Back in April, I expressed concern about levels of radioactive caesuim-137 that were released during the Fukushima disaster following the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s east coast in March of this year.  Caesium-137 has a half life of  thirty years, meaning that it takes thirty years to become half as radioactive.

Now, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found caesium-137 in the soil in areas around Fukushima at levels that are higher than the maximum permitted by the Japanese government for the growing of rice.  The two research projects used different methods to obtain their results.  In one, computer modelling was used to estimate how much caesium would have found its way into the soil across a wide area of Japan, taking into account wind speed and direction, rainfall etc. in the days following the disaster.  In the other, a team took soil samples from 108 locations around Fukushima, though they were not allowed within the 20km exclusion zone that is still in force around the damaged power plant.

Radioactivity levels of up to 5,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) of soil are allowed by the Japanese government for the growing of rice.  Close to the plant itself, the researchers estimate that levels of radioactive caesium-137 were at around eight times this limit (though they weren’t allowed into the 20km exclusion zone to confirm this).

In addition the research found that “The east Fukushima prefecture exceeded [the 5,000 Bq/ kg limit] and some neighbouring prefectures such as Miyagi, Tochigi and Ibaraki are partially close to the limit under our upper-bound estimate”.

Much of the research is based on estimates and more work will need to be done to get a true picture of how far the caesium-137 has travelled and at what levels of concentration.  It’s clear that the people living around the Fukushima plant are going to need answers as to whether it’s safe or not to carry on living there long-term.

Once bound into soil, caesium-137′s uptake by plants is restricted, which might make it less of a problem more quickly, but it does seem that some of the land around Fukushima will be unusable for farming for decades to come.

In a bid to cut global CO2 emissions, it looks like there will be many more nuclear power plants built around the world in the coming years, including here in the UK.  We can’t afford to have disasters like the one at Fukushima repeated anywhere, so safety is going to have to be the top priority across the world.

And as I keep saying, we have to invest more in renewable energy.  Small scale, local energy generation using renewable energy sources is what we need to aim for.

Following on from my last blog entry, it’s alarming to hear that the UK government is planning to reduce the feed-in tariff for solar energy from households from 43p per KWh to 21p from 1 April 2012.  This will seriously reduce the attractiveness of adopting solar power for both investors and householders, as less will be paid for the energy generated by their solar panels.

Why, when we know that our CO2 emissions are reaching alarming levels and we’re potentially very close to the time when we will be unable to stop global temperatures from rising beyond 2 degrees C over pre-industrial levels is the government proposing to cut back on an subsidy to encourage renewable energy?

The answer from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is in essence – money.  It seems that solar energy generation has been too enthusiastically adopted by UK householders and that if the subsidies continued to be paid at the current rate, the money would simply run out.  Bearing in mind that adoption of solar energy is supposed to be encouraged and that the fact that the money is running out is symptomatic of a success story (some 90,000 households have installed solar energy since the scheme started in 2010), would it not be better to make more money available, so that even more people are encouraged to make the change?

The solar industry is still in its infancy in the UK and to cut off this funding may cause some companies to fail, simply because less people will see the reason to invest in solar power if they’re not going to see a financial reward for it.  In an ideal world, people would feel compelled to make the change for the sake of the environment alone – and indeed, some probably do.  But the majority will not invest in costly new technology if they can’t see the benefit in doing so.

And there’s a big argument at the moment about the way the tariff reduction has been handled.  The new rate will start being paid to households installing solar energy systems after 12 December, yet the industry consultation on the tariff reduction does not close until 23 December.  What’s the point in even having a consultation if the decision is being made before the results are known.  Companies making and installing solar energy systems are very angry about this and I can see why.  They have started legal action against the government.

There’s a real chance that a good news story for the planet (growth of solar energy companies, more investment in solar technology, greater adoption of solar generation by householders, domestic solar generating capacity increased to 321 megawatts, up from 30 megawatts before the start of the scheme) could be crushed by the proposed changes.  I don’t think they make sense economically either.  The feed-in tariff costs the UK £220M per year, but generates about £280M per year in jobs and VAT, according to HomeSun Chief Executive Daniel Green.  Thousands of jobs could go if the cuts go ahead.  So rather than making big cuts to the subsidies, why don’t we reduce the subsidies a little, increase the budgets a lot and ensure that the growth of renewables at household level continues in the UK?

A report issued by the International Energy Agency today has warned that we have only a very short time left to curb our carbon emissions and keep the world’s predicted warming to 2 degrees Centigrade over pre-industrialised levels.  By as soon as 2017, we may have reached the maximum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) permitted in order to keep temperature increases below that critical two degrees.  That limit is estimated as being 450 parts per million CO2.  We’re already up to 390 ppm.

In the midst of the global economic crisis, the dangers of climate change seem to be slipping down the political agenda, as Western governments try to prop up their economies with austerity measures.  The world’s governments, including our own, who were supposed to be agreeing on a new climate deal for the planet before the lapsing of the provisions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (it ends in 2012) are now talking about getting a new agreement together by 2018 or even 2020.

But if the IEA’s predictions are correct – and it doesn’t have a reputation for scaremongering – then that will be too late.  The need for more investment in renewable energies is urgent and growing, yet funding for new technologies is declining at the moment, certainly here in the UK.  Investment in nuclear energy has also declined in some countries since the Fukushima nuclear disaster earlier this year.  Whilst I’m not 100% comfortable with nuclear energy, it at least has the advantage that it’s CO2 free.

According to the IEA, human activities across the planet produced 30.6 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2010, which is an increase of 1.6 gigatonnes on the CO2 emissions from the previous year.  That CO2 will have a warming effect on our planet for about a century.  It’s easy to see how that growth in CO2 emissions, if it continues is going to be catastrophic.

And it’s not just here in the West that we need to focus on our CO2 emissions.  In China, where CO2 emissions per head have historically been much lower than ours, things are changing.  Its growing economy, with all the energy requirements that brings, means that in about four years time, its CO2 emissions per person will outstrip those of European nations, according to the IEA.

So the world’s governments need to act together to sort out the mess and they need to do it very soon.  Today would be good (but not likely).  New gas and coal fired power stations are not the answer.  They will emit CO2 for decades to come.  We need low carbon, or preferably carbon-free energy generation and we need it very soon – not in 2020 or beyond.

We have to give renewables – solar, wind, tidal, wave, biomass et al. – the chance to work and to do that will take investment at government level.  If we don’t address the problem now, the chaos we’ll have to deal with later – rising sea levels, large areas of the planet uninhabitable, mass migrations and probably wars – will make us realise that we should have acted when we had the chance.

A new report, headed by Dr Mike Weightman, the UK’s chief nuclear inspector has concluded that there is no reason why the government’s plans to build new nuclear reactors should not be allowed to continue.  The report was commissioned by the government as a response to the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The report states that the UK’s nuclear industry is one of the safest in the world, but that safety improvements should continue to be made wherever possible.  The reason we need the new reactors is to meet the UK’s carbon reduction targets, mentioned in my previous post.  Without the energy produced by the new nuclear power stations, the UK would find it very difficult to meet its target of halving its carbon dioxide emissions by 2025.

In the longer term, I hope that renewable energy will provide the bulk of the UK’s energy requirements, but that’s still a way off at the moment and nuclear energy has the potential to fill the gap whilst not producing CO2 emissions.

However, as the Fukushima accident has shown, systems can fail and if that were to happen in the UK, the results would be long lasting and possibly disastrous in scale.  I don’t want more nuclear power for the UK, but I don’t want our CO2 emissions to grow either. So, nuclear power possibly the best short term solution we’ve got if we want to avoid energy shortages, but it shouldn’t be the long term one.  Renewables have to be given the investment and prominence they need in order to become our main energy source of the future.

David Cameron claimed that he wants the current UK administration would be the ‘greenest government ever’.  But following George Osborne’s comments at the Conservative Party conference last week, that’s looking a bit shaky.  The UK is committed to halving its CO2 emissions by 2025, but that will now come under review in 2014.  Mr Osborne said that the UK won’t cut its carbon emissions faster than other countries in the EU.

That potentially is bad news for entrepreneurs looking to set up alternative energy generation projects in the UK.  What they need is more reassurance from the government that the UK is committed to a low carbon future.  Without this, they will struggle to find the investment they need to start and grow their businesses.

The argument is over whether the UK should jeopardise its industrial future by switching to a low carbon economy if other countries in Europe aren’t doing the same.  That’s because initially at least, the switch to alternative energy generation is going to be expensive and energy will cost more for UK businesses to buy.  If the rest of Europe is still using cheaper, but carbon-based energy, our businesses will be uncompetitive.

But where the environment and in particular climate change is concerned, the costs of not making the switch are likely to be far higher in the long run.  We need to stop thinking of the short term and start thinking about what we want for ourselves in the next 20 or 50 years.  And that might mean the UK has to show some leadership to Europe.

What’s needed is a clear statement from the government that they intend to stay true to the UK’s commitment on CO2 reduction.  If the intention is to ensure that Europe meets and indeed exceeds the reduction targets it has already signed up to that’s great.  But it could be really damaging to the low carbon industry if a slower than expected pace of change in Europe is going to be used as an excuse for reducing CO2 reduction targets for the UK.

In unofficial tests carried out on some 130 children who were evacuated from around the Fukushima nuclear plant, ten were found to have hormonal irregularities associated with their thyroid glands, according to AFP News Agency.  Fukushima Daiichi is the name of the Japanese nuclear power station that was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami back in March of this year.

Now, around 360,000 young people, who were all under 18 at the time of the tsunami will be tested for irregularities in their thyroid glands.  Radioactive iodine, which made up the bulk of radioactive materials leaking from the plant is known to cause thyroid problems, especially in young people, who are more vulnerable to its effects.

Similar problems were recorded in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, after the accident there, which took place in 1986.  More than 6,000 people who were then children living in the area of the Chernobyl plant have gone on to develop thyroid cancers.  Clearly, Japanese parents are worried that the same could happen to their children.

The really scary thing with radiation is the fact that it’s unseen.  You can’t tell whether it’s there or not (at least, not without radiation detection equipment), but it can get into the air, the soil, into food and into water and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Fortunately, radioactive iodine 131, which is the isotope of iodine that leaked from Fukushima,  has a very short half life (the time it takes for radioactivity to reduce by a half) of about eight days.  So it’s a lot less dangerous more than six months on than it was at the time of the accident.  But the damage may already have been done.

If we are going to use nuclear power (and in the UK, I think we will be for the next 30 years at least) we need to ensure that every possible safeguard is put in place to prevent this kind of a leak of radioactive material happening here.  There is no room for cost-cutting at all here.  As I heard someone say on the radio last week in relation to the airline industry “if you think safety is expensive, try having an accident”.  The same surely applies to nuclear energy.

I have to say that I was both amazed and dismayed by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond’s recent announcement that the government was considering raising the speed limit on Britain’s motorways to 80 mph.

The trend in all flavours among our governments in recent years has been to focus on taxation measures that will lead to the adoption of greener transport. For example, if you drive a car with low CO2 emissions, you pay lower road tax, with some of the most fuel efficient vehicles actually exempt from road tax. Fuel duties have risen steadily, again supposedly to price people out of using their cars unnecessarily. These measures I agree with.

But if the intention is to reduce car use or to promote the adoption of more fuel efficient cars, then why increase the speed limit? When cars are driven faster, they become less fuel efficient, so an increased speed limit would simply encourage people to drive even faster and become bigger emitters of CO2.

And anyway, if you’ve driven on one of our motorways recently, you’ll know that the majority of drivers already travel at around 10mph in excess of the current speed limit. Surely if the speed limit is raised, the same will happen again, and driving at 90mph will become the norm on our motorways. It’s not just the environment that will suffer. Higher speeds mean more danger and more chance of serious injury or death in the event of an accident.

If the government really cares about our environment and climate change, this is a 80mph dash in the wrong direction.

I was delighted to learn yesterday that a new colony of ladybird spiders is being introduced to the Arne Nature Reserve, on the shores of Poole Harbour in Dorset.  Arne is a fabulous place that we visit for our Environmental Discovery Courses.  Whilst it’s an RSPB reserve, it’s great for seeing far more than the diverse range of birds (including the rare Dartford warbler)

Ladybird spider. Image: Maarten Bos, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

that live on or visit the reserve at different times of year.

There are large herds of sika deer roaming the woods and saltmarshes and huge colonies of wood ants that make you think there really could be could be a million ants on the planet for every human being.  There are pools and ponds, which in summertime are constantly buzzed by dragon- and damselflies and if you look closely, you might even see a huge raft spider (well, huge by the UK’s standards, at least!) on the surface of the pools.  There’s a brilliant range of habitats, like heathland, sandy beach, woodland and farmland all within a couple of miles of circular walk.

And now, there are another thirty really interesting spiders to look out for!  They spend most of their lives underground, but come to the surface to find  a mate.  They are black in colour for most of their lives, but males change to red with black spots when searching for a female to mate with, hence their name.

Back in 1994, there were as few as 56 ladybird spiders left in the UK, but thanks to captive breeding programmes, there are now around 1,000, which still makes them pretty rare!  Thirty or so of them have just been released in the heathland at Arne.  So in 2012, we could be in with a chance of spotting ladybird spiders when we take groups of young people to explore Arne whilst they are attending one of our Environmental Discovery Courses.  That would be brilliant for all of us.  I’ve certainly never seen a ladybird spider up close before except in a photo.  If you’re headed that way this summer, keep your eyes open!