USA Congress members – no idea how many nuclear weapons USA has!
How Many Nuclear Weapons Does the U.S. Have? Don’t AskCongress… Lisbeth Gronlund, physicist & co-director, Global Security, 17 Dec 13 A fascinating 2-minute video from Global Zero features short surprise interviews with members of Congress, who are asked the simple question: How many nuclear weapons does the U.S. have? Most couldn’t answer the question and resorted to responses like “I don’t have the exact number,” “It’s classified” and “It changes every day.” The two who provided numbers responded with “300” and “more than 15,000.” According to the Global Zero press release, the organization polled more than 70 members of Congress and “99% of then did not know—even roughly speaking—how many nuclear weapons the United States has.”
(How many does the U.S. have? According to the most authoritative account, by Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris, the U.S. deploys about 2,150 nuclear weapons on aircraft, and land-based and submarine-based missiles. It has an additional estimated 2,500 weapons in reserve storage, for a total arsenal of about 4,650. On top of that, there are some 3,000 weapons awaiting dismantlement, for a grand total of roughly 7,700.)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the American public is also fairly ignorant about the size of the U. S. nuclear arsenal……http://blog.ucsusa.org/how-many-nuclear-weapons-does-the-united-states-have-347
Edison and NRC have No plans for removing nuclear wastes from San Onofre plant
I have attended nearly every Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing on San Onofre for nearly 20 years. For more than a decade we were told by Southern California Edison (with no objection from the NRC) that the waste problem was essentially solved because the waste would go to Yucca Mountain. But Yucca Mountain is an imperfect solution: Before the federal government stopped the project (or at least slowed it to a crawl), one of the last problems they could not be sure they had any good science about was “drip shields” which were to protect the fuel rods — that were to be permanently entombed at the site — from water dripping from above. The shape, material, thickness, and expected durability of the shields were all undecided, but my recollection is that the last design was an upside-down flattened out V shape made out of 4-inch thick titanium. And no one knew how long it would last, but 300 years was an outside estimate, or at least the hope. After that, good luck.
What the transport vehicles would look like, and whether they would use rail or roads or both, was all undecided when the project was stopped, despite 10s of billions of dollars having been spent.
Geologic storage, if we choose that route, will not be easy and will not be risk free. And we’re nowhere near it at this point. Continue reading
Sinister new weapon – the robot killer drone
Robot drones with no pity or fear to decide who to kill Deborah Dupre | Human Rights Examiner December 19, 2013 Unlike today’s human operated drone killers, robotic drones will decide without pity or fear who to kill, unless a multinational team succeeds in a human rights-based pre-emptive prohibition of the new battlefield technology.”Military hardware………http://www.examiner.com/article/robot-drones-with-no-pity-or-fear-to-decide-who-to-kill?CID=examiner_alerts_article
Questioning independence of Polish Nuclear Energy Agency
The thin ice under nuclear regulatory independence Greenpeace, by Jan Haverkamp – December 19, 2013 In this space I have written before about the importance of nuclear regulatory agencies being fully independent. Fukushima showed that a lack of independence leads to complacency and that complacency adds to the complexity of nuclear accidents when they happen.
In 2009, the Euratom Treaty adopted a rule on regulatory independence: Section 5(2) of the Nuclear Safety Directive (2009/71/Euratom) says: “Member States shall ensure that the competent regulatory authority is functionally separate from any other body or organisation concerned with the promotion, or utilisation of nuclear energy, including electricity production, in order to ensure effective independence from undue influence in its regulatory decision making.” The nearest you can get to violating this rule is by promoting nuclear yourself.
Yet promoting nuclear seems to be what the president of the Polish Nuclear Energy Agency (PAA) Janusz Włodarski is doing. Currently, he faces a push from Polish politicians and the nuclear lobby to introduce nuclear power in what is now a nuclear-free country. Quotes attributed to Mr. Włodarski in the Japanese magazine “Rising” are more than sufficient reason for concern: “Nuclear energy is clean energy, environmentally friendly. Even if something like the Fukushima disaster were to happen [again], Poland wants to implement nuclear power.”….
Mr. Włodarski has used the arguments that Polish politicians use to try to massage the opinion of the majority of Poles who know that nuclear energy is not clean and not environmentally friendly, and that Fukushima is an ongoing catastrophe……
What we need at PAA is someone who can prevent the Polish nuclear industry from getting away with a nuclear power station that is built on propaganda rather than hard fact. Because such a nuclear power station could well become the next Fukushima.http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/weak-nuclear-regulatory-independence/blog/47755/
Japan’s govt keeps TEPCO afloat with huge funding aid
TEPCO government aid to be increased to almost 10 trillion yen http://japandailypress.com/tepco-government-aid-to-be-increased-to-almost-10-trillion-yen-1941261/ Dec 19, 2013 Maan Pamintuan The Japanese government’s financial assistance to Tokyo Electric Power Co(TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is set to be raised from 5 trillion yen to around 9 to 10 trillion yen to help rebuild the troubled company. The additional funds will be used to guarantee payment to the victims of the 2011 nuclear crisis of Fukushima, most of whom are still displaced due to radiation and decontamination issues in the plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
In July 2012, after donating 1 trillion yen to increase TEPCO’s capital, the government acquired 50.1 % shares of the company, which essentially placed the operator under state control eligible for government-funded rehabilitation. Plans to sell all shares by the 2030s to pay for decontamination work on areas within the nuclear plant are to be decided on a meeting of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters on Friday along with other factors of the company’s special business plan, which includes the Kashiwazaki-Kariwanuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture that is targeted to go back online by July 2014. This assumes the company a 107 billion yen ordinary profit in 2014 and around 150 billion yen annually, thereafter.
While huge profits are expected to come in next year for TEPCO, the 50 billion yen a year to be paid to the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund andcompensation for victims of the nuclear accident for a period of time, made the government decide to raise the upper limit of financial assistance to the company.
Profits left after paying the fund will be spent on refurbishing thermal power plants. Other parts of the new business reconstruction plan include joint procurement of fuel with gas companies and oil wholesalers and a construction of a new coal-powered thermal power plant.
Sea level rise, storm surges, not factored in to NRC’s nuclear waste policy
CCCL also argued that the discussion of sea level rise was insufficient. The DGEIS relied on dated sources that did not account for uncertainty in sea level rise projections and may underestimate risk. Also, the DGEIS merely looks at static sea level rise, which ignores risks due to more frequent and severe flooding. CCCL pointed to data showing that a number of coastal nuclear power plants potentially subject to sea level rise and storm surge, are located in highly populated areas of the countryCenter For Climate Change Law December 19th, 2013 by Ethan Strell The Columbia Center for Climate Change Law (CCCL) submitted comments today on the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “Waste Confidence Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement” (DGEIS), which concerns the storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel at individual power plants beyond the duration of each plant’s operating license. CCCL’s comments focus on the DGEIS’s lack of analysis of how future climate conditions could affect the safety of these high level nuclear waste storage facilities.
“Waste Confidence” refers to the Commission’s confidence that permanent disposal of nuclear waste can be accomplished when it is needed.
Currently, spent nuclear fuel is stored on-site at nuclear reactors beyond the duration of plants’ operating licenses. The Waste Confidence Rule stems from a 1976 petition by NRDC to halt the licensing of nuclear plants until the Commission could guarantee the permanent, safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Continue reading
Reducing children’s exposure to medical radiation
Raising healthy kids: Reducing radiation exposure abc Action News By ERIN 
O’HEARN PHILADELPHIA – December 18, 2013 (WPVI) — When your child is sick or hurt, you want whatever tests are needed. But many parents and doctors are asking whether kids are getting too much radiation from some tests……
According to a recent study, the average child gets 7 radiation-based scans before the age of 18. Each one raises the cancer risk a tiny bit.
“Radiation early in life is going to affect organs that are actively growing,” said Dr. Diego Jaramillo, radiologist-in-chief at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “If you are 5 when you get a CT scan, you have 80 or 90 years to carry on the damage.”
Dr. Jaramillo says radiologists and equipment-makers launched the Image Gently campaign to reduce exposure. Some machines are being reprogrammed to deliver smaller doses, and doctors are rethinking which tests to order. They are using CT scans less and non-radiation tests like MRI and ultrasound more.
About 10 years ago, CT scans were the standard for appendicitis. “We started realizing we would get the same information, or better information, for children with ultrasound,” said Dr. Jaramillo. And there’s also new technology, like EOS, which uses about 1/7 the radiation.
“Instead of getting a whole beam of x-rays, it just has a very thin beam,” Dr. Jaramillo said.And it takes the front and side views in one pass.
Dr. Jaramillo says parents should ask some questions, including: Is the test necessary? And can another test be used to come to the same answer? He says most medical centers will work with parents on getting the right test for a child while keeping radiation to a minimum…….. http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/health&id=9364971
Renewables meet over 40% of Scotland’s electricity demands
19 Dec 13, Scotland’s renewable electricity output has reached record-high levels, according to official statistics released today. The figures, published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, show that renewables met a record-breaking 40.3 per cent of gross electricity consumption in 2012, confirming that Scotland is on track to meet its interim target of 50% by 2015. http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/46805
Controversy over Entergy’s quest for approval to extend Indian Point nuclear license
Entergy Sees Nuclear License Renewal for New York’s Indian Point Bloomberg, By Mark Chediak Dec 19, 2013 Entergy Corp. (ETR), the second biggest U.S. nuclear operator, expects federal approval to extend the operating life of its Indian Point reactors, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leo Denault said.“It is our belief that we can get through the process and be successful,” Denault said in an telephone interview today. “We also think it’s going to take a while and we really don’t see it getting it resolved before 2018.”
State officials and environmental groups are fighting Entergy’s application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year license renewal for Indian Point, a two-unit nuclear plant located about 24 miles (39 kilometers) north of New York City.
The NRC has said Entergy may continue to operate Indian Point’s 1,028-megawatt Unit 2 while it reviews the renewal request. The reactor’s license expired in September and the license for the 1,041-megawatt Unit 3 reactor expires in December 2015.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said Indian Point should be closed because it isn’t feasible to evacuate the metropolitan area’s 20 million residents in the event of an accident. Entergy, based in New Orleans, has said the reactors are safe……
The company’s 838-megawatt James A. FitzPatrick reactor on New York’s southern shore of Lake Ontario is in a “more challenged market” and has a design similar to Vermont Yankee, which the company decided to shut earlier this year due to lower prices……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-19/entergy-sees-nuclear-license-renewal-for-new-york-s-indian-point.html
Hearings on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed Generic Environment Impact Statement (GEIS) for nuclear waste
Remembering UK’s Windscale Nuclear Disaster
The Windscale Nuclear Disaster, Today I Found Out, MELISSA DECEMBER 18, 2013 On the morning of Friday, October 11, 1957, workers at the nuclear reactor Windscale Pile 1 near Seascale, Cumberland, England, faced a terrible choice: allow a raging fire to burn itself out while it released dangerously high levels of ionizing radiation into the surrounding countryside; or, attempt to extinguish the conflagration with water, an option that could cause a hydrogen explosion (again, releasing dangerous levels of radiation, as well as blowing the workers to bits). Here’s the story of what they did:………
Aftermath
Still keen on getting their hands on the nuclear weapons designs, British leaders covered up the real cause of the accident and blamed it on Windscale’s heroic workers. The deceit was successful, and the U.S. shared its nuclear secrets with the British. Subsequent inquiries, by the BBC and others, have revealed that it was the government’s relaxed safety policies that were ultimately to blame.
Health wise, it was also a disaster. Although not on the scale with Chernobyl, the Windscale release of iodine-131, caesium-137 and xenon-133 are thought to have caused at least 200 cancer cases; it is believed that the numbers would be far higher were it not for the last-minute addition of the filters…….http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/windscale-nuclear-disaster/
Nuclear notes for this week
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
Japan: New Secrecy Laws cause anxiety about civil liberties and press freedom .Fukushima. Big increase of radiation in groundwater at No reactor. Cancer incidence increasing in Fukushima children. Japanese govt to select places for nuclear waste permanent dump
UK: new Hinkley nuclear reactor to cost around £17bn – more than the plant itself, and govt subsidy now being investigated by European Union as illegal.
USA: US Navymen lose federal case on Fukushima radiation. Small Modular Nuclear Reactors getting only modest funding from USA govt – US govt getting cold feet about SMRs?
France: French nuclear watchdog calls for a halt in work on the gigantic Flamanville nuclear reactor, due to safety problems.
Nuclear Hotseat #130: Friends of the Earth nuclear campaigner Dr. Jim Green
http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/category/podcast/
DOWNLOAD HERE:
http://lhalevy.audioacrobat.com/download/0fe65433-78d8-a1d3-6575-8c521c3f78e2.mp3
INTERVIEW: Dr. Jim Green is Nuclear Campaigner for Friends of the Earth in Australia. What’s that country’s culpability for Fukushima? How does the country function as a “nuclear umbrella” for the US? How racist are Australia’s nuclear mining policies? And was “On the Beach” right, is it really safer from radiation Down Under than in the Northern Hemisphere? All that and more…
See what Australia’s nuclear issues look like at: www.AustralianMap.net
NUMNUTZES OF THE WEEK:
- Scientists propose getting rid of nuclear waste by injecting it into fracking boreholes – two bad energy policies in one!
- TEPCO loses the plant schematics for Fukushima after 3/11/11 — and no one has a duplicate copy!
- EVIL NUMNUTZ: Japan’s National Cancer Institute releases a comic book that tells children that half of them will get cancer but they need to practice “prevention.” Blame the victim much?
PLUS:
- 83-year-old Sister Megan Rice continues her anti-nuclear activism in jail while facing a possible 30-year prison sentence for last year’s civil disobedience against the Oak Ridge Y12 National Security Complex. There’s a call for Pope Francis to acknowledge and champion her.
Sister Megan Rice, flanked by peaceful protesters Michael Walli and Gregory Boertje-Obed
- US Energy Department gives CA company $226 million to build “tiny” nuclear reactors – but how small are they?
- Indian anti-nuclear protesters complete 365 day relay hunger strike against proposed new reactor in Kovvada.
Indian anti-nuclear protesters at Kovvada
- Fukushima refugee Miki testifies about people dying from radiation in Japan:
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
-
Archives
- December 2025 (301)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (377)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
- January 2025 (250)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 