Poll shows Bolsonaro narrowing gap to Lula ahead of Brazil election


Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro visits the 45th

 Expointer agricultural fair in Esteio

Fri, September 9, 2022 at 5:40 PM·1 min read

(Reuters) -Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro slightly narrowed his deficit to opponent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of an October election, a poll published on Friday showed.

The survey by Datafolha showed Lula's lead dipping to 11 percentage points in the first round of the election, with 45% support against Bolsonaro's 34%. Bolsonaro recorded 32% support in the previous poll last week.

In an expected second-round run-off, Lula would be elected with 53% of the votes versus 39% for Bolsonaro, a 14 percentage point advantage, down from 15 points one week ago, the poll showed.

Bolsonaro's approval and rejection rates did not change from a week ago, at 31% and 42% respectively.

Datafolha interviewed 2,676 people in person between September 8 and 9. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.

(Reporting by Carolina Pulice and Pedro Fonseca; editing by Richard Pullin)

Brazil election front-runner Lula calls Bolsonaro 'worse than Trump'

Friday

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is "a bit worse than (Donald) Trump," leftist election front-runner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday, describing him as "ruder, less civilized and a bad copy," of the former U.S. president.


Former President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 

meets evangelical leaders in Sao Goncalo

© Reuters/PILAR OLIVARES

Bolsonaro, a far-right populist who trails Lula in polls ahead of the Oct. 2 election, has long admired Trump and has been dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics." The two were ideological allies, and the time they overlapped was one of closer ties between the two largest nations in the Americas.

By contrast, Bolsonaro was one of the last global leaders to recognize President Joe Biden's election victory, and ties between Brasilia and Washington have become frostier since Trump left office.

 Lula widens lead over Bolsonaro ahead of Brazil election

Duration 3:39

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Critics fear Bolsonaro may seek to copy Trump and refuse to accept losing to Lula in the upcoming election. For months, Bolsonaro has been making unfounded claims of election fraud, and said the country's widely praised electronic voting system lacks credibility, sparking fears of a constitutional crisis.

Lula, speaking with reporters in Rio de Janeiro, said the world was a better place without people like Bolsonaro and Trump in charge.

"The world is already suffering a lot," Lula said, adding he would have preferred if Bolsonaro had modeled himself on Biden and his Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Bolsonaro's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by David Gregorio)

Analysis-Kim Jong Un's 'decapitation' fears shine through in new N.Korea nuclear law

By Josh Smith - Friday

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un sits in his vehicle after arriving at a railway station in Dong Dang, Vietnam

© Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha

SEOUL (Reuters) - A new North Korean law calls for "automatic" nuclear launches if the country's leadership or command and control systems are threatened, underscoring leader Kim Jong Un's fears of a so-called "decapitation" strike, experts said.

In an updated nuclear policy law passed on Thursday, North Korea enshrined the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself, with Kim saying the legislation makes the country's nuclear status "irreversible" and bars denuclearisation talks.

The law outlines when North Korea could use its nuclear weapons, including if there is an attack on the government's leadership or the nuclear command and control system.

"In case the command and control system over the state nuclear forces is placed in danger owing to an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately to destroy the hostile forces," the law states, according to state news agency KCNA.

Kim has "monolithic command" over the nuclear forces, but the law's wording may indicate that if he is killed, a senior official would be designated to authorize nuclear strikes, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The basic idea here is to communicate to the United States and South Korea that decapitating the North Korean leadership would not spare them nuclear retaliation," he said, noting that there are precedents in other nuclear states, including the United States during the Cold War.

Both the United States and Russia have employed technical systems, including the Soviet Union's infamous "Dead Hand," designed to ensure nuclear retaliation even if leaders are killed.

For now, that sort of "fail deadly" system in North Korea seems unlikely, Panda said.

"I would expect, for the moment, the fail deadly system would rely on organizational steps: for instance, the First Secretary of the Workers’ Party could confirm that Kim Jong Un had been killed in the course of a conflict, thereby authorizing the release of nuclear weapons," he said.

Although South Korea and the United States say they do not seek to change North Korea's government by force, both countries have war plans that imply strikes against Pyongyang's leadership.

Amid the "fire and fury" tensions of 2017 the Trump administration insisted it had no intention of launching a "bloody nose strike" against Kim, but had privately reviewed and updated war plans for a decapitation strike, according to a book by journalist Bob Woodward.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has publicly given new emphasis to the so-called "Kill Chain" system to counter a North Korean nuclear attack, and is pouring resources into boosting the weapons that would be used under such plans, including F-35A stealth fighters and missiles launched from submarines.

First developed a decade ago as North Korea ramped up its nuclear development, Kill Chain calls for preemptive strikes against the North's missiles and possibly its senior leadership if an attack appears imminent.

In his speech discussing the new law on Thursday, Kim cited Kill Chain and its related strategies by name, saying they justify North Korea's nuclear development.

"This would seemingly warn away any notions of 'bloody nose' strikes, assuming any administration contemplates that again," Rob York, director for regional affairs at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum, said of the new law.

(Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

New N.Korea law outlines nuclear weapons use, including pre-emptive strikes

By Josh Smith - Thursday

The truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone 

(DMZ) separating the two Koreas© Reuters/KIM HONG-JI

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea has officially enshrined the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself in a new law that leader Kim Jong Un said makes its nuclear status "irreversible" and bars denuclearisation talks, state media reported on Friday.

The move comes as observers say North Korea appears to be preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017, after historic summits with then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders in 2018 failed to persuade Kim to abandon his weapons development.

The North's rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly, passed the legislation on Thursday as a replacement to a 2013 law that first outlined the country's nuclear status, according to state news agency KCNA.

"The utmost significance of legislating nuclear weapons policy is to draw an irretrievable line so that there can be no bargaining over our nuclear weapons," Kim said in a speech to the assembly, adding that he would never surrender the weapons even if the country faced 100 years of sanctions.

Among the scenarios that could trigger a nuclear attack would be the threat of an imminent nuclear strike; if the country's leadership, people or existence were under threat; or to gain the upper hand during a war, among other reasons.

A deputy at the assembly said the law would serve as a powerful legal guarantee for consolidating North Korea's position as a nuclear weapons state and ensuring the "transparent, consistent and standard character" of its nuclear policy, KCNA reported.

"Actually spelling out the conditions for use are especially rare, and it may simply be a product of North Korea's position, how much it values nuclear weapons, and how essential it sees them for its survival," said Rob York, director for regional affairs at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum.

PREEMPTIVE STRIKES

The original 2013 law stipulated that North Korea could use nuclear weapons to repel invasion or attack from a hostile nuclear state and make retaliatory strikes.

The new law goes beyond that to allow for preemptive nuclear strikes if an imminent attack by weapons of mass destruction or against the country's "strategic targets", including its leadership, is detected.

"In a nutshell, there are some really vague and ambiguous circumstances in which North Korea is now saying it might use its nuclear weapons," Chad O'Carroll, founder of the North Korea-tracking website NK News, said on Twitter.

"I imagine the purpose is to give U.S. and South Korean military planners pause for thought over a much wider range of actions than before," he added.

Like the earlier law, the new version vows not to threaten non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons unless they join with a nuclear-armed country to attack the North.

The new law adds, however, that it can launch a preemptive nuclear strike if it detects an imminent attack of any kind aimed at North Korea's leadership and the command organization of its nuclear forces.

That is an apparent reference to South Korea's "Kill Chain" strategy, which calls for preemptively striking North Korea's nuclear infrastructure and command system if an imminent attack is suspected.

Kim cited Kill Chain, which is part of a three-pronged military strategy being boosted under new South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, as a sign that the situation is deteriorating and that Pyongyang must prepare for long-term tensions.

Under the law, Kim has "all decisive powers" over nuclear weapons, but if the command and control system is threatened, then nuclear weapons may be launched "automatically".

If Kim delegates launch authority to lower commanders during a crisis, that could increase the chances of a catastrophic miscalculation, analysts said.

'RESPONSIBLE NUCLEAR STATE'

The law bans any sharing of nuclear arms or technology with other countries, and is aimed at reducing the danger of a nuclear war by preventing miscalculations among nuclear weapons states and misuse of nuclear weapons, KCNA reported.

Analysts say Kim's goal is to win international acceptance of North Korea's status as a "responsible nuclear state."

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has offered to talk to Kim any time, at any place, and Yoon has said his country would provide massive amounts of economic aid if Pyongyang began to give up its arsenal.

South Korea on Thursday offered to hold talks with North Korea on reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, in its first direct overture under Yoon, despite strained cross-border ties.

North Korea has rebuffed those overtures, however, saying that the United States and its allies maintain "hostile policies" such as sanctions and military drills that undermine their messages of peace.

"As long as nuclear weapons remain on earth and imperialism remains and manoeuvres of the United States and its followers against our republic are not terminated, our work to strengthen nuclear force will not cease," Kim said.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle)

Okinawa voters expected to turn backs on central govt despite China threat

By Elaine Lies - Yesterday

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki speaks to media after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo© Reuters/POOL

TOKYO (Reuters) - Voters in Okinawa are expected to re-elect their opposition-backed governor on Sunday, turning their backs on Japan's central government and national ruling party despite being on the front lines should conflict with China erupt over Taiwan.

Rising tensions in the nearby waters have become a concern for the tropical prefecture, which is far closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo. China this summer launched five missiles into the sea close to Okinawa - and within Japan's exclusive economic zone - during military exercises after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.



FILE PHOTO: Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki attends a news conference at at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo© Reuters/ISSEI KATO

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has pushed for increased defence spending to counter China, but media polls have shown voters likely to re-elect Denny Tamaki, who is supported by a broad coalition of opposition parties.

The LDP backs Atsushi Sakima, a former mayor. Tamaki defeated him in 2018 by 396,632 votes to 316,458, partly by calling for the large Futenma U.S. air base to be moved outside the prefecture.


Sakima favours the central government's plan to move the base from a crowded urban area to Okinawa's more remote Henoko district, while a third candidate, former national lawmaker Mikio Shimoji, wants it re-purposed as a shared military and commercial airport.


The U.S. military is a hot-button issue in Okinawa, which saw some of the bloodiest fighting in World War Two and has long resented the burden of hosting the majority of U.S. troops in Japan on facilities that take up 5% of Okinawa's land. Polls show 55% of Okinawa voters oppose moving the Futenma base to Henoko.

But with Okinawa's economy hit hard by slumping tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic, Tamaki's campaign is shifting attention to economic policies, which Sakima has long emphasised, and which could give him a slight boost.

"The situation is a bit fluid as a result of this," said Airo Hino, a political science professor at Tokyo's Waseda University.

Candidates backed by the LDP have also won four recent mayoral elections in Okinawa, signalling a potential shift.

"I think the Taiwan situation may be having a bit of an impact even in Okinawa," Hino said.

(This 11 September story corrects 10 September story's spelling of "land" in sixth paragraph)

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and William Mallard)

GIC payouts get supercharged as BoC hikes rates again

By Dale Jackson  

Sep 9, 2022

As borrowers bemoan yet another massive interest-rate hike by the Bank of Canada, savers are getting a long overdue reward.

In the wake of the fourth consecutive outsized increase by the central bank to combat inflation, yields on fixed income vehicles continue to rise.

• Sign up for BNN Bloomberg's personal finance newsletter, Home Economics

Just hours after Wednesday’s announcement, payouts on Canadian government two-year bonds ticked up slightly to 3.62 per cent and some one-year guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) yields have reached 4.5 per cent.

Earlier this year, investors were lucky to get one per cent on a GIC — but the times, they are changing. 

Wednesday’s 75-basis-point (which is a different way of saying three-quarters of a percentage point) increase brings the Bank of Canada’s benchmark lending rate to 3.25 per cent following a surprise full-point hike in July and half-percentage-point increase in April and June. Before then, it sat at an emergency pandemic low of 0.25 per cent.

And the central bank isn’t done; it has clearly signalled more hikes are coming. Markets are pricing in a solid chance of another half-percentage-point increase in October, which is expected to be further reflected in fixed income rates.

Some income-hungry investors have already jumped on the GIC bandwagon. The latest data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) showed investors pulled $4.5 billion net from mutual funds in July following a net redemption of $10.4 billion in June.

On a conference call with analysts last month, Royal Bank of Canada Chief Financial Officer Nadine Ahn said much of the money pulled from RBC mutual funds in its fiscal third quarter went into GIC products.

Don’t jump on the highest yield just yet

Yields on longer-term fixed-income vehicles are normally higher than shorter-term maturities but experts caution savers not to jump at the highest rate in a rapidly rising interest rate environment.

The official inflation rate has come down since the rate hikes started but is still well above seven per cent. That means even a GIC that pays 4.5 per cent is way below the cost of living. 

For now, most fixed-income managers recommend laddering fixed income in short-term increments so they mature frequently enough to take advantage of yields as they rise. 

After all, 4.5 per cent might look like chicken feed a year from now.

Not all income is fixed

Like the name implies, payouts from GICs are guaranteed and essentially backed by the government. So are payouts from government bonds. If they default, we’re all in big trouble.

Fixed income is reliable income that we can count on when we need it.

Dividends from stocks and real estate investment trusts are considered income, but not fixed, because the payouts are at the discretion of the company or trust, and the value of the underlying investment can rise and fall with the whims of the market. 

Many investment advisors who are only qualified to sell mutual funds (and are only compensated by selling mutual funds) attempt to substitute the fixed income portion of a portfolio with bond funds. Bond funds are not fixed income because their holdings are often traded on the broader bond market and not held to maturity.

Many bond funds have posted losses as interest rates declined.

Fixed income as part of a portfolio

It’s important to have a fixed income component in any retirement portfolio no matter where yields are. Having a significant portion of your savings in fixed income acts as a cushion against volatility on the equity side of a portfolio.

Any positive return is better than the losses on equity markets so far this year, as an example. 

Three decades ago, before interest rates hit rock-bottom, the general rule of investing called for a fixed-income portfolio weighting roughly equal to the age of the investor. That means a 50-year-old would have half of their portfolio in fixed income. If your retirement goal called for an annual real return of six per cent, a five per cent return on the fixed-income portion of your portfolio made it much more attainable.

GICs will pay more going forward, but they have always been a tonic to help investors sleep at night.

Payback Time is a weekly column by personal finance columnist Dale Jackson about how to prepare your finances for retirement. Have a question you want answered? Email dalejackson.paybacktime@gmail.com.  

 

Tumbler Ridge fossils identified

NORTHERN FOSSILS IDENTIFIED

Matt Preprost / Dawson Creek Mirror - Sep 10, 2022 / 6:46 pm | Story: 384595

Photo: .

Artist Jan Vriesen's painting of the environment 112 million years ago. (Tumbler Ridge Museum)

This dreamlike painting by artist Jan Vriesen imagines what the environment was like in the Tumbler Ridge area of Northeast B.C. some 112 million years ago.

It was the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ and the steep slopes in the valley of Ninesting Creek, a tributary of Wolverine River southwest of the community, were likely at the edge of an open lake basin or floodplain pond.

Researchers say they’ve finally identified a set of “unusual” fossilized trackways discovered there in 2014, believed to be among the largest and oldest of their kind in Canada and North America.

The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research, and shared by the Tumbler Ridge Museum this week.

The museum says three "distinct" track types were found within a lease area of the Quintette Mine: large three-toed bird tracks, larger four-toed dinosaur tracks thought to have been made by oviraptosaurs, and pterosaur tracks. 

"The pterosaur tracks are arguably the first to be identified in BC, although such tracks have been found in Alberta, Alaska, and the western USA," the museum said in a news release. "They appear to be the oldest thus far identified in Canada."

The three-toed bird tracks, the museum said, are “the largest from the Mesozoic Era (the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’) in North America, and among the largest in the world from this time period."

“At the time the tracks were made, the area was likely at the margin of an open lake basin or a floodplain pond.

“Traces made by freshwater mussels were also present on the surface, suggesting that the birds, oviraptosaurs and pterosaurs might have been interested in a meal of molluscs.

"At the time the area would have been located close to the Arctic Circle, with long periods of winter darkness.”

Twenty tracks in all were identified in six different trackways at the site, of which mine operator Teck Resources "was extremely helpful in supporting the research and enabling site access," the museum said. 

“The discovery confirms the importance of northeastern BC as an area rich in fossil tracksites.”

Professor Emeritus and geologist Martin Lockley of the University of Colorado was lead author of the article. He was supported by Charles Helm, Andrew Lawfield, and Kevin Sharman of the Tumbler Ridge Museum.

The museum says the 2014 trackway discovery is among more than 70 vertebrate tracksites identified in the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark.

More than 400 million years of Northeast B.C. history is housed and displayed at the museum, and the Geopark is also home to 75-million-year-old tyrannosaurid trackway.

MLB prepared to voluntarily recognize minor league union

Major League Baseball is ready to voluntarily accept the formation of a minor league union, a key step that will lead to collective bargaining and possibly a strike threat at the start of next season.

The Canadian Press 

Sep 9, 2022

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball is ready to voluntarily accept the formation of a minor league union, a key step that will lead to collective bargaining and possibly a strike threat at the start of next season.

The Major League Baseball Players Association launched the unionization drive on Aug. 28 and told MLB on Tuesday it had obtained signed authorization cards from the approximately 5,500 players with minor league contracts. If MLB had declined to accept the union, the players’ association’s next step would have been to ask the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an authorization election.

“We, I believe, notified the MLBPA today that we're prepared to execute an agreement on voluntary recognition. I think they're working on the language as we speak,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said during a news conference Friday to announce on-field rules changes for next season.

Both sides were exchanging language Friday for a proposed card-check agreement. MLB maintains players with Dominican Summer League contracts will not be included in the bargaining unit, while the union would not state its position.

“We are pleased Major League Baseball is moving forward with this process in a productive manner," union head Tony Clark said in a statement. "While there are significant steps remaining, we are confident discussions will reach a positive outcome.”

Major leaguers negotiated their first collective bargaining agreement in 1968. They have had nine work stoppages during a period of gains that saw the big league average salary rise from $19,000 in 1967 to over $4 million this year. Players on 40-man rosters on option to the minor leagues have been represented by the union since 1981.

The vast majority of minor leaguers have not previously been represented by the union, which intends to form a separate bargaining unit with its own dues and governance structure, such as player representatives and an executive board.

MLB raised weekly minimum salaries for minor leaguers in 2021 to $400 at rookie and short-season levels, $500 at Class A, $600 at Double-A and $700 at Triple-A. For players on option, the minimum is $57,200 per season for a first big league contract and $114,100 for later big league contracts.

In addition, MLB this year began requiring teams to provide housing for most minor leaguers.

MLB and union negotiators have had an acrimonious relationship in recent years, leading to several grievances that remain pending. Manfred and Clark held separate news conferences to announce the agreement that ended the lockout in March, and union officials did not attend MLB’s news conference Friday to announce the adoption of a pitch clock and defensive shift restrictions next season.

The five-year labor agreement expires on Dec. 1, 2026, and MLB could seek a simultaneous expiration for a minor league deal.

The minor leaguers’ greatest leverage may be ahead of opening day, March 31 at Triple-A and April 6 at lower levels, when a strike could lead each team to keep its dozen or so unionized players on option at training complexes playing makeshift games.

Negotiations between Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem and Bruce Meyer, recently promoted to the union’s executive director, have been filled with acrimony.

___

More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Benchmarking study sees uptick in US emissions

08 September 2022

CO2 emissions from the USA's largest 100 power producers increased by 7% between 2020 and 2021, according to the latest benchmarking study in a series that began in 1997. 2021's CO2 levels nonetheless remained 16% lower than 1990 levels and about 34% lower than their peak in 2007.

The 2021 increase - as world economies restarted following the shutdowns of the COVID pandemic - disrupted a steady downward trend for all power sector air emissions, and highlights the need for US power providers to take advantage of the clean energy incentives in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, and rapidly transition to cleaner resources, its authors said.

Benchmarking Air Emissions of the 100 Largest Electric Power Producers in the United States is a collaborative effort between non-profit organisation Ceres, Bank of America Charitable Foundation; power producers Constellation Energy and Entergy, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It is authored by global sustainability consultancy ERM. The series uses publicly reported data to compare the emissions performance of the USA's 100 largest power producers, and includes data on sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury emissions as well as CO2.

The increase in carbon dioxide emissions was driven by a rise in coal generation and decrease in natural gas generation, at a time when natural gas prices in the USA were increasing, the report shows.

According to the study, nuclear plants accounted for 19% of total US generation and achieved capacity factors well over 90%, far higher than any of the other fuels or technologies. (Capacity factors are a measure of how much a power plant is used over time). Despite the year-on-year decline, natural gas was the leading source of electricity generation in the USA in 2021, at 38%), followed by coal (22%).

"While the power sector has shown marked improvement over our two decades of analysis, we need to see an acceleration of larger emissions cuts across the industry in order to reach our 2030 emissions reduction goals," said Dan Bakal, senior program director of climate and energy at Ceres. "It's important to recognise how far we have come, but impossible to ignore how far we still have to go. While many of the largest power producers have announced climate commitments and strategies to reduce their carbon emissions, the rapid srequired will demand increased ambition."
 
 

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

ONTARIO

Decommissioning continues at Douglas Point Nuclear Power Plant

Douglas Point Nuclear Plant Kincardine

By Janice MacKay

September 7, 2022 3:59pm

The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories has updated Bruce County council about the decommissioning of Douglas Point nuclear plant in Kincardine.

At their September 1st meeting, council learned that so far over 90% of waste created by the removal of the facility is being recycled.

Of the 24,900 kilograms of non radioactive non hazardous waste removed in 2021, about 20,000 kilograms was recycled. Canada’s first nuclear facility operated from 1968 to 1984, with the initial decommission completed in the late 80s.

Senior Communications Officer, Margot Thompson, said 46 silos of used nuclear fuel will go into the proposed Deep Geological Repository which is currently slated for either South Bruce or Ignace.

“With Douglas Point, the decommissioning goal is full removal. So that means everything will be cleared off of the site and right now the target date for that is 2070,” said Thompson

The final phases to remove spent fuel and the reactor building, will be completed between 2030 and 2070 under a separate license.

Douglas Point is a 13 acre site located within the sprawling Bruce Power property.

‘It’s shameful’: Critics slam Doug Ford’s plan to replace nuclear power with natural gas

The nuclear power plant in Pickering, Ont., is shown in an undated photo. The plant it set to close in 2025.  NORM BETTS / CP

From the Toronto Star, August 23, 2022
By Rob Ferguson Queen’s Park Bureau

Ontario’s plan to replace electricity generation when an aging nuclear plant closes in 2025 has critics saying the province didn’t get the memo on the growing dangers of climate change.

Of six new contracts announced by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) on Tuesday, four are for power to be generated by burning natural gas, while the other two — for wind and energy storage — account for less than 10 per cent of the 764 megawatts under contract.

Energy Minister Todd Smith defended the procurement, made in the wake of last year’s IESO warning that phasing out gas-fired power plants before 2030 would result in rotating blackouts and higher electricity bills because alternate supply and transmission lines could not be built in time.

“It’s been a competitive procurement that’s resulted in us recontracting existing generators at a 30 per cent savings to the ratepayers,” Smith told reporters after the legislature’s daily question period.

“We have to make sure that our system is reliable. We can’t experience brownouts that will discourage any investment in our province, which is why we need to ensure that any energy that we’re procuring is going to be there when we need it.”

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the government is missing the point, with the IESO decision a result of Premier Doug Ford’s 2018 move to scrap 758 renewable energy projects at a cost of $230 million in compensation.

“It’s now or never to address the climate crisis, and the government has failed to meet the moment … The International Energy Agency has said if we have any chance of meeting our climate obligations, we cannot increase fossil fuel use,” Schreiner added.

“There is still time to ramp up renewables and storage.”

The new contracts come on the grid in 2024 and 2026 to fill the gap left when the Pickering nuclear plant goes offline. It will then be put in a “safe storage” state by removing uranium fuel and water, and decommissioned starting in 2028.

Keith Brooks of the lobby group Environmental Defence agreed Ontario would be “in a much better position” if not for the 2018 green energy project cancellations.

He also warned an upcoming long-term IESO procurement plan for the next two decades could go heavy on natural gas as well, potentially putting the province offside with a planned federal standard of “decarbonized” or net-zero emissions on electricity production by 2035.

“It’s shameful,” Brooks said. “All the work we’ve done in this province to get off coal to drive down emissions in the electricity sector is being undone by a new commitment to gas.”

Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance said the province is “absolutely going in the wrong direction.”

Smith said he has asked the IESO to speed up a report on a possible moratorium on building new natural gas-fired power plants as the province works toward an electricity grid with net-zero emissions.

Poor planning by Ford’s Progressive Conservatives has “really put us in a tough spot,” interim New Democrat Leader Peter Tabuns said in reference to the 2018 decision to cancel the renewable energy projects in development and not contracting for more power from neighbouring Quebec.

“If they had done the planning a few years ago, there wouldn’t be any question that we could just simply say no (to natural gas). They cut conservation programs, they cancelled green energy programs,” he added.

“You saw the news out of Texas, the flooding that’s going on. You saw the storm that went through in May, the snapping off of hundreds of hydro poles in Ottawa. We’ve got a crisis and this government is not taking it seriously.”

The 758 green energy contracts signed by the previous Liberal government were cancelled by the Progressive Conservatives four years ago amid voter outrage over high electricity prices. They were a major election issue in 2018 after doubling in the previous 10 years as the Liberals encouraged green energy production by paying more than traditional market rates for it.

With the Pickering nuclear plant starting to go offline in 2024 and closing in 2025, and other nuclear plants being refurbished this decade, the province needs replacement power at a time when demand for electricity is expected to increase because of rising electric vehicle sales, new electrified public transit lines and new industries like an electric vehicle battery plant being built in Windsor to serve Chrysler parent Stellantis.

The Pickering plant opened in 1971 and produces about 14 per cent of Ontario’s electricity.

Read the article here

French nuclear power reactors in India: Are they worth the wait (and cost)?By Urvashi Sarkar | September 2, 2022

French nuclear power reactors in India:

 Are they worth the wait (and cost)?

By Urvashi Sarkar | September 2, 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron hugs Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before their meeting at the Chateau of Chantilly, near Paris, on August 22, 2019. In May 2022, Modi and Macron reaffirmed their commitment to the construction of six European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) at the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra, India. (Pascal Rossignol/AFP via Getty Images)

The world was still deep in the clutches of the global COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021 when Vakisasai Ramany, a senior vice-president of Electricité de France (EDF), a major French electric utility company, traveled to India. The purpose of this unusually timed business trip? The delivery of a technical and commercial offer for nuclear reactors—in person.

During his visit, Ramany met with officials of the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), the state-owned company that operates most of India’s nuclear power plants. The French executive submitted a long-delayed techno-commercial offer to supply engineering studies and equipment for the construction of six European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) at the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra, India. The project, touted as “the most powerful in the world,” consists of a nuclear power plant with a total installed capacity of 9.6 gigawatts electric. That’s the offer on paper, anyway. But, EPRs so far have had a significantly troubling record of cost and time overruns. The proposed Jaitapur mega-project has faced strong protests from local residents and environmental activists. With the cost of these reactors likely to be in the tens of billions of dollars, stakes are high for the French nuclear company to conclude its deal in India.

The history of the French connection. In 2008, India and France signed a bilateral agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation on developing nuclear energy. The agreement was one result of an agreement with the United States that allowed India to conduct nuclear trade with other countries—which it could not do since the country conducted nuclear weapons tests in 1974 and 1998 and was placed under US sanctions.

India’s first nuclear test in 1974 provided the impetus for the creation of what was to become the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a trade consortium set up by countries involved in exporting nuclear energy technologies. The group set up the requirement that nuclear technology and materials should be exported only to countries that had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. By 1974, however, India was not a signatory of the NPT—and still is not. As such, it was not allowed to purchase reactors or uranium. Following an agreement in 2008 between India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush, the US government used its political power to force many reluctant members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to execute a special waiver for India. Many countries, especially France and Russia, supported the waiver, sensing the business opportunities from India’s rapidly expanding energy market.

Following the India-France bilateral agreement, India’s NPCIL and the French nuclear-maker Areva signed an agreement in 2009 for the supply of two to six EPRs. But soon after Areva became in major financial trouble and was taken over by EDF in 2016.

EPRs are a type of pressurized water reactor built through French and German collaboration. The reactors are touted to have better safety features than earlier designs, including a double barrier to ensure the containment of radioactive materials in case of accidents. They are also supposed to resist extreme hazards like earthquakes, flooding, and extreme temperatures.

With its submission of a new techno-commercial offer to India, EDF’s Ramany says the company is moving toward “the concretization of the largest nuclear power plant in the world [with the] fully proven EPR technology.”

Despite EDF’s hope that the reactors would shortly become operational, negotiations with NPCIL have stalled over the last decade for several reasons, including cost, increasing doubts over their performance, disagreement over liability in the case of a reactor accident, and local protests.

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And that’s not to mention the problems EPR projects—both under construction and in operation—have encountered in different parts of the world.

Delayed and over budget. The earliest EPR project (Olkiluoto-3) began in Finland in 2003 and was connected to the grid in March 2022—a full 13 years behind schedule. It has yet to begin operations. Two EPRs are under construction in the United Kingdom (Hinkley Point C-1 and C-2), and one in France (Flamanville-3) is also under construction. The proposed two-unit EPR plant at Hinkley Point, originally scheduled to start operations in 2025, has already been delayed to June 2027 and will cost £3 billion ($3.6 billion) more than initially proposed, taking the budget to an estimated cost of £25 billion ($29.6 billion). For its part, the Flamanville-3 reactor is over a decade behind schedule, and its budget has ballooned from €3.3 billion to €12.7 billion.

The world’s first two EPRs—Taishan-1 and Taishan-2—became operational in China in 2018 and 2019, respectively. However, unit 1 had to be shut down in July 2021 because of damaged fuel rods, in what an EDF spokesperson told CNN at the time was a “serious situation.”

A good fit for India? Physicists Suvrat Raju and MV Ramana have questioned the safety and economics of the EPR reactors proposed for the Jaitapur site. In 2013, they calculated that electricity from the proposed reactors at Jaitapur would cost 15 Indian rupees (18 US cents) per kilowatt-hour, based on the construction costs of EPRs in Finland and France. Since then the costs of EPR construction have escalated while the cost of alternatives, especially solar energy, has declined sharply.

In an interview for this article, Ramana said: “The costs of the EPRs being built in Western Europe have gone up, while costs of renewable sources of energy, especially solar photovoltaics, have declined. In 2020, one solar project developer offered to sell electricity at the especially low rate of Rs. 2 [Indian rupees] per kWh, and it is routine to find projects proposed for around Rs. 2.50 per kWh.”

Importantly, however, the total amount that the Indian government will spend on this project has still not been made public. In 2019, EDF said the cost is “confidential and may not be disclosed.” It also refused to release the cost per unit of electricity.

EPRs’ problems are not restricted to massive cost overruns and significant delays. “In addition to the high costs, safety problems with the reactor design and construction have emerged in several EPRs,” Raju and Ramana wrote in 2019. Serious problems occurred during the manufacture of the reactor pressure vessel of the EPR at Flamanville in France, with parts of the vessel found to have too much carbon. (A too-high carbon concentration in the steel of the reactor vessel can lead to lower than expected mechanical properties, which can thereby compromise its safety. The reactor vessel acts as a key barrier against radioactive materials escaping from the core.)

Moreover, the proposed site for the six EPRs in Jaitapur—a seismically active and fertile agricultural and fishing region—has left some 40,000 people in five villages concerned for their safety and impact on their livelihoods. Even though the villagers evicted from their land received monetary compensation, they regret losing access to their agricultural and fishing resources.

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Why is India so interested in buying French reactors? Despite the questions about the performance of EPRs, successive Indian governments have expressed their commitment to the deal. But why is India pressing ahead? Raju and Ramana point to the unusually candid explanation offered by Anil Kakodkar, a former secretary at the India Department of Atomic Energy, who said: “We also have to keep in mind the commercial interests of foreign countries … America, Russia, and France were the countries we made mediators in these efforts to lift sanctions, and hence, for the nurturing of their business interests, we made deals with them for nuclear projects.”

Kakodkar was referring to the India-US nuclear deal of 2008. Three countries were supposed to particularly benefit from that deal: the United States, France, and Russia. The three countries signed agreements with India for the supply of foreign reactors. To date, Russia is the only foreign country to have operational reactors in India, which started even before the 2008 nuclear deal between India and the United States. US reactors, however, were not sold to India because of Westinghouse’s financial troubles. For its part, France was specifically allotted the Jaitapur site for building EPRs.

According to a 2009 diplomatic cable made public by Wikileaks, a representative from NPCIL admitted India was paying a “high price” for the French reactors. Indeed, Indian diplomatic sources have reportedly expressed discontent about the high cost of the French EPRs compared to US and Russian reactors. Yet, when Indian and French political leaders meet, they almost always reiterated their joint commitment to the EPR deal as when, in May 2022, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron in France reaffirmed their commitment to “the success of the strategic Jaitapur EPR project.”

A clear subtext of these statements is the high stakes in the Jaitapur project for the French nuclear industry, especially EDF in which the French government has 84 percent ownership. EDF faces several problems in addition to its EPR woes: It is in debt for approximately $45 billion, and faces outages at some older plants and also declining power output from some plants, a result of hot temperatures and lack of rain that result in insufficient river water to cool nuclear reactors. Some of EDF’s reactors are also offline for planned maintenance and repairs. This makes it all the more crucial for France to want to seal the deal with India.

“If confirmed, it would be one of the biggest-ever export deals for the French energy giant,” Reuters reported in May.

After submitting the techno-commercial offer to the NPCIL, EDF promised the project would produce local jobs in India, not forgetting to mention the benefits at home: “The project would also generate significant economic benefits for the French nuclear industry over the entire duration of the project (approximately 15 years), with tens of thousands of jobs in the hundred or so involved French companies.”

As France stands to benefit greatly if the deal comes to fruition, it is no surprise an EDF vice-president traveled to India in the thick of a pandemic to submit an in-person binding techno-commercial offer. But if the purchase of six EPR reactors would be an obvious win for the French nuclear industry, it is less clear what benefits the people of India would obtain.