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USA trying to persuade Pakistan to constrain its nuclear weapons program

The Pakistan Nuclear Nightmare, NYT  By  NOV. 7, 2015 With as many as 120 warheads, Pakistan could in a decade become the world’s third-ranked nuclear power, behind the United States and Russia, but ahead of China, France and Britain. Its arsenal is growing faster than any other country’s, and it has become even more lethal in recent years with the addition of small tactical nuclear weapons that can hit India and longer-range nuclear missiles that can reach farther.

These are unsettling truths. The fact that Pakistan is also home to a slew of extremist groups, some of which are backed by a paranoid security establishment obsessed with India, only adds to the dangers it presents for South Asia and, indeed, the entire world.

Persuading Pakistan to rein in its nuclear weapons program should be an international priority. The major world powers spent two years negotiating an agreement to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which doesn’t have a single nuclear weapon. Yet there has been no comparable investment of effort in Pakistan, which, along with India, has so far refusedto consider any limits at all.

The Obama administration has begun to address this complicated issue with greater urgency and imagination, even though the odds of success seem small. The recent meeting at the White House on Oct. 22 between President Obama and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan appears to have gone nowhere. Yet it would be wrong not to keep trying, especially at a time of heightened tensions between Pakistan and India over Kashmir and terrorism.

What’s new about the administration’s approach is that instead of treating the situation as essentially hopeless, it is now casting about for the elements of a possible deal in which each side would get something it wants. For the West, that means restraint by Pakistan and greater compliance with international rules for halting the spread of nuclear technology. For Pakistan, that means some acceptance in the family of nuclear powers and access to technology………

The competition with India, which is adding to its own nuclear arsenal, is a losing game, and countries like China, a Pakistan ally, should be pushing Pakistan to accept that. Meanwhile, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has done nothing to engage Islamabad on security issues, and he also bears responsibility for current tensions. The nuclear arms race in South Asia, which is growing more intense, demands far greater international attention.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/opinion/sunday/the-pakistan-nuclear-nightmare.html?_r=0

November 9, 2015 Posted by | Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA making Plutonium-238 for Space Travel

plutonium238_1Peak Plutonium-238? U.S. Starts Making Nuclear Fuel For Deep Space Missions, Forbes, William Pentland , 8 Nov 15 In the next two or three years, the U.S. Department of Energy will begin producing small quantities of a material known as plutonium-238 a trefurbished federal nuclear facilities at in Idaho and Tennessee.

When fully operational, the facilities will be able to produce a little more than three pounds of plutonium-238 every year, or about enough to fill a can of soda pop. It will be the first time plutonium-238 has been produced anywhere in the world in nearly 30 years.

Plutonium-238, a special radioactive material that does not occur in nature, emits a constant level of heat for decades as it decays. It is the primary fuel source used to power more than two-dozen U.S. space missions for spacecraft and planetary probes that cannot rely on solar energy.

Other than exploring deep space or powering decades-long experiments on the dark side of the moon, plutonium 238 is pretty much worthless. It is not suitable for use in nuclear weapons. Ditto nuclear reactors.

It was originally produced as a by-product of nuclear weapons. When the United States and Russia shuttered their nuclear weapons programs in the 1980s, the world stopped producing plutonium-238.

Not surprisingly, plutonium-238 is expensive to make – very expensive. One pound of plutonium 238 costs about $4 million to make. And that does not include the upfront investment needed to reestablish production of plutonium-238 in the United States, which is expected to cost as much as $150 million or more……

Nobody needs the U.S. space program, but at least in the United States almost everybody wants it just the same, including me. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2015/11/08/peak-plutonium-238-u-s-starts-making-nuclear-fuel-for-deep-space-missions/

November 9, 2015 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Iran going for renewable energy

Iran signs landmark $6 billion power deal, Press TV, 4 Nov 15   The Iranian government says it has signed an agreement worth $6 billion with a European company to build 4,250 megawatts of power capacity in the country. 

The agreement between Iran’s Ministry of Energy and the foreign firm envisages developing gas-powered plants for 3,250 MW and wind farms for 1,000 MW of electricity, Government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.

“This big investment will be made in the current year (ending on March 20, 2016) under the existing political conditions where the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the lifting of sanctions has not started yet,” he said……..

Renewable projects 

The government is eyeing renewables as the new alternative to fossil fuels which constitute about 90% of Iran’s energy mix.

The existing renewable capacity is focused on hydro power plants which produce about 8,500 MW. Just 150 megawatts of green power plants are currently operating in the country.

The government plans to install 5,000 MW of renewable capacity, putting Iran among the likes of the UK and France in this category. The Ministry of Energy is already implementing 500 MW wind converters and further 100 MW biomass projects.

The Middle East’s first geothermal power plant, a 50-megawatt pilot project, is being built at the foot of an inactive volcanic peak in northwest Meshguin Shahr.

However, Iran’s renewable energy potential is huge where only the wind capacity is estimated at 30,000 megawatts.

Foreign projects

German companies are reportedly about to begin next year building wind farms in Iran at a cost of $331 million. In August, they signed a document for generation of 100 MW of wind power plus 400 MW of solar in the southern Khuzestan province.

Italy’s Fata, the engineering unit of leading industrial group Finmeccanica, also signed then a 500 million euro ($543 million) contract with Ghadir Investment Company to build a power plant in Iran.

A consortium of Iranian, Indian and South Korean companies further seeks to set up an energy park in the Khuzestan province in a project worth $10 billion, including generation of 1,000 megawatts of solar power. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/11/04/436250/Iran-electricity-investment-Europe-renewables

November 9, 2015 Posted by | Iran, renewable | Leave a comment

Jeremy Corbyn has got it right about Trident nuclear missiles

Corbyn is right about Trident – and his team should realise that, The Independent 9 Nov 15 

Even if it were true that nuclear weapons could help to defend the realm, it is beyond our means – we will be paying some £100bn over We’ve been unable to afford properly independent nuclear weapons since the early 1960s, when a combination of cost and technical failure meant that Britain had to abandon its truly independent nuclear weapon, and was forced to rent some gear from the Americans, who might or might not let us use it “independently”.
This pursuit of national prestige will be ruinously expensive.40 years for something that is really controlled by the US
  • Sean O’Grady
  • @_seanogrady “…………We talk as if we were still a world force, or had some right to be, and as if Trident will deliver us peace and power because our “enemies” will fear us all the more. Maybe it will, although there is scant evidence of it.
  • The nation has just remembered and honoured those who fell in two world wars, but also in all those conflicts in the nuclear age – Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. At no point were nuclear weapons of any use. Nor did they win the Cold War. It was the Americans who did that for us, just as they did for non-nuclear powers such as Germany or Italy. The Russians, despite Mikhail Gorbachev’s warm working relationship with Margaret Thatcher, regarded the British, like the French, as nuclear footnotes at best. Neither the Kremlin, the IRA, Saddam Hussein, nor the Taliban have been that bothered about Trident or those magnificent Vulcan bombers we see at air shows.
  • Even if it were true that nuclear weapons could help to defend the realm – because the future is uncertain and new threats can always emerge – the truth we cannot face up to as a nation is that it is beyond our means. We will be paying some £100bn over 40 years for something that is really controlled by the United States. Mad…..http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/corbyn-is-right-about-trident-and-his-team-should-realise-that-a6726486.html

November 9, 2015 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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