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Earthquake deaths mainly due to corruption

January 17, 2011

Most fatalities from earthquakes in the last 30 years can be linked to corruption in building practices and lack of building standards.

“While a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures”.

A new assessment of earthquake fatalities in Nature:

Nicholas Ambraseys, Roger Bilham. Corruption kills. Nature, 2011; 469 (7329): 153 DOI: 10.1038/469153a

Science Daily reports:

A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.

Authored by Professor Nicholas Ambraseys of the Imperial College of London and Professor Roger Bilham of the University Colorado at Boulder, the study also found that in some relatively wealthy countries where knowledge and sound business practices would be expected to prevail, the collapse of many buildings is nevertheless attributable to corrupt building practices…… The authors determined that there is roughly a one-to-one relationship between a nations’ wealth and its perceived level of corruption. “Less wealthy nations are the most corrupt,” said Bilham, also a fellow in the CU-Boulder based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “We found that fully 83 percent of all deaths from earthquakes in the last 30 years have occurred in nations where corruption is both widespread and worse than expected.”

Corrupt building practices — which are generally covert and hard to quantify — can include the use of substandard materials, poor assembly methods, the inappropriate placement of buildings and non-adherence to building codes, said the authors……

The poorest countries are the most corrupt, but some are more corrupt than others. A weighted regression line (dashed) divides nations that are perceived as more corrupt (below the line) than might be expected from the average income per capita.

……. The authors noted that while a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures. “Widespread anecdotal evidence points to the collapse of structures in devastating earthquakes as a result of corrupt building practices,” said Bilham. “In this study we have attempted to quantify that perception.

“Corruption is found to be far worse in some countries than others, despite a measure of wealth that tells us they should do better,” said Bilham. “It is in the countries that have abnormally high levels of corruption where we find most of the world’s deaths from earthquakes.”

The global construction industry, currently worth $7.5 trillion annually and which is expected to double in the next decade, is recognized by experts as being the most corrupt segment of the world economy, said the authors.

Since 1980, deaths due to an absence of effective earthquake engineering activity have averaged about 18,300 per year, according to the authors.

 

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Posted in Corruption, Development, Natural Disasters | Comments Off on Earthquake deaths mainly due to corruption

Beijing introduces number plate lottery to cut car sales by 75%

January 16, 2011

Last year 890, 000 cars hit Beijing’s streets contributing to the city’s legendary gridlock and traffic emissions.

Gridlock in Beijing: image care2.com

From 1st January this year a lottery for number plates will provide only 20,000 winners each month restricting sales of both new and second-hand cars in the city to 240,000 this year. 210,000 people have applied for the 20,000 licenses available for January. Winners must buy a car within six months. Losers in this month’s lottery will be included in next month’s drawing along with all new applicants.

CRIenglish reports:

Car dealerships in Beijing may opt to shift their focus on boosting sales to neighboring cities after the municipal government imposed an annual quota on new car license plates as part of efforts to ease traffic gridlock in the capital city.

Some car dealerships, especially of domestic brands, are making plans to expand sales to areas outside Beijing where the policy restriction does not apply, the China Business Times reported. The new limit means buyers will favor high-end and luxury types of cars once they obtain the hard-to-get licenses. Domestic brands and small cars, which sell mostly at below 100,000 yuan, will see lower sales in Beijing, the newspaper article said.

The policy stipulates that buyers of secondhand cars must go through the monthly lottery system to obtain a license and sellers of used cars will see their license annulled in a year if they make no new purchases. That puts dealers of both new and used cars to compete in the same arena for the annual 240,000 new car license plates.

The combined factors have driven many companies to stock up cars, including used cars, in preparation for the coming hike in rental businesses. Car dealerships are tapping into this market, putting types of cars idling for sale ready for renting….. Meanwhile, industry experts predict the big automakers will likely adapt by focusing more on smaller cities further inland, the China Daily quoted Zhong Shi, an independent analyst in Beijing as saying.

“The best and most efficient way for automakers to offset the declining sales in Beijing and maybe other first-tier cities in the near future is to shift rapidly their dealer network expansion inland,” said Zhong.

Besides easing traffic jams, the new policy will help address serious air pollution problems in the Chinese capital city. Car emissions account for around 50 percent of the air pollution in Beijing.


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Posted in Behaviour, China, Development, Urban Living | Comments Off on Beijing introduces number plate lottery to cut car sales by 75%

No food crisis in sight: World can feed its 9 billion in 2050

January 13, 2011
Smaller cropped version, made for Template:Agr...

Image via Wikipedia

Doomsday proponents will not like this new on-line publication in Nature and are already beginning to object. But I see no resource or food crunch that cannot be addressed by human ingenuity and the development of technology.

Paillard, S., Treyer, S. & Dorin, B. Agrimonde: Scenarios and Challenges for Feeding the World in 2050 (Editions Quae, 2011) doi:10.1038/news.2011.14

From Nature News:

Future of food could be bright: French agencies’ study punctures assumptions about the state of global agriculture.

The world will be able to feed the predicted 2050 population of nine billion people, according to two French agricultural research organizations. In a joint report published today, they lay out findings gleaned from 2006 to 2008 that could overturn some current assumptions about the state of global farming.

The report, titledAgrimonde, is published by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and the Centre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD), both headquartered in Paris. It contains some surprise findings on Africa and other regions — the latest results from an ongoing study by the two research agencies.

Agricultural productivity in Africa doubled between 1961 and 2003 — a finding that overturns most assumptions “and is one of the most surprising results of our work”, Patrick Caron, CIRAD’s director-general for research and strategy, told reporters last night.

African productivity remains the lowest in the world, however, averaging 10,000 kilocalories per hectare (kcal ha–1) compared with 20,000 kcal ha–1 globally and 25,000 kcal ha–1 in Asia. Productivity elsewhere doubled or tripled over the same period.

Asia scored higher on productivity than in other studies, because the agencies looked at aggregate rather than independent annual yields of wheat, rice and other crops, explains Bruno Dorin, an economist at CIRAD and one of the report’s authors. “In Asia, the wheat yield may be lower, but if you take account of rice and other crops grown in the same year, the total yield is higher,” he says.

Another finding to emerge is that major reserves of potential farmland exist across the globe, especially in Africa and Latin America, Dorin says. “The 1.5 billion hectares of land now cultivated could be increased to 4 billion, but this would of course be at the expense of pastures and forests, which are a reservoir of biodiversity and carbon,” he adds.

Read the original article:

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110112/full/news.2011.14.html


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Posted in Agriculture, Development, Food, France | Comments Off on No food crisis in sight: World can feed its 9 billion in 2050

The Cancun hype begins – but it is all about money not climate

November 22, 2010

With one week left before the Cancun circus begins (UN/ IPCC Climate Conference from 29th November to 10th December), the mainstream media hype has begun.

Global CO2 expected to rise to record levels screams the Daily Telegraph. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to reach record levels this year, according to a new study, despite the recession and global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases – but what that has to do with climate is uncertain. No doubt it has a great deal to do with pricing of the Carbon Trading market. As The Telegraph points out (inadvertently perhaps) this is just hype timed to come just before the UN jamboree.

The results of the study by the Global Carbon Project will be used to put pressure on environment ministers meeting in Cancun, Mexico this month for the latest UN meeting to come to a global agreement on cutting emissions.

The Cancun meeting itself is all about money and Carbon Trading. The collapse of the Chicago exchange and the growing realisation in Europe that Carbon Trading is just a scam is leading all those with a vested interest in carbon pricing to raise the spectres of carbon dioxide again.  Hopefully these efforts will be as useless as at Copenhagen but some “trading” being introduced through the back door is always a possibility.

The two main “money flows” that Cancun is concerned with is the carbon trading fraud and the diversion of funds to “developing” countries to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide. Just as with the Nagoya biodiversity conference a key objective is the redistribution of wealth. In fact biodiversity and climate are merely convenient scare stories which can act as vehicles for arranging for the flow of funds. A UN IPCC official admitted as much when talking about climate policy:

OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL: “That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all”.

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Posted in Air pollution, Alarmism, Climate, Development, Economics, Fraud, UN | 1 Comment »

Sterile, male, GM mosquitoes released to fight Dengue

November 12, 2010
Ochlerotatus notoscriptus, Tasmania, Australia

Image via Wikipedia

PhysOrg.com:

Scientists have released genetically modified mosquitoes in an experiment to fight dengue fever in the Cayman Islands, British experts said Thursday.

It is the first time genetically altered mosquitoes have been set loose in the wild, after years of laboratory experiments and hypothetical calculations. But while scientists believe the trial could lead to a breakthrough in stopping the disease, critics argue the mutant mosquitoes might wreak havoc on the environment.

“This test in the Cayman Islands could be a big step forward,” said Andrew Read, a professor of biology and entomology at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the project. “Anything that could selectively remove insects transmitting really nasty diseases would be very helpful,” he said.

Dengue is a potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease that can cause fever, muscle and joint pain, and hemorrhagic bleeding. More than 2.5 billion people are at risk and the World Health Organization estimates there are at least 50 million cases every year. There is no treatment or vaccine.

Unlike malaria, which is also spread by mosquitoes, dengue outbreaks are unpredictable and bed nets are of limited use because dengue-spreading mosquitoes also bite during the day.

Researchers at Oxitec Limited, an Oxford-based company, created sterile male mosquitoes by manipulating the insects’ DNA. Scientists in the Cayman Islands released 3 million mutant male mosquitoes to mate with wild female mosquitoes of the same species. That meant they wouldn’t be able to produce any offspring, which would lower the population. Only female mosquitoes bite humans and spread diseases.

From May to October, scientists released batches of genetically mutated male mosquitoes in cages three times a week in a 40-acre (16-hectare) area. By August, mosquito numbers in that region dropped by 80 percent compared with a neighboring area where no sterile male mosquitoes were released.

Luke Alphey, Oxitec’s chief scientific officer, said with such a small area, it would have been very difficult to detect a drop in dengue cases. But their modeling estimates suggested an 80 percent reduction in mosquitoes should result in fewer dengue infections.

Yeya Toure, who leads the World Health Organization’s team on Innovative Vector Control Interventions, called the Cayman Islands trial promising and said it’s worth continuing the genetic modification experiments. He said genetically altered mosquitoes aren’t meant to replace existing tools like insecticides, but to compensate for their limitations, like when mosquitoes develop resistance.

Read said creating mutated mosquitoes might actually be the least invasive way to control dengue. By keeping a lid on the mosquito population via genetic modification, Read said entire ecosystems would be spared the toxic effects of indiscriminately spraying pesticides.

Of course opponents of GM (Gene Modification) think this may be a “bad thing” even though the GM modified males cannot last more than a generation.

“If we remove an insect like the mosquito from the ecosystem, we don’t know what the impact will be,” said Pete Riley, campaign director of GM Freeze, a British non-profit group that opposes genetic modification.

He said mosquito larvae might be food for other species, which could starve if the larvae disappear. Or taking out adult mosquito predators might open up a slot for other insect species to slide in, potentially introducing new diseases.

Experts in the safety of genetically modified (GM) organisms have expressed concern over the release of GM mosquitoes into the wild on the Cayman Islands, which was publicised internationally only last month — a year after their initial release.

Ricarda Steinbrecher, a geneticist and co-director of EcoNexus — a UK-based non-profit research organisation — expressed surprise that the trials had occurred, saying that they had not been mentioned at the fifth meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety — which addresses international safety issues relating to GM organisms — in Nagoya, Japan, last month. She described the lack of publicity surrounding the trials as ‘worrying, both from the scientific perspective as well as public participation perspective’. Steinbrecher said that until a full, long-term environmental assessment of the Cayman trials has been carried out, the recently announced Malaysian trials of the same strain should not go ahead.

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Posted in Biology, Development, Ethics, Medicine | Comments Off on Sterile, male, GM mosquitoes released to fight Dengue

G 20 ends: “We know we must do something but we don’t know what …”!

November 12, 2010

Everybody agreed that a currency war was a “bad thing” but each country – of course – denied that it would ever indulge in such a thing. All agreed that the world was a dangerous place and that there were “grave imbalances”. The US blamed China and China blamed the US but they did try to engage and tone down the earlier rhetoric. It started a little acrimoniously but ended with fine words and a task passed on to the IMF to set “indicative” guidelines.

It is no doubt a “good thing” that the leaders do meet and at least try to think a little outside the box but few have the ability to look much beyond immediate domestic issues and domestic politics. The European leaders did at least have a “break out” meeting to address the problems in Ireland.

Reuters –

G20 leaders closed ranks Friday and agreed to a watered-down commitment to watch out for dangerous imbalances, yet offered investors little proof that the world was any safer from economic catastrophe.

The developing and emerging nations agreed at the summit in Seoul to set vague “indicative guidelines” for measuring imbalances between their multi-speed economies but, calling a timeout to let tempers cool, left the details to be discussed in the first half of next year.

Leaders vowed to move toward market-determined exchange rates, a reference to China’s tightly managed yuan that the United States has long complained is undervalued.

They pledged to shun competitive devaluations, a line addressing other countries’ concern that the U.S. Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy was aimed at weakening the dollar.

In a nod to emerging markets struggling to contain huge capital inflows, the G20 gave the okay to impose “carefully designed” control measures. They also agreed that there was a critical, but narrow, window of opportunity to conclude the long-elusive Doha round of trade liberalization talks launched in 2001.

After weeks of verbal jousting, the United States and China sought to bury the hatchet over rows about China’s “undervalued” currency and the global risks created by the U.S. printing money to reflate its struggling economy. “Exchange rates must reflect economic realities … Emerging economies need to allow for currencies that are market driven,” Obama said. “This is something that I raised with President Hu (Jintao) of China and we will closely watch the appreciation of China’s currency.”

Tim Condon, head of research at ING Financial Markets in Singapore said it was “hard to disagree” with the vows of the leaders but they had fallen short of the progress hoped for going into the summit.

“They decided just to put down a lot of laudable objectives as the conclusion of the meeting and hope that they can do better, that more can be accomplished in future meetings,” he said. The G20 has fragmented since a synchronized global recession gave way to a multi-speed recovery. Slow-growing advanced economies have kept interest rates at record lows to try to kickstart growth, while big emerging markets have come roaring back so fast that many are worried about overheating.

But at least the G20 spouses apparently had a good time  in what looks like sunny autumn weather!

Main Image

The spouses of G20 world leaders walk through a park in Seoul November 12, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Yonhap/Pool SOUTH KOREA

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G20 kicks off today and currency war fears dominate

November 11, 2010

As countries jostle to weaken their currencies to stimulate growth, this G20 meeting in Seoul, Korea may not achieve much new. All agree that other countries should not engage in currency manipulation but each country wants to retain the right to do so. My reading is that if currencies followed the actual situation on the ground then the Dollar and Chinese Yuan ought to appreciate, the Yen should depreciate and the Euro should stay roughly where it is balanced between the German strength and the Ireland effect. The Indian Rupee and the Brazilian Real are probably undervalued as well.

Alan Greenspan continues to have his unsettling effect on the world economy.

"YES" Currency symbols sculpture:

Reuters:

Rancorous debate over global economic imbalances and currency strains dogged the G20 as world leaders gathered for a summit in Seoul on Thursday despite U.S. efforts to shore up the group’s unity. Behind the scenes, negotiators squabbled over the language in a closing statement to be issued at the summit’s conclusion on Friday. The final version may not venture far beyond agreements reached by G20 finance ministers last month, yet it was still proving difficult to agree on the wording.

A major irritant in the run-up to the meeting was the U.S. Federal Reserve’s bond-buying spree to revive the economy. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan stirred that pot, saying the United States was pursuing a policy of weakening the dollar.

“The U.S. will never do that,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner shot back a few hours later in an interview with CNBC. “We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or to grow the economy.”

China’s yuan, also known as the renminbi, rose 0.25 percent on Thursday and has climbed almost 3 percent since Beijing loosened its grip on the tightly managed currency in June. Washington has welcomed the slow-but-steady appreciation, although it has said more movement is needed.

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Obama in India: Day2: Networking aplenty but no new contracts announced today

November 7, 2010

Plenty of activity and a full schedule for President and Mrs Obama in Mumbai and Delhi today. There were no new announcements of any agreements or any business deals but no doubt these will be saved up for the final, ritual press conference.

Fielding questions from students on issues ranging from Pakistan to jehad, establishing an e-connect with farmers and breaking into an impromptu jig, US President Barack Obama got into the groove in more ways than one as he ended the first leg of his India visit here before heading for New Delhi Sunday afternoon. Obama took on a host of sharp questions from eager students at the St Xavier’s College this morning in Mumbai.

Obama met hundreds of American and Indian business leaders yesterday at the USIBC event. “India is the United States’ 12th largest trading partner. It could be number one or two if the conditions for trade between these two giant economies continue to improve,” said The McGraw-Hill Companies Chairman and CEO Harold Terry McGraw III, who is also the Chairman of the US-India Business Council (USIBC). Along with the USIBC Chairman, the meeting was attended by GE CEO Jeff Immelt, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Honeywell Chairman David Cote, Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Bharti Enterprises Vice Chairman Rajan Bharti Mittal.

Having mixed serious business with interactions with schoolchildren and a town hall-style meeting at St Xavier’s College, U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama began the second leg of their Indian trip in New Delhi.

President Obama has now arrived in Delhi where he was met at the airport by the Prime Minister.

 

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi: tripadvisor.com

 

It was as close to the slum-dog moment as the Obamas could get in their India tour. The US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met with 16 children of labourers at  Humayun’s tomb in New Delhi today. The children, aged between five and seven, do not go to a regular school because they are too poor. They receive informal education due to the voluntary efforts of Mr K.K. Mohammad, the Superintendent of the Archaeological Survey of India who has taken upon himself to get some basic literacy tools to these kids. At Humayun’s tomb, the children attired in uniforms of checked shirt and shorts spoke in Hindi to the U.S. President and the First Lady. They had small slate tablets in their hands and scribbled with white chalk on those tablets were the words “Welcome to India, Obamajee”. The President spoke to one eight-year-old Vishal, whose father Ram Das is a restoration worker at the Humayun’s tomb.

On the eve of their formal talks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama had a meeting in New Delhi on Sunday during which the two leaders are understood to have taken stock of bilateral ties and ways to push these to higher levels of strategic partnership.  Singh and Obama had a one-on-one meeting for about 25 minutes before the private dinner hosted by the Prime Minister for the visiting leader and his wife Michelle at his 7, Race Course Road residence.

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With a “good” monsoon in the bag Indian GDP should exceed 11%

October 11, 2010

The 4 month monsoon season in India ended on 30th September and total rainfall was 2% over the long term average, about 25% higher than last year and about 5% above the long range forecast made in the spring.

 

Total rainfall 2010 Monsoon: IMD

 

Expectations that a good monsoon could lead to double digit growth are stronger with the IMF now predicting a 9.7% growth rate for the calendar year 2010.

“India’s macroeconomic performance has been vigorous, with industrial production at a two-year high. Leading indicators — the production manufacturing index and measures of business and consumer confidence — continue to point up,” the IMF said.

“Growth is projected at 9.7 per cent in 2010 and 8.4 per cent in 2011, led increasingly by domestic demand. Robust corporate profits and favorable external financing will encourage investment,” it said.

“Recent activity (10 per cent year-over year growth in real GDP at market prices in the second quarter) was driven largely by investment and the contribution from net exports is projected to turn negative in 2011 as the strength in investment further boosts imports,” the IMF said.

But in spite of the IMF’s caveat on net exports turning down, I think the trickle-down effects of a good monsoon may have been under-estimated. Agricultural growth which was low should pick up and domestic demand will ensure the industrial growth continues. For the Fiscal Year 2010/11 (till 31st March 2011) I fully expect that the GDP will grow by just over 11%.

The establishing La Niña probably helped the monsoon somewhat.

A “moderate to strong” La Niña, which appeared in July, was now well estabished according to the WMO, and forecasts showed “rather a strengthening of this La Niña episode for the next four to six months.” La Niña is characterised by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific and has been associated with strong rainfall in Asia and Australia, bitter cold snaps in North America, as well as drought in South America.

 

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The quiet nuclear renaissance is already under way

October 10, 2010

 

The map shows the commercial nuclear power pla...

Commercial and planned nuclear plants around the world: Wikipedia

 

In spite of political posturing of many kinds,  nuclear power capacity worldwide is steadily increasing  with 58 reactors under construction in 15 countries. Most reactors on order or planned are in Asia, though there are plans for new units in 65 countries. In many countries which already have nuclear plants in operation significant capacity addition is being created by plant upgrading.

Quietly, the nuclear renaissance is already under way and the lead is in Asia.

The 2nd International Conference on Asian Nuclear Prospects 2010 (ANUP 2010) gets under way tomorrow at Mahabalipuram near Chennai, India.

Speaking on the occasion, chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission, and secretary department of atomic energy Srikumar Banerjee said that the major issue facing the sector was waste management.  R.K. Sinha, vice president, Indian Nuclear Society and director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said around six new countries are interested to have atomic power plant and many of them will have one by 2030.

Of the 58 nuclear reactors currently under construction world-wide, 35 are in Asia (23 in China, 6 in Korea, 4 in India and 2 in Japan).

The Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Y.A. Sokolov said that current nuclear expansion remains centred in Asia. Of the twelve constructions started in 2009, ten were in Asia.

In addition to the new plants under construction, numerous power reactors in USA, Belgium, Sweden and Germany, for example, have had their generating capacity increased. In Switzerland, the capacity of its five reactors has been increased by 12.3%. In the USA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved 126 uprates totalling some 5600 MWe since 1977, a few of them “extended uprates” of up to 20%. Spain has had a program to add 810 MWe (11%) to its nuclear capacity through upgrading its nine reactors by up to 13%.  Some 519 MWe of the increase is already in place.  For instance, the Almarez nuclear plant is being boosted by more than 5% at a cost of US$ 50 million. Finland boosted the capacity of the original Olkiluoto plant by 29% to 1700 MWe. This plant started with two 660 MWe Swedish BWRs commissioned in 1978 and 1980. It is now licensed to operate to 2018. The Loviisa plant, with two VVER-440 (PWR) reactors, has been uprated by 90 MWe (10%). Sweden is uprating Forsmark plant by 13% (410 MWe) over 2008-10 at a cost of EUR 225 million, and Oskarshamn-3 by 21% to 1450 MWe at a cost of EUR 180 million.

Commissioner William C. Ostendorff, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the Keynote Address at  the Emerging Issues Policy Forum, Powering the Future 2010 Conference on 4th October in Florida. During his speech he said:

Despite the global financial crisis over the last two years, there still appears to be great interest in nuclear power worldwide. In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its annual nuclear power projections. In these projections, the IAEA estimates that up to 10.4% of global electricity will come from nuclear reactors by the year 2030. This estimate is higher than last year’s estimate, which was up to 9% from nuclear power by 2030. The IAEA also made projections out to the year 2050, which estimated a maximum share of 11.9% from nuclear reactors.

Since the 2008 timeframe, the number of countries interested in the introduction of nuclear power has risen from 43 to about 65. Most of these countries are in Asia and Africa. At the same time, the number of countries planning to phase out their reactors has dropped. For example, you may have read that the German government decided last month to extend the life spans of its nuclear plants while alternative energy sources are developed.

I want to touch on one more subject before I close. I believe that it is important for the public to have trust and confidence in a strong regulator. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) compared nuclear accident risks with those from other energy sources. What caught my attention was the impressive safety record of the nuclear industry compared to other energy sectors.

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Posted in Development, Economy, Energy, Nuclear Power, Technology | 1 Comment »

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