Thank you for taking the time to reply. I think I kinda understand what you say but I have more reading to do. Currently I'm on some relevant wiki pages trying to get a better understanding [Spent nuclear fuel, Radioactive waste, Long-lived fission product].
In case you (or anyone) have any other links to suggest, please do not hesitate.
Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism...
Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should “resist the normalization of evil and injustice,” Israel’s recent censorship of Al Jazeera, its maintenance of a strict apartheid system, its complete rejection of the prospect of Palestinian statehood and more. “Israel took Palestinian life, liberty and freedom as hostage for the past 75 years,” says Hass. “You go to Tel Aviv, you think you are in New York or you are in London — and 40, 50 kilometers away, Palestinians live in cages.” We also play an excerpt from the student and faculty-led “People’s Graduation” held Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in response to Columbia University’s crackdown on student protest, which culminated in the administration’s cancellation of university-wide commencement. Centering Palestinian solidarity, the People’s Graduation featured speakers including the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi, who praised the work of student journalists. While “our institutions have failed us these past seven months, … we listened to your radio stations if we wanted the truth,” she said.
The imprisoned PKK leader has urged for resistance against Isis militants in Syria
The imprisoned PKK leader has urged for resistance against Isis militants in Syria.
Mr Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on a prison island near Istanbul, issued the call to arms through his lawyer Mazlum Dinc.
“I call on all Kurdish people to start an all-out resistance against this high-intensity war,” he declared.
“Not only the people of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) but also all people in the north (Turkey) and other parts of Kurdistan should act accordingly.”
The Isis offensive against the northern Syrian city of Kobane, defended by the YPG Kurdish local self-defence forces, has driven 130,000 refugees to seek safety in Turkey in the last few days.
[...]
Elections opportunity for Kurdish-Turkish de-escalation – US think tank (May 8th, 2023)
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The upcoming Turkish elections on May 14, especially if they yield an opposition victory, will be “a rare opportunity” for the US to broker a Turkish-Kurdish peace, argues a new report by the New Lines Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
According to the report’s authors, the US’ main policy failure in bringing about a lasting peace between the Turkish government and Kurdish groups in Syria and Turkey has been the separation of these issues into different arenas.
The report argues that the Turkish oppression of Kurds domestically and the 40-year insurgency waged by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as Turkish attacks against Kurdish-majority in north Syria and its autonomous administration (AANES) are related. If the US wishes to bring about a lasting peace, it will have to broker a comprehensive settlement that addresses all arenas.
[...]
Thank you for sharing this link. It was very interesting listening to someone from within the US that is head of an office now and started from Shell Solar.
There is a reasoning that I didn't get. Maybe I misunderstood something or I lack some information/knowledge. Anyways, here it is:
At 1:02 they talks about nuclear waste saying that all the nuclear waste produced in the US by the nuclear power plants is like a football field that is 10 yards tall and then he talks about why this waste is not concerning.
Later at 1:07 He mentions that the US is not reprocesing the uranium fuel rods, in which 95% of the energy is still there, and that the US should do reprocessing like other countries do.
Doesn't that mean that these unprocessed rods in the US that are in the "football field of nuclear waste" are therefore a concern?
What kind of a moron are you? When you make claims you bring the proof.
Or you know, I could assert that you're, say, a donkey-fucker. If you got proof to the contrary, please provide it.
I am not making claims. I shared an article on a matter that bugs me. I wanted to see what people think and potentially inform myself further.
And your input was definitely invaluable!
These are not my points, they come from the article. So for example in relation to your question on the
SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power...
they have a couple of paragraphs that give an explanation.
I find it difficult to follow your reasoning. Initially you said 77 people died from the Chernobyl disaster.
Now you have opinions related to the different estimations but talk about thousands of people, without retracting your previous position.
My personal stance is that sustainability cannot be achieved within capitalism due to its model of eternal growth. We can have one or the other, but not both.
So creating more energy could not be the solution. Creating less demand would be, and the demand comes from industries.
More often than not, I it seems to me this discussion about clean energy is a deflection of the real problem which is industrialisation under capitalism. We don't question anymore what this energy is needed for.
You find "sane and realistic" to claim that 77 people died due to the Chernobyl accident?
Nuclear energy has, by a staggering margin, the lowest death toll of any form of energy generation per kW produced. And almost all of these come from Chernobyl, where 31 people died due to the explosion, then a further 46 died due to radiation poisoning from the cleanup.
The number of people that died on the spot, could be as low as you say. 77 people is far from being the death toll of the Chernobyl disaster, and that is taking into consideration the fatality numbers are disputed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggested in 2006 that cancer deaths could reach 4,000 among the 600,000 most heavily exposed people, a group which includes emergency workers, nearby residents, and evacuees, but excludes residents of low-contaminated areas.[26] A 2006 report, commissioned by the anti nuclear German political party The Greens and sponsored by the Altner Combecher Foundation, predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of worldwide Chernobyl fallout by assuming a linear no-threshold model for very low doses.
A disputed Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[29]
Well what happens in a war or apocalypse
I don't think you need to go that far. Accidents happen regularly in all industries. Here is a list of some that have been public:
Building large reactors isn’t economically attractive, so maybe SMRs could help with that.
It looks like this is not the case, at least by reading the following:
Some advocates misleadingly claim that SMRs are more efficient than large ones because they use less fuel. In terms of the amount of heat generated, the amount of uranium fuel that must undergo nuclear fission is the same whether a reactor is large or small. And although reactors that use coolants other than water typically operate at higher temperatures, which can increase the efficiency of conversion of heat to electricity, this is not a big enough effect to outweigh other factors that decrease efficiency of fuel use.
From Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
If you have a source that claims otherwise, please share.
A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.
A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.
What are SMRs?
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SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.
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SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.
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SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.
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SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.
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SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.
[Edit: If people have links that contradict any the above, could you please share in the comment section?]
These articles are also quite interesting:
Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis
Nuclear energy has no place in a green Scotland
> > > Nuclear power leaves a long and toxic legacy. > >
> > > Mr Ruskell said: “There is nothing safe, secure or green about nuclear energy, and many people across Scotland will be dismayed and angry to hear that the Secretary of State is seeking to open a new reactor in Scotland. > > > > “Aside from the brazen entitlement and the message this sends, it ignores that people in Scotland have long rejected nuclear energy. I hope that all progressive parties will unite in condemning this environment wrecking overreach. > > > > “A new reactor would not only be unsafe, it would be extremely costly and would leave a toxic legacy for centuries. It would also distract from the vital work we need to do to boost clean, green and renewable energy. > > > > “That is why I hope all progressive parties can rule out any return to nuclear power once Torness has been decommissioned. > > > > “The Hinkley point shambles has exposed the UK government’s total inability to deliver nuclear programmes on budget or on time. We would be far better investing in the huge abundance of renewable resources that we already have here in Scotland.” > >
An exhibition in the West Bank attempts both to capture and counteract the erasure of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, even as its artists are killed.
An exhibition in the West Bank attempts both to capture and counteract the erasure of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, even as its artists are killed.
“This is Not an Exhibition,” which runs until August, showcases some 300 artworks by Gazan artists. Walking around the hall is something of a sensory overload, pulling visitors between visual and auditory stimuli. Paintings crowd around each other in no particular order on the museum’s darkened indigo walls, evoking the chaos of the ravaged Palestinian art scene in Gaza.
Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are
Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are
The name of the ruse: a taxonomy of greenwashing
Mechanism
- Misleading information
- Attention deflection
- Attention reduction (absolute)
- Attention reduction (peer-overshadowed)
- Attention timing
Classic application
- Misleading claims made by firms themselves
- Greenshifting of blame on to demanding consumers
- Limited disclosure of worthy ambitions
- Decent disclosure but substandard vis à vis peers
- Delayed disclosure
Sophisticated application
- Greenlabelling by third parties, which certify firms’ performance
- Greenlighting of good-news case studies
- Fuller disclosure, but with greenhushing of details
- Greencrowding: substandard disclosure en masse
- Greenrinsing: headline-grabbing targets get gradually diluted
Google's layoffs have affected thousands of employees. The tech company cited a weak economy for the job cuts and is restructuring to focus on AI.
Google layoffs in 2023 affected about 6% of the company's global workforce, or about 12,000 people, starting in January.
Google's layoffs aren't necessarily a signal that the company isn't doing well. The company's market cap has nearly quadrupled since 2015, reaching $1.7 trillion.
Now that you mentioned maps, I thought of sharing the United Nations one of this region, from September 2023.
It includes details of Isreal's perimeter fence and shows the few entry points to Gaza, as well as some other chilling details on how Israel controls the state of Palestine.
Btw Gaza and the West Bank are Palestine. The State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 143 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, just not by the traditional colonialists (US, Israel, most EU, Australia) and a few more. "Devide-and-conquer" is the name of the game.
[Here are included some more maps, with recent & scary details from UN of the region]
Just a clarification. The term “Zionism” was first coined by the Viennese writer, Nathan Birnbaum in 1885.
[Source: United Nations - Historical timeline on the question of Palestine]
According to some other* Jewish people:
Jewish Voice for Peace - Our approach to Zionism
While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. Our own history teaches us how dangerous this can be.
Palestinian dispossession and occupation are by design. Zionism has meant profound trauma for generations, systematically separating Palestinians from their homes, land, and each other. Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls, and children holding onto the keys of the homes from which their grandparents were forcibly exiled.
(* I use the word "other" because jewish zionists are super active in the relevant wiki pages. See relevant video: Former Israel PM Naftali Bennett at a wikipedia editing instruction event)
"You take some flour. We made a floating pier for you."
"And you take 1 billion dollars in arms to kill those you starve to death."
There is this conversation about nuclear power that bugs me. The downvoting part in this section motivated me enough to talk about the following.
The way I see things humanity does not have an energy issue, industries do. We don't need more energy to heat our homes, for example. More energy is needed for the industries to be able to expand. So I don't understand why this SMR "adventure" is so well perceived by the public or even environmentalists.
We know that businesses, corporations etc care only about their monetary profit, and not about the environment or humans. Governments take tones of money to enforce these kind of policies worldwide. Some bribes have even evolved to taxable salaries.
Why are people so eager to defend SMR like it's a solution? It's like pretending that the problem is not related to the eternal growth model of capitalism. No?
As you can tell, I cannot see an ecological solutions withing capitalism. Is there anyone who can? If yes, how would those solutions bypass or change the eternal growth model, to a sustainable one?
I might need to change my point of view, this is why I shared this rant.
I'm kinda surprised the number is as low as 500, considering 35k have been killed in total, by all reports.
If you take into consideration that the West Bank is not the in this "war", how does this number sound like?
Israeli independence itself is not identical with the Nakba
Please tell me more about this. But -god forbid- do not take a look at the Jewish Voice for Peace link provided above.
That toll is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022.
> > > That toll is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022. > > > > Israelis have now killed at least 502 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7. > > > > The latest killings came on Thursday when three youths – Mohamed Youssef Nasr Allah, 27, Ayman Ahmed Mubarak, 26, and Hossam Emad Deabes, 22 – were killed by Israeli forces raiding Tulkarm. > > > > More than 230 Palestinians were killed during Israeli raids, while at least 20 are reported to have been killed by settlers from illegal settlements and outposts. [...] > >
Your answer is a conversation stopper and I will respect that.
Socialist countries? Of course definitions vary, so which ones are you referring to?
Also neo-libs don't want any state interference on business, unless it involves bailing them out with tones of money. So which capitalist country will do otherwise with so much lobbying going on?
Google hopes its Gemini AI can provide real-time scam alerts during phone calls. But it'll mean allowing its AI to listen to your conversations.
Google promised to keep data from the phone calls private.
Under the surface - The hidden crisis in Europe's groundwater
> > > Altogether, 14 journalists from seven countries analysed the most up-to-date EU figures and created an interactive map of Europe’s aquifers. The conclusion is that our water is disappearing and what remains is facing near-irreversible pollution. Over 15% of the aquifers mapped are in poor condition — dangerously overexploited, contaminated or both. This figure represents 26% of the aquifers by surface area. And the worst affected are important crop-producing countries, like Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. > > > > But the picture is incomplete. The EU requires all member states and Iceland and Norway to give data on the state of their aquifers. Out of these 29 countries, 16 submitted full, publicly accessible data, with Germany’s and Portugal’s only partially accessible. Eleven countries are not included in the map at all [...] > >
Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale.
> > > Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale. > >
> > > The Second Nakba > > > > While Palestinians have always feared the prospect of a second Nakba, which several Israeli officials have threatened over the years, most never imagined that it would unfold before their eyes in broad daylight, believing that ethnic cleansing belonged in the past century. > > > > They were wrong. For eight months since last October, Israel has massacred and displaced more than three times as many Palestinians in Gaza as it did in all of Palestine during the Nakba. [...] > >
Brazil’s Lula government ousts Petrobras chief after dispute over dividends
CEO of state-controlled oil major leaves job less than a year-and-a-half after being appointed by leftist leader
It comes after 13 students were arrested for trespassing late last month during a protest.
> > > It comes after 13 students were arrested for trespassing late last month during a protest. > >
> > > Twelve students committed to not eating in response to university administrators who barred a group of students from the university for participating in a sit-in that occurred in late April. > >
American Airlines is reportedly issuing so-called ‘poverty verification letters’ for some new-hire flight attendants based in the most expensive metro areas in the United States, urging the recipients to help out the flight attendant because they are only set to warn little more than $27,000 per yea...
Maybe adding AI could unlock augmented reality glasses.
> > > A research team at Stanford is developing a new AI-assisted holographic imaging technology it claims is thinner, lighter, and higher quality than anything its researchers have seen. > > > > the Stanford tech is currently just a prototype > >
UNRWA to close East Jerusalem headquarters after arson attack by ‘Israeli extremists’ | CNN
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees will shutter its East Jerusalem headquarters after the compound was set on fire by “Israeli extremists” while staff were inside, its chief said Thursday.
> > > In a statement on social platform X, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the arson attack was the latest in a series of threats, harassment and violent incidents perpetrated by Israelis against the agency’s staff over the past two months. > > > > “This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem. This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound,” Lazzarini said. > > > > “It is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk.” > > > > The facility would be closed “until proper security is restored,” he added. > >
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said it would pull out of an AI project it was working on in collaboration with Israeli institutions, amid the Gaza war.
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said it would pull out of an AI project it was working on in collaboration with Israeli institutions, amid the Gaza war.
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A Belgian university said on Wednesday that it is planning to end its collaboration with two Israeli institutions on an artificial intelligence project.
It comes after a negative assessment by Vrije Universiteit Brussel's ethics commission, the Belga News Agency reported.
The university said it would start discussions with the EU Commission, which is funding the research project, in order to pull out.
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said on Tuesday that it wished to achieve greater transparency over its work with Israeli organisations given the "unacceptable escalation of the conflict in the Middle East". [...]
University of Barcelona's senate votes in favor of pro-Palestine protesters requests
Students have been camping in the building protesting university's ties with Israel
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The senate of the University of Barcelona (UB) has approved a motion in support of Palestine on Wednesday. The motion calls for the university to break all institutional and academic ties with Israel, including centers, research institutes, companies, and other institutions in the country, until what they refer to as genocide stops. The result was 59 votes in favor of the motion, 23 against and 37 abstentions. The students protesting at the university celebrated the news of their motion being approved. [...]
Amid the Gaza genocide, Jewish activists like Udi Raz have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestine, enduring prejudice, and harassment from the German state.
> > > The German government and establishment are stepping up the repression of pro-Palestine Jews including Israelis, but it's all about anti-Arab/Muslim racism by proxy, says Udi Raz, a Jewish activist who spoke to The New Arab in Berlin. > > > --- > > > “Germany is very much engaged in an attempt to self-define itself through the exclusion of other minorities. In the 30s and 40s, it was the Jews, and now it is Muslims,” explained Raz, adding that Germany is eager to protect Jews but only to the extent that those Jews are also “willing to produce anti-Muslim racism.” > > > > Calling the last seven months a culmination of a decades-long oppression of Palestinians in Germany, Raz believes that this marginalisation of Palestinians also targets the entire Muslim population living in the country. [...] > >