Trump withdraws from Open Skies Treaty, throws more doubt on the future of the New START nuclear treaty
 Open Skies withdrawal throws nuclear treaty into question, The Hill, BY REBECCA KHEEL – 05/25/20
President Trump‘s move this week to withdraw from an international pact meant to prevent accidental war has added to concerns about the fate of a separate arms control treaty with Russia. The Trump administration says formal talks with Moscow on extending the New START agreement, which places limits on deployed nuclear warheads, will start imminently. But after Trump announced Thursday he is withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, arms control advocates raised fresh doubt about the future of New START, which is set to expire in February. Trump has shown deep skepticism toward international agreements — and those negotiated under the Obama administration in particular — but the administration insists it hasn’t given up on arms control….. he person Trump has tapped to negotiate an extension or replacement has made no guarantees, saying at a think tank event this past week he’s “not going to speculate” on whether the treaty will be extended “at this very early stage” and arguing the United States could win an arms race if need be. “We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion,” Marshall Billingslea, the special presidential envoy for arms control, said during a Hudson Institute webcast. “If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it.” The wrangling over the decades-old arms control regime comes as much of the world’s attention is focused instead on the coronavirus pandemic, which Democrats have accused Trump of using as a cover to withdraw from Open Skies with little attention. “The president should be focused on combating the coronavirus, not dragging America toward a costly and potentially devastating nuclear arms race,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on Trump’s move to pull out of Open Skies….. New START caps the number of deployed nuclear warheads the United States and Russia can have at 1,550 a piece, and it places limits on deploying weapons that can deliver the warheads and creates a verification regime that includes 18 on-site inspections per year. The agreement, which was negotiated by the Obama administration, is set to expire Feb. 5, 2021. But the treaty includes an option to extend it for another five years without needing the approval of either country’s legislature. Arms control advocates have sounded the alarm about the future of New START since last year after Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a pact that banned Russia and the United States from having ground-launched missiles of a certain range. Now, those warnings are intensifying. In a statement opposing Trump’s Open Skies withdrawal, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) also highlighted “the uncertainty surrounding its commitment to New START,” calling the combination of both “very alarming.” The Open Skies Treaty, which was first proposed by former President Eisenhower but didn’t enter into force until 2002, allows its more than 30 signatories, including the U.S. and Russia, to fly unarmed observation flights over each other. The intention is to provide transparency about military activities to avoid miscalculations that could lead to war. The Trump administration formally submitted its notice of intent to withdraw Friday, kicking off a six-month period before the withdrawal is final. ……. Russia, meanwhile, has previously offered to extend the treaty immediately without any preconditions and has also recently expressed a willingness to include some of the new weapons Washington is concerned about. But on the heels of the U.S. withdrawal from Open Skies, Ryabkov on Friday cast doubt on New START’s extension…… Derek Johnson, executive director of Global Zero, which advocates for the elimination of nuclear weapons, argued Trump’s move on Open Skies “does not bode well for New START.” “Rather than accept Russia’s offer to extend New START immediately and without preconditions, the Trump administration has proposed instead to negotiate a new trilateral agreement that includes China. Without extending New START, this proposal is either a fool’s errand or a deliberate farce,” Johnson said in a statement. “Getting China’s nuclear forces under control is a worthy goal, and sustained efforts are required to do that — but if New START goes the way of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies Treaties, the possibility of a bigger deal goes with it.” https://thehill.com/policy/defense/499240-open-skies-withdrawal-throws-nuclear-treaty-into-question |
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Federal report: 2019 Seattle radiation leak could have been disastrous, was a ‘near miss’
 2019 Seattle radiation leak a ‘near miss’ to disaster, federal report finds
In May 2019, radiation leaked from a device at Harborview Research and Training. At first called a “minor” breach, investigators warn it could have been much worse. K5 Chris Ingalls May 23, 2020, SEATTLE — A March report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says a radiation leak at the Harborview Research and Training Building one year ago was “preventable” and “a near miss to a significant event” that could have devastated the Seattle area.
“It is a wake-up call for all of us,” said Dr. Jacob Kamen, a radiation expert at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, who reviewed the 175-page report at KING 5’s request. When radiation leaked from a medical device that a contractor was decommissioning on May 2, 2019 it was called a “minor” breach at the time. But the DOE investigation revealed a stunning lack of oversight by federal regulators and a federally licensed contractor who pushed “…mission completion over safe conduct.” Greg Wolf, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which led the investigation, said the report was meant to be blunt so the same safety breakdowns would not happen again. “In this joint investigation NNSA took an unflinching look at the incident and concluded that it was preventable. It was largely a result of weak and partially implemented oversight processes,” Wolf said……. Video released by the DOE at KING 5’s request shows a serious mistake as the contractor uses an electric hand saw to cut into an aluminum tube that holds the cesium capsule. ……. the Seattle incident shows how much damage even a small amount of radioactive material can cause. “So just imagine if a tiny fraction can do such contamination in a building for a year – what would it do if it’s used by someone with malicious purposes in downtown Seattle? Just imagine how bad it would be,” Kamen said. Kamen says cesium could be used as a “weapon of mass disruption.” It would not necessarily result in a large body count, but it could contaminate city blocks and shut down the economic engine – much like coronavirus is doing now. Kamen is one of the leading voices calling for the disposal of medical devices – like irradiators – from low security facilities across America…… The Harborview Research and Training Building remains closed during a cleanup that is nearing $9 million. Research projects that could be salvaged and medical training have been transferred to other locations…… https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/harborview-training-research-radiation-leak/281-d91e61fe-4e3e-4d4d-b6a1-9993be5e93c5 |
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Sizewell nuclear planning application should be rejected until coronavirus lockdown restrictions are lifted
 East Anglian Daily Times 24th May 2020, EDF Energy could be set this week to submit its final plans for a new £14billion nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast to the Government– despite widespread anger over the timing of the application. Community leaders across east Suffolk, along with many influential organisations and a host of celebrities have demanded that the power giant puts its plans for the new Sizewell C twin reactor on hold until after the coronavirus lockdown restrictions are lifted. They fear that current bans on public
meetings and people getting together even in small groups, plus the continued closure of libraries, will prevent many from seeing the full plans, debating them and giving their views. Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Dr Dan Poulter has written to Government ministers urging them to reject the planning application, known as the Development Consent Order, until after the Covid-19 crisis. News that the application is about to be made has left them deeply disappointed and saying it is the most inappropriate time to do so. https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-dco-submission-wednesday-may-27-1-6668608 |
UK’s new nuclear plants – nearly all parts are sourced and/or funded from China and France
David Lowry’s Blog 24th May 2020, Letter from David Lowry to The Times: Your important revelation follows Johnson’s assertion to MPs on Wednesday that he is pursuing “measures
to protect our technological base.” The initiative, “Project Defend,”
is aimed at creating a new national resilience framework, which, The Times
reports, will address the current over-reliance on China for “medical and
other strategic imports.”
One such strategic import is civil nuclear
technology, on which UK is 100 per cent reliant on foreign suppliers for
the critical core reactor infrastructure, with the Hinkley C nuclear plant
under construction by French state generator, Electricite de France ( EdF)
using French technology, supported by French and Chinese capital
investment.
The next new nuclear plant in line for construction, at
Sizewell C in Suffolk, will have 20per cent of its costs paid for by
Chinese state company China General Nuclear.
The third new plant, at
Bradwell in Essex, is planned to entirely built using 100 per cent Chinese/
French designed technology, mostly imported, and backed by 62 per cent
Chinese funding. It would also be operated by a primarily Chinese technical
team. Only smaller parts for these new plants will be sourced from the UK
supply chain.
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2020/05/uk-china-nuclear-relations-need-reset.html
Iran tops the list of countries which accepted inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2019.
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‘The goal of opponents is to undermine confidence and cooperation between Tehran and IAEA’
JCPOA ensuring Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, says Russia, Tehran Times May 25, 2020 “The purpose of #JCPOA is to restore confidence in exclusively peaceful nature of nuclear program of #Iran,” Ulyanov tweeted on Monday.“The deal fulfils this task,” he wrote. “No sign of military dimension was found. The goal of opponents is opposite- to undermine confidence and cooperation between Tehran and #IAEA.” In an earlier tweet on Sunday, the Russian envoy wrote, “Opponents of #JCPOA call for a ‘renewed coalition of pressure on Tehran’. In their article in Newsweek, published on Sunday, they try to instruct #IAEA what it ‘must’ and ‘should’ do. IAEA is independent. It’s Board of Governors and Secretariat will decide for themselves on how to proceed.” The Newsweek article that Ulyanov referred to, titled “The IAEA must report its latest findings on Iran’s nuclear weapons program”, called for a renewed coalition of pressure on Tehran in order to “address the regime’s nuclear program from its roots.” “World powers should make clear to Iran that it can no longer conceal its nuclear past and potentially its present—or swift international penalties will follow,” added the article written by Jacob Nagel, former acting national security advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at FDD. This is while Iran tops the list of countries which accepted inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2019. “Last year, the Islamic Republic received 21 percent of the entire visits that were made to various nuclear sites across the world by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA),” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based international organizations, said earlier this month. He was citing the IAEA’s 129-page 2019 Safeguards Implementation Report. “The agency continued to verify and monitor the nuclear-related commitments of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” read the 129-page report prepared for diplomats that accounts for resources spent on enforcing the landmark 2015 agreement among world powers…….. |
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Finland’s new nuclear reactor hit by valve leak
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Finland’s new nuclear reactor hit by valve leak, SwissInfo Ch MAY 25, 2020 HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor was hit by another setback after the nation’s safety watchdog reported valve problems in a component involved in the cooling process.
The reactor in western Finland was built by a consortium of France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens and had been due to start producing electricity in November this year. “A leak was observed in the mechanical control valve of one of the pressuriser safety valves,” nuclear watchdog STUK said in a statement on Monday, adding that a full investigation is required before it can issue a nuclear fuel loading permit. “This is very serious,” STUK’s head of inspection, Iiro Paajanen, told Reuters, adding that the leak was in part of the reactor’s primary circuit and involved in its cooling. However, Areva said the issue is unlikely to cause further delay for the reactor, which was originally due to be completed in 2009. ….. Although Finland’s government issued an operating permit for the 1.6 gigawatt reactor in March 2019, OL3 needs final approval from STUK to load fuel and start production. “At present, the plant unit still has several outstanding issues before a loading permit can be issued,” STUK wrote in its January-April safety report. Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Tarmo Virki; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Goodman) https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/finland-s-new-nuclear-reactor-hit-by-valve-leak/45783642 |
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Canadian farming community not happy about taking on nuclear wastes
Teeswater area debating taking on ‘forever’ nuclear waste project, Scott Miller CTV News London 25 May 20, WINGHAM, ONT. — Anja van der Vlies is worried about the future of her 1200 dairy goat operation, if Canada’s most radioactive nuclear waste is buried a couple side roads away from her family’s farm.
“It’s fairly close to where we farm. If I just look at the radius of 10 kilometres from the proposed site, so much food is being prepared here. What’s going to happen to that?”she says.
Right next door, dairy farmer Ron Groen has posted signs around his property sharing his concerns about the proposed project, just north of Teeswater.
“The waste is going to be radioactive for a million years, so basically the waste will be eternally radioactive and our kids, grandkids, 33,000 generations after us living in and around town will have to worry about this problem,” he says.
About 1200 acres of farmland north of Teeswater has been optioned by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to potentially build Canada’s first permanent nuclear waste facility.
Over five million used nuclear fuel bundles, would be buried 500 metres under these Bruce County farms, if the community agrees to it.
Darren Ireland is one the landowners, whose agreed to option his land for the project.
“For me, it’s about five generations. This area has struggled for years to keep things going. I look at this as something, that we could be looking at for five generations, that’s huge,” he says.
The mayor of the municipality of South Bruce, Robert Buckle, also sees upside to the project…….
Signs opposing the project starting going up around the area around March. A local group has formed to keep nuclear waste out of South Bruce’s soil.
“The sooner we can stop this, the better for our community,” says van der Vlies…….
Two communities remain in the running to house Canada’s most radioactive waste. Ignace, in Northern Ontario, and the Municipality of South Bruce, north of Teeswater. One site will selected, no later, than 2023. https://london.ctvnews.ca/teeswater-area-debating-taking-on-forever-nuclear-waste-project-1.4953737
Sweden gets a new Nuclear Emergency Plan
Nuclear Engineering International 22d May 2020, Sweden’s Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) announced this week, that inaccordance with an SSM proposal, the government had decided on new emergency zones for operations with ionising radiation.
For Swedish nuclear power plants, this means an internal and an external emergency zone as well
as a planning zone with an approximate extent of 5, 25 and 100 kilometres
respectively. “The change is important in order to improve the
possibility of implementing effective protective measures in connection
with a nuclear accident,” SSM said.
In 2017, SSM, in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Social Protection and Emergency Preparedness, the County Administrative Boards in Uppsala, Kalmar, Hallands, Södermanland,
Västmanland and Skåne and the municipality of Lund and the Rescue
Services South, reported an assignment to the government where the agency
proposed to make emergency preparedness zones.
The Government has now
decided on a new regulation (2003: 789) on accident prevention, which means
that the emergency zones for nuclear facilities are being redone, in
accordance with that proposal. In the zones, iodine tablets should be
pre-distributed, the population should be able to be alerted quickly and
there must be a planning for evacuation and indoor stay. Evacuation of the
internal emergency zone must be prioritised over evacuation of the external
emergency zone.
A planning zone will also be introduced where there will be
a planning for evacuation based on radiation from the ground cover
radiation, a planning for indoor living and a planning for limited extra
distribution of iodine tablets. “This means, when the emergency zones are
fully implemented, that Sweden meets international requirements for
emergency preparedness for these operations, while lessons learned from the
nuclear accident in Fukushima have been taken care of, said SSM specialist
Jan Johansson.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsnew-emergency-zones-for-swedish-nuclear-power-plants-7936755
Lithuania, Belarus sign nuclear incident notification agreement
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Lithuania, Belarus sign nuclear incident notification agreement
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-26 01:02:32|Editor: huaxia VILNIUS, May 25 — The nuclear safety authorities of Lithuania and Belarus signed an agreement on early notification of a nuclear accident and on the exchange of important nuclear safety information, Lithuania’s State Nuclear Power Safety Inspectorate (VATESI) announced here on Monday.
In order to protect the public by minimizing the potential radiation-related risks and consequences, the two authorities agreed to exchange key information immediately after a nuclear incident or when the monitoring systems indicate a radiation dose-rate level that could be hazardous to the public health, said a VATESI press release. ….. Lithuania’s authorities have regularly raised questions about the environmental and nuclear safety of the Ostrovets nuclear power plant in Belarus…..http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/26/c_139087159.htm |
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The folly of removing US caps on Russian nuclear fuel imports
This week’s nuclear and climate news
Can’t keep up with the pandemic news – I hope you can.
One thing, though. Beyond Nuclear has pointed out the significance of the floods in Midland, Michigan, where they do have one nuclear research reactor, but fortunately no commercial ones. They warn on ” the almost impossible challenge of evacuating people to safety during simultaneous catastrophic events.” The floods bring together the climate, pandemic, and nuclear dangers all in one area.
Public attention is not on this one. BUT, the 2020 Review Conference of a landmark international treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), is due soon, though postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is also at risk. It’s under the radar, while everyone worries about COVID-19 and climate, – but the danger of nuclear weapons use is escalating, as Donald Trump unravels the treaty system that is aimed at preventing nuclear war. He also wants USA to hugely increase its nuclear weaponry.
Some bits of good news – Maasai Nature Conservancy Asks For Help To Fight Pandemic—And 100,000 People Answer. World’s Most Endangered Primate Population Triples After 17 Years of Careful Conservation
A moment of reckoning – when coronavirus meets climate change. Coronavirus: How to prevent a new nuclear arms race – and future pandemics.
Australia, and other countries – deaths from global heatinge are being underestimated
The danger to children of low level nuclear radiation has been underestimated.
The international nuclear weapons race. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at risk, due to Donald Trump’s accusations ?
ANTARCTIC. Antarctic krill threatened by warming waters – climate change’s danger to the marine ecosystem.
UK. Ministry of Defence’s poor management of contracts for nuclear infrastructure projects. Sellafield’s safety dilemma– risk of coronavirus versus risk of nuclear accident. Britain will have to decide whether it wants nuclear power stations funded — and powered — by China. Doubts on the funding of Britain’s £18bn Sizewell nuclear plan. Move to prevent dumping of Hinkley radioactive mud on the South Wales coast. Shinfield residents urged to look out for update from nuclear weapons facility.
JAPAN. Time that Japan faced up to the folly of its nuclear fuel cycle dream.
NORTH KOREA. Kim Jong-un Moves to Increase North Korea’s Nuclear Strength.
USA.
- USA’s Plan to spend Russia and China ‘into oblivion’ in arms race will bankrupt only America. Trump Administration Weighs First Nuclear Test in Decades. USA wants thousands of Hypersonic Missiles, using artificial intelligence. USA’s F-35’s Nuclear Weapons Upgrade Delayed as Program Costs Top $1.6 Trillion. Coronavirus likely to put a dint in USA’s nuclear weapons spending.
- U.S. Unprepared for Nuclear Accident During Pandemic.
- The flooding danger to nuclear radioactive sites –Michigan dams fail.
- More about dirty nuclear tricks in Ohio.
- President Donald Trump and his administration have no plans to use Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.
- COVID-19 in worker at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant.
- Over 120 local and national organizations urge U.S. Congress to help nuclear frontline communities. Coalition pursues extra $7.25B for DOE nuclear cleanup, job creation.
- Removal of Fort Belvoir’s SM-1 nuclear reactor to proceed after Army finalizes environmental assessment.
- US Congressman Engel Suggests Saudi Arms Sales Behind Firing of State Dept. Watchdog .
EUROPE. A mistaken idea, to put U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland.
INDIA. Climate: Cyclone Amphan disaster in India, Bangladesh.
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia’s push for nuclear power – a nuclear weapons danger.
CANADA. Bruce Power and the Ontario Government ordered come clean on the cost of nuclear power.
SOUTH KOREA. South Korea risk of power disruption, as nuclear spent fuel builds up, with storage shortage.
NORWAY. Dismantling of Norway’s nuclear research reactors – up to 25 years, about $billion
AUSTRALIA. Misleading and inaccurate information provided by authorities on National Radioactive Waste Management. Australian Law on radioactive waste to be changed in order to prevent any judicial review!.
The danger to children of low level nuclear radiation has been underestimated
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How dangerous is low-level radiation to children? https://climatenewsnetwork.net/how-dangerous-is-low-level-radiation-to-children/#.Xsn914VYtCg.twitter May 22nd, 2020, by Paul Brown
A rethink on the risks of low-level radiation would imperil the nuclear industry’s future − perhaps why there’s never been one. The threat that low-level radiation poses to human life, particularly to unborn children, and its link with childhood leukaemia, demands an urgent scientific reassessment. This is the conclusion of a carefully-detailed report produced for the charity Children With Cancer UK by the Low-Level Radiation Campaign. It is compiled from evidence contained in dozens of scientific reports from numerous countries over many decades, which show that tiny doses of radiation, some of it inhaled, can have devastating effects on the human body, particularly by causing cancer and birth defects. The original reports were completed for a range of academic institutions, governments and medical organisations, and their results were compared by the newest report’s authors, Richard Bramhall and Pete Wilkinson. They believe they have provided overwhelming evidence for a basic rethink on so-called “safe” radiation doses. They write: “The fundamental conclusion of this report is that when the evidence is rationally assessed it appears that the health impacts, especially in the more radio-sensitive young, have been consistently and routinely underestimated.” Ceaseless controversy The pair concede this is not the first time such a call has been made, but it has never been acted upon. Now they say it must be. What constitutes safety for nuclear workers and for civilians living near nuclear power stations, or affected by fall-out from accidents like the ones at Sellafield in Cumbria in north-west England in 1957, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, has always been highly controversial. Bramhall and Wilkinson detail how the debate began in earnest in the 1980s, when a cluster of childhood leukaemia cases, ten times higher than would be expected, was identified around Sellafield. Government inquiries followed but reached no settled conclusion, and low-level radiation safety has been a scientific battleground ever since. The official agencies appointed by governments are still using dose estimates based on calculations made in 1943, when Western governments were trying to develop an atomic bomb.
The new report highlights that this was when very little was known about how tiny doses of ingested radiation could affect the body − and when DNA was yet to be discovered. Despite the fact that international standards are based on these scientifically ancient, out-of-date assumptions, they have not been revised. If they were, the results could be catastrophic for the nuclear industry and for the manufacturers of nuclear weapons. The report makes clear that if the worst estimates of the damage that low-level radiation causes to children proved anywhere close to correct, then no-one would want to live anywhere near a nuclear power station. Most would be appalled if they knew even small numbers of children living within 50 kilometres of a station would contract leukaemia from being so close. It acknowledges that the stakes are high. If the authors’ findings are accepted, then it will be the end of public tolerance of nuclear power. Revolution needed Despite this long-lived institutional pushback from governments and the industry, the report says what is needed is a scientific revolution in the way that low-level radiation is considered. It compares the situation with the treatment of asbestos. It was in the 1890s that the first evidence of disease related to asbestos exposure was laid before the UK Parliament. But it was not until 1972, when the causal link between the always fatal lung cancer, mesothelioma, and human fatality rates was established beyond reasonable doubt, that the use of asbestos was banned. This delay is why on average 2,700 people still die annually in the UK: they were at some point exposed to and inhalers of asbestos. Another example, which the report does not quote but is perhaps as relevant today, is air pollution. It has taken decades for the scientific community to realise that in many cities it is the tiniest particles of air pollution, invisible to the naked eye, that are taken deepest into the lungs and that cause the most damage, killing thousands of people a year. So far governments across the world have not yet outlawed the vehicles and industrial processes that are wiping out their own citizens in vast numbers. Anxiety not irrational The report cites many studies, with perhaps the most telling those that compare the actual numbers of cancers and malformations in babies which occurred in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident with the numbers to have been expected if the currently accepted and out-of-date risk calculations had been used. Despite the difficulties of getting information from reluctant governments close to Chernobyl, the report says: “The discrepancy between the number of congenital malformations in babies expected after Chernobyl and the number actually observed was between 15,000 and 50,000.” The authors say their object “is to dispel the repeated assertion that public anxiety about the health impact of radioactivity in the environment is irrational.” Both Wilkinson and Bramhall have considerable experience of dealing with governments, both inside official bodies as members, and as external lobbyists. They detail how they believe the concerns of both ordinary people and scientists have been swept aside in order to preserve the status quo. Clearly, in sponsoring the report, Children with Cancer UK agrees. − Climate News Network |
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Michigan flooding: a warning on potential triple disaster – climate, pandemic, and nuclear radiation
Michigan authorities were forced to face a “no-win compromise” between protecting the public from exposure to Covid-19 while at the same time moving people out of harm’s way after heavy rains caused failures at the Edenville and Sanford dams, leading to devastating floods.
The Dow plant insists there have been no chemical or radiological releases, but the situation will be evaluated once floodwaters recede. Fortunately, no full-scale commercial nuclear power plant was in the path of the Michigan floods.
Operating nuclear power stations are required by federal and state laws to maintain radiological emergency preparedness to protect populations within a ten-mile radius from the release of radioactivity following a serious nuclear accident. These measures include mass evacuations.
However, many communities around the nation’s 95 commercial reactors are presently sheltering-in-place at home as a protective action during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Michigan flooding has forced the relocation of thousands of citizens from their stay-at-home lockdown into the social distancing challenges of mass shelters. Evacuating tens of thousands from a likely more far-reaching radioactive cloud to mass shelters, as is presently planned during a nuclear emergency, raises difficult if not impossible choices under pandemic conditions.
In fact, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) (Sect.03.02 p.2) between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) already obligates the federal government to re-exam radiological emergency plans around nuclear facilities specifically in response to a pandemic, and to identify any shortcomings, deficiencies and enhancements that might be needed under such conditions.
But to date, neither agency has taken the initiative to do so. In fact, the NRC actions are focused on relaxing safety measures required by operating licenses, resulting in extended work hours for reactor operators and security guards, and deferred safety inspections and repairs for as much as another 18 months. This makes an accident more likely.
Given what we are now seeing in Michigan, the NRC and FEMA should lose no time in reviewing their MOU and the viability of their radiological emergency plans, and take action to make any necessary enhancements or shut these nuclear facilities down.
Beyond Nuclear has identified two such actions under the MOU as vital to public health:
- The NRC and FEMA must conduct a “Disaster Initiated Report”, as mandated by the MOU, on the adequacy of offsite radiological emergency response plans during the pandemic, and;
- Federal and state response plans need to be bolstered by the immediate pre-distribution of potassium iodide (KI) tablets by direct delivery to every resident within the ten-mile radius of U.S. nuclear power stations, now, before any accident occurs. This is in accordance with disaster medicine expert recommendations including from the American Thyroid Association (ATA).
- KI, if taken promptly in advance or shortly after exposure to radioactive iodine, is recognized by the US Food and Drug administration as a safe, inexpensive and effective prophylactic prevention for thyroid cancer and other developmental disorders caused by exposure to highly mobile iodine-131. Radioactive iodine is a gas released early in a serious nuclear accident.
- KI is particularly important for the protection of infants, young children and pregnant women and should be readily on hand, according to the ATA and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The ATA further recommends stockpiling KI tablets in schools, hospitals, police and fire stations from 10 miles out to 50 miles from every nuclear power plant. These institutions could then serve to pre-distribute KI free through the mail upon request to every home and business within 50 miles of an operating nuclear plant.
KI is commonly used to iodize table salt in concentrations. When taken in tablet form, it saturates the thyroid with stable iodine and blocks the absorption of radioactive iodine into the thyroid gland.
- KI only protects the thyroid. It does not protect other parts of the body, or prevent damage from other radioactive isotopes released during a nuclear power plant accident, such as cesium-137 or krypton or xenon gases. Ideally, it is used to provide protection to the thyroid — because iodine-131 can be the large and early radioactive exposure first to arrive — while people are still evacuating out of the oncoming radioactive fallout pathway.
KI is a critical adjunct to evacuation, but it should not replace evacuation from a nuclear accident, even during a viral pandemic. If faced with an immediate threat to life, perhaps even a triple threat such as an extreme flood, a nuclear accident and Covid-19 exposure, evacuation must be the immediate decision.
However, at least having KI tablets on hand provides for a reasonable protection from the radioactive iodine, a fundamental human right while seeking to shelter farther away from a nuclear accident.
The prospect of a nuclear disaster prompting a mass evacuation during a viral pandemic reinforces the need for an energy policy focused on safe, clean and affordable renewable energy. It’s time to remove the added and unnecessary danger presented by the 95 nuclear reactors still operating in the US today and transition to a rapid phaseout before a nuclear emergency during a pandemic becomes a nightmarish reality.
On weapons treaties US administration is blundering toward nuclear chaos
Fumbling the nuclear football: is Trump blundering to arms control chaos?
The president believes he alone can negotiate away nuclear weapons and win a Nobel prize – but he has quit three treaties and gutted his administration of experts, Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington Sun 24 May 2020
The Trump administration signaled this week that it was ready to get back in the business of nuclear arms control. A newly appointed envoy, Marshall Billingslea, made his first public remarks to announce talks with Russia are about to resume.
“We have concrete ideas for our next interaction, and we’re finalizing the details as we speak,” Billingslea said.
The fact that this relaunch came on the same day that the US was pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty (OST) – the third withdrawal from an arms control agreement under the Trump presidency – underlined the contradictions at the heart of the administration’s approach towards nuclear weapons.
According to those who have worked for him on the issue, Trump is preoccupied with the existential threat of nuclear war, and resolved that he alone can conjure a grand arms control bargain that would save the planet – and win him the Nobel prize.
But at the same time, he is clearly thrilled by the destructive power that the US arsenal gives him, boasting about the size of his nuclear button, and a mystery “super duper” missile he this week claimed the US had up its sleeve.
Administration officials have been left to try to confect a coherent-sounding policy out of such contradictory impulses – so far without success.
“He believes only he has what it takes to make the big deal, if only everyone else – all the experts – would get out of his way,” a former senior official said. “But he just has no idea about how to make it happen.”
Billingslea, the new envoy, is not an arms control specialist. He previously served as the undersecretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury and was nominated last year to the top human rights job at the state department – but that foundered amid controversy over his involvement in the post 9/11 torture programme . The arms control envoy job did not require Senate confirmation.
In his maiden speech as envoy, Billingslea made clear that if there were to be a new arms race, the US would win.
“We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion,” he said in a videoconference organised by the conservative Hudson Institute thinktank on Thursday. It was a statement of bravado as the US plunged into recession owing about $7tn in foreign debt, $1tn to China.
Billingslea argued Trump would succeed through his mastery of the art of the deal.
“The president has a long and successful career as a negotiator, and he’s a master at developing and using leverage,” he said, showing an early instinct for what it takes to keep your job in this administration.
So far, however, Trump has failed to negotiate a single arms control agreement. His flamboyant summitry with Kim Jong-un produced nothing, and the North Korean nuclear weapons programme has continued unabated. Meanwhile the president has taken the US out of three arms control agreements, leaving them dead, dying or maimed.
He walked out of the nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, and the following year withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which had kept nuclear missiles out of Europe since the cold war. Then on Thursday, he confirmed the US was leaving the OST, agreed in 1992 as a means of building transparency and trust between Russia and the west through observation overflights of each other’s territory.
That may not be the end of Trump’s arms control demolition. The Senate never ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, which – partly as a result – has yet to come into force. But the US has signed it and observes a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests.
Hawks in the administration, however, want a renunciation. At a high-level White House meeting last week, the suggestion was raised that the US carry out its first underground nuclear test since 1992, according to former officials. The proposal was resisted by the state and energy departments. A senior administration official told the Washington Post however the proposal is “very much an ongoing conversation.”
The only arms control agreement still in effect is the 2010 New Start treaty, which limits US and Russian deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 each. It is due to expire in February but it can be extended for another five years. The Trump administration has not taken a position on whether it wants an extension, however.
“There’ll be plenty of time to look at the full range of options related to that treaty,” Billingslea said. At the same time he made clear he viewed New Start as being inadequate, criticising its verification requirements, its exclusion of non-strategic, shorter-range weapons – and, most importantly, the fact that it does not include China……
Arms control advocates in the administration believe that the insistence on China’s inclusion was originally pushed by Trump’s third national security adviser, John Bolton, a lifelong opponent of arms control treaties, and his like-minded aide, Tim Morrison, as a means of killing off New Start.
……Disarmament advocates worry that even if Billingslea re-establishes regular contacts with Moscow, the US no longer has the diplomatic muscle to pursue substantive, complex arms negotiations because of the steady loss of experienced staff responsible for such negotiations.
“It’s not obvious they have a kind of a serious team in place to try and make that happen,” a western diplomat said.
“Three years after entering office, the Trump administration lacks a coherent set of goals, a strategy to achieve them, or the personnel or effective policy process to address the most complex set of nuclear risks in US history,” a group of arms control experts wrote in a report this month by the disarmament group, Global Zero. “Put simply, the current US administration is blundering toward nuclear chaos with potentially disastrous consequences.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/24/nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-arms-control-chaos
Australia, and the world, underestimate how many die due to global heating
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Experts Warn Climate Change Is Already Killing Way More People Than We Record, Science Alert ,CARLY CASSELLA, 25 MAY 2020
People around the world are already dying from the climate crisis,and yet all too often, official death records do not reflect the impact of these large-scale environmental catastrophes. According to a team of Australian health experts, heat is the most dominant risk posed by climate change in the country. If the world’s emissions remain the same, by 2080 Australian cities could see at least four times the number of deaths from increasing temperatures alone. “Climate change is a killer, but we don’t acknowledge it on death certificates,” says physician Arnagretta Hunter from the Australian National University. That’s a potentially serious oversight. In a newly-published correspondence, Hunter and four other public health experts estimate Australia’s mortality records have substantially underreported heat-related deaths – at least 50-fold. While death certificates in Australia do actually have a section for pre-existing conditions and other factors, external climate conditions are rarely taken into account. Between 2006 and 2017, the analysis found less than 0.1 percent of 1.7 million deaths were attributed directly or indirectly to excessive natural heat. But this new analysis suggests the nation’s heat-related mortality is around 2 percent. “We know the summer bushfires were a consequence of extraordinary heat and drought and people who died during the bushfires were not just those fighting fires – many Australians had early deaths due to smoke exposure,” says Hunter……. “Death certification needs to be modernised, indirect causes should be reported, with all death certification prompting for external factors contributing to death, and these death data must be coupled with large-scale environmental datasets so that impact assessments can be done.” …… Such action, they say, is imperative. Not only for Australia but many other countries in the world. The United Kingdom has documented some problems with accurately filling out death certificates, and cities in several parts of the world are on track for similar heat-related mortality rates as Australia. But there are some places that will need to do more than just update their current system. In the tropics, there’s little valid mortality data on the more than 2 billion people who live in this heat-vulnerable region. And that makes predicting what will happen to these communities in the future much trickier. “Climate change is the single greatest health threat that we face globally even after we recover from coronavirus,” says Hunter. “We are successfully tracking deaths from coronavirus, but we also need healthcare workers and systems to acknowledge the relationship between our health and our environment.” In an unpredictable world, if we want to know where we’re going, we have to know where we’ve been. Figuring out how many of us have already died from climate change will be key to that process. We can’t ignore it any longer. The correspondence was published in The Lancet Planetary Health. https://www.sciencealert.com/official-death-records-are-terrible-at-showing-how-many-people-are-dying-from-the-climate-crisis |
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