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tv   Inside Story  Al Jazeera  September 3, 2022 3:30am-4:00am AST

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yet till apollo and it but at the same time it ignited all the science that was discovered from just that that one mission, basically apollo 11, where we walked on the moon and he is optimist. one on the launch pad, the count don't underway. the intention is it will blast off from kennedy space center here in florida on saturday afternoon. no, the already had to abandon one launch. that was because we discovered a faulty gauge. they think they've sorted the problem. so now everything is on schedule for the launch. optimist, one should take off when it's $42.00 d mission, including a lunar orbit. and there will be numerous tests as well to see if this really will take people back to the moon. but the 1st time in more than 50 years. ah, i'm how much of june with the headlines on al jazeera sherlock is disgraced,
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former president is back home, less than 2 months after he fled during the nations worst economic crisis since independence go to buy a roger pock. so was blamed for pushing sri lanka towards financial disaster. the government ran out of foreign reserves and was unable to pay for imports, leading to shortages. supporters of argentine, as vice president gathered, and when are side us after christina fernandez, de kirschner survived an assassination attempt outside her home. a man pointed a pistol at her at point blank range, but the gun did not fire the head of the you ends. atomic watchdog who's just returned from ukraine's operation nuclear plant says to members from his team will now be stationed there permanently. there are fears, any continued shelling in the vicinity could cause a nuclear disaster. we have been seen a military activity around the dance and i was able to see myself and my team at impact whole markings on,
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on buildings of them. so we means that the physical of the foreseen has been violated, not once, but several, several we believe. and i continue to believe that this vision is extremely complex, extremely challenging, and it will continue to require to permanent, the permanent support and the monitoring that we are trying to provide. now that we are there, the g 7 group of nations have agreed to set a price cap on russian oil, hoping it will hit moscow's ability to fund the war in ukraine. russia has responded saying it will stop selling oil to countries that agree to a price limit. view, a state department has approved a potential $1100000000.00 armed sale to taiwan. the package includes anti ship
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missiles and radar systems. tension has been high since u. s. house. speaker nancy pelosi visited the island last month, prompting china to conduct military drills around taiwan. inside story is up next ah. back to nuclear energy from europe to asia, a number of countries are building unity or power plants. the aim is to reduce blackouts and energy dependence. but is it the right solution and what are the rest? this is inside, sorry. ah .
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hello, welcome to the program. i'm hash him abala. europeans are facing major increases in energy bills driven by russia. curbing gas applies to the continent. natural gas prices continue to rise in europe and are now about 10 times more expensive than a year ago. thus prompted several leading governments including france and britain to prioritize expanding their nuclear energy programs. and the war in ukraine is adding to the urgency european politicians feel under pressure to act together on energy to help free the region from its dependence on rushing gas. some countries are ready of funding relief measures to help people pay their energy and pestle bills. in the u. k. art going prime minister boris johnson plates more than $800000000.00 for a new nuclear power plant on the south coast. johnson said his confident the
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project will get over the line because it will be absolute madness not to. he added, it will create tens of thousands of jobs. they will also power 6000000 homes. it will also help fix the energy needs, not just of these generation. but on the next last week, the czech republic announced it would convene an emergency meeting of european union and as the ministers this month to seek a block wind agreement on tackling surging power costs. the european commission has classified some natural gas and nuclear energy projects as green to help that happen. but austria is fighting back, including by making a legal complaint. denmark and luxembourg shall its fuse. france derives 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants and is leading a pro nuclear faction is supported by a group of e states including poland,
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hungary, the czech republic. but gary asked of achia and phil and the e. u. has put most of its focus on countries, reducing their gas consumption, filling storage facilities. it's imported more gas from the middle east and the u. s. but even with these badgers demand is expected to remain strong and prices high . electricity market is not no more functioning market because there is one actor, 14 with systematically trying to destroy it and to manipulate it. so we really have to react to that. and that's why we're dressing now. the composition of electricity market the renewed interest in nuclear power reflects changes globally. the shift is especially notable in germany, that's come under intense pressure from its neighbors to keep its last 3 nuclear
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plants operating in the us state of california. politicians have approved a measure to enable the state to keep its remaining nuclear plant operating for another 5 years. japan has also signaled a shift back to nuclear energy 11 years after the focus shima disaster took your plans to extend their life spans of aging reactors. and develop new ones, chinese binding to build at least a 115 year reactors in the next 15 years. thus, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35 years. ah, let's bring in our guess from london. jonathan cobb is a senior analyst at world nuclear association from castle douglas scotland. sean, bernie is a senior nuclear specialists i greenpeace east asia and phil chaffey,
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his deputy editor of nuclear intelligence weekly, and the bureau chief or energy intelligence london office. welcome to the program, jonathan. is it safe to say that it is because of the soaring energy prices that many countries are now with thinking their policies opting to move forward to words nuclear energy which this abandoned about for years ago? think what has happened with the energy crisis that's affecting some parts of the world has added to the impetus to move forward with building new new capacity. before that, the issue of climate change had been something that had already started to reignite attention on nuclear energy for those countries who haven't built it for some time . but certainly the energy crisis is something that has raised interest because of the concerns over the reliance on very fragile fossil fuel supply chains. chains,
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of course, incredible increases in prices. and so it really is an advantageous situation that the same aims in terms of climate drivers of going to low carbon forms of electricity and energy, light, nuclear light, renewables. they are also the solutions that can help provide more stable and resilient energy supply chains. showing you have many countries saying that with the upcoming winter, the supply crunch, there's absolutely no way we can cope with this and that the risk from that in particular, are to way in any other fallout from moving forward to worse embracing nuclear energy. do you think this is the right decision is absolutely not the right decision, and the reality is a lot more complicated and protect. for example, france, which is over 70 percent of its electricity generated by nuclear. they are moving into winter facing an energy crisis because currently about half more than half of
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the rector fleet are shut down. but a quarter of the reactors are not going to restart this winter because they're aging and they're corroding. so the energy crisis that has been triggered by the russian illegal invasion of ukraine is absolutely an energy crisis. but there's no plans for nuclear in the coming months. that will change that. we see lots of headlines about countries reassessing the viability of nuclear power. those realities, if those reactors were ever to start being built, would be a decade or more. so they're not going to fall solve any energy crisis is currently a reality. fil, when you have a country like china, like japan was, continues to be halted by the a, by the happened, the focus focus shima does us are saying that they will start investing more in nuclear power? how do you see this decision in particular?
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is it suddenly because this concern about soaring prices, that is triggering many countries to think the policy energy decisions that in japan, specifically the government almost since the day are for cosima, the national government has asked, has pushed for reactors to be restarted. the problem is getting local consent there . if that's your question. so just because the current president says he wants to do to really increase the amount of nuclear generation happening doesn't mean there's a switch, it can paul. and then suddenly all of these reactors will restart. so it's still going to be a struggle in japan for them to really ramp up their nuclear generation in the short term. jonathan, do you buy into the justification that you get from those those countries saying that you know what this time with small us safer reactors?
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life is going to be easy, a much better than before. and the potential for a much bigger radiation or disaster is going to be less than before. in small more reactors offer. their advantage is that's true. but we need to differentiate between taking the action now in terms of building new capacity of, of nuclear and new capacity of other carbon sources of generation. as part of a long term strategy to improve in the long term and permanently our energy systems to make them low carbon to make them secure. and then separately the steps that can be taken for the next year, for the next 2 or 3 years, maybe that will need to cope with an emergency situation. we have in terms of score soaring prices. and in the case of france, it's not the case of all those reactors just at the moment of shot because of the corrosion issue. somebody shut down because of regular maintenance, but it always takes place in the summer. in france, when energy demand tends to be lower,
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and those reactors going through that standard form of outage would be coming back on the line to help meet the energy needs in the winter. sean, this is happening are the against the backdrop of international concerns about her safety, others approved year or nuclear plant, which is the largest in europe. but even with those concerns, you will get a sense that the public opinion itself is now more receptive to the idea of investing more in the nuclear power. yeah, just come back from ukraine, internal and you see what happens where nuclear goes wrong. and we're still in a situation where things could go terribly wrong as i parisha. and the reality is that nuclear power cannot compete in the marketplace. so what we found is that nuclear power operators, utilities, the industry, w nuclear romika association,
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the spending enormous amounts of effort to convince policy makers that they are essential to meeting the de carbonized world that we absolutely need. the reality is that they're losing out to renewables in 1970 s when nuclear power was supposed to be growing substantially. the international term energy is the said, maybe 2000 reactors by the year. 2000. we heard those arguments then renewables were not available on the scale that they are today. we look at europe. 2020 more energy was generated in l trustee terms from renewables than both fossils and nuclear. so the industry has a crisis, the rhetoric, the media headlines, it won't change the reality, which is if you have to d carbonite as fast as possible, you don't invest in nuclear power, you invest in renewables and you invest in energy efficiency, decentralized. that's the crisis that the industry space and they're currently doing a very good job of selling their technology. but the reality will see the end of
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nuclear power fil when, when, when you look at the map globally, you is see a trend which is basically more countries returning to nuclear energy under when it comes to this in particular, they are either building near reactors or extending of the lifespan of the aging reactors. what are we talking here about more investments? refurbishing those old ones and what are the risks that come along with a refurbishing the old reactors? so so yeah, if the near term increases the nuclear capacity or extension, that capacity are in places like belgium or potentially germany or california most recently where they have made these policy returns to extend the life of reactors. there are obviously read older, these reactors get the materials within them. the systems are aging as well. but when, when regulators extend their lives,
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they are trying to enforce safety regulation that will extend to live safely. whether or not the that's always done. it's not clear, and particularly once we get past 60 years to 80 years of operations, for reactors that were initially designed for 40 years, you're really going into terra incognita where it's a bit unclear all of the issues to come, such as some of the issues they fat in france, so there are capital costs to extending lifetime, particularly into the decadent past the design life. but it's possible and it's possible to do it safely. he, jonathan, what does this mean now for the full clean energy? are we likely to see take a back burner position for more investment into reactors? i think the clean energy that's nuclear and renewables,
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that is the clean energy future. and as i said, what i hope is that the energy crisis is something that's going to lead governments to decide to actually move much more quickly to move to the carbonated station to move to clean energy. because they're simply hasn't been the progress they should have been over the last 20 years, despite the, the increases in some forms of low carbon generation that they have been. so right now about 6065 percent of our electricity generation comes from fossil fuels. that has virtually not dropped for 20 years. at a time when we met, we moving to net 0. so we simply are not going forward fast enough with the carbon i sation and it's absolutely the wrong time to remove any option from the things that we're going to need to do to reach that sarah by 2050, which is such an essential target to reach shawn, a, china is putting billions of dollars to further expand this nuclear capability in
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terms of reactors. so are the indians, the chinese, the turks are building a, with the help of russia, nuclear reactor. so are the egyptians and many other countries will be now tempted to move forward. are we here moving into an uncharted territory? are the risk growing higher? go absolutely. the risk of growing higher. the reality, of course, in china is that, yes, there are is enormous nuclear power program in china. but that's dwarfed by the might about g, t that is being produced and installed in terms of renewables. the reality is that the nuclear industry globally is into interconnected so the world when the crystallization, for example, has rosetta on its board of directors, the russian nuclear industry, which it currently is attending to stewards operation nuclear power plant. they are active in many countries around the world supported by world news association i. yea. this is not a sustainable long term solution to de carbonized ation. it also reached enormous
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security issues in terms of the production of nuclear materials for some materials petroleum. that can be used for nuclear weapons, and we know the international safeguards are not in are not inadequate to prevent proliferation. so there's an incredibly complex assessment that needs to be made about the future nicholas. but the idea that it's gonna be rapidly deployed to save the climate is about saving a nickel industry. that's what this is about. fill you get a sense of the same time that the leaders are perplexed in a way or another as to how to move forward. i'll give you an example set of california passes this climate legislation package, which includes $50000000000.00 of investment into when you clean energy. but at the same time, they're saying that we need to hold the closure of the states last nuclear power because they do understand the potential for shortages in the near future. are we
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likely to move forward in that particular direction, which has been cautiously moving towards renewable energy at the same time we need to maintain the old and, and traditional sources of energy? yeah, i mean i, i think that's highlight pumping. sanchez for their interest. most of these are investments and new capacity, or potentially even new lifetime extensions are very long term things. and i think it's hard for leaders to think about the energy grid of 2030 or 2035 or 2040 when they're facing, storing costs and climate issues now. but in 20302040, you're still going to have the climate pressures. so they have to be thinking about both, whether or not the loan that was passed in california will be enough to extend the life of diablo canyon. that reactor in question is unclear is i think there's still going to be a lot of negotiations and there's a lot of regulatory issues and safety issues and environmental issues with that
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have to be cleared before it can really operate. for a longer period of time. jonathan, some of the decisions ultimately going to boil down to a political consensus in germany, for example, for the chancellor to move forward with moving building more reactors, the how to have the backing of the grid. do you think that the green parties, particularly in europe, are willing to take the best of a proving those measures, knowing that they could undermine their credibility? well, i think in the case of germany, what's being discussed at the moment is whether or not 2 of the 3 remaining reactors that are in operation that are due to close down at the end of this year are going to continue operating. but certainly is a case for some bring parties are changing their position. so the green party in finland has adopted a much more positive position on nuclear energy. so it's certainly something that can be done. i think we are going to see more of it as we go forward because the
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time tables in which we have to act to address climate change are getting so tight and is one when you click and dressed in the, in the short term. and in the long term, so there are 60 reactors just under under construction now. so we're not starting from 0. those will be coming on line over the next 5 years. it generates 10 percent of the electricity already. so it is a form of energy that's contributing now, but we do need to expand it to make a bigger contribution in the future. sean, initially you would think that the general consensus would be particularly following the war in ukraine and the soaring energy prices. people would say, nuclear reactors are risky, fossil fuel is really bad affecting us. it is the moment to seize on that and move forward to work renewables. and this is exactly what we're seeing. we're seeing totally countries moving the opposite direction. the well,
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i think the headlines good give you the impression the industrial and energy policy reality is extremely different. renewables are growing so exponentially. they're not growing fast enough. and one of the problems as we have debates constantly about the rule of nuclear, which distorts the whole priority that we need to look at energy policy in a serious way. germany, of course, has made a big mistake, drawing on german gas to the extent that it has. the merkel administration clearly would admit that that was a big mistake. but the idea that nuclear is going to provide the energy security in a d corporate world as just fantasy is just not gonna happen. i, i spent 30 years working in japan. um the 54 reactors that were available in 2011. less than, less than 10 of actually we started means currently 9 was about 6 currently operating. the idea that they're going to return to any significant electricity
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generation in japan. a few more reactors are going to get approval to restore almost certainly within the next year, chamonix to on a garber took i. but the actual energy demands of japan are so enormous that they've already said as of last year that the long term solution for japan is renewables. that's the reality, not just and for, but for the world. phil, how do you see the world moving forward in the near future? are we likely to see this push to words? people rethinking the whole energy policies? i will likely to see more people step in saying, no, it's about time to look at the renewables in a different fashion. how do you see the future of the geo politics of energy? the question i'm specifically a nuclear there. as far as incentive, the beginning, the crisis that's picked up,
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particularly since february with ukraine has sort of basically just underlined the policies of those countries that were already setting on nuclear as a solution. obviously the odd nuclear, we've had a lot of countries rethinking how or how quickly or whether they want to add things like call natural gas as fast as it previously thought. but in terms of nuclear itself, it's only got a couple policy. you turn such as california belgium and so it's hard to say how much more that will happen. i think it basically this crisis is just adding traction to a lot of the pre existing arguments. jonathan is, this is just the stress that came off to the war in ukraine and also the soaring oil prices. what about the other option, which is basically what do you think he's going to be tempting and attractive to the world leaders? which he is saying that let's put all the investments into solar, wind, and geothermal energy is these good. these have the potential to answer some of the
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problems that we are facing since you all agree on the fact that nuclear energy is not going to be able to afford all the needs of the global community. equally, i don't thing to have a moment. there's a likely prospect of any one of those other technologies you mentioned. also being able to be the one solution that provides all of the world's energy. and i would agree in a sense to work trauma saying about, i wish there wasn't the simple focus on nuclear in energy policy or times when there's a tax on renewables and energy policy. i think we should not be fighting amongst ourselves as solutions to climate change as low carbon options, because that is slowing down the movement towards the colonization. because arguments are cells, instead of looking forward to actually getting a practical solution that uses all of these different options together to get the best energy mix, the most resilient, low carbon,
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reliable and affordable mix that can be by combining all their strengths, sean feel. i have one question for you less than a minute if you don't mind. is there any concern here that world leaders my truck, their own nations, if they move forward with the nuclear energy because they then they will be dragged into the fossil fuel. and this could just take ages for nations to resolve. i'll start with the a shot. so i'm not sorry if you could repeat the question, do you just have any concerns that if we move forward towards the direction of nuclear energy, we would just be trapped forever. and then we would forget about alternative energy sources. well, i think politician is really need to understand the long term how energy is going to be supplied in the population. it's and abs priority, how do they do that? they need to understand a energy economics. most politicians do not understand those. ok. it's
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a massive challenge. fell in less than 10 seconds. yeah, i mean i basically, i don't think politicians want to focus on one energies or they have to think about systems and they have to think about shooting a model on jonathan cobb, shunt bernie phill chaffey. i really appreciate in say thank you very much and it and thank you to for what you can see the program again, any time by visiting our website. i'll just, you know, dot com for further discussion. got our facebook page that facebook dot com forward slash ha, inside saw you can also join the conversation on twitter hunters at ha insights from the hash about about, and the entire team here in doha bye for now. ah ah
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it was meant to be that he just here to care is going on quickly. put a tragic attack, stunned the world and the u. s. president, a guy came in and whispered something into the president's ear. what did he say to the school children present? the events of september, the 11th defined the world. they grew up in just a huge moment. the to their stories, 911, witness on al jazeera talk to al jazeera. we ask for the rebound, you speak off is clearly come, get a high cost for airlines and the industry. what's going wrong? we listen, you were your heart of the, i'm struggling in the 19 seventy's if you have any regrets. no, we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al
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jazeera, in columbia, transforming urban waste into building block to use is to for a same there waste left of the war. we can finish their house in charge of the america in just 10 years. and in singapore critical farms and living buildings, anything you do on land, on the ground, doesn't make sense to do that apply on a building. can. we might have not just decorative, but can we might get biologically productive earth right. describe as cutting edge solution for sustainable cities on al jazeera. ah, i'm having a gentleman durham this. the top stories on al jazeera, sri lanka disgraced former president is back home. less than 2 months after he fled during the nations worst economic crisis since independence go to buy a roger pox that was blamed for pushing sri lanka.

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