- Email: [email protected]
Nuclear industry will not grow over next 20 years, says report
CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY
60 SECONDS
Nuclear autumn RUMOURS of a nuclear power renaissance have been greatly exaggerated. So says an audit of the nuclear power industry released on Wednesday. The report, commissioned by The Greens, a European parliamentary group, points out that many ageing reactors are due
Cold bug menaces RECRUITS to the US military have something even more frightening than their drill sergeant to worry about – and the rest of us have cause to be concerned too. A nasty new strain of adenovirus – which usually only causes mild colds and other infections – has been linked to outbreaks of severe pneumonia. Cases of pneumonia caused by a novel adenovirus strain called
“A new strain of adenovirus has been linked to outbreaks of severe pneumonia”
HANNAH MENTZ/ZEFA/CORBIS
Ad14 started to appear in 2005. Now the US Centers for Disease Control reports that, in four unrelated outbreaks across the US in the past 18 months, Ad14 has caused severe pneumonia in at least 140 people, including babies and healthy young adults, and killed 10 of them. There may well have been many more cases, since doctors rarely test for adenovirus. The exception is military doctors, as for reasons unknown adenovirus is especially common among recruits in training camps. The US military used to vaccinate against two strains of adenovirus, but stopped in 1999 after its supplier, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, stopped making the vaccine. –Fewer additives, please– Wyeth had unsuccessfully asked
www.newscientist.com
For the first time in 40 years humpback whales face the hunter’s harpoon. On Sunday six vessels left Shimonoseki harbour in Japan with the aim of catching 50 humpbacks for “scientific” research, which the US-based Environmental Investigation Agency says is a front for commercial whaling.
Has AIDS peaked?
“The world has five fewer nuclear reactors operating today than it did in 2002” to close before 2030, and that 338 new ones would have to be built just to replace them. The Paris-based nuclear consultants who compiled the report argue that the industry is growing too slowly to meet this target, and may even be shrinking. The world has five fewer reactors operating today than it did in 2002, they say. Only 91 reactors are now being planned, and a further 32 are under construction, mostly in Asia and eastern Europe. Construction work on 11 of those has been under way for 20 years or more. The idea that nuclear power is about to experience major growth is “pure fantasy”, says the report’s author, Mycle Schneider. The industry is facing “a dramatic loss of competence, sceptical financial markets and the severe shortage of manufacturing capacity”, he says.
Humpbacks in firing line
The number of people around the world living with HIV appears to be levelling off at just over 33 million – although more than two-thirds of those affected are in sub-Saharan –Try not to sneeze– Africa. UNAIDS and the WHO, which released the figures on 21 November, the military to help fund downgraded their original estimate of mandatory factory upgrades. 40 million because of more reliable Adenovirus infections data from India. subsequently soared on US bases and previously uncommon Space on a shoestring strains have emerged, including, for the first time in the western Are you short of $20 million for a hemisphere, Ad14. The military tourist’s seat into space? Well, for a is hoping a new vaccine against mere $3 million, Space Adventures, the what used to be the dominant Virginia-based firm that blasted the adenovirus strains will also first space tourist Dennis Tito into protect against Ad14. orbit, is offering standby seats. If you miss one flight, the cash can be credited against future flights, should you find yourself with deeper pockets. CHINA is leaving the US in the dust in its spending on clean energy – Where there’s life but it still has plenty to do if it is to shake off its sooty reputation. Battered and bruised – but still going. According to a study released That’s the prognosis for NASA’s Mars last week by the WashingtonOpportunity rover after its rock grinder based think tank, Worldwatch tool seized up last week, following a Institute, China will invest more series of instrument failures in recent than $10 billion on renewable months. Opportunity and its twin, energy this year – double the Spirit, were designed to last just 90 amount invested by the US in days but have survived for nearly four 2006. China is on track to hit its years. NASA engineers said the rovers goal of 15 per cent energy from have “years more” left in them. renewables by 2020, up from 8 per cent today, the authors say. Gene…ius “I think the targets are realistic, even conservative based on It’s a first for gene therapy. Twelve what they have done so far,” patients with Parkinson’s disease says Eric Martinot. improved after they were given However, China remains injections of viruses carrying the gene heavily dependent on coal, the for GABA (Proceedings of the National fossil fuel that emits the most Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/ carbon per unit of energy. Seventy pnas.0706006104). Levels of the per cent of its energy comes from neurotransmitter are abnormally low coal compared with less than in people with Parkinson’s. 25 per cent in the US.
Green China
24 November 2007 | NewScientist | 5
60 SECONDS
Nuclear autumn RUMOURS of a nuclear power renaissance have been greatly exaggerated. So says an audit of the nuclear power industry released on Wednesday. The report, commissioned by The Greens, a European parliamentary group, points out that many ageing reactors are due
Cold bug menaces RECRUITS to the US military have something even more frightening than their drill sergeant to worry about – and the rest of us have cause to be concerned too. A nasty new strain of adenovirus – which usually only causes mild colds and other infections – has been linked to outbreaks of severe pneumonia. Cases of pneumonia caused by a novel adenovirus strain called
“A new strain of adenovirus has been linked to outbreaks of severe pneumonia”
HANNAH MENTZ/ZEFA/CORBIS
Ad14 started to appear in 2005. Now the US Centers for Disease Control reports that, in four unrelated outbreaks across the US in the past 18 months, Ad14 has caused severe pneumonia in at least 140 people, including babies and healthy young adults, and killed 10 of them. There may well have been many more cases, since doctors rarely test for adenovirus. The exception is military doctors, as for reasons unknown adenovirus is especially common among recruits in training camps. The US military used to vaccinate against two strains of adenovirus, but stopped in 1999 after its supplier, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, stopped making the vaccine. –Fewer additives, please– Wyeth had unsuccessfully asked
www.newscientist.com
For the first time in 40 years humpback whales face the hunter’s harpoon. On Sunday six vessels left Shimonoseki harbour in Japan with the aim of catching 50 humpbacks for “scientific” research, which the US-based Environmental Investigation Agency says is a front for commercial whaling.
Has AIDS peaked?
“The world has five fewer nuclear reactors operating today than it did in 2002” to close before 2030, and that 338 new ones would have to be built just to replace them. The Paris-based nuclear consultants who compiled the report argue that the industry is growing too slowly to meet this target, and may even be shrinking. The world has five fewer reactors operating today than it did in 2002, they say. Only 91 reactors are now being planned, and a further 32 are under construction, mostly in Asia and eastern Europe. Construction work on 11 of those has been under way for 20 years or more. The idea that nuclear power is about to experience major growth is “pure fantasy”, says the report’s author, Mycle Schneider. The industry is facing “a dramatic loss of competence, sceptical financial markets and the severe shortage of manufacturing capacity”, he says.
Humpbacks in firing line
The number of people around the world living with HIV appears to be levelling off at just over 33 million – although more than two-thirds of those affected are in sub-Saharan –Try not to sneeze– Africa. UNAIDS and the WHO, which released the figures on 21 November, the military to help fund downgraded their original estimate of mandatory factory upgrades. 40 million because of more reliable Adenovirus infections data from India. subsequently soared on US bases and previously uncommon Space on a shoestring strains have emerged, including, for the first time in the western Are you short of $20 million for a hemisphere, Ad14. The military tourist’s seat into space? Well, for a is hoping a new vaccine against mere $3 million, Space Adventures, the what used to be the dominant Virginia-based firm that blasted the adenovirus strains will also first space tourist Dennis Tito into protect against Ad14. orbit, is offering standby seats. If you miss one flight, the cash can be credited against future flights, should you find yourself with deeper pockets. CHINA is leaving the US in the dust in its spending on clean energy – Where there’s life but it still has plenty to do if it is to shake off its sooty reputation. Battered and bruised – but still going. According to a study released That’s the prognosis for NASA’s Mars last week by the WashingtonOpportunity rover after its rock grinder based think tank, Worldwatch tool seized up last week, following a Institute, China will invest more series of instrument failures in recent than $10 billion on renewable months. Opportunity and its twin, energy this year – double the Spirit, were designed to last just 90 amount invested by the US in days but have survived for nearly four 2006. China is on track to hit its years. NASA engineers said the rovers goal of 15 per cent energy from have “years more” left in them. renewables by 2020, up from 8 per cent today, the authors say. Gene…ius “I think the targets are realistic, even conservative based on It’s a first for gene therapy. Twelve what they have done so far,” patients with Parkinson’s disease says Eric Martinot. improved after they were given However, China remains injections of viruses carrying the gene heavily dependent on coal, the for GABA (Proceedings of the National fossil fuel that emits the most Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/ carbon per unit of energy. Seventy pnas.0706006104). Levels of the per cent of its energy comes from neurotransmitter are abnormally low coal compared with less than in people with Parkinson’s. 25 per cent in the US.
Green China
24 November 2007 | NewScientist | 5