quillayute is located near the lush Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula, just three miles from the Pacific Ocean, and receives an average of 100 inches of precipitation per year.

Jasper, Alberta, broke its all-time high of 36.7°C (98.1°F) on four days in a row, June 27-30, with highs of 37.3°C, 39.0°C, 40.3°C, and 41.1°C (99.1°F, 102.2°F, 104.5°F, and 106°F).

All-time state highs were tied in Washington (118°F at Dallesport) and set in Oregon (118°F at Hermiston, beating the reliable record of 117°F), and provincial highs were smashed in British Columbia (49.6°C [121.3°F] at Lytton, beating 39.1°C [102.4°F]) and Northwest Territories (39.9°C [103.8°F] at Fort Smith, beating 31.7°C [89.1°F]).

"Preliminary data from NOAA's U.S. Records website shows that 55 U.S. stations had the highest temperatures in their history in the week ending June 28," Henson and Masters wrote. "More than 400 daily record highs were set. Over the past year, the nation has experienced about 38,000 daily record highs versus about 18,500 record lows, consistent with the 2:1 ratio of hot to cold records set in recent years."

Scientists have long predicted that heatwaves of the kind that are scorching the Northwestern U.S. and Canada will become more frequent and intense across the globe as the planet continues to warm due to the continued emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

"Nowhere is safe... who would have predicted a temperature of 48/49°C [118.4°F/120.2°F] in British Columbia?" Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser in the United Kingdom, said in an interview with The Guardian. "The risks have been understood and known for so long and we have not acted, now we have a very narrow timeline for us to manage the problem."

 

Scientists reconstruct Mediterranean silver trade, from Trojan War to Roman Republic

GOLDSCHMIDT CONFERENCE

Research News

IMAGE: A HACKSILBER HOARD DATED TO THE MIDDLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY BCE FOUND BY THE LEON LEVY EXPEDITION TO ASHKELON. view more 

CREDIT: WE ARE GRATEFUL TO L. E. STAGER AND D. MASTER, DIRECTORS OF THE LEON LEVY EXPEDITION TO ASHKELON, AND TO D. T. ARIEL, FOR ALLOWING US TO PUBLISH THESE PHOTOGRAPHS....

Scientists have reconstructed the Eastern Mediterranean silver trade, over a period including the traditional dates of the Trojan War, the founding of Rome, and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The team of French, Israeli and Australian scientists and numismatists found geochemical evidence for pre-coinage silver trade continuing throughout the Mediterranean during the Late Bronze and Iron Age periods, with the supply slowing only occasionally. Silver was sourced from the whole north-eastern Mediterranean, and as far away as the Iberian Peninsula.

The team used high-precision isotopic analysis to identify the ore sources of minute lead traces found in silver Hacksilber. Hacksilber is irregularly cut silver bullion including broken pieces of silver ingots and jewellery that served as means of payment in the southern Levant from the beginning of the second millennium until the fourth century BCE. Used in local and international transactions, its value was determined by weighing it on scales against standardized weights. It has been discovered in archaeological excavations in the region usually stored inside ceramic containers and it had to be imported as there was no silver to be mined in the Levant.

Presenting the research at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference, Dr. Liesel Gentelli said "Even before coinage there was international trade, and Hacksilber was one of the commodities being exchanged for goods".

The team analysed Hacksilber from 13 different sites dating from 1300 BCE to 586 BCE in the southern Levant, modern-day Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The samples included finds from 'En Gedi, Ekron, and Megiddo (also known as Armageddon). They matched their findings with ore samples, and have shown that most of the Hacksilber came from the Southern Aegean and Balkans (Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria). Some was also found to come from as far away as Sardinia and Spain.

Lead researcher Liesel Gentelli (École normale supérieure de Lyon, France) said:

"Previous researchers believed that silver trade had come to an end following the societal collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age, but our research shows that exchanges between especially the southern Levant and the Aegean world never came to a stop. People around the Eastern Mediterranean remained connected. It's likely that the silver flowed to the Levant as a result of trade or plunder.

We do see periods of silver scarcity around the time of the Bronze to Iron Age transition, around 1300-1100 BCE. Some hoards from this period show the silver displaying unusually high copper content, which would have been added to make up for the lack of silver.

We can't match our findings on the silver trade to specific historical events, but our analysis shows the importance of Hacksilber trade from before the Trojan War, which some scholars date to the early 12th century BCE, through the founding of Rome in 753 BCE, and up to the end of the Iron Age in 586 BCE, marked by Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. After that, we see the gradual introduction of coinage, first as finds of several archaic coins and later a transition to a monetary economy in the southern Levant circa 450 BCE which made the trade of Hacksilber less relevant. However, this work reveals the ongoing and crucial economic role that Hacksilber played in the Bronze and Iron Ages economies".

Commenting, Dr Matthew Ponting, Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Materials at the University of Liverpool said:

"This is important new work that confirms our understanding of trade and exchange routes in the Early Iron Age Levant. The fact that all silver found in the region would have had to have been imported presents exciting possibilities to investigate trade routes more generally as well as to learn more about alloy use and preference during this important period of history".

###

Dr Ponting was not involved in this work, this is an independent comment.

The Goldschmidt Conference is the World's main geochemistry conference. It is hosted alternately by the European Association of Geochemistry (Europe) and the Geochemical Society (USA). The 2021 conference (virtual) takes place from 4-9 July, https://2021.goldschmidt.info/. The 2022 conference takes place in Hawaii.