Dr Jurgen Schmid at the University of Kassel, Department of Efficient Energy Conversion is the spokesperson from this December 2007 video. The system described is wind with pumped hydro storage and grid scale solar with methane from biomass (corn biofuels). When the sun isn’t out in the South, the wind may be blowing in the North. When there’s too much wind, it can be used to pump water into reservoirs that will provide hydroelectricity days or weeks later. When the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, biomass can be burned or converted to methane. They say Germany can have a 100% renewable grid by 2050. Dr Schmid, along with John Sievers, Stefan Faulstich, Mathias Puchta, Ingo Stadler, is the co-author of “Long-term perspectives for balancing fluctuating renewable energy sources” (pdf alert:
http://desire.iwes.fraunhofer.de/files/deliverables/del_2.3.pdf) details the steps necessary to get to a fully renewable grid.

If it can work in Germany, which has, on average, about as much sunlight as Seattle, it can work in the USA too. Maybe even in a city like New York.

The NYC Solar Map (http://nycsolarmap.com/), a collaboration between New York City, the City University of New York, and the Department of Energy, shows 66.4 percent of the city’s buildings have roof space suitable for solar panels and could generate up to 5,847 megawatts of energy, 14 percent of the city’s total annual use (taking typical weather conditions into account).

The data for the map was collected using a Lidar-equipped plane recorded the shape, angle, and size of the city rooftops and the shading provided from trees and structures around them. New Yorkers can use the map to discover the solar power potential of their own roof, the associated costs, rebates, and various financial incentives by entering their address.

Today in NYC, about 400 solar installations produce 6.5 megawatts, and existing solar power installations nationwide produce about 2,300 megawatts. If the NYC data is replicable in other cities, we are currently using a little more than a tenth of what we could get from sunlight alone. And that’s just counting electricity.
hat tip http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/rooftop-solar-power-could-meet-half-new-york-city-peak-energy.php

posted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/20/987155/-Fully-Renewable-Grid

Guess that what happened in Chernobyl and is still happening because of it is not very important any more, even in the wake of Fukushima.

Paul Josephson, Colby College
Ecological Effects of Chernobyl

Feature length documentary Battle of Chernobyl on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv3a4LXi_qc or

Ukrainian video on 20th anniversary – http://5.ua/newsline/226

Incomplete understanding of short and long term health effects of ionizing radiation even now
Surprisingly rapid recovery of natural environment according to the studies
Impact on Slavutych, a town (35 km from Chernobyl) built to replace the abandoned Pripyat (population near 50,000 at the time of the accident), has been significant
[Difficult multimedia essay on the children of Chernobyl at http://www.slate.com/id/2291888/ ]
14 exa-becquerels of radiation were released, 400 times what was released at Hiroshima
Cesium, strontium, and plutonium at high levels especially in Belarus
2000 square km affected – 30 km exclusion zone which will remain an exclusion zone into the indeterminate future
40% of the agricultural land in Ukraine and Belarus was affected although most now back close to background
Pine trees more susceptible to radiation than birches and only now coming back

Evidence about long term effects contradictory and confusing: small mammals seem to have recovered quickly
Really don’t know how many people were exposed and at what level of radiation in and around Chernobyl
IAEA estimated 4000 extra deaths
50,000 extra cancer deaths is Paul Josephson’s estimate
Douglas Weiner has written two books about Soviet/Russian attitude to nature: Models Of Nature: Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia and A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev

10-11 years to construct a nuke on average
$6 billion to build one plant in France (will be higher elsewhere) but how much does a Chernobyl or Fukushima cost?

Tammy Lynch, independent researcher
Chernobyl’s Impact on Local Life and Politics

2.4 million have status as Chernobyl-affected
Don’t eat raspberries and strawberries in Kiev is common knowledge for travelers
[One participant spoke about the testing of vegetables for radiation months and years after the accident]

Matthew Bunn, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Chernobyl, Fukushima, and the Future of Nuclear Energy

Stress and fear may have caused more health effects than radiation, including the failure of providing help like iodine pills to avoid thyroid cancers by the Soviet government [One study of Three Mile Island shows heightened levels of heart disease in one county near TMI which I suspect could possibly be an effect of that accident's stress]
A dozen Chernobyl type reactors are still in operation [where?]
Chernobyl essentially stopped nuclear power plant construction around the world
All the reactors shut down safely from the earthquake at Fukushima but there will be additional releases in the coming months
Much less radiation has been released, 10% of Chernobyl [so far], much of it dispersed to the ocean

We should be thinking about safety and security at the same time and security issues are more difficult to solve
However, it appears that IEA [International Energy Agency] is only thinking about safety for upcoming June meeting
Upcoming EU stress tests on nukes will not be truly independent or international and will only look at safety issues but not security. The operators will do their own testing without outside monitoring.
About 20 cases of theft of heavily enriched uranium or plutonium to date

For climate change (500 ppm of CO2) we’d have to commission 25 new plants per year from now till 2050, going from 4 to 25 GWe/year of nuclear energy production
Nuclear power in the developing world, as currently proposed, will occur in countries with high rates of corruption and little regulatory control
There are reactors operating today that don’t have modern containment structures [how many and where?]
The current nuclear safety regime is almost entirely voluntary – no international monitoring or enforcement
Security for nuclear power is even weaker

We need more stringent standards for prolonged loss of offsite power, response to damage of cooling systems, emergency response (most plans have never been exercised or tested), protection against terrorism, seismic and flood safety [cyclones and drought and other natural disasters as well], management of spent fuel (US now stores hot rods next to cooler rods – checkerboarding – to minimize possible heat problems and sprinklers have been installed in case of cooling system failure)
In the 35 US boiling water reactors the spent fuel is not contained but in pressurized water reactors the spent fuel pools are within the containment
Fuel rods need 5 years in spent fuel pools before their temperature drops enough for dry cask storage

We also need independent international peer review and greater safety by design and security by design in new reactors [plus retrofit for existing plants?]
I asked about thorium reactors and Toshiba’s modular mini-nuke. In a recent expert survey of where to put R and D dollars, thorium rated 1% of that funding, far down the list. Just as much radioactive material is left as with existing reactors. Toshiba has yet to produce their mini-nuke design.

We will build the two nukes planned for Georgia but there won’t be many if any more because of the economics and the low cost of natural gas [that may change if fracking is as dangerous as some people say]
However, China, India, and Russia will continue to build nukes.

crossposted to dailykos.com and eurotrib.com

or this solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radio, similar to the ones US and NATO forces have distributed in Afghanistan.

Solar IS Civil Defense
and, after all,
we are at war.

Solar IS Civil Defense
a flashlight, radio or cell phone, an extra set of batteries
solar powered
with hand or foot operated dynamo back-up,
emergency lighting and communication
day or night
from sunlight or
muscle power.

One solar component
is an LED flashlight
which also charges AA batteries.
This design allows for
battery switching,
charging a second set of batteries
to use in other devices.

The Bogolight is a charger and light
with an international development
addition:
each light bought
buys another solar LED light and battery charger
for someone who has no access to electricity
in this world.

Solar IS Civil Defense in another way.

US and NATO forces have distributed
solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios
in Afghanistan.

Those solar/dynamos could easily charge
AA batteries
and establish a low power DC grid
through battery switching.
This level of survival electricity
would raise the standard of living
for most Afghanis,
helping to rebuild their lives
as well as their country and economy.

This circuit diagram is one way
to add this capability to the present
solar/dynamo radios now in Afghanistan.

The image I have is of a
solar swadeshi, hand-made electricity.
Instead of turning the handle
of the charkha spinning wheel
making thread
for khadi cloth
an hour a day as Gandhi did,
turning the crank of a dynamo a half hour a day,
the direct production of survival power
for yourself, your family, and your community,
swadeshi, local production.

How did Gandhi’s Pashtun colleague,
Badshah Khan practice it?
And could his example
help bring peace back
today?

previously posted at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/solar-is-civil-defense-illustrated.html