A bit of Geography related news..........

So, the Geography exam is out of the way now - I hope it went well - and so I can finally move on from writing revision related posts (which I hope were useful) and start writing about some slightly more interesting things. I thought I would quickly outline the things I am planning to write about over the next few weeks, once I have finished the rest of my exams, whilst we don't have any Geography lessons. So, firstly there will be a few book and film reviews that I have been meaning to write for the past month or so followed by some more in depth posts into interesting and easily debatable areas that haven't fitted into the sylabus we have just finished and just some general Geography topics that I don't really know alot about but would like to. I hope it doesn't get too boring or that I start to scare you with my enthusiam but I have been banned by my family from talking about anything remotely Geography related for the next three weeks, until lessons restart, and have been told to write it all on here, so they can be spared from it - I think it is safe to say that they aren't as interested in Geography as I am!

Tonight it is only going to be a short post (I think) from me on a few stories that I have read in the news that have caught me eye........

• Ever since the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill last year, the way in which countries and oil companies are able to respond to such disasters has come under public scrutiny, with many calling for more preparation and better methods incase such a disaster was to occur again. Well, this week, the UK tested its planned repsonse to an oil spill off to the west of Shetland. The exercise, named Exercise Sula, involved the use of oil spill containment booms and planes spraying water to simulate dispersant. The aim of the exercise was to test the responses of the numerous authorities that would be involved in a response to an oil spill. However, perhaps, the greatest obstacle faced by the authorities involved was dealing with the weather conditions. Over the two day exercise, winds frequently reached 50mph and strong waves that prevented the the full extent of the booms, which would be required normally, to be set out whilst the pretend dispersant was been blown everywhere and anywhere. Therefore, this suggests that, perhaps, this is the not necessarily the best method to use in the repsonse to an oil spiil - especially if one was to occur during winter! However, atleast it can be said that we are taking an active role in improving the global preparation for another oil spill which, because we are digging deeper and deeper wells, the probability of such a disaster occuring again is increasing. This National Geographic article would be of interest to anyone who is interested in the regulations in place in the USA about drilling oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico and anything else linked to BP and exploration for oil in this area of the world - While BP Eyes Return to the Gulf, Safeguards Debated .
• I have personally never thought about a possible link between earthquakes and glacial lakes before but apparently the relationship between the two could be disasterous for countries, such as Nepal , which lies at the base of the Himalayas. The Himalayas is a sesmically active region that is covered in glacial lakes which, due to the melting of glaciers, are growing and with an earthquake, predicted, to be overdue, the risk of one of these glacial lakes rupturing threatens to flood huge areas downstream. The epicentre being close a glacial lake, thereby causing it to 'explode', is not the only way in which an earthquake has the potential to rupture these growing lakes. Avalanches and landslides, which can be provoked by earthquakes, can also have a similar effect. For example, in 1985 the glacial lake Dig Tsho, in eastern Nepal, ruptured due to an avalanche and it resulted in the flooding of a nearby HEP plant and much other infrastructure. So, why has this not been a big problem before and why are people only just starting to sound their concerns? Well, the last time a big earthquake occured in the Himilayas was in 1934 and the glacial lakes only really started to appear in the 1950's and they have since grown, therefore have come into closer contact with the most sesmically active areas of the Himilayas. This poses a huge threat for many countries lying at the base of the Himalayas - most of which have large and expanding populations...........
• Switching now to the other side of the globe, to another worrying story. The deforestation rates in Brazil are on an increase with 480 kilometres squared worth of forest being lost over 8 weeks in the Mato Grosso region - a fivefold increase on last year. This increase is believed to have been caused by the uncertainity and the public political disagreements over the forest consevation rules which vary spatially with farmers in the Amazon having to preserve 80% of the forest whilst farmers elsewhere onyl have to preserve 20% - Lets just hope that this new trends does not continue and Brazil reverts back to reducing its deforestation rates which fell to their lowest since the 1980's last year.
• A bit of Geography TV now....... I watch the first episode of Windfarm Wars as part of my revision for the exam and I just caught the second episode on BBC iPlayer. Windfarm Wars is a 4 part documentary that follows the struggle of windfarm developers as they try to persuade the council and locals, in a village near Dartmoor, to allow for the development of a wind farm nearby and they processes they have to go through and the problems and opposition they face. This is the link to the first two episodes if anyone is interested - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=Windfarm%20wars
• China has now acknowledged the problems associated with the Three Gorges Dam and has said that steps need to be taken to help the 1.3 million displaced by the construction of this $40 billion project, protect the environment and prevent any major geological disasters occuring.

• And finally, a quick update on the future of nuclear power. The findings of the initial report commisioned by the UK government was published this week and concluded that there is no need to prevent the further development of nuclear power in the UK because of the events in Japan. Protection against coastal flooding was taken into account in this report as rising sea levels could threaten most of the nuclear power plants in the UK as they are built along the coast but all were found to be suffieciently protected. The situation in Japan is slightly different as the Prime Minister has announced that the country will not build any new reactors and instead, to make up the energy shortfall, greatly increase its use of renewables - especially wind.

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/mg21028136.600/mg21028136.600-1_300.jpg



This blog is likely to be greatly neglected until half term and all my exams are over and so good luck to everyone in the rest of your exams - especially to those of you resitting the skills exam on Tuesday. Encase you havent read Millie's blog recently or seen the FB page, she is running an online revision session on Monday evening at 19:30 - I am sure it will be very beneficial to join in - and so check out her blog for more details.

Possible new alternative for storing nuclear waste........

The issue that surrounds the storing and disposal of nuclear waste is, perhaps, the most problematic of the disadvantages of expanding the world's nuclear power generation capability. Ideas for disposing of this waste, which stays radioactive and thereby poses a risk to human life for a number of years, vary imensely from storing it in concrete containers in specially designated areas or even the possibilty of sending it to space. All the the ideas have their own problems, clearly some more than others, but does a, more recent idea in America, provide more of a sustainable option or not???

Burying the radio active waste is not a new idea, as such, but due to the ongoing situation in Japan at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant,  it is now being considered. Beds of salt, left behind millions of years ago by evaporationg seas, up to 1 kilometre thick lie around 2km deep. Salt is flows slowly and so, unlike deposits of shale and granite which fracture under stress, seal any fissures themselves, preventing the radioactive waste from seeping into groundwater stores. The idea would involve, excavating a chamber in the salt in which the radioactive waste, in its transportation canister, could be lowered. It is believed that once the hole is sealed with salt, concrete and clay, the pressure from the surrounding rock would cause the salt layers to creep inwards and encapsulate the waste. The biggest worry is the impact that the heat from the radioactive waste would have on the salt as the effects of this are yet known. Also levels of tectonic activity and volume of groundwater would play a role in dictating possible sites.

So, is this a possible option for the future? Well, it seems clear that further research needs to be conducted before this idea can be developed further. For the US, who have quite a few underground salt deposits, it could be an option to replace the reprocessing of spent fuel that occurs in some other countries but, due to the concerns surround its possible use in nuclear weapons, does not happen in the USA.

The problems experienced, and still being experienced, in Japan has clearly forced the risks and disadvantages associated with generating nuclear power right into the front of the general public's minds.The above is just on example of  the thoughts that have been provoked by this disaster. One such response that did catch my eye is that a few people in India have stated that they would rather die than allow the events in Fukushima to repeat themselves in the future in Jaitapur. The article on this story is well worth reading and suggests that some have not learnt from what Japan is still experiencing.

“Nuclear energy presents nothing more than a short term fix to the UK’s energy mix problems and the impacts of reaching peak oil” To what extent do you agree with this statement? [15 marks]

More and more money is being invested into nuclear energy and with 10 new nuclear reactors being commisioned, in the UK, in the near future nuclear energy is going to provide an increasing proportion of the energy we both produce and consume.

Personally, I think that; although nuclear energy is a much greener option than using some of the other fossil fuels, it can hold no more than a short term fix to the UK’s energy mix problems as the uranium used is also a finite resource. This means that in the future we are going to have to look for other, more renewable, alternatives to nuclear energy for the generation of electricity as someday the reserves of uranium will also run out. This is one of the main reasons as to why I agree with the above statement as, how can something that is not going to last forever provide a long term fix to problems provoked by our reliance on a dwindling energy source.

Another reason as to why I agree with the statement is that nuclear energy will not be able to remedy all of the problems that will be exposed when we reach peak oil and beyond. Although, using nuclear energy will mean that our electricity generation will be much greener, you cannot simply replace oil with uranium because of the wide range of uses oil has. Oil is used in so many of our everyday items from clothing to modes of transport and plays an important role in food production as it is not only used to power machinery but to make fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides as well.  So uranium alone will not be able to fill the gap that will be left when the global oil reserves run out. This is why I think it is important that people recognise that nuclear energy simply cannot be a long term answer to the problems we are going to face and that, although in the short term nuclear energy maybe the best way to go, is it really wise to totally scrap ideas, like the Severn Barrage, to instead give support to projects that aim to develop an energy source that, unlike tidal energy, is not going to exist for ever.

However, in the near future, I think that nuclear energy is going to play a very important role in electricity generation worldwide – especially in the developed countries. The production of nuclear energy has a very low output of greenhouse gases and so, in the short term, is a good alternative for the use of fossil fuels and can be used to reduce our global dependency on oil and coal. Many developed countries, in an attempt to boost their environmental credentials, are likely to turn to nuclear energy as the reserves of fossil fuels run out and more pressure it put on countries to become greener. Also, the supply of uranium is more reliable than the supply of oil as Australia holds the largest proportion (31%) of uranium reserves in the world. Australia is, by far, a much more politically and socially stable country than those in the Middle East who own a large percentage of the world’s oil reserves. Despite how attractive nuclear energy may look to some, I think that we need to remember what is one of the prime causes of the situation we are going to face in the near future and to learn from the mistakes, in terms of our exploitation of energy sources, that have been made. Globally, we are too dependent on oil and so the rate at which reserves are depleting has been accelerated and our reluctancy to invest in alternatives has been escalated. Nuclear energy is becoming an increasingly favourable alternative for many developed countries but it is important that countries to do not become too reliant on nuclear energy as a method of generating electricity as one day uranium reserves will run out.

Overall, I agree with what the statement is saying as how can nuclear energy offer a long term fix to our energy mix problems when, in the future, reserves of uranium will run out. Also, uranium alone, due to the numerous uses of oil, cannot fill the gap that will be left when oil reserves run out. Although I don’t believe that nuclear energy can offer a long term solution to the problems we will face; I think that it will play an important role in electricity generation in the near future. However, I believe it is important that we don’t let history repeat itself and become too dependent on nuclear energy and so I think that, in conjunction with the development of nuclear energy, we should develop our renewable energy sources so that we will not face similar problems in the distant future and so that nuclear energy can be a contributor to the UK’s energy mix in the long term.

Millie's comments: In my second paragraph (why does it seem that I always need to improve my second paragraph?), she said that I needed to define what peak oil is, which seems like an obvious thing to do seeing as the questions refers to it (why can't I do the simple things right!), and also to mention the issue with transport as, in developing countries, oil is primarily used in transport and nuclear power cannot meet this demand. Millie also commented that I need to refrain from posing further questions and, in response, I am going to blame this bad habitat that I have acquired on the writing of this blog as I have got in to the habitat of presented questions when I shouln't - a bit of a bad excuse, I know.

Another point, that will be relevant to any question that asks you to what extent do you agree with this statement, is that I should write in 3rd person but I don't know about any of you, but I find it extremely hard to to say 'I think that.......' or 'I agree.......' in essays like this one. However, this is clearly something that I need to work on.

In the penultimate paragraph, Millie felt that I needed to include the fact that the carbon involved in th construction of nuclear power plants, despite the fact that they have a very low output of greenhouse gases, means that they can never be carbon neutral.

My comments: There are clearly lots of things that could be done to improve this essay but, fortunatley, most of these are things that can easily be included in my future work. I must admit, whilst looking back at this essay, I was impressed at how sort, in comparision to some of the others I have written, it is. However, I still have a long way to go before my work is suffiently succint.

Reassessing the global future of nuclear power

Although my blogging standards have never been that high, they have slipped recently (which is bad I know considering all of the geography related issues that have been in the news) and so I thought I had better start producing some half decent posts over the next few weeks. I haven't had a lot of time tonight and so the three posts I have posted are only brief ones but I am working on some better ones which include questionning whether or not we can go 100% renewable, discussing whether or not current farming practices are renewable and how they are going to have to change in the future, is there such a thing as a man-made natural disaster and some of the controversy surrounding the Lusi mud volcano, amongst others......

Millie seems to have all the news that is going on in Japan pretty well covered and so I thought I would try and take a different approach to the situation and present how the future of nuclear power across the world is currently being reassessed. As the situation involving the nuclear reactors in Japan has continued to escalate the future of nuclear power has become uncertain as the safety of such plants has come under scrutiny and overall, much of the general public are now viewing nuclear power with more hesitance and uncertainity. This reaction was, perhaps, inevitable especailly since many are calling this the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986 but individual countries have taken a differing approach to the future of nuclear power.

The German Chancellor, Merkel, announced last week that Germany is going to shut down all seven of its nuclear power plants (which produce 23% of the nations energy) that were constructed before 1980 for at least the next three months whilst investigations can be held into their safety. This greatly contradicts what was announced last year in relation to keeping them open into the mid 2030's. Switzerland have suspended all of its nuclear plans pending safety reviews and have also joined an EU initative to stress test all nuclear reactors to determine whether or not they can withstand earthquakes, amognst other emmergencies, with the view that all of those that fail must be permanently closed down. China has also joined Switzerland in suspending its plans for further development of nuclear power until safety reviews have been completed.

Although many other world leaders have called for caution and analysis, many have be much slower at suspending their own nuclear plans. President Putin, of Russia, has said that he will not back away from nuclear power but that “analysis of the current condition of the atomic sector and an analysis of the plans for future development” will occur in the near future. France, who source the majority of their energy from their 58 nuclear reactors, have said, in response to the question presented at the EU's emmergency meeting last week which asked whether or not, in the future, Europe can meet energy needs without nuclear power, that "to say to the French that we are going to give up nuclear power would be lying". India have also refused to rethink their plans to quadruple their nuclear capability by 2020 and claim that the istuation in Japan has only made them, like many other countries it seems, consider "attitional safeguards".

The intentions of increasing the UK's nuclear power generation capability have been made very clear ever since 10 new reactors were commissioned and the situation in Japan has not seemed to greatly affect these intentions as EDF announced yesterday that UK nuclear plants must go ahead. Although many are calling for the government to suspend the approval process for new nuclear sites until the report, commissioned by the government, into the lessons of the Japanese disaster has been published; the boss of EDF has claimed that his company have already reviewed the back-up systems and emmergency plans at all of EDF's existing nuclear plants in the UK. He has also insisted that, although lessons learnt form Japan will be implemented, that the future of nuclear power in the two countries should be considered seperately as the two countries face very different circumstances.

I must admit that I believe that, whether or not you are pro or anti-nuclear, this is the best way to view the situation. I think that lessons can be learnt from Japan, in terms of ensuring that good emmergency plans are put in place, that safety remains of up most importance and that the age of the nuclear reactors is monitered. However, whilst these stress tests are carried out I think that people need to remember that not every country lies  in such a tectonically active region as Japan and that the earthquake experienced was extremely large, even for Japanese standards. It is going to be interesting to see just how this industry has been affected after the situation has calmed down a bit and more control over it has been gained. Previous to the nuclear 'crisis' in Japan, I believed that nuclear power would be the energy source exploited by developing countries as they endeavour to boost their environmental credientials and reduce their dependency on oil and coal but this situation has seemed to really shake up the nuclear power industry and put questions on its future. Even the EU has asked whether or not Europe can meet their energy demands without utilising nuclear power or not; although I think that, perhaps, it is rather idealistic to think that Europe can continue to improve its environmental credentials in the near future without using some nuclear power.

There is a really good picture article on National Geographic which individually discusses the problems, if any, that the top 10 nuclear power producers in the world may face due to tectonic activity and how recent events in Japan are likely to change the way they approach nuclear power in the near future. Click on the link below to view it  Top Ten Nuclear Nations' Quake Hazard

If any more news, in relation to how the global views and approach to nuclear power  have been changed, is announced I will try and update my blog with it as not only is this interesting but it is also very relevant to the energy module we have done and so perhaps could be useful to mention in essays related to the topic.