the long-term effects of low-level radiation exposure have consistently been downplayed, distorted or concealed by scientists, the nuclear industry and the government.
It seems that while the US and the USSR had a hard time cooperating on nuclear arms at that time, they had a tacit agreement to cover up each other’s nuclear power mistakes.
these facts, like all those about nuclear power and nuclear weapons testing, were kept secret and released only through the efforts of private citizens and a few courageous researchers and journalists.
At least 250,000 American troops were directly exposed to atomic radiation during the 17 years of bomb testing here and in the Pacific, but they have been totally ignored by the government and the Army.
There is little doubt that hundreds died and that countless others developed illnesses that led to death from various cancers, blood disorders and chronic body ailments. Today the government still rejects all claims for such illnesses.
The press also played a role in soothing public fears.
the US has led the world in setting examples of deliberate deceit, suppression of information and harassment of nuclear critics
Professionals, in order to perform their work, resist truth strongly if it calls the morality of their work into question. They sincerely believe they are helping humankind. In addition, scientific research involves so many uncertainties that scientists can, with an easy conscience, rationalize away dangers that are hypothetical or not immediately observable. They also have an intellectual investment if not a financial one in continuing their work as well as families to support, and nuclear science in particular has been endowed not only with government money and support but great status and prestige.
In order to perform professional work, one must not only believe one is doing good but must also rationalize the dangers. Indeed, with regard to ionizing radiation, this is quite easy inasmuch as the risks of radiation exposure at any level are statistical and not immediately manifested.
Pro Nuclear Propaganda: How Science, Government and the Press Conspire to Misinform the Publichttp://www.lornasalzman.com/collectedwritings/pro-nuclear.htmlby Lorna Salzman Hunter College, Energy Studies program, 1986 After the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in the Soviet Union, there was much finger-wagging in the US about the suppression of information there, and the purported differences in reactor design and safety requirements between Russia and the US, which made a similar accident here unlikely if not impossible Continue reading →
Local resident Ralph Cogdill checks the debris of his house which was ruined by a wildfire in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee on Nov. 30, 2016. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images
GR: The “Establishment” supports fossil-fuel companies and denies climate change. The incoming U. S. administration is populated by deniers. The harm caused to wild plants, animals, natural systems, and human society is devastating.
“With my new hope that deniers of climate change will take ownership of the consequences, I am sad to report that this week, terrible wildfires have swept through Tennessee, a southeastern state in the USA. This state is beset by a tremendous drought, as seen by a recent US Drought Monitor map. There currently are severe, extreme, and exceptional drought conditions covering a wide swath of southern states. The causes of drought are combinations of lowered precipitation and higher temperatures.
U.S. Drought Monitor for 22 November 2016. Illustration:…
¶ “Mayors could override Trump on the Paris climate accord – here’s how” • In a recent op-ed, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote, “If the Trump administration does withdraw from the Paris accord, I will recommend that the 128 US mayors who are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors seek to join in its place.” [Business Insider]
Sunny day flooding now hits Miami regularly, thanks to rising sea levels. (Photo by B137, CC BY SA, Wikimedia Commons)
World:
¶ Blueprint documents for the wind and hydro sector from China’s National Energy Administration showed that the country is set to spend at least ¥1.2 trillion ($174 billion) between 2016 and 2020, according to Reuters. Construction of new wind farms is expected to provide approximately 300,000 new jobs by 2020. [CleanTechnica]
¶ All new single-decker buses for use within the center of…
NIIGATA, Japan (Kyodo) — An elementary school pupil who evacuated from Fukushima in the wake of the 2011 nuclear disaster has skipped school for more than a week since a male teacher added “germ” to his name when addressing him in late November, a local education board said Friday.
The fourth-grade pupil told the teacher, in his 40s, before the summer holidays that he was distressed as other pupils were addressing him by adding “germ” to his name.
According to the education board, the teacher then added “germ” while addressing the boy in a classroom on Nov. 22, just five days after the boy approached the teacher again about his treatment by fellow pupils.
Nov. 22 was also the day of a strong earthquake off Fukushima in the early morning, reminding many of the massive March 2011 quake and tsunami that triggered the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
On Nov. 24, the boy’s parents complained to the elementary school and other teachers interviewed every pupil in the class five days later.
“Despite being approached by the pupil for help, the teacher said something extremely inconsiderate and inappropriate,” an official of the education board said.
The case follows an earlier report of bullying in Yokohama, where a 13-year-old evacuee from Fukushima was verbally and physically attacked as he comes from the devastated prefecture. The elementary school and local education board failed to offer meaningful support in that case, according to a third-party panel of the city’s education board.
FUKUI – Japan Atomic Power Co. has revealed that 10 workers were doused in radioactive coolant water during maintenance work in an auxiliary building for reactor 2 at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The 10 employees were not exposed to radiation, the company said on Wednesday.
Up to 160 liters of room-temperature coolant water containing 272,000 becquerels of radioactive substances was spilled — about one-tenth of the level that must be reported to the government, Japan Atomic Power said, adding that the amount of the hazardous materials was “not small.”
Water from a pipe sprayed into a tank room on the second basement floor of the auxiliary building around 10:50 a.m. Wednesday, when a worker loosened a bolt on a valve from a pipe attached to a coolant storage tank, according to Japan Atomic Power.
Of the 15 workers from a subcontracting company who were in the room, four were soaked from head to toe, while six were partially soaked. The water splashed directly onto the faces of some of the workers, according to Japan Atomic Power.
When the water poured in, the workers, wearing jumpsuits, helmets, gloves and goggles, were trying to drain the pipe to allow the valve to be checked and to exchange a rubber part in a tank that temporarily stores coolant water while operations at the plant are halted.
Japan Atomic Power said there was more water in the pipe than had been anticipated.
In November last year, Japan Atomic Power applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for safety checks on the Tsuruga reactor. An NRA screening is required before the nuclear reactor is reactivated.
Hiroshige Seko, right, minister of economy, trade and industry, before a meeting of the government’s committee for fast reactor development on Nov. 30
Japan unable to scrap recycling program due to plutonium stocks
Japan is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to pressing ahead with its dream of a perpetual energy source through nuclear fuel recycling.
Having poured hundreds of billions of yen into the failed Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor project, it is belatedly considering decommissioning the facility. But it is still left with a huge stockpile of plutonium, and no way of reducing the amount in the coming years.
Having come this far, Japan is simply not able to abandon the problem-plagued, money-guzzling technology, hence its Nov. 30 plan to build a demonstration fast reactor to replace Monju.
Unlike Monju, which uses and generates plutonium, a fast reactor only burns plutonium.
“If Japan abandoned its nuclear fuel recycling policy, it would be like opening ‘Pandora’s box,’” said a senior official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees the nation’s nuclear energy policy, referring to the new fast reactor program. “A project illustrating Japan’s intent to continue the development of a fast reactor serves as the seal of approval.”
The government’s committee for fast reactor development, which is headed by industry minister Hiroshige Seko, said it expects to have the development regime in place in 2018. The following 10 years would be given over to scientists to work on the basic design of the fast reactor.
A demonstration reactor is one stage closer to a commercial reactor compared with a prototype reactor such as Monju.
Nuclear fuel recycling uses plutonium recovered from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel generated at nuclear power plants.
Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, also uses plutonium as fuel. Or rather, it was supposed to. The project has come under intense criticism because it has hardly operated since it achieved criticality more than 20 years ago. The government has poured about 1 trillion yen ($8.9 billion) into Monju.
If Japan pulled the plug on the development of a fast reactor, it would jeopardize the nuclear fuel recycling program and create new problems that the government has adroitly avoided dealing with to date.
For one, all spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants across the country would suddenly just become “waste.”
As a result, the government would have no compelling reason to justify the storage of nuclear fuel waste at the spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture. The plant has yet to be completed although it was initially expected to be finished in 1997.
The government has been unable to decide where nuclear waste should be placed for permanent disposal since no municipalities in Japan want such facilities in their backyards.
And then there is the issue of Japan’s stockpile of 48 tons of plutonium and being able to offer assurances to the international community that this country poses no threat to others.
The stockpile is sufficient to produce 6,000 atomic weapons.
If Japan retains the plutonium stockpile with no plan to use it in the near future after it abandons the development of a fast reactor, it could fuel international concerns that Japan may have nuclear ambitions.
The agreement between Japan and the United States concerning the civil use of atomic energy will expire in July 2018.
The pact allows Japan to recover plutonium from spent nuclear fuel on the condition that the country will not use plutonium to manufacture nuclear weapons.
If Japan holds on to the reprocessing program while scrapping the project to develop a fast reactor, it will be left with an ever-growing stockpile of plutonium.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that it could have ramifications on the revision of the agreement,” said a senior official at the Foreign Ministry with regard to the plutonium issue.
Tatsujiro Suzuki, a professor of nuclear energy at Nagasaki University and former vice chairman of the government’s Nuclear Energy Commission, expressed skepticism about taking on a new fast reactor project when scientists could elicit few tangible results about performance and operational safety from Monju.
With the government set to undertake a new reactor project, Japan is also banking on joining France’s ASTRID program to access a range of data on the operation of a demonstration fast reactor. This refers to the Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration.
But it is still unclear even whether the ASTRID program will ever go ahead.
“If we engaged in discussions with little transparency, the international community would come to harbor doubts about Japan’s intention concerning plutonium and lose confidence in Japan,” Suzuki said.
Plan to build Monju successor is outrageously irresponsible
The government at a closed meeting on Nov. 30 revealed plans to develop a demonstration fast reactor as the successor to the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, which will be decommissioned.
A totally irrational policy decision is now being made behind closed doors only by people with vested interests in the trouble-plagued Monju program.
The government is making a head-long plunge into another costly reactor project that has no solid prospects of success. The government has not scrutinized nor learned lessons from the miserable failure of the Monju program.
This behavior is outrageously irresponsible.
More than 1 trillion yen ($8.8 billion) has been poured into the development and operation of Monju, but the reactor operated for only around 220 days during the 20-plus years since it first achieved criticality in 1994.
The experimental reactor has been mostly idle because of a series of accidents and troubles, including a 1995 leak of liquid sodium used as the coolant, a material that is famously hard to handle.
In contrast, the Joyo test fast reactor, which represents the first stage of developing a practical fast-breeder reactor, has operated for a total of 3,000 days, more than 13 times longer than Monju’s record.
This again shows that technological challenges involved in the development of such sophisticated new technology become far more formidable as the project moves to the later stages.
Unlike Monju, the new experimental fast reactor envisioned by the government would not be a breeder reactor that generates more fissile material–plutonium to be exact–than it consumes. But it will be based on the same fast reactor technology.
Given that even operating a prototype fast-breeder reactor has proved such a fierce challenge, there are countless reasons to doubt the viability of the government’s plan to develop a cheap and safe demonstration fast reactor.
The government says it will seek international cooperation for the project. But France’s Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration (ASTRID) program, which the Japanese government is counting on for its fast reactor project, is itself facing an unclear future. The French government is expected to decide in 2019 on whether to build the fast demonstration reactor.
The Japanese government is not even bothering to set up a proper forum for discussions on the new project.
The Nov. 30 meeting was attended by the industry minister, the science and technology minister, representatives of the Federation of Electric Power Companies, which is the power industry lobby, executives of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., which makes nuclear reactors, and officials of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the operator of Monju. They are all parties involved in the Monju program.
The two officials of Japan Atomic Energy Agency who were present at the meeting are a former Mitsubishi Heavy Industries executive and a former science and technology official.
In other words, the decision-making process concerning the project is totally controlled by the interests of the government and the nuclear power industry.
Why is the government so fixated on developing fast reactor technology?
Monju has long been cast as the linchpin of a nuclear fuel recycling program in which plutonium extracted from reprocessed spent nuclear fuel is burned in a fast-breeder reactor.
Now that it has decided to decommission Monju, the government is apparently concerned that the lack of the troubled reactor’s successor could cause the entire nuclear fuel recycling program to collapse, undermining its efforts to promote nuclear power generation.
Japan, however, already has a stockpile of 48 tons of plutonium, enough to make 6,000 ordinary nuclear bombs.
With no prospects of practical use of a fast reactor, Japan’s fixation on establishing a nuclear fuel recycling system makes no economic sense and only raises suspicions in the international community.
The government has been roundly criticized for its obstinate adherence to nuclear power policy decisions made in the past.
But the disaster that occurred in 2011 at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has led to broad public recognition of the importance of impartial debate on related issues not influenced by special interests or past developments.
Now, however, the government is ignoring the lessons learned from the nuclear disaster. It is seeking to make the decision in collusive meetings to spend a huge amount of taxpayer money on the highly questionable fast reactor project. This folly cannot be acceptable by any means.
Taiwan-Japan trade talks conclude with signing of two memorandums
Taipei, Nov. 30 (CNA) Annual trade and economic talks between Taiwan and Japan concluded in Taipei Wednesday, with the two sides signing two cooperation memorandums on product safety and language education.
Chiou I-jen (邱義仁), head of the Taiwan delegation and president of the Association of East Asian Relations (AEAR), and his Japanese counterpart, Japan Interchange Association Chairman Mitsuo Ohashi, signed the notes stipulating that the two countries will work together in the promotion of exchanges in the two areas.
Chiou and Ohashi left the venue without speaking to the press after the signing ceremony, but they agreed to be photographed.
Outside the venue, several dozen activists staged a protest against radiation-contaminated food products. The protest came after Ohashi urged Taiwan at the opening of the annual talks a day earlier to lift a ban on food products from five radiation-affected Japanese prefectures.
Asked if Japan had asked Taiwan to ease the ban during the two-day trade and economic meeting, AEAR Deputy Secretary-General Tsai Wei-kan (蔡偉淦) confirmed in a press conference held after the event that the Japanese side brought up the request, as had been expected.
However, the Taiwanese delegates expressed hope for understanding that there are still disputes over the issue, and that they would not discuss the issue during the annual talks, since it was not on the agenda, Tsai said.
Taiwan has banned imports of food products from five prefectures in Japan — Fukushima, Gunma, Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi — that were contaminated with radiation following the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, a catastrophe triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
After Taiwan’s new government, inaugurated in May, revealed recently that it was considering lifting the ban on food from all of those prefectures except Fukushima, the idea has received strong opposition.
Economics Minister Lee Chih-kung (李世光) confirmed Wednesday that the controversial issue of Japanese food imports was not on the agenda of the 41st Taiwan-Japan Trade and Economic Meeting.
“It has been the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ consistent stance that no compromise can be made in the people’s welfare in the area of food safety,” Lee told the press.
He also agreed that all food regulations should meet international regulations and scientific rules.
Meanwhile, elaborating upon what was discussed during the meeting, Tsai said that Taiwan, as usual, asked Japan to co-sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA).
Such a pact is not just one that touches on simply economic problems, Tsai said, but involves political considerations.
Nevertheless, the Japanese side said its stance in establishing a comprehensive trade and investment relationship with Taiwan has not changed, he went on.
As for a request by Taiwan for Japan to open its doors to five more kinds of Taiwan-grown fruit, Tsai said the Japanese side requires more data and relevant documents.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Liu Ming-tang (劉明堂), head of the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection, said the cooperation memorandum on product safety mainly focuses on electronic and electrical products, as well as machinery.
It will help reduce safety risks, allowing consumers to enjoy a higher level of safety protection, Liu said.
On the language education memorandum, the Taiwanese delegation said that under the pact, personnel exchanges will be conducted in the hope of upgrading the quality of language and culture education on both sides.
The Taiwan-Japan trade and economic meeting has been the only official platform for Taiwanese and Japanese officials to discuss issues of mutual concern since diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed in 1972. It has been held annually since 1976.
Media attention continues to focus on Donald Trump. He seems happy in the spotlight, even if the revelations are about his conflicts of interest, and the unsuitability of officials that he’s appointing. Trump himself hardly matters, really, as the Republicans will be in charge in the White House, Congress and Senate, and are dominated by anti-science, climate deniers, and hawkish militarists.
The nuclear industry and government have repeatedly said the volume of nuclear waste produced by new reactors will be small, approximately 10% of the volume of existing wastes; implying this additional waste will not make a significant difference to finding a GDF for the wastes the UK’s nuclear industry has already created. However, the use of volume as a measure of the impact of radioactive waste is highly misleading.
A much better measure would be the likely impact of wastes and spent fuel on the size or “footprint” of a GDF. New reactors will use so-called ‘high burn-up fuel’ which will be much more radioactive than the spent fuel produced by existing reactors. As a result it will generate more heat, so it will need to be allocated more space in the GDF’s disposal chambers. So rather than using volume as a yardstick, the amount of radioactivity in the waste – and the space required in a GDF to deal with it – are more appropriate ways of measuring the impact of nuclear waste from new reactors.
The activity of existing waste – mostly stored at Sellafield amounts to 4,770,000 TBq. The proposed reactors at Moorside would produce spent fuel and ILW with an activity of around 4,206,012 TBq making a total of 8,976012 TBq stored in Cumbria. However the activity of spent fuel and ILW stored at new reactor sites outwith Cumbria would amount to 15,586,988 TBq – almost twice as much. And if we assume that the reactors at Bradwell goahead it will probably be more than twice as much.
NuClear News No 90 4. Nuclear Waste Updates The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – BEIS – (formerly called ‘DECC’) was planning to hold two public consultations, on the draft National Policy Statement for a Geological Disposal Facility and on Working With Communities based on the work of the Community Representation Working Group, this autumn, but the uncertainty caused by recent turbulence in the wider political environment means that these now look likely to be delayed until early 2017.
Energy Minister Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe hailed a “nuclear renaissance” when she addressed the Office for Nuclear Regulation Industry Conference in Cumbria. She said that as well as Hinkley Point C and proposals for new reactors at Moorside the Government is “going further, with proposals to develop 18GW of nuclear power across six sites in the UK.”
She said the Government would be launching a new siting process for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in 2017. The Whitehaven News reported that the site for the GDF would almost certainly be in West Cumbria, but this was not in the Minister’s published speech. (1)
Just to finally knock on the head the idea that most of the nuclear waste is in Cumbria already so we might as well build the GDF there, nuClear News has done some number crunching:
Radioactive Waste Management Ltd (RWM) has developed a detailed inventory of radioactive waste for disposal in its proposed GDF which it calls the ‘Derived Inventory’. This inventory is subject to uncertainty due to a range of factors such as uncertainty about the life of the AGR reactors and what happens to the UK’s plutonium inventory, and, of course proposals for new reactors.
The Derived Inventory is therefore updated periodically to take into account new information. RWM published a new 2013 Derived Inventory in July 2015. This can be compared with the previous 2010 Derived Inventory to obtain further information about the impact of a new reactor programme. The table below is from an RWM report which does just that. (2)
The 2010 inventory showed a derived inventory (2010 DI) which did not include any spent fuel or other waste from new reactors and an upper inventory (2010 UI) – which did include spent fuel and wastes from a 10GW new reactor programme. On the other hand the 2013 Derived Inventory has only one set of figures which includes spent fuel and waste from a 16GW new reactor programme. As mentioned above this could increase in future to take account of the fact that the Government now anticipates the size of the new reactor programme will be 18GW, to allow for the latest additional to the proposed fleet – Bradwell B. Beyond that there are ambitions to build between 7 and 21GW of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) capacity by 2035.
The nuclear industry and government have repeatedly said the volume of nuclear waste produced by new reactors will be small, approximately 10% of the volume of existing wastes; implying this additional waste will not make a significant difference to finding a GDF for the wastes the UK’s nuclear industry has already created. However, the use of volume as a measure of the impact of radioactive waste is highly misleading.
A much better measure would be the likely impact of wastes and spent fuel on the size or “footprint” of a GDF. New reactors will use so-called ‘high burn-up fuel’ which will be much more radioactive than the spent fuel produced by existing reactors. As a result it will generate more heat, so it will need to be allocated more space in the GDF’s disposal chambers. So rather than using volume as a yardstick, the amount of radioactivity in the waste – and the space required in a GDF to deal with it – are more appropriate ways of measuring the impact of nuclear waste from new reactors. The total activity measured in Terabecquerels (TBq) of the 2010 Derived Inventory, (not including any wastes from new reactors) was 4,770,000 TBq.
The total activity given in the 2013 Derived Inventory, which includes waste and spent fuel from a 16GW new reactor programme, was 27,300,000 TBq. Not all of this huge increase in activity is down to new reactors. For instance there is a big jump in the activity of legacy spent fuel and 3,700,000 TBq from spent mixed plutonium-uranium oxide (MoX) fuel – a category which does not appear at all in the 2010 inventory. However, 19,793,000 TBq is activity from new reactor wastes and spent fuel. So the activity of radioactive waste from a new reactor programme would be roughly four times the activity in the total 2010 inventory.
Of course this figure is for a 16GW new reactor programme. For an 18GW programme the total activity of spent fuel and intermediate level waste would be about 22,267,125 TBq or almost five times the activity of existing waste.
[Table on original]
These numbers are significant because of the amount of repository space taken up by existing waste mostly located in Cumbria compared with waste stored on reactor sites outwith Cumbria. The NDA has estimated the total repository footprint for a baseline inventory (the total waste expected to be created by the existing programme) of between 5.6 km2 and 10.3km2 depending on the rock-type. However, the footprint from a maximum inventory which includes a 16GW new reactor programme would be between 12.3km2 and 25km2. (3) [Table on original]
So the activity of existing waste – mostly stored at Sellafield amounts to 4,770,000 TBq. The proposed reactors at Moorside would produce spent fuel and ILW with an activity of around 4,206,012 TBq making a total of 8,976012 TBq stored in Cumbria. However the activity of spent fuel and ILW stored at new reactor sites outwith Cumbria would amount to 15,586,988 TBq – almost twice as much. And if we assume that the reactors at Bradwell goahead it will probably be more than twice as much. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo90.pdf
Power to Speak, Robert Dodge Americans gathered around their Thanksgiving tables last week, reflecting on what they were thankful for this past year. There was the potential for much angst after a year with significant division in our nation, often emphasizing differences and talk of building walls to separate us from our neighbors. In contrast, at our table we gave thanks for our Latin American and Caribbean neighbors, celebrating their courage and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, a little-known treaty that was drafted 50 years ago this February, creating the world’s first nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) and ultimately servingas the model for all subsequent NWFZ.
In the border town of Tijuana, at its historic coastal Friendship Park adjacent to the Mexican side of the wall, a monument commemorating the northwestern point of this NWFZ was unveiled in late November with great fanfare — though no coverage from the neighbor to the north, the United States.
Latin American nations drafted the treaty on Feb. 14, 1967, in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, and it went into force on April 22, 1968. Today all 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean have signed the treaty as part of the 80 million square kilometers of the entire southern hemisphere that are free of nuclear weapons.
Quoting from the treaty, these nations are convinced:
“That the incalculable destructive power of nuclear weapons has made it imperative that the legal prohibition of war should be strictly observed in practice if the survival of civilization and the survival of mankind itself is to be assured,
“That nuclear weapons, whose terrible effects are suffered, indiscriminately and inexorably, by military forces and civilian population alike, constitute, through the persistence of the radioactivity they release, an attack on the integrity of the human species and ultimately, may even render the whole earth uninhabitable,
“That general and complete disarmament under effective international control is a vital matter which all the peoples of the world equally demand,
“That the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which seems inevitable unless States, in the exercise of their sovereign rights, impose restrictions on themselves in order to prevent it, would make any agreement on disarmament enormously difficult and would increase the danger of the outbreak of a nuclear “conflagration,
“That the establishment of militarily denuclearized zones is closely linked with the maintenance of peace and security in the respective regions.”
The document establishes Latin America and the Caribbean as a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ). Each country signing the treaty promises, as stated in Article 1, to outlaw within its territory “the testing, use, manufacture, production, or acquisition by any means whatsoever of any nuclear weapons” and “the receipt, storage, installation, deployment, and any form of possession of any nuclear weapons.”
Protocol I of the treaty obligates states with territories in Latin America (France, Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States) to keep the region an NWFZ. The four nations have signed the treaty. Protocol II obligates nuclear-weapon-states (NWS) not to undertake any action that would violate the nuclear-weapons-free status of the region, including using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against any of the states participating in the treaty. The People’s Republic of China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (now the Russian Federation), France, the United Kingdom and the United States have ratified Protocol II.
For verification purposes the Treaty created the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), a regional organization that ensures that all contracting parties are abiding by the treaty. OPANAL is similar to the organization of the United Nations. There is a General Conference that convenes every two years and at special sessions, called if necessary. Among other duties, it establishes “procedures to ensure the adherence to the Control System established by the Treaty of Tlatelolco,” creates accords with governments and international agencies, and elects the Council and the General Secretary to four-year terms.
From the earliest days of the nuclear age to the present, the nations of Latin America have played a significant role in the work to abolish nuclear weapons. During last month’s United Nations First Committee, they were among the sponsoring group of nations that brought forth a resolution, L41, to commence negotiations and passage of a nuclear weapons ban treaty next year, beginning in March. This treaty will outlaw nuclear weapons around the world just as every other weapon of mass destruction has been banned before. No longer will the world be held hostage to these suicidal weapons that have threatened our very survival as a species. These awakened neighbors have done more to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons while the nuclear powers have lived in a trance. Ultimately, nuclear weapons will be eliminated or they will eliminate us. We have much work to do yet much to be thankful for.
Robert F. Dodge, M.D., is a practicing family physician in Ventura, writes for PeaceVoice, and serves on the boards of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Beyond War, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions.
Carter entered office and promptly pushed through Congress the 1978 Non-Proliferation Act
Carter’s U.S. nuclear doctrine was enormously unpopular among America’s nuclear science elite
To the chagrin of the powerful nuclear weapons and nuclear power lobbies, Carter abandoned the idea of a new nuclear renaissance.
Jimmy Carter’s re-election defeat brought the nuclear establishment another opportunity.
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC BureauBy Joseph Trento, April 9th, 2012 “….Stopping the Spread of Fissile Material After Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, he instituted an aggressive policy to control the spread of fissile materials. As a former nuclear reactor engineer on a Navy submarine, Carter knew better than any other world leader the immense power locked up in plutonium and highly enriched uranium. He was determined to keep it out of the hands of even our closest non-nuclear allies – including Japan.
Carter had good reason for this policy. Despite Japan’s ratification of the NPT in 1976, a study conducted for the CIA the following year named Japan as one of the three countries most able to go nuclear before 1980. Only the Japanese people’s historic opposition to nuclear weapons argued against Japanese deployment. Every other factor argued for a Japanese nuclear capability.
By now the CIA – and its more secretive sister agency, the NSA — had learned the position of Japan’s inner circle.
Carter knew the incredibly volatile effect plutonium would have on world stability. Plutonium is the single most difficult to obtain ingredient of nuclear bombs. Even relatively backward countries – and some terrorist groups – now possess the technology to turn plutonium or highly enriched uranium into a nuclear weapon. But refining plutonium or enriching uranium is an extremely difficult, costly task. Carter knew that by limiting the spread of plutonium and uranium, he
could control the spread of nuclear weapons. He made preventing the spread of plutonium the cornerstone of his nuclear non-proliferation policy.
The Japanese were shocked when Carter entered office and promptly pushed through Congress the 1978 Non Proliferation Act, which subjected every uranium and plutonium shipment to congressional approval and blocked a host of sensitive nuclear technologies from Japan. Carter was determined not to transfer nuclear technology or materials that Japan could use to make nuclear weapons. The decision was hugely unpopular in America’s nuclear establishment as well.
America’s nuclear scientists had expected much from Carter since he was one of them: someone who knew and understood nuclear energy.
Carter’s efforts ended America’s plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. Carter stopped reprocessing because he feared the consequences of Korean or Taiwan stockpiling plutonium. He believed it would lead to an Asian arms race involving Japan and China as well as Korea or Taiwan.
Carter’s U.S. nuclear doctrine was enormously unpopular among America’s nuclear science elite, who viewed a plutonium-based fuel cycle as the future of nuclear energy. They saw the atom as the solution to the problems that had stalled America’s great economic boom – acid rain from coal, shortages and embargos of oil. With an almost inexhaustible supply of cheap, clean nuclear energy, America would reclaim its position as the world’s unquestioned economic
leader. But for many it went beyond even that. If America could complete the fuel-cycle – complete the nuclear circle, all of humanity could be lifted up by the nuclear bootstrap. At research centers around the country and in the Department of Energy’s Forrestal Building on Washington’s Independence Avenue, enthusiasm for the breeder program reached almost a religious crescendo.
If the breeder reactor was going to revolutionize the world’s nuclear economy, went the thinking in America’s nuclear establishment, the United States would have to share it with her allies in Europe and Japan. The very cornerstone of science is the free exchange of information, and the American scientists shared openly with their European and Japanese colleagues. The cooperation ran both ways. The breeder reactor was proving to be a monumental technical challenge,
and DOE was eager to learn from the mistakes of Germany, Britain and France, all of which had been working on the problem nearly as long as the United States. Carter’s policies hindered America’s efforts to develop and share a plutonium-based nuclear energy cycle.
To the chagrin of the powerful nuclear weapons and nuclear power lobbies, Carter abandoned the idea of a new nuclear renaissance. Carter’s administration ushered in an era of reduced nuclear trade and an interruption to the free flow of ideas among scientists. For men like Richard T. Kennedy and Ben Rusche at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Harry Bengelsdorf at the U.S. Department of Energy, the restraints were completely unacceptable. Jimmy Carter’s re-election defeat brought the nuclear establishment another opportunity. http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html
Former nuclear site in Washington state is ‘causing workers to develop terminal illnesses’ – and it won’t be cleaned up for another 50 more years (photos)
The Hanford Site in Washington state was used to produce plutonium from 1943 through the end of the Cold War
Washington River Protection Solutions is now cleaning up the site
Workers at the site say they are being exposed to radioactive fumes
A watchdog group says that three workers have died as a result of exposure to nuclear waste on the job
Just this year, 61 workers have allegedly been exposed to toxic materials
But the government contractor says that everyone who has been checked out for possible exposure has been cleared to return to work
A former nuclear site in Washington state is poisoning workers and threatening the health of those who live around it, according to a new investigation.
Some experts have called the former Hanford nuclear plant ‘the most toxic place in America’ and ‘an underground Chernobyl waiting to happen’.
The site, located in a rural area along the Columbia River, was commissioned by the Manhattan Project to produce plutonium for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
It remained an active nuclear site until the end of the Cold War, when it was decommissioned and the Department of Energy subcontracted Washington River Protection Solutions to start the clean-up.
But current and former workers at the site have told NBC that the underground containers holding the site’s nuclear waste are leaking, and that they have been exposed to the toxic fumes because the company has not given them the right safety equipment.
Their health issues include dementia, nerve damage, memory loss and respiratory problems.
Watchdog group Hanford Challenge says that at least three workers’ deaths have been linked to exposure at the site, but officials with Washington River Protection Solutions have refused to admit they are putting their workers in danger. Those workers are Gary Sall, Deb Fish and Dan Golden.
But several studies show that’s not the case and just this year, 61 workers have allegedly been exposed to toxic materials.
No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons Chicago Tribune, Alex WellersteinSpecial to The Washington Post, 1 Dec 16,
Sometime in the next few weeks, Donald Trump will be briefed on the procedures for how to activate the U.S. nuclear arsenal, if he hasn’t already learned about them.
All year, the prospect of giving the real estate and reality TV mogul the power to launch attacks that would kill millions of people was one of the main reasons his opponents argued against electing him. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,” Hillary Clinton said in her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. Republicans who didn’t support Trump — and even some who did, such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — also said they didn’t think Trump could be trusted with the launch codes.
Now they’re his. When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them whenever he decides to do so. The only sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.
When the legal framework for nuclear weapons was developed, the fear was about not irrational presidents but trigger-happy generals. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, passed with President Harry Truman’s signature after nine months of acrimonious congressional hearings, firmly put the power of the atomic bomb in the hands of the president and the civilian components of the executive branch. It was a momentous and controversial law, crafted in the months following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with an eye toward future standoffs with the Soviet Union…….
Eventually, the brass adopted the idea that, when it came to nuclear matters, they were at the president’s beck and call. It was not generals’ responsibility to make the order; it was their responsibility to carry it out.
That the president would be the only person competent to use nuclear weapons was never challenged. Even asking the question would throw the entire system into disarray, as Maj. Harold Hering learned in 1973. Hering was a 21-year Air Force veteran who was decorated for his flying in Vietnam before being sent for training as a nuclear missile squadron commander. He had been taught that officers had an obligation to disobey illegal orders. So when he was told how to launch a nuclear attack, he asked what seemed like a simple question: How could he be sure that an order to launch his missiles was lawful? How could he be sure, for example, that the president wasn’t insane? Instead of an answer, he got the boot: an aborted promotion and an administrative discharge for “failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership” and for indicating “a defective mental attitude towards his duties.”
The Air Force’s problem, in short, is that once a serviceman starts down the rabbit hole of doubt, he becomes an unreliable second-guesser — and suddenly he is one of the few people who can decide whether nuclear weapons are used.
The procedure for ordering a nuclear attack involves more than one person: The president cannot literally press a button on his desk and start World War III. There is no “nuclear button” at all. Instead, the U.S. nuclear command-and-control system is bureaucratically and technically complex, stretching out to encompass land-based missile silos, submarine-based ballistic and cruise missiles, and weapons capable of being dropped from bombers. The chain of command requires that the president order the secretary of defense to carry out a launch; the secretary serves as the conduit for implementation by the military. There are succession policies in place so that the procedure can be continued in the event of the death or incapacitation of either the president or the secretary of defense — or their designated successors.
Most details of how a nuclear war would be started are classified, because an enemy who knew enough about the system could come up with ways to complicate or defeat it. What is known is that an aide is always following the president, carrying at least one large satchel (often two) known as the “nuclear football,” reportedly containing information about nuclear attack possibilities and how the president could verify his identity, authenticate orders and communicate with the military about implementing them……..
It might be worth resurrecting this debate , if we take seriously the idea that presidents — any of them, much less Trump — should not have the legal authority to conduct arbitrary and unilateral nuclear war. Perhaps now, decades after the end of the Cold War, we are past the moment when we need to entrust that power in a single person. One can imagine a law that would allow the president to use nuclear weapons in the face of imminent danger, the sort of situation in which a matter of minutes or even seconds could make a difference, but would enact formal requirements for outside consensus when more options were on the table. It would not require a full renunciation of the possibility of a first-strike nuclear attack (something the United States has never been willing to make) but might add some reassurances that such decisions would not be made unilaterally.
I could fill this newspaper with the names of Trump staffers who have emerged from such groups:
Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it,Guardian, George Monbiot, 1 Dec 16 Many of his staffers are from an opaque corporate misinformation network. We must understand this if we are to have any hope of fighting back against them. Yes, Donald Trump’s politics are incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. To understand what is coming, we need to understand who they are. I know all too well, because I have spent the past 15 years fighting them.
Over this time, I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government.
I first encountered the machine when writing about climate change. The fury and loathing directed at climate scientists and campaigners seemed incomprehensible until I realised they were fake: the hatred had been paid for. The bloggers and institutes whipping up this anger were funded by oil and coal companies.
For years, Ebell and the CEI have attacked efforts to limit climate change, through lobbying, lawsuits and campaigns. An advertisement released by the institute had the punchline “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution. We call it life.”
Charles and David Koch – who for years have funded extreme pro-corporate politics – might not have been enthusiasts for Trump’s candidacy, but their people were all over his campaign. Until June, Trump’s campaign manager was Corey Lewandowski, who like other members of Trump’s team came from a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
This purports to be a grassroots campaign, but it was founded and funded by the Koch brothers. It set up the first Tea Party Facebook page and organised the first Tea Party events. With a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, AFP has campaigned ferociously on issues that coincide with the Koch brothers’ commercial interests in oil, gas, minerals, timber and chemicals.
Climate change will stir ‘unimaginable’ refugee crisis, says military Unchecked global warming is greatest threat to 21st-century security where mass migration could be ‘new normal’, say senior military, Guardian, Damian Carrington, 1 Dec 16, Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”.
The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.
Military leaders have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required.
“Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century,” said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. “We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people.”
Previously, Bangladesh’s finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, called on Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced people.
Brig Gen Stephen Cheney, a member of the US Department of State’s foreign affairs policy board and CEO of the American Security Project, said: “Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC Bureau By Joseph Trento, April 9th, 2012 “….Stopping the Spread of Fissile Material After Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, he instituted an aggressive policy to control the spread of fissile materials. As a former nuclear reactor engineer on a Navy submarine, Carter knew better than any other world leader the immense power locked up in plutonium and highly enriched uranium. He was determined to keep it out of the hands of even our closest non-nuclear allies – including Japan.
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