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1950s UK dummy nuclear bomb fiasco

Dorking narrowly avoided ‘nuclear bomb drop’ fiasco, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-39684216, 23 Apr 17, Scientists working on the UK’s first atom bomb narrowly avoided a fiasco when they nearly dropped a five tonne replica on Dorking, it has emerged.

The dummy device was being flown to Orford Ness, a top secret military test site in Suffolk, in the early 1950s.It came loose in the bomb bay while over the Surrey town, about 20 miles from London, but the bomb doors held.An engineer who worked on the device said it was then dropped in the Thames estuary, where it remains to this day.

Fortunately, the device contained no explosives or nuclear material.

The revelation is made in a BBC Four documentary, Britain’s Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story. Reg Milne, of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, told the programme: “One flight to Orford Ness, a bomb came loose over Dorking. It fell off its hook. “Luckily the bomb doors were strong enough to hold it.” He revealed: “The pilot took the aircraft over the Thames estuary, opened the bomb doors, and the bomb fell out.” He said the huge splash that resulted nearly drowned a couple of sailors nearby.

“They never found it – it’s still in the Thames somewhere,” he added.

The programme features interviews with military veterans and scientists who took part in the atomic bomb programme, some speaking for the first time, plus newly released footage of the British atomic bomb tests.

At the time, with the UK excluded from the US nuclear programme, scientists were scrambling to make a British bomb and seemingly cutting a few corners in the process. According to the programme, highly radioactive plutonium was also frequently transported in a lead-lined box by car from the research reactor in Cumbria to a testing site in south London.

On one occasion, the vehicle broke down and the driver had to knock doors to get help. As a result, the dangerous material allegedly spent several hours in the boot of a Vauxhall stranded in a pub car park. Britain’s Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story will be broadcast on BBC Four on 3 May.

April 24, 2017 Posted by | history, UK | Leave a comment

Hitachi still interested in Wylfa nuclear station, while others waver over NuGen nuclear project in Moorside

Hitachi set for talks with business secretary Greg Clark over Welsh nuclear plant, http://www.cityam.com/263354/hitachi-set-talks-business-secretary-greg-clark-over-welsh Mark Sands City A.M’s political reporter, 23 Apr `17 . Bosses at Japanese energy giant Hitachi are due to meet business secretary Greg Clark for talks just weeks after the firm applied for approval to build its Wylfa nuclear project in Anglesey.

Hitachi chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi will meet with Clark this week as government planning continues over the creation of a fleet of new nuclear projects in the UK.

Horizon, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, plans to build and operate two nuclear reactors at Wylfa, capable of generating enough to power around 10 million homes by the mid 2020s.
The application to build the Wylfa reactors earlier this month was the first since 2011, and has been predicted to take around 19 months.

It comes as Hitachi’s Japanese rival Toshiba continues to consider its options over the NuGen nuclear project in Moorside, Cumbria.

French utility firm Engie revealed in early April that it would withdraw from the project, while Toshiba has been wracked with its own problems after revealing dramatic writedowns on its Westinghouse US nuclear unit.

April 24, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Close to human extinction – a nuclear war warning from Ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame

Ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame talks nuclear, cyber threats at CMU, Pittsburgh Post Gazette April 22, 2017, by Courtney Linder It’s two and a half minutes to midnight,” said Valerie Plame, a former covert operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. “The clock says we’re closer to human extinction than ever since 1953.”

Ms. Plame, who worked to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, referred to the Science and Security Board’s “Doomsday Clock” in her keynote speech at Carnegie Mellon University on Friday, prefacing a panel on inclusivity in STEM — or science, technology, engineering and math — for students and faculty.

In her hour-long discussion of nuclear threats and cybersecurity, Ms. Plame kept the conversation solutions-oriented, rather than dwelling on the high-profile “Plamegate” scandal that ended her espionage career……..

Ms. Plame didn’t hesitate to criticize those who don’t fully grasp the power of nuclear armaments.

“It’s very clear [President Donald Trump] doesn’t understand much about the nuclear threat,” she said, citing his first television interview as president. He told ABC’s David Muir that having access to the nuclear codes was “very, very, very scary.”

“The fundamental problem is not that Trump has access to the nuclear launch codes, but that they exist at all,” she said. Ms. Plame offered that Mr. Trump could “be the very person to move us toward nuclear disarmament,” prescribing a diet that includes a “no first use” policy, which pledges a country won’t use nuclear arms unless first attacked by an adversary that is using them.

But the only true answer is abolition of nuclear weapons, she said.

In the same vein, she called for deterrence of cyberattacks and influence operations, noting the Democratic National Committee email leak last year. The U.S. needs to work harder to protect its citizens from cyberattacks, she said, deterring use of domestic cyberwarfare, not just abroad.

“To my knowledge, no one has died from a cyberattack … but there is a gray area between peace and war,” she said.

Despite being publicly outed from her own position, she asked that the best and brightest at CMU consider working in public service.

“I believe in much more diplomacy, not less,” Ms. Plame said. “We are living in unprecedented times.” http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2017/04/22/valerie-plame-plamegate-explained-controversy-movie/stories/201704220042

April 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river

For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river, WP By Chris Mooney April 17 A team of scientists on Monday documented what they’re describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change.

They found that in mid-2016, the retreat of a very large glacier in Canada’s Yukon territory led to the rerouting of its vast stream of meltwater from one river system to another — cutting down flow to the Yukon’s largest lake, and channeling freshwater to the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, rather than to the Bering Sea.

The researchers dubbed the reorganization an act of “rapid river piracy,” saying that such events had often occurred in the Earth’s geologic past, but never before, to their knowledge, as a sudden present-day event. They also called it “geologically instantaneous.”

“The river wasn’t what we had seen a few years ago. It was a faded version of its former self,” lead study author Daniel Shugar of the University of Washington at Tacoma said of the Slims River, which lost much of its flow because of the glacial change. “It was barely flowing at all. Literally, every day, we could see the water level dropping, we could see sandbars popping out in the river.”

The study was published in Nature Geoscience. Shugar conducted the study with researchers from six Canadian and U.S. universities.

The study found that the choking of the Slims River in turn deprived Kluane Lake, the largest body of water in the Yukon Territory. The lake level was at a record low in August, and two small communities that live on the lake may now have to adjust to the lower water levels…….https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/17/for-the-first-time-on-record-human-caused-climate-change-has-rerouted-an-entire-river/?utm_term=.8504cbe15d03

April 24, 2017 Posted by | Canada, climate change | Leave a comment

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