Maralinga – ushered in Australia’s nuclear age
A picture in time: Maralinga, the blinding flash that ushered in Australia’s atomic age. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/27/a-picture-in-time-maralinga-when-the-atomic-age-reached-australia
Nuclear tests conducted in South Australia from 1956 resulted in swaths of countryside obliterated and decades of highly contaminated land.
The atomic age reached Maralinga with a blinding flash. At 5pm on 27 September 1956, a 15-kilotonne atomic device was detonated at the site in the western plains of South Australia.
The ensuing blast had as much explosive strength as the weapon which fell on Hiroshima 11 years earlier.
More than a decade after that horror struck Japan, Australia had become tangled up in the UK’s nuclear testing program, which saw swaths of countryside obliterated to further the nuclear arms race.
The atomic test at Maralinga was carried out by the British government as part of Operation Buffalo, run by the UK’s Atomic Weapons Research establishment.
In the moments after the detonation, RAAF personnel flew through the mushroom cloud to carry out tests with little instruction or protective equipment to shield them from the radiation.
For the next seven years, major and minor nuclear tests were carried out at Maralinga. The minor tests led to contamination of the area with plutonium-239, which has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years.
Prior to the test, very little effort was put into finding and notifying the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people who lived on the land. In addition to the obvious immediate dangers of nuclear fallout in the area, the Indigenous community would endure the long term hazards of poisoned land and water for more than thirty years.
Maralinga was not the first nuclear weapons test conducted on Australian soil. Three years earlier, on 3 October 1952, Britain detonated a nuclear weapon on the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia.
A further two detonations were carried out at Emu Field. Britain moved the testing site to Maralinga after previous locations were deemed to be too remote for nuclear weapons tests.
When Maralinga was eventually closed as a testing site in 1967, the British government began the process of cleaning the 3,200 sq km of contaminated land.
By 1968, the Australian and British governments agreed that Britain has successfully decontaminated the area by covering contaminated debris in concrete and ploughing the plutonium-laden soil into the ground.
In 1984, as the land was slated to be returned to the Tjarutja people, scientists found the land was still highly contaminated.
Nine years later, in 1993, following a royal commission, and after mounting pressure, the British government agreed to pay a portion of the estimated $101m cleanup cost.
It wasn’t until 1994, 38 years after the initial blast, that the Australian government paid $13.5m to the Indigenous people of Maralinga as compensation for what had been done to the land.
Sizewell C nuclear project no longer viable, with new developments in cheaper wind power- energy expert
Nuclear power has become “outdated by technology” and offshore wind can
produce power more quickly and cheaply, an energy scientist told the BBC.
Professor in energy and climate change Charlie Wilson said there was no
longer a good case for a new £20bn Sizewell C plant on the Suffolk coast.
He said new ways to store wind turbine energy meant supplies could be
maintained even in low winds.
EDF, the firm behind Sizewell C, said nuclearwas key for UK energy needs.
The government said nuclear was vital for the
“UK’s low-carbon energy future”. Prof Wilson, of the the Norwich-based
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East
Anglia, said nuclear power cost twice as much as wind power. Electricity
generated by wind turbines costs about £40 per megawatt hour, compared to
£92.50 which is the projected cost of the latest nuclear plant being built
at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, he added.
He said in the past nuclear power
was seen as key because in any weather it provides the same baseload power
– baseload refers to the minimum amount of electric power needed to be
supplied to the electrical grid at any given time. “The view in the
1970s-1990s was that you needed this large firm baseload power generation
like nuclear,” he said.
“The game-changing technologies around storage and
flexibility mean intermittent renewables – like large offshore wind farms –
are now viable as a reliable generation source.
BBC 25th Sept 2021
Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
Far from being the solution to climate change, nuclear power will be a victim of global heating
Rae Street: Given the discussion at TUC Congress of a new generation of
nuclear plants, it is worth looking at the case against nuclear energy.
First, the question of climate change, where the proponents of nuclear
power say nuclear energy is “vital.”
According to Andrew Blowers, emeritus professor of social sciences at the Open University: “Far from
being a solution to the problem of climate change, new nuclear power
stations like Sizewell C and Bradwell B on the fragile and vulnerable east
coast, are likely to become victims of the inevitable, imminent and
irreversible consequences of global warming.” He continued:
“Put simply, there is little justification for these huge structures in terms of
need. But, regardless of need, given the threat to the integrity of the
sites and the risks to present and future generations and environments, the
proposals should be scrapped forthwith.”
Morning Star 23rd Sept 2021
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/the-fallacy-of-trusting-in-nuclear-power
‘Humanity remains unacceptably close to nuclear annihilation, says UN chief on International Day
‘Humanity remains unacceptably close to nuclear annihilation, says UN chief on International Day https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1101242 26 September 2021Peace and Security
“Now is the time to eliminate nuclear weapons from our world , and usher in a new era of dialogue, trust and peace”, declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday, marking the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Addressing the threat of nuclear weapons, said Mr, Guterres, has been central to the work of the United Nations since its inception; the first General Assembly resolution in 1946 sought “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
The UN chief pointed out that, although the total number of nuclear weapons has been decreasing for decades, some 14,000 are stockpiled around the world, which is facing the highest level of nuclear risk in almost four decades: “States are qualitatively improving their arsenals, and we are seeing worrying signs of a new arms race.” Humanity, continued the UN chief, remains unacceptably close to nuclear annihilation.
Comprehensive ban in ‘state of limbo’
On Thursday, the UN chief called for all countries holding nuclear technology to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was adopted in 1996, and has been signed by 185 countries.
However, for the CTBT to enter into force, it must be signed and ratified by 44 specific nuclear technology holder countries, eight of which have yet to ratify the Treaty: China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Pakistan and the United States.
“We have remained in this state of limbo for too long,” he said.
Signs of hope
However, Mr. Guterres said that he sees the decision by Russia and the United States to extend the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) and engage in dialogue, as a sign of hope. He added that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in January, also constitutes a welcome step.
The responsibility to build on these developments, said the Secretary-General, falls on Member States. He described the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to take place in January 2022, as a window of opportunity for all countries to take practical steps to comprehensiely prevent the use of, and eliminate, nuclear weapons.
“Now is the time to lift this cloud for good, eliminate nuclear weapons from our world”, exhorted Mr. Guterres, “and usher in a new era of dialogue, trust and peace for all people”.
Will Fukushima’s Water Dump Set a Risky Precedent?
Will Fukushima’s Water Dump Set a Risky Precedent? IEEE Spectrum
Questions raised over new norms the disaster’s radioactive wastewater cleanup efforts may foster, RAHUL RAO 24 SEP 2021 Since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, groundwater has been trickling through the damaged facilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, filtering through the melted cores and fuel rods and becoming irradiated with a whole medley of radioisotopes. Japanese authorities have been pumping that water into a vast array of tanks on-site: currently over a thousand tanks, and adding around one new tank per week.
Now, Japanese authorities are preparing to release that water into the Pacific Ocean. Even though they’re treating and diluting the water first, the plan is meeting with vocal protests. From that opposition and from scientists’ critiques of the process, the ongoing events at Fukushima leave an unprecedented example that other nuclear power facilities can watch and learn from.
The release is slated to start in 2023, and potentially last for decades. This month, observers from the International Atomic Energy Agency have arrived in the country to inspect the process. And efforts are also underway to build an undersea tunnel that will discharge the water a kilometer away from the shore.
Before they do that, they’ll treat the water to cleanse it of radioactive contaminants. According to the authorities’ account of the situation, there’s one major contaminant that their system cannot cleanse: tritium.
It’s actually normal for nuclear power plants to release tritium into the air and water in their normal operations. In fact, pre-disaster, Fukushima Daiichi held boiling-water reactors, the lowest-tritium type of nuclear reactors. The Japanese government’s solution is to dilute the tritium-contaminated water down to comparable levels. That’s part of the reason the discharge will likely last several decades.
“While one can argue whether such release limits are appropriate in general for normally operating facilities, the planned release, if carried out correctly, does not appear to be outside of the norm,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Even so, the plan has—perhaps expectedly—encountered some rather vocal opposition. Some of the loudest cries have come from within Japan, particularly from the fishing industry. Radiation levels in seafood from that coast are well within safety limits, but fishing cooperatives are concerned the plan is (once again) putting their reputations at stake………….
can the events at Fukushima offer other energy facilities around the world any lessons at all?
For one, they’re a good show of the need for emergency planning. “Every nuclear plant should be required to analyze the potential for such long-term consequences,” says Lyman. “New nuclear plants, if built, should incorporate such evaluations into their siting decisions.”
But there’s other things experts say that facilities could learn. For example, something that hasn’t always been present in the Fukushima matter—working against it—has been transparency.
Authorities at the plant haven’t fully addressed the matter of non-tritium contaminants, according to Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has studied radioactivity in the ocean off Fukushima. Some contaminants—like caesium-137 and strontium-90—were present in the initial disaster in 2011. Others—like cobalt-60 and cerium-144—entered the water later.
It isn’t something the authorities have completely ignored. “Japan plans to run the water again through the decontamination process before release, and the dilution will further reduce the concentrations of the remaining isotopes,” says Lyman.
But Buesseler isn’t convinced that it will be enough. “Theoretically, it’s possible to improve the situation a lot,” he says. “In practice, they haven’t done that.” Japanese authorities insist they can do so, but their ability, he says, hasn’t been independently verified and peer-reviewed……….
“I’d hate to see every country that has radioactive waste start dumping waste into the ocean,” he says. “It’s a transboundary issue, in a way. It’s something bigger than Japan, and something different from regular operation. I think they need to be at least open about that, getting international approval.”
Here, Lyman agrees. “This situation is unique and the decision to release the water into the sea should not set a precedent for any other project.”
But even taking all of that into account, some believe that, if anything, this is an example of a time when there simply is no choice but to take drastic action.
“I believe that this action is necessary to avoid potentially worse consequences,” says Lyman. https://spectrum.ieee.org/fukushima-wastewater-cleanup-questions
Nuclear submarine for Japan? Kono says yes, Kishida says no
Nuclear submarine for Japan? Kono says yes, Kishida says no Nikkei Asia Poll leader believes capability is ‘extremely important’ for country. YUSUKE TAKEUCHI, Nikkei staff writer, September 26, 2021
TOKYO — Following a recent deal by the U.S. and the U.K. to offer Australia classified technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, should fellow Quad member Japan also seek such a capability? The four candidates running for the Liberal Democratic Party presidential race to succeed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga were asked the question Sunday on Fuji TV.
Poll leader Taro Kono, minister for administrative reform and also in charge of vaccine distribution, gave a thumbs-up. “As a capability, it is very important for Japan to have nuclear submarines,” he said……..
Sanae Takaichi, the former internal affairs minister, also looked favorably upon the idea. “If we think of the worst-case risks in the international environment ahead, I do believe we could have [submarines] that can travel a little longer,” she said, referring to the advantage of nuclear propulsion in that they can stay submerged longer without refueling.
Japan’s Atomic Energy Basic Law stipulates that the use of nuclear power will be limited to peaceful purposes. Takaichi said there was “a need to sort things out” but added she did not believe nuclear-powered submarines to be unconstitutional.
Former LDP policy chief Fumio Kishida, meanwhile, was less receptive to the idea. “When I think about Japan’s national security arrangements, to what extent do we need it?” he asked.
Nuclear-powered submarines are faster and can travel longer compared to the diesel-electric submarines that Japan currently has. But Kishida was alluding to the fact that the Self-Defense Forces’ operations are primarily in areas close to Japan.
To maintain stealth, it will require long hours of work,” he said. “We have to prioritize improving working conditions [of sailors] and secure the personnel.”…….
Seiko Noda, the LDP’s executive acting secretary-general, said: “I have no intention to hold such a capability. I want to make clear that we are a nation with three non-nuclear principles,” she said, pointing to Japan’s long-held position of neither possessing nor manufacturing nuclear weapons, nor permitting their introduction into Japanese territory.
“This is not a situation where we can immediately buy and start to use the submarines,” she said. “We must properly establish a national consensus.” ……. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Nuclear-submarine-for-Japan-Kono-says-yes-Kishida-says-no
What is the Quad?
Justin Bergman, Senior Deputy Editor, The Conversation 27 Sep 21, On Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined the leaders of India, Japan and the US in Washington for the first in-person summit of the Quad.
What is the Quad, you ask? It’s sometimes labelled an “Asian NATO” — especially by China — but this isn’t quite right. Unlike NATO, the four members have not committed to defend each other in the event of a conflict. The group also doesn’t have a permanent headquarters that coordinates joint military plans.
Instead, as Ian Hall, deputy director of the Griffith Asia Institute, explains, it’s a diplomatic forum for the four Indo-Pacific powers to discuss issues in the region and cooperate to solve them.
Formed on the sidelines of other regional diplomatic forums, its remit is much broader than just security issues, encompassing infrastructure, cyber security, economic development and more.
| But the big elephant in any Quad meeting room is China. “Fundamentally, the Quad is still driven by mutual concerns about China,” writes Hall. “But, of course, this can’t be said openly, in so many words.”Whether these allies succeed in containing Chinese influence in the region and corralling its more expansionist tendencies will be a key test for US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy — and Morrison’s, too.Visit theconversation.com for more coverage of the Washington summit to come. |
Maralinga – ushered in Australia’s nuclear age
A picture in time: Maralinga, the blinding flash that ushered in Australia’s atomic age. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/27/a-picture-in-time-maralinga-when-the-atomic-age-reached-australia
Nuclear tests conducted in South Australia from 1956 resulted in swaths of countryside obliterated and decades of highly contaminated land.
The atomic age reached Maralinga with a blinding flash. At 5pm on 27 September 1956, a 15-kilotonne atomic device was detonated at the site in the western plains of South Australia.
The ensuing blast had as much explosive strength as the weapon which fell on Hiroshima 11 years earlier.
More than a decade after that horror struck Japan, Australia had become tangled up in the UK’s nuclear testing program, which saw swaths of countryside obliterated to further the nuclear arms race.
The atomic test at Maralinga was carried out by the British government as part of Operation Buffalo, run by the UK’s Atomic Weapons Research establishment.
In the moments after the detonation, RAAF personnel flew through the mushroom cloud to carry out tests with little instruction or protective equipment to shield them from the radiation.
For the next seven years, major and minor nuclear tests were carried out at Maralinga. The minor tests led to contamination of the area with plutonium-239, which has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years.
Prior to the test, very little effort was put into finding and notifying the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people who lived on the land. In addition to the obvious immediate dangers of nuclear fallout in the area, the Indigenous community would endure the long term hazards of poisoned land and water for more than thirty years.
Maralinga was not the first nuclear weapons test conducted on Australian soil. Three years earlier, on 3 October 1952, Britain detonated a nuclear weapon on the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia.
A further two detonations were carried out at Emu Field. Britain moved the testing site to Maralinga after previous locations were deemed to be too remote for nuclear weapons tests.
When Maralinga was eventually closed as a testing site in 1967, the British government began the process of cleaning the 3,200 sq km of contaminated land.
By 1968, the Australian and British governments agreed that Britain has successfully decontaminated the area by covering contaminated debris in concrete and ploughing the plutonium-laden soil into the ground.
In 1984, as the land was slated to be returned to the Tjarutja people, scientists found the land was still highly contaminated.
Nine years later, in 1993, following a royal commission, and after mounting pressure, the British government agreed to pay a portion of the estimated $101m cleanup cost.
It wasn’t until 1994, 38 years after the initial blast, that the Australian government paid $13.5m to the Indigenous people of Maralinga as compensation for what had been done to the land.
‘Lightning rod’ Trident decisions should require Scottish consent, says MSP
Big decisions on defence, including the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent,
should require the consent of Scottish politicians, a Labour shadow
minister has said. Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland region, warned that
“lightning rod issues”, such as the nuclear submarines based at Faslane
on the Clyde and “unpopular wars such as Iraq”, had helped drive people
towards Scottish independence. She made the case for Scottish politicians
— either Scots MPs at Westminster or MSPs — to be given more say on
such matters in a new book, which calls for the option of “radical change
short of independence” to be included if there is a second referendum.
Times 26th Sept 2021
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lightning-rod-trident-decisions-scottish-consent-vigil-b9jsnrxrj
SNP and Greens vow to block new nuclear reactors in Scotland
SNP and Greens vow to block new nuclear reactors in Scotland, Times David Leask, September 27 2021 Nicola Sturgeon is expected to temper Boris Johnson’s energy plans by signalling her intention to block the creation of nuclear plants in Scotland.
The Sunday Times yesterday revealed a push by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, for more nuclear power stations to be built to help Britain reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
A source close to Sunak said: “His general view is that we should have been doing this ten years ago when it was cheaper, but we can’t rely on wind and solar power.”
However, the Scottish government, which controls the planning process north of the border, opposes the technology….. (subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-and-greens-vow-to-block-new-nuclear-reactors-in-scotland-vnx9388cz
s
Nuclear power for UK – slow, dangerous, exorbitantly expensive and useless to counter climate change.
An anti-nuclear group has blasted the UK Government for having talks on building another large-scale multi-billion pound nuclear power plant in Wales. Dylan Morgan, Co-ordinator for PAWB, has reacted furiously to the discussions with US reactor manufacturer Westinghouse to build a new
facility on Anglesey.
The UK Government say that the move is part of an effort to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, but according to Morgan it isn’t an effective way to “counter climate change”. He argues that nuclear power is “slow, dangerous and extortionately expensive”.
According to the UK Government, a new nuclear power plant at the decommissioned Wylfa site could become operational in the mid-2030s and generate power for six million homes. Dylan Morgan said:
“We have an immediate crisis now. Building huge reactors at a nuclear power station take at least 15 years. “For example, EdF are involved in building their EPR at Olkiluoto in Finland. Comstruction started in 2005 with the boast it would be completed by 2009. “It still hasn’t been completed in 2021. Nuclear power is slow, dangerous and extortionately expensive. It will do nothing to address the current energy crisis, neither will it be effective to counter climate change.
Nation Cymru 24th Sept 2021
Veterans to President Biden: just say NO to nuclear war!
VETERANS TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: JUST SAY NO TO NUCLEAR WAR! Popular Resistance, ByVeterans For Peace., September 23, 2021 To mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, , Veterans For Peace is publishing an Open Letter to President Biden: Just Say NO to Nuclear War! The letter calls on President Biden to step back from the brink of nuclear war by declaring and implementing a policy of No First Use and by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.VFP also urges President Biden to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to provide global leadership for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.The full letter will be published on the VFP website and offered to mainstream newspapers and alternative news sites. A shorter version is being shared with VFP chapters and members who may wish to publish it in local newspapers, possibly as a letter-to-the-editor……………https://popularresistance.org/veterans-to-president-biden-just-say-no-to-nuclear-war/
UK should think twice before ousting Chinese company from its nuclear project
 |
UK should think twice before ousting Chinese company from its nuclear project By Global Times Published: Sep 26, 2021 The UK government is reportedly closing in on a deal that could kick China’s nuclear power giant General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) out of the ￡20 billion ($27 billion) Sizewell C nuclear power project on so-called security grounds.
London may announce a decision ahead of next month’s spending review and the UN climate change conference in Glasgow in November, but it remains unclear how the Chinese company will be frozen out of Sizewell C, according to UK media outlet Daily Mail.
Whether related reports are complete and accurately reflect the position of the UK government is not known yet. There was similar speculation by the UK media in July, but, if the alleged decision is confirmed by Johnson’s government, it will have adverse impact on the UK. For starters, it will leave the UK a huge financial gap which has to be plugged by pension funds. CGN has a 20 percent stake in the Sizewell C project and an option to retain that share of the nuclear project once it is built. If CGN is forced to pull out from the project, the UK side needs to figure out options to fill up the multi-billion pound funding hole. The Daily Mail reported that the Treasury Department is examining plans to use pension funds to plug the gap for Sizewell C.
Second, it risks further ratcheting up geopolitical tensions, which are already running high after London’s decision to join the AUKUS pact with the US and Australia. ………
Third, it will delay construction of the UK nuclear power stations, ………. British companies will face Chinese company’s demand for economic compensation. …………… https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1235101.shtml
Bitcoin miners strike deals with nuclear industry [on the ”clean energy” lie]
Bitcoin Miners Eye Nuclear Power as Environmental Criticism Mounts
Some cryptocurrency miners are striking deals with operators of struggling nuclear plants, which are carbon-free and have excess power capacity to spare WSJ, By Jennifer Hiller Sept. 26, 2021 Bitcoin miners, under fire for their sizable environmental footprint, are forging partnerships with owners of struggling nuclear-power plants with electricity to spare.
The matchups have the potential to solve key issues facing each industry, executives and analysts say: Electricity-hungry bitcoin miners want stable and carbon-free [ Ed. that’s a lie] power, while nuclear plants facing competition from cheaper power sources need new customers……… (subscribers only) https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-eye-nuclear-power-as-environmental-criticism-mounts-11632654002
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