nuclear-news

This week – nuclear news

News – oh dear – it’s all too much. And a kind of lethargy sets in, in this uncertain time of pandemic.  I’ve started to type in green bold just those items that I selected as particularly interesting.  

The big news this week is the Afghanistan story.This  USA -led futile military adventure comes to an end. We now prepare for the next one, as weapons industry leaders  salivate in anticipation –  will it be against Iran, North Korea, China …?

With the delta variant – the pandemic rages on.

Climate change news and views continue, with fires and floods, and following the IPCC Report.  I’m finding that only Radio Ecoshock and climate scientist Paol Beckwith seem  to put this all together, clearly.   And someone raised the heretical suggestion that we should give up the system of endless economic growth via consumption.

Some bits of good news –   Rainforest agriculture brings a climate-friendly system to Honduras and other South American nations.  English moor transformed into ‘giant sponge’ to absorb CO2.

The War On Afghanistan Was A $2 Trillion Scam. U.S, costs to date for the war in Afghanistan  in $ billions, 2001-2021.      How War Profiteers Manufacture Consent. 

NO SUPPORT for NUCLEAR in the new report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Urgency of the IPCC climate report makes it clear that new nuclear is not the answer. If nuclear power is adopted as the way ahead, the climate fight will be lost.

World careering towards irreversible climate impacts, top scientists warn.

A Day in the Death of British Justice – the case of Julian Assange.

The real photos of the Hiroshima bombing tell the story – no need for fictionalised ones.

JAPAN. Nagasaki remembers the atomic bomb, Olympic officials refuse to allow a minute’s silence. UN pledges full support to Nagasaki voices fuelling ‘powerful global movement’ against nuclear arms. Japanese teenager calls for nuke-free world at U.N. disarmament confab .

CHINA. China starting new nuclear power project, with technology from Russia. Why China is increasing its nuclear deterrence capacity.

CANADA. Canada’s political leaders oblivious to the dangers in making plutonium accessible? Canada’s Moltex small nuclear reactor project -its plutonium process brings danger of nuclear weapons proliferation. Revell River Action Draws Attention to Nuclear Waste Burial Site, USA. 

• Hidden in the U.S. Infrastructure Bill, a fat subsidy for the nuclear industry, and another $50 billion in the offing. Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Bill gives $50 billion to bail out the nuclear industry. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger champions inclusion of nuclear power incentive in U.S. Infrastructure Bill. 
•   New ”Natrium” nuclear reactors – a very risky gamble. Utah Taxpayers Association is very wary of Small Nuclear Reactors. 
•  Why Are We Still Building Nuclear Weapons? Follow the Money.  America’s ground-based nuclear missile silos – expensive and unnecessary.Strong call for New York City to legislate against investment of pension funds into nuclear weapons production.  Baltimore urged to strengthen its opposition to nuclear weapons.   
•  The importance of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and of coming to terms with USA’s nuclear history. 
• Comparing solar and nuclear costs. 
•  Elon Musk to take part in a project to place advertising in space?
• Inventor of video games was also part of developing atomic bomb – later opposing it.
• Academies Panel to Consider Future of Revived DOE Low-Dose Radiation Program.
• Widening concrete cracks in Seabrook Nuclear Station. 

UK. 

•  UK High Court sides with US against Assange.    Jailing of a British blogger Should Worry Journalists on Both Sides of the Atlantic.  
•  Men, Conservative Party supporters and Brexit-backers more likely to support use of nuclear weapons.

• French nuclear company EDF is postponing its decision on whether or not to go ahead with the Sizewell nuclear project in Britain. Will Sizewell C nuclear project finish off UK’s Avocet bird species?   . Rhetoric for Bradwell nuclear power project is far removed from reality.
• UK’s Radioactive Waste Management employs ”behavioural science” group to monitor online talk about nuclear waste dump plan. Nuclear waste – we don’t want that muck here!.  Concern over plan to bury nuclear waste offshore.
• Limited consultation on UK’s commercial nuclear ships’ safety regulations. 

IRAN. Iran’s research reactors prove the nuclear deal is still working. Hopes rise that Iran hardliner will rejuvenate nuclear deal.

NORTH KOREA. The Case for a New North Korean Nuclear Deal.

TURKEY. Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear station a cause for anxiety in the Eastern Mediterranean,BELGIUM. Inconclusive findings on attempted sabotage of Belgian nuclear reactor.

AUSTRALIA.  Seven vital questions about Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and its nuclear wastes., 

August 16, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes