NDP leader says his party can help Nunavut in a minority government

‘We’re hoping we can use our leverage to force this government to do more,’ says Jagmeet Singh

 POLITICS  NOV 17, 2021 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh stands in front of a wall in the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit museum. Singh is in Iqaluit to push the federal government to spend $180 million to overhaul Iqaluit’s water infastructure. (Photo by David Lochead)

By David Lochead

NDP federal leader Jagmeet Singh is in Iqaluit this week pushing for the federal government to spend $180 million to address the city’s water emergency.

He’s also meeting with local leaders to discuss territorial issues like climate change and housing, and attend the NDP riding association’s annual general meeting.

Singh sat down with Nunatsiaq News during his visit to discuss his plan for helping MP Lori Idlout represent Nunavut.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Nunatsiaq News: How are you going to make new Nunavut NDP MP Lori Idlout feel comfortable in Parliament after the former Inuk and NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq said she did not feel like she belonged?

Singh: This is a House of Commons and parliamentary problem that has impacted lots of Indigenous and racialized people. I’m going to provide all the support I can. But one of the problems that is consistently raised is that when the institution does not fix the problem that it created, then that institution is sending a message that the people impacted do not belong. It is not enough for the Liberals to express concern. They’ve got the power to fix the problems, and when they do not it sends a message that the people impacted do not belong.

NN: Nunavut is a large territory and that brings its own challenges. How will you assist Idlout with the task of representing such a geographically spread-out riding?

Singh: We have other MPs that represent large ridings so they will be giving Lori support on how it can be done and how we can ensure resources get to communities. When you’ve got such a large [riding] as Lori does the House of Commons should provide additional support so MPs like Lori can provide the necessary resources to the communities she represents.

As well, I’ve come to Iqaluit is to assist Lori and to support a [riding] that has often been ignored. In the future, I plan to return to Nunavut and do a tour of the smaller communities.

NN: When would you plan to come back and visit the other communities?

Singh: It’s tentative but we’re planning for the spring or summer.

NN: Any idea what communities you would go to?

Singh: Not yet. Lori is excited about the idea and agrees that Nunavut gets ignored. I want to go to the smaller communities where people don’t often get an elected official coming to where they live.

NN: If the amount of seats in the House of Commons does expand should Nunavut become two ridings instead of one?

Singh: That’s something where I would talk with Lori and talk with Nunavummiut about and figure out what best meets their needs.

NN: How will Nunavummiut benefit from this minority government getting propped up?

Singh: The benefit is that when we have seen changes for the good in this country they have happened because of minority governments. A lot of things we’re proud of, like our universal health-care system and old age pension, happened in a minority government.

In this pandemic we were able to push a minority government to give more significant benefits to people: we increased CERB, we increased the wage subsidy, we got a paid sick leave program and we helped students in university not covered by CERB. We were able to bring in four major victories that made people’s lives better.

A minority government means the Liberals are going to need another party to get legislation passed. We’re hoping we can use our leverage to force this government to do more.

P.J. Akeeagok will be Nunavut’s new premier

Former QIA president defeats incumbent Joe Savikataaq and Health Minister Lorne Kusugak

 POLITICS  NOV 17, 2021 – 

P.J. Akeeagok won a three-way race to become Nunavut’s next premier, defeating incumbent Joe Savikataaq and Health Minister Lorne Kusugak on Wednesday. (Photo by Mélanie Ritchot)

By  Mélanie Ritchot

P.J Akeeagok has been named Nunavut’s new premier-elect after a three-way race on Wednesday.

“I’m very honoured,” he said, and then thanked his family, elders, and constituents after he was elected.

“I know there’s so much work to be done but I think we’re ready to pull up our sleeves and get to work.”

Akeeagok — a first-time MLA — and Health Minister Lorne Kusugak challenged the current premier, Joe Savikataaq, and spent the day trying to win MLAs’ votes on Wednesday.

The race was settled by secret ballots cast by the MLAs elected to the sixth legislative assembly by Nunavummiut.

Before MLAs voted, each nominee made a speech and answered questions from other members.

Hot topics included in-territory elder care, job creation through mining and decentralizing the Government of Nunavut, and housing.

Mental health resources and suicide prevention were also recurring topics brought up in MLAs’ questions.

Akeeagok referenced the Iqaluit high school students who walked into the lobby of the legislature on Tuesday to demand more resources.

“I want every one of them to know we heard you loud and clear,” he said, addressing the youth.

He compared the severity of suicide rates in Nunavut to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Governments were able to mobilize very quickly, they were able to provide support to ensure safety,” he said about the pandemic response. The response to suicide needs to be similar, he said.

“I will do everything in my power to bring tangible solutions to the issue.”

Akeeagok was the president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association for seven years until resigning to run in Nunavut’s Oct. 25 general election.

This experience came up when the nominees for premier debated how the Government of Nunavut should work with Inuit organizations to tackle issues, like the housing crisis, more effectively in the territory.

With Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., having recently passed a resolution to seek Inuit self government, and stating the GN has failed Inuit, Akeeagok said he’s looking forward to meeting with NTI executives soon, in an interview after he was elected.

“To really come openly and really listen in terms of where we could collaborate,” he said.

Akeeagok said two of his top priorities if elected would be addressing the housing shortage and elder care needs.

Throughout the candidate debate, Savikataaq relied on his track record and said his strength is being fair to all Nunavummiut and listening to all sides of issues.

He said giving him a second term would allow for consistency through the changing government.

“I’ve done the job, I’ve been doing the job,” Savikataaq said.

“There is no learning curve.”

Health Minister Kusugak spoke about the need for the next government to be proactive multiple times.

“This government has to stop being a reactionary government on very important issues such as child abuse, suicide, and other crimes to our women and children,” he said.

When the topic of decentralizing the GN to create jobs in small communities came up, Kusugak also suggested more remote jobs be made available to bring remote Nunavummiut into the workforce without needing to build local offices.

Tony Akoak, the MLA for Gjoa Haven, was elected as Speaker of the house at the beginning of Wednesday’s leadership forum.

On Wednesday evening, eight ministers will be chosen from the group of MLAs, also voted-in by their peers by secret ballot.

The premier-elect will assign ministers their portfolios in the coming days.

After the premier was chosen, the MLAs voted for the eight members who will form the cabinet.

They nominated 16 of their peers, including six newcomers, to become ministers, forcing more voting to narrow the field to eight.

Seven ministers were voted in on first ballots.

After MLAs picked Akeeagok to be premier, they voted for the eight MLAs who will form the cabinet.

MLAs nominated 16 of their peers, including six newcomers to cabinet, to be ministers.

Seven ministers were voted-in on the first ballots.

But four more ballots were needed to narrow down who got the last seat in cabinet, with Aggu’s MLA Joanna Quassa, breaking the stalemate.

The fifth ballot came down to Solomon Malliki Joanna Quassa, Premier Savikataaq.

Nunavut’s eight incoming cabinet ministers are:

• Adam Arreak Lightstone
• David Akeeagok
• Pamela Gross
• Lorne Kusugak
• John Main
• David Joanasie
• Margaret Nakashuk
• Joanna Quassa

Pamela Gross, the MLA for Cambridge Bay, and Aggu’s Joanna Quassa, are the only first-time MLAs in the cabinet and are among the four women chosen for ministerial positions.

It’s up to Akeeagok, as premier-elect, to assign ministers their portfolios in the coming days. MLAs will be officially sworn-in to their roles on Friday.

 

Former nuclear reactor space in Saskatoon gets the all-clear

By Thomas Piller  Global News

Posted November 17, 2021 

View image in full screen

SLOWPOKE-2 nuclear research reactor was used for doing neutron activation analysis to determine elemental concentrations for various industries. 

Saskatchewan Research Council / Supplied

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The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) says its nuclear research reactor in Saskatoon has been safely decommissioned and the space could now be used for regular office use.

The Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment (SLOWPOKE-2) reactor was commissioned in March 1981.

READ MORE: Saskatchewan eyes small nuclear reactor advancements with 3 other provinces

Officials said the multi-year transition involved defuelling the reactor and transporting the shoebox-sized uranium core to the United States.

“SLOWPOKE-2 leaves a strong legacy in Saskatchewan and proves, now more than ever, that nuclear is safe, reliable and sustainable,” Minister Responsible for SRC Jeremy Harrison said in a press release on Wednesday.

“This is another example of SRC demonstrating leadership and expertise.”

SLOWPOKE-2 was used for doing neutron activation analysis to determine uranium and other elemental concentrations for various industries. Throughout its lifespan, the reactor conducted nearly 240,000 analytical tests.

1:49Experts weigh in on possibility of nuclear energy in Saskatchewan

Experts weigh in on possibility of nuclear energy in Saskatchewan – Feb 18, 2021

Officials said, over the past years, testing had decreased and newer technologies were adopted at SRC’s facility in Saskatoon.

“SRC is incredibly proud of the role our SLOWPOKE-2 played in adding value to the province by performing analytical testing for industry for the past 38 years,” SRC president and CEO Mike Crabtree said in a statement.

“This hands-on experience with the SLOWPOKE-2 can be applied to emerging nuclear technology, such as small modular reactors, as we consider how to power our future.”

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has officially deemed the decommissioning complete, according to officials.

 

The impact of flowering plants on the evolution of life on Earth

by University of Bristol

The evolution of modern plants and animals, showing how the rise of angiosperms through

 the past 200 million years was accompanied by massive expansion in biodiversity of

 numerous key groups of insects (such as bees, wasps, butterflies, bugs, beetles, and flies)

. The key mass extinctions are marked in red, but the key phase was from 100 to 50 million

 years ago, which we term the Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution.

 Credit: Mike Benton and New Phytologist Trust.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have identified the huge impact of flowering plants on the evolution of life on Earth

Flowering plants today include most of the plants humans eat or drink, such as grains, fruits and vegetables, and they build many familiar landscapes such as wetlands, meadows, and forests. From 100 to 50 million years ago, the flowering plants dramatically boosted Earth's biodiversity and rebuilt entire ecosystems.

Paleontologist Prof Michael J. Benton from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences teamed up with Prof Peter Wilf, a palaeobotanist from Pennsylvania State University, U.S., and Dr. Hervé Sauquet, an expert on flower evolution from the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Australia.

In their new paper, the team reviewed the way in which angiosperms rebuilt forests and other habitats on land, and how this contributed to modern biodiversity.

"Flowering plants might have been around for some time, but they began to appear more commonly in the Cretaceous, in the last 70 million years of the age of dinosaurs," said Prof Benton. "But it seems that dinosaurs didn't choose to eat them, and continued chomping ferns and conifers such as pines. However, it was only after the dinosaurs had gone that angiosperms really took off on evolutionary terms."

A gymnosperm, Ginkgo yimaensis, reconstructed from fossil evidence. Credit: Rebecca Horwitt

"The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution, as we call it, marked a huge change in ecosystems and biodiversity on land," said Prof Wilf. "More than a million species of modern insects owe their livelihoods to angiosperms, as pollinators such as bees and wasps, as leaf-eaters such as beetles, locusts and bugs, or feeding on nectar such as butterflies. And these insects are eaten by spiders, lizards, birds and mammals. After the dinosaur extinction, the great tropical rainforests began to flourish, and angiosperms began to dominate life on land."

"Angiosperms owe their success to a whole series of special features," said Dr. Sauquet. "Biology students all know that the angiosperm flower was an amazing innovation, with special colors and adaptations to make sure particular insects pollinate them successfully. But angiosperms also drive the evolution of the animals that pollinate them, mainly insects, and they can build complex forest structures which are homes to thousands of species. They can also capture much more of the Sun's energy than conifers and their relatives, and this extra energy passes through the whole ecosystem."

Prof Wilf explained: "Although angiosperms first appeared and then became very diverse during the age of dinosaurs, it was only after dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago that flowering plants really made big changes and restructured the world's ecosystems.

"It is even possible that the removal of the dinosaurs and their constant trampling and disturbance was the trigger for these events. Today, two-thirds of all species of plants and animals live in rainforests."

Early angiosperm, Archaefructus sinensis reconstructed from fossil evidence. Credit: Rebecca Horwitt

"A typical angiosperm-dominated rainforest may contain hundreds of species of flowering plants, as well as hundreds of species of other plants like ferns and mosses, and thousands of species of fungi, insects, spiders, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals," added Dr. Sauquet. "On the other hand, conifer forests, based around the pine family, for example, contain fewer species of other plants or animals, and they probably were never as species-rich."

"The big change happened in the Cretaceous, when angiosperms with their amazing flowers gradually took over, step by step," continued Prof Benton. "Cretaceous forests and open spaces probably contained far fewer species. So, when the dinosaurs died out, modern groups of animals could fill their places, but it seems they did much more than just replace them like-for-like. The angiosperms became hugely diverse themselves, but they also created enormous numbers of niches for other plants and animals, so you get tens more species on each hectare of the Earth's surface than you would if angiosperms had not become established when they did."Dinosaur-age fossils provide new insights into origin of flowering plants

More information: Michael J. Benton et al, The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity, New Phytologist (2021). DOI: 10.1111/nph.1782

Journal information: New Phytologist 

Provided by University of Bristol 

Finally, a Practical Use for Nuclear Fusion

Researchers used the roiling temperatures of an experimental fusion reactor for a surprising purpose: testing heat shield materials for spacecraft.

Inside a tokamak, like this EAST at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, powerful magnets are used to hold whirling plasma at a high pressure, enabling it to reach the tens of millions of degrees required for atoms to fuse together and release energy.

PHOTOGRAPH: LIU JUNXI/XINHUA/GETTY IMAGES

ON DECEMBER 7, 1995, a NASA probe entered Jupiter’s atmosphere and immediately started to burn. It had been hatched six months earlier by the orbiting Galileo mission, and now, 80 million miles later, it was ready to sample the thick layers of hydrogen and helium surrounding the solar system’s largest planet.

The spacecraft, called the Jupiter Atmospheric Probe, had been carefully designed to withstand the soaring temperatures it would encounter on contact with Jovian air. It had a huge carbon-based heat shield, comprising about 50 percent of the probe’s total weight, which had been designed to dissipate heat by wearing away as the probe descended. This controlled process, called ablation, had been carefully modeled back on Earth—NASA had even built a special test lab called the Giant Planet Facility in an attempt to re-create the conditions and test the design.

As the probe descended through the clouds at more than 100,000 mph, friction heated the air around it to more than 28,000 degrees Fahrenheit—splitting atoms into charged particles and creating an electric soup known as plasma. Plasma accounts for natural phenomena like lightning or the aurora; the sun is a giant burning ball of it. It is often referred to as the fourth state of matter, but really it’s the first: In the moments after the Big Bang, plasma was all there was.

The plasma ate through the Jupiter probe’s heat shield much faster than anyone at NASA had predicted. When the agency’s engineers analyzed the data from sensors embedded in the heat shield, they realized that their careful models had been way off the mark. The shield disintegrated much more than expected in some areas, and much less in others. The probe barely survived, and the only reason it did was that they had built a margin for error into the design by making it extra thick. “This was left as an open question,” says Eva Kostadinova, an expert on plasma from Auburn University. “But if you want to design new missions, you have to be able to model what’s going on.”

After the Galileo mission, scientists used the data from the probe to tweak their models of ablation, but they still faced a big problem: It’s very difficult to precisely re-create the conditions of a high-speed entry to a dense atmosphere, so it’s hard to test those models for accuracy. That also poses a barrier for new heat shield materials that could be lighter or better than the carbon-based ones used right now. If you can’t test them, it’s very hard to be confident they’ll work when attached to a billion-dollar spacecraft.

Past testing efforts have used lasers, plasma jets, and high-speed projectiles to simulate the heat of entry, but none of them are quite right. “No aerospace facility on Earth can reach the high heating conditions that you experience during atmospheric entry into something like Jupiter,” says Kostadinova.

Now, new research by Kostadinova and collaborator Dmitri Orlov from UC San Diego has demonstrated a potential alternative—the fiery innards of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.

There are a few hundred such reactors, known as tokamaks, in state-funded research facilities around the world, including the Joint European Torus in the United Kingdom, and ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a 35-nation collaboration in southern France. For decades, researchers have been using them to grapple with the challenges of nuclear fusion, a potentially revolutionary technology that could provide essentially unlimited power. Inside a tokamak, powerful magnets are used to hold whirling plasma at a high pressure, enabling it to reach the tens of millions of degrees required for atoms to fuse together and release energy. Cynics argue that nuclear fusion is doomed to forever remain the energy source of the future—right now, fusion experiments still consume more electricity than they generate.

But Kostadinova and her collaborator Dmitri Orlov were more interested in the plasma inside these reactors, which they realized could be the perfect environment to simulate a spacecraft entering the atmosphere of a gas giant. Orlov works on the DIII-D fusion reactor, an experimental tokamak at a US Department of Energy facility in San Diego, but his background is in aerospace engineering.

Together, they used the DIII-D facilities to run a series of experiments on ablation. Using a port at the bottom of the tokamak, they inserted a series of carbon rods into the plasma flow, and used high-speed and infrared cameras and spectrometers to track how they disintegrated. Orlov and Kostadinova also fired minuscule carbon pellets into the reactor at high speed, mimicking on a small scale what the heat shield on the Galileo probe would have encountered in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

The conditions inside the tokamak were remarkably similar in terms of the temperature of the plasma, the speed it flowed over the material, and even its composition: The Jovian atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, the DIII-D tokamak uses deuterium, which is an isotope of hydrogen. “Instead of launching something at a very high velocity, we instead put a stationary object into a very fast flow,” Orlov says.

The experiments, which were presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Pittsburgh this month, helped to validate the models of ablation that were developed by NASA scientists using data sent back from the Galileo probe. But they also serve as a proof of concept for a new type of testing. “We’re opening this new field of research,” says Orlov. “Nobody has done it before.”

It’s something that’s sorely needed in the industry. “There’s been a lag in new testing procedures,” says Yanni Barghouty, founder of Cosmic Shielding Corporation, a startup building radiation shields for spacecraft. “It allows you to prototype a lot faster and more cheaply—there’s a feedback loop.”

Whether nuclear fusion reactors will be a practical testing ground remains to be seen—they’re incredibly sensitive devices that have been designed for another purpose entirely. Orlov and Kostadinov were given time at DIII-D as part of a special effort to use the reactor to expand scientific knowledge, utilizing a port built into the tokamak for the purpose of safely testing new materials. But it’s an expensive process. Their day on the machine cost half a million dollars. As a result, this kind of experiment will likely be done sparingly in the future, when the opportunity arises, to tweak and improve computer simulations.

With further experiments, Orlov and Kostadinova hope that the models can be improved and used to optimize heat shield design for future missions—putting more material where it’s needed, but also removing it from where it’s not. NASA’s DAVINCI+ mission, scheduled to launch toward Venus near the end of the decade, could be the first to take advantage. It comprises an orbiter and a descent probe, which will need powerful shielding as it falls through the hot, thick Venusian atmosphere. The Galileo probe taught scientists much about the formation of the solar system, but with a better heat shield, it could have done much more. “Half of the payload is something that’s just going to burn,” says Kostadinova. “You’re limiting the number of scientific instruments you can really fit in.”

Beyond that, the technique could be used to test new materials, such as silicon carbide, or new forms of heat shield that use a mixture of passive materials that ablate and other components that don’t. Engineers will need those for future missions—the Galileo probe took the slowest, flattest trajectory possible to limit ablation, and still stretched the limits of what was then possible.

The research could also help in the design of fusion reactors themselves. Until now, most research has understandably focused on the core plasma reactions inside a tokamak. But as nuclear fusion inches toward commercialization, more attention will need to be paid to the construction of the reactors and the design of materials that can contain the fusion reaction and safely dissipate the energy if things go wrong.

Kostadinova and Orlov are calling for more collaboration between the fusion and space research communities, which both have an interest in understanding plasma reactions—and in developing substances that can contain them. “The future is to make better materials, and new materials,” Kostadinova says.

 

Is The U.S. Shale Patch Refusing To Pump For Political Reasons?

By Irina Slav - Nov 17, 2021

• President Biden’s calls on OPEC to increase production were received rather negatively by the U.S. shale patch which believes it can take care of the supply problem
• While some observers may see this as the shale patch being political, the reality is that shale drillers are actually reacting to both profit and fear
• Shale companies are making more profit than ever before and, while they are happy to help Biden bring the price of gasoline down, are eager to avoid another oil price crash

When President Joe Biden first called on OPEC to increase production earlier this year, he drew an angry response from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who told Biden to "back off" and let American companies take care of the supply problem that was pushing fuel prices higher. The awkward relationship between the current administration in Washington and the oil industry, which tends to lean to the right politically, has been highlighted repeatedly in the media along with Biden's anti-oil moves such as the killing of the Keystone XL pipeline project and the temporary moratorium on oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Yet political incompatibility alone cannot stand in the way of profiting from higher prices, so it is hardly the only - or even an important - reason for the U.S. oil industry's production restraint amid soaring prices for both crude and products. In fact, there are at least two more important reasons for this restraint.

The first is that especially shale drillers are raking in much fatter profits right now at current production levels. According to Deloitte calculations cited by Bloomberg's Kevin Crowley, U.S. shale operators are currently booking the biggest profits since the start of the shale revolution. And that's saying something. The reason the shale play development earned the name revolution was that it happened so quickly, and it happened so quickly because it was profitable, for a time.

By booking higher profits, shale drillers - at least the public ones among them - can keep their shareholders happier than they have been in years during the cash-burning phase of the shale revolution when everyone raced to boost output by the most, contributing to the two latest price crashes.

Related: IEA Hikes 2022 Brent Oil Price Outlook To $79Speaking of crashes, the other reason shale drillers are practicing restraint is OPEC. The cartel has already demonstrated twice that it has the power to cause a collapse in prices that may its members but seems to hurt U.S. shale producers more. After several waves of bankruptcies, shale drillers appear to have decided on a different approach to production, betting on fatter profits instead of higher production.

Be that as it may, production in the U.S. shale patch is rising. Reuters reported earlier this week that production at the Permian was about to set a record, surpassing its pre-pandemic production levels next month. That's because the Permian has been the darling of the shale industry for years now, sporting some of the lowest production costs in some areas, drawing in more capital than other shale plays.

Overall production is also on the rise. According to the Energy Information Administration's latest weekly industry update, the U.S. was producing 11.5 million bpd of crude, which puts it in the first place globally and represents a 1-million-bpd increase on the year. It is lower than the record 13-million-bod production rate right before the pandemic struck, but it is no small potatoes by any means.

And, perhaps surprisingly to some, the industry is not averse to working with the federal administration to make gasoline more affordable. The messages coming from shale oil are not all in the same tone but they do tend to be encouraging.

Related: The Energy Crunch Is Adding Billions To Oil Tycoons’ Net Worth

The chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, for instance, was quite blunt in telling Biden to "back off" the U.S. oil industry rather than calling on OPEC to increase oil production so U.S. drivers can pay less at the pump. The president, Scott Sheffield, said earlier this month that Biden has "got to back off his rhetoric on federal leases going forward."

Occidental's Vicki Hollub was more delicate this week, when she said, in response to a question on whether Biden was wrong to call on OPEC to boost output, "if I were gonna make a call, it wouldn't be long-distance, it would be a local call."

"I think first you, you stay home, you ask your friends, and you ask your neighbors to do it. And then if we can't do it, you call some other countries," Hollub told CNBC.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com