Sole body cited by UK military to defend Ukraine receiving depleted uranium weapons has not published new research on the subject for over 20 years
Italy’s defence ministry has compensated soldiers who developed cancer after exposure to depleted uranium on service in the Balkans
After the invasion of Iraq, the UK military accepted it had a ‘moral obligation’ to help clear depleted uranium debris from the rounds it had fired.
The Ministry of Defence claimed last week that research by the Royal Society – Britain’s premier scientific group – supported its controversial decision to send depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine.
An MoD official briefed the media: “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”
The Royal Society was cited despite the group rebuking the Pentagon in 2003 for using their exact same research to justify American tanks firing the weapon in Iraq, Declassified UK has found.
When contacted, the scientific body told us: “In 2001/02, the Royal Society published two reports on the health hazards of depleted uranium munitions.” It provided links for the first and second report.
Their spokesperson added that depleted uranium “isn’t an active area of policy research for the Society, [and] we haven’t updated or published on this topic since those reports.”
In 2003, the US military used those Royal Society reports to defend the use of depleted uranium (DU) by coalition forces in Iraq.
That triggered a complaint to the media, with the Guardiansaying the Royal Society was “incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.
“In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.”
The chairman of the Royal Society’s working group on depleted uranium, Professor Brian Spratt, was quoted as warning that “a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator.”
“In addition, large numbers of corroding depleted uranium penetrators embedded in the ground might pose a long-term threat if the uranium leaches into water supplies.”
He recommended that fragments from depleted uranium shells should be cleared up and long-term sampling of water supplies needed to be conducted.
Spratt also countered claims about the safety of depleted uranium made by the UK’s then defence secretary Geoff Hoon, stressing: “It is is highly unsatisfactory to deploy a large amount of material that is weakly radioactive and chemically toxic without knowing how much soldiers and civilians have been exposed to it.”
………………………………………….. Shells containing more than 2.3 tonnes of depleted uranium were fired by British forces in operations against Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
US troops fired far larger quantities, especially around the city of Fallujah, where it has been blamed for birth defects and a spike in cancer cases.
Contamination
The ammunition was also used by NATO on operations in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Italian soldiers who developed cancer after serving on those missions in the Balkans have successfully sued their defence ministry for compensation. Serbians have attempted similar litigation against NATO.
A study conducted in Kosovo by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shortly after that conflict ended found “only low levels of radioactivity”.
However, they were not able to consider the long term consequences and only inspected 11 out of 112 sites where DU had been fired.
A later UNEP study in Serbia did find more significant corrosion of DU shells and that many of them were lodged deep in the ground.
“At best, they’ll end up with a small amount of various types of waste before the project is terminated, that will just create a bigger disposal hazard. And if it’s stuck in the province of New Brunswick, it will be their problem. But there’s zero chance of this cockamamie contraption being useful for generating electricity, or treating radioactive waste in a sound way.”
Less than a kilometre from the western shore of the Bay of Fundy, the Point Lepreau Solid Radioactive Waste Management Facility temporarily houses about 160,000 spent fuel assemblies from New Brunswick’s only nuclear power reactor. Moltex Energy, a Saint John-based startup, proposes to recycle that radioactive waste into fresh fuel for a new 300-megawatt reactor called the Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner, or SSR-W.
Moltex promises these facilities will greatly diminish the waste inventory of NB Power, the province’s primary electric utility, beginning in the early 2030s, while at the same time producing electricity. Critics, however, warn the resulting wastes would be harder to dispose of than the assemblies themselves.
Criticisms notwithstanding, Moltex’s proposal appears to be gaining momentum. It has partnered with SNC-Lavalin Group, which holds a minority ownership stake and provides many of Moltex’s 35 employees through secondments – a vote of confidence from a company with deep roots in Canada’s nuclear sector…………….
Premier Blaine Higgs hailed Moltex in a speech in February, stating his government’s support “is positioning New Brunswick as a leader in development of new nuclear.” Mike Holland, Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Development, has extended what he described as “unwavering commitment to seeing this project become a reality.” The province has already supplied $10-million toward that end, while the federal government, through its Strategic Innovation Fund and other channels, has provided $50.5-million.
What these supporters have signed up for, however, isn’t entirely clear. Moltex’s technologies are embryonic; emphasizing that fact, partners that would play crucial roles in implementing them refused to discuss the implications with The Globe and Mail. Citing the need for commercial confidentiality, Moltex chief executive officer Rory O’Sullivan acknowledges the company hasn’t revealed many details about its reprocessing technology (known as Waste To Stable Salts, or WATSS).
Critics, though, say they’ve seen enough to recognize WATSS as merely the latest variations on nuclear waste reprocessing experiments dating back decades. Those experiences revealed reprocessing to be not a solution, they claim, but a curse.
About the size of a fire log, fuel assemblies from Canada’s CANDU reactors consist of rods known as “pencils” that are welded together; each contains cylindrical uranium pellets. Highly radioactive upon removal from a reactor, assemblies are stored in pools of water for about a decade before being warehoused at nuclear power plants in shielded containers. There are now about 3.2 million spent assemblies, which if stacked like cordwood would fill nine hockey rinks up to the boards……………..
WATSS would produce new wastes. By mass, the largest would be leftover uranium plus the metal cladding from CANDU fuel bundles, Mr. O’Sullivan said. This would be placed in the DGR, but in volumes greatly reduced than CANDU fuel bundles.
Then there’s fission products, a term encompassing hundreds of substances produced by nuclear fission inside a reactor. Though some are stable, others (such as cesium, technetium and strontium) are radioactive. These would be contained in salts that could be placed in canisters the same size as CANDU fuel bundles, facilitating storage in the DGR; Mr. O’Sullivan said they’d remain radioactive for up to 300 years………….
critics accuse Moltex of misleading the public. Gordon Edwards, a nuclear consultant and president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, said the company’s claim that the fission products would remain radioactive for only three centuries is “outrageous.”
“There are several radioactive materials which are very, very long-lived in the fission products, that have half-lives of not just thousands, but millions of years.”
The leftover uranium would contain leftover plutonium and fission products: “Experience has shown that this uranium is not clean, it’s contaminated,” he said. “You can’t just separate all of the fission products.”
WATSS wouldn’t significantly reduce storage volumes, Mr. Edwards added, as it’s the heat generated by radioactive waste – not the physical space occupied – that determines how large a DGR must be.
Ed Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, has studied nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies since the 1980s. He said Moltex’s proposal is a variation on schemes that have been explored over many decades.
“All of the available evidence in the whole history of technology development in this area, as well as attempts to commercialize reprocessing in various ways, points to the fact that this is not going to work,” he said.
“At best, they’ll end up with a small amount of various types of waste before the project is terminated, that will just create a bigger disposal hazard. And if it’s stuck in the province of New Brunswick, it will be their problem. But there’s zero chance of this cockamamie contraption being useful for generating electricity, or treating radioactive waste in a sound way.”…………………
M.V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s public policy and global affairs school who researches nuclear issues, said Moltex’s $500-million estimate is highly optimistic. He pointed to Portland, Ore.-based NuScale Power, an early SMR developer, which spent US$1.1-billion over more than two decades developing what is essentially a scaled-down version of light water reactors common in the U.S.
As a molten salt reactor, the SSR-W should be far more difficult to license, Prof. Ramana said. Only two such reactors have ever been built, the last one closing in 1969, and neither generated electricity commercially.
Additionally, a sister company of Moltex, called MoltexFlex, is marketing another molten salt reactor in the Britain. (The companies share key personnel.) And Moltex must separately develop and license the WATSS process…………………..
“While we’re in early discussions with Moltex, they are still in the development phase, so we don’t have sufficient data at this time to respond to your technical questions about fuel waste,” NWMO spokesperson Russell Baker wrote in an e-mail.
All that adds up to a heap of unanswered questions. But having already spent $50-million on the project, Prof. Ramana said the federal government will be under considerable pressure to contribute more. He questioned the due diligence it has conducted to date.
Despite insisting that Julian Assange has been held captive for too long, the Albanese Government still won’t intervene while the AUKUS pact keeps us in lockstep with the U.S., writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
THE SHAM that is the Julian Assange affair, a scandal of monumental proportions connived in by the AUKUS powers, shows no signs of abating. Prior to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese assuming office in Australia, he insisted that the matter dealing with the WikiLeaks publisher would be finally resolved. It had, he asserted, been going on for too long.
Since then, it is very clear, as with all matters regarding U.S. policy, that Australia will, if not agree outright with Washington, adopt a constipated, non-committal position. “Quiet diplomacy” is the official line taken by Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, a mealy-mouthed formulation deserving of contempt.
‘“Quiet diplomacy” to bring Julian Assange home by the Albanese Government is a policy of nothing. Not one meeting, phone call or letter sent.’
Kellie Tranter, a tireless advocate for Assange, has done sterling work uncovering the nature of that position through Freedom of Information requests over the years:
‘They tell a story – not the whole story – of institutionalised prejudgment, “perceived” rather than “actual” risks and complicity through silence.’
The story is a resoundingly ugly one. It features, for instance, stubbornness on the part of U.S. authorities to even disclose the existence of a process seeking Assange’s extradition from the UK, to the lack of interest on the part of the Australian Government to pursue direct diplomatic and political interventions.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop exemplified that position in signing off on a Ministerial Submission in February 2016 recommending that the Assange case not be resolved; those in Canberra were ‘unable to intervene in the due process of another’s country’s court proceedings or legal matters, and we have full confidence in UK and Swedish judicial systems’. Given the nakedly political nature of the blatant persecution of the WikiLeaks founder, this was a confidence both misplaced and disingenuous.
The same position was adopted by the Australian Government to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), which found that same month that Assange had been subject to ‘different forms of deprivation of liberty: initial detention in Wandsworth Prison which was followed by house arrest and his confinement at the Ecuadorean embassy’.
The Working Group further argued that Assange’s ‘safety and physical integrity’ be guaranteed, that ‘his right to freedom of movement’ be respected and that he enjoy the full slew of ‘rights guaranteed by the international norms on detention’.
At the time, such press outlets as The Guardian covered themselves in gangrenous glory in insisting that Assange was not being detained arbitrarily and was merely ducking the authorities in favour of a “publicity stunt”.
The conduct from Bishop and her colleagues did little to challenge such assertions, though the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) did confirm in communications with Tranter in June 2018 that the Government was ‘committed to engaging in good faith with the United Nations Human Rights Council and its mechanisms, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’. Splendid inertia beckoned.
The new Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Stephen Smith, has kept up that undistinguished, even disgraceful tradition: he has offered unconvincing, lukewarm support for one of Belmarsh Prison’s most notable detainees. As the ABC reports, he expressed pleasure “that in the course of the next week or so, he’s agreed that I can visit him in Belmarsh Prison”. (This comes with the usual qualification: that up to 40 offers of “consular” support had been previously made and declined by the ungrateful publisher.)
The new High Commissioner is promising little:
“My primary responsibility will be to ensure his health and wellbeing and to inquire as to his state and whether there is anything that we can do, either with respect to prison authorities or to himself to make sure that his health and safety and wellbeing is of the highest order.”
Assange’s health and wellbeing, which has and continues to deteriorate, is a matter of court and common record. No consular visit is needed to confirm that fact. As with his predecessors, Smith is making his own sordid contribution to assuring that the WikiLeaks founder perishes in prison, a victim of ghastly process.
As for what he would be doing to impress the UK to reverse the decision of former Home Secretary Priti Patel to extradite the publisher to the U.S., Smith was painfully predictable:
“It’s not a matter of us lobbying for a particular outcome. It’s a matter of me as the High Commissioner representing to the UK Government as I do, that the view of the Australian Government is twofold. It is: these matters have transpired for too long and need to be brought to a conclusion, and secondly, we want to, and there is no difficulty so far as UK authorities are concerned, we want to discharge our consular obligations.”
Former Australian Senator Rex Patrick summed up the position rather well by declaring that Smith would be far better off, on instructions from Prime Minister Albanese, pressing the current UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman to drop the whole matter. Even better, Albanese might just do the good thing and push U.S. President Joe Biden and his Attorney-General Merrick Garland to end the prosecution.
Little can be expected from the latest announcement. Smith is a man who has made various effusive comments about AUKUS, an absurd, extortionately costly security pact appropriately described as a war-making arrangement. The Albanese Government, having placed Australia ever deeper into the U.S. military orbit, is hardly likely to do much for a publisher who exposed the war crimes and predations of the Imperium.
President Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that Russia was suspending its participation in the New START Treaty—the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia—is the latest, stark reminder of the nuclear brink on which the world finds itself. This is on the heels of repeated reckless threats from Putin and other Russian officials to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and at a time of rapidly deteriorating relations with China.
In short, the risk of nuclear war is all too real, perhaps greater than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It’s well past time for the United States, Russia, and the rest of the world’s nuclear powers to revitalize global nuclear disarmament efforts and take concrete steps to prevent nuclear war.
For its part, Congress has a very important role and voice in championing nuclear risk reduction and disarmament. Unfortunately, very few members have made this existential threat to humanity the priority it needs to be. That needs to change before the unthinkable happens.
………………….. here’s today’s reality: in less than one hour, billions of people could be killed because of an accident, miscalculation, or one person making a very bad decision. Last August, a landmark scientific study laid bare shocking truths about the potential consequences if even a small percentage of the world’s 13,000+ nuclear weapons are detonated over cities. The result would be catastrophic, with the ensuing climate disruption starving and killing hundreds of millions, even billions, of people and effectively ending human civilization as we know it. A large-scale nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia could lead to the deaths of up to 75% of the world’s population.
This time of war and heightened global tensions is precisely the right time for the United States, Russia, China, and all nuclear weapons states to recognize their mutual self-interest, and that of all humanity, in preventing a catastrophic nuclear war. Global adversaries can and must work together to solve global problems, especially in times of crisis or heightened tensions. This is exactly what President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did in the 1980s resulting in landmark nuclear arms control agreements that made the world a safer place.
Certainly, the problem won’t be addressed without leadership and new, bold thinking. Importantly, President Joe Biden needs to know that members of Congress, and the public, will have his back if he pursues a global nuclear disarmament agenda, even if it means negotiating with adversaries like Russia and China.
For members of the House, there’s one simple step they can take to show that leadership and signal to the administration and their constituents that this issue is important to them. They should co-sponsor H. Res. 77 introduced on January 31st by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.).
H. Res 77 calls on the United States to embrace the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which has now been signed by 92 countries and ratified by 66 of them “to actively pursue and conclude negotiations on a new, bilateral nuclear arms control and disarmament framework agreement with the Russian Federation before 2026 as well as to pursue negotiations with China and all other nuclear-armed states on an agreement or agreements for the verifiable, enforceable, and timebound elimination of global nuclear arsenals.”
H. Res 77 further calls for the the U.S. to lead a global effort to reduce nuclear risks and prevent nuclear war by
adopting the following common sense policies:
Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;
End the President’s sole authority to launch a nuclear attack;
Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and
Cancel the plan to replace the entire nuclear arsenal of the United States with modernized, enhanced weapons at a cost that could exceed $2 trillion.
And there’s widespread public support for these policies. To date, over 70 municipal, county, and state governments including Los Angeles, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Boston, Minneapolis, and many more have passed resolutions advocating for these very policies that have been organized by Back From the Brink, the national grassroots nuclear weapons abolition campaign. Some 150 local, state, and national organizations including the Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Peace Action, Public Citizen, and dozens of faith organizations have endorsed H. Res 77……………. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/02/what-nuclear-disarmament-leadership-should-look-like/ —
China has called for superpowers to step back from the brink of nuclear war as Russia announces a plan to deploy tactical nukes.
news.com.au Alike Kraterou and Jack Evans 2 Apr 23
China has issued a warning of a possible World War III after Russia’s announcement to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Geng Shuang, China’s representative in the United Nations, called for all world powers to step back from the brink and maintain “global strategic stability”.
He urged nations to prevent nuclear proliferation and crisis, avoid armed attacks against nuclear power plants and the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Speaking at a Security Council meeting on international peace, Shuang made clear China’s opposition to Kremlin’s plan to send nuclear weapons to Minsk.
He described nuclear weapons as “the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads” and called on all nuclear weapon states to reduce the risk of a nuclear war and avoid any armed conflict between nuclear weapons states.
“We call for the abolition of the nuclear-sharing arrangements and advocate no deployment of nuclear weapons abroad by all nuclear weapons states, and the withdrawal of nuclear weapons deployed abroad,” Shuang said.
Shuang stressed that “nuclear proliferation must be prevented and nuclear crisis avoided.” He added that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought,” and that China’s position on nuclear weapons has been “clear and consistent”.
China has firmly committed to a defensive nuclear strategy, not using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones, and to no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances.
While not directly mentioning Russia, Geng called for all parties to “stay rational, avoid aggravating tensions, and intensifying frictions, or fanning the flames”.
China has claimed to maintain a neutral stance in the war but has also pointed out its “no-limits friendship with Russia”.
Last month, China released a point peace plan to end the war, calling for a ceasefire and talks between Ukraine and Russia…………………………………………………….
Anti-nuclear activists are ringing warning bells that this week’s announcement of a new Freeport for Anglesey represents a way in for unwanted new nuclear developments on the island, with at least six backers of the bid having direct connections to the industry.
Named amongst the sponsors of the Freeport bid are leading nuclear industry businesses, Assystem, Bechtel, Last Energy, Molten Flex, Rolls-Royce SMR, and New Cleo, all of which are vying to develop and locate new nuclear power plants at the Wylfa site on the island and elsewhere in the UK.
All are competing for public attention and public funds by issuing media releases that frequently make outrageous claims to be on the verge of making a UK-wide product roll-out.
Yet most of their nuclear power plant designs being (as yet) unproven, unauthorised, and unbuilt so-called Small Modular Reactors.
Other members of the Freeport consortia include Bangor University, with its Nuclear Future Institute; M-Sparc, with its connections to the University’s nuclear department; and the Association of North and Mid-Wales Councils, which include unabashed nuclear enthusiasts, Ynys Mon and Gwynedd Councils.
Six Welsh anti-nuclear groups – CADNO, CND Cymru, Cymdeithas yr iaith (the Welsh Language Society), PAWB (Pobl Atal Wylfa B / People against Wylfa-B), WANA (The Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance) and the Welsh NFLA (Nuclear Free Local Authorities) met in Caernarfon, Gwynedd in July 2022 and signed a Declaration pledging their opposition to new nuclear power plants and to fight for a green and sustainable future for Wales.
These Welsh anti-nuclear campaigners are concerned about the lack of transparency and public engagement about the extensive involvement of nuclear players in the Freeport bid and are terribly disappointed that, aside from one marine energy business, there are not more genuinely green energy producers in the mix.
With money and regulations on the table for renewable energy, the EU has become entrenched into two solid blocs with different stances on nuclear power.
With both a package of incentives for green technology and revisions to the Renewable Energy Directive on the table, the fight in Brussels over the place of nuclear power in the ‘green,’ ‘sustainable,’ ‘clean’ energy landscape—and its corresponding regulation—has intensified.
The bloc’s energy ministers met last week to prepare their negotiating points with the EU Parliament over changes to the Renewable Energy Directive. Prior to the March 28th Council meeting, energy ministers pow-wowed in competing breakfast gatherings—one for the French-led nuclear alliance and the other for the Austrian-organised Friends of Renewables group, Euractivreports.
Nuclear alliance
At the end of their meetings, the nuclear alliance sent out a press release to notify the media—and presumably, both the Commission and their rivals on the EU Council—that they had agreed that nuclear energy was indeed “strategic” in achieving the EU Commission’s environmental goals. This is the opposite position to the one the Commission has taken in the recently proposed Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA), a set of incentives meant to counter U.S. green tech subsidies.
Under French leadership, the nuclear alliance (consisting of Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) first met in February while the Commission was still preparing the NZIA. Its goal was to promote nuclear power as a low-carbon source of electricity and work on “common industrial projects.”
In mid-March, the Commission presented the NZIA draft, but with nuclear power excluded from the list of “strategic” technologies that would qualify for incentives. The one exception was “cutting-edge nuclear” technology, such as small modular reactors (SMRs) which could qualify for some investment incentives. The alliance then met again in March, just before the meeting of energy ministers on March 28th, and announced that they had “fully recognised that nuclear is a strategic technology for achieving climate neutrality.”
The pro-nuclear breakfasts were attended by Italy and Belgium, though only as observers. The two countries made it clear they had not signed on to any agreed position with the group, though they have reasons for desiring a favourable status for nuclear energy.
Belgium, for its part, has had to retract plans to start shutting down the country’s six nuclear reactors. After announcing the closure of a set of nuclear power plants by 2025, the public outcry forced the energy ministry to instead grant them a ten-year extension. ………………..
Friends of renewables
The Friends of Renewables—Estonia, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Latvia, and Lithuania, with Austria as leader—are a clear counterweight to the nuclear alliance.
The compromise
After the breakfast gatherings, the two groups had to come together with the rest of the bloc’s member states for the official EU Council Meeting to settle on a negotiating position for the updates to the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
The nuclear sticking point was whether hydrogen produced using nuclear power should be included in renewable fuel targets. After hours of back and forth, they agreed to label nuclear-produced hydrogen as “low carbon,” in other words, dirtier than ‘green’ hydrogen but better than the ‘brown’ hydrogen linked to fossil fuels.
Nuclear power enters into the debate about renewables in the question of hydrogen gas. Making the gas ‘green,’ a process of separating the hydrogen from water molecules, requires an energy source. When that source is considered ‘green,’ such as solar or wind power, the hydrogen is considered ‘green.’
Negotiators for the EU Parliament then also made room for nuclear power in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), admitting that it has a “role” to play in reducing carbon emissions and is in a category of its own in the spectrum of environmental friendliness.
The RED now recognizes “the specific role of nuclear power, which is neither green nor fossil,” French MEP Pascal Canfin, chair of the Parliament’s Environment Committee, who participated in the negotiations, tweeted…….
The political agreement reached by the Council and Parliament calls for doubling renewable energy output by 2030.
“The agreement raises the EU’s binding renewable target for 2030 to a minimum of 42.5%, up from the current 32% target and almost doubling the existing share of renewable energy in the EU. Negotiators also agreed that the EU would aim to reach 45% of renewables by 2030,” the Commission said in a statement about the political agreement on the RED.
‘Renewable’ energy currently makes up just over 20% of the bloc’s energy mix.
Further room was made for nuclear by provisions in the agreement by giving member states two options to calculate achieving certain targets: either emission reductions or renewable energy output. This is an advantage for countries like France that have substantial nuclear capacity, as carbon dioxide is not the major by-product of nuclear power production. https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/nuclear-tug-of-war-intensifies-in-brussels/
Opponents of the proposed discharge of radioactive water from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station packed a meeting on the future of the station last night.
Ryan Collins of Bourne received a standing ovation from the audience when he presented a thick binder of signatures from his Change.org petition. The petition calls for a stop to the discharge plan. It garnered more than 200,000 signatures.
The state’s Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel hosted the meeting at Plymouth Town Hall as part of its regular calendar.
…………………………………… opponents argue that the terms of a state settlement with Holtec would make a release of contaminated water illegal, with or without a permit.
Many members of the audience held orange signs that read, “Protect our bays! No permit!” in reference to the proposed modification of Holtec’s permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
Jo-Anne Wilson-Keenan, of East Dennis, said she’s concerned about contamination. Speaking from the podium, she raised her arm to show the shape of Cape Cod and the location of Dennis.
“We live right here in the elbow, and when the radioactive water comes down from Plymouth, it’s going to land right on our beaches,” she said.
Jim Cantwell, state director for U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, discussed Markey’s March 17 letter to Holtec asking the company to use the ratepayer-funded decommissioning trust fund to pay for an independent scientific study of the risks of discharging the radioactive water stored at Pilgrim.
Last May, at a field hearing hosted by Markey in Plymouth, Singh agreed to allow independent testing.
Meanwhile, state-supervised testing of the Pilgrim water is set to begin with a collection of samples on April 5. Senior staff from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Public Health are scheduled to observe, along with a representative of the town of Plymouth.
But Seth Pickering, a deputy regional director with DEP, said the state no longer plans to use the previously identified Colorado lab, Eurofins, to test for non-radioactive pollutants.
The agency will instead rely on Gel Laboratories of South Carolina, which Pickering disclosed is a lab Holtec uses as well.
Despite qualms in Washington, Saudi officials have pressed the United States to help them develop nuclear power. But they are also exploring other options, including China.
NY Times, By Edward Wong, Vivian Nereim and Kate Kelly, This article was reported from Washington and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. April 1, 2023
For years, Saudi Arabia has pressed the United States to help it develop a nuclear energy program, as Saudi leaders look beyond oil to power their country.
But talks about a nuclear partnership have dragged on, largely because the Saudi government refuses to agree to conditions that are intended to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons or helping other nations do so, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Frustrated Saudi officials are now exploring options to work with other countries, including China, Russia or a U.S. ally.
At the same time, they are renewing a push with the United States — their preferred partner — by offering to try to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for U.S. cooperation on building nuclear reactors and other guarantees.
New details of the Saudi efforts provide a window into the recent difficulties and distrust between Washington and Riyadh, and into the foreign policy that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pursuing: greater independence from the United States as he expands partnerships with other world powers, including China……………
The Saudi nuclear efforts raise a specter of proliferation that makes some American officials nervous: Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has said that Saudi Arabia will develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Any civilian nuclear program has dual-use elements that could aid a country in producing weapons-grade material.
…………………………………………………………….. Saudi officials have refused to commit to the restrictions, which would undermine their goal of enriching and selling uranium. The United Arab Emirates, a Saudi neighbor, and Taiwan have agreements with the United States that include bans on enrichment and fuel reprocessing.
Even if Saudi officials express willingness to sign a 123 agreement, any deal would face significant political obstacles in Washington. President Biden distrusts Prince Mohammed and denounced Saudi Arabia during a blowup over Riyadh’s oil policy in October. And many Democratic lawmakers and some Republican ones say Saudi Arabia has been a destabilizing force…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Flirting With China
As the Biden administration insists on certain safeguards, Saudi officials have continued looking at non-American companies.
An attractive one is the Korea Electric Power Corporation, or Kepco, based in South Korea. A company spokesperson said Kepco is talking to U.S. officials about the nuclear program and is interested in working with Saudi Arabia but declined to go into details, citing a confidentiality agreement with the Saudis.
But the South Korean government, a U.S. ally, would likely bar the company from the project if Saudi Arabia does not enter into a strict nonproliferation agreement with a government or the International Atomic Energy Agency. The company said it hoped “the conditions for participation in the project will be created.” And a complicating factor is a legal dispute between Kepco and Westinghouse over reactor designs.
…………………………… China has built up Saudi Arabia’s ballistic missile arsenal over decades and sends military officers to work on the program, current and former U.S. officials said. And with Chinese technology, Saudi Arabia is now able to build its own missiles, they said. New satellite imagery showing bulldozer activity at previous missile sites indicates Saudi Arabia could be housing a new type of missile underground, said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Deterrence cannot fail and is therefore not a foundation for peace
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Arguments around nuclear deterrence can become quickly convoluted. But the basic premise, according to those who advocate it, is that we are safer with nuclear weapons than without them. The possession of nuclear weapons by the world’s major powers, they say, has kept the peace. The lethality of nuclear weapons is such that they will inevitably never be used, thus preventing nuclear war, the argument goes.
To the rational ear this sounds breathtakingly illogical. But try tangling with the deterrence crowd and both sides will quickly find themselves tied up in a semantic knot of double and triple negatives.
However, it’s all really quite simple, or it seems so when listening to Austrian diplomat Alexander Kmentt explain it. Kmentt, one of the chief architects of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), just has a knack for framing the argument against deterrence both clearly and compellingly. Here is how he puts it:
“I can’t prove that deterrence doesn’t work. And I can’t prove that it does. But the price of being wrong if it doesn’t work is too high. It cannot fail.”
Kmentt was addressing an audience of European representatives of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War at their January 2023 conference in Hamburg, Germany. (I was also a presenter there so enjoyed the privilege of hearing Kmentt’s talk, which was delivered live streamed.)
This rationale makes sense. For deterrence to work, it must be 100% foolproof all the time. But anything governed by human beings — and technology invented by them — can guarantee no such thing. And given the price of failure, the choice is obvious: deterrence isn’t worth the risk.
There is a solution to all this and it is contained in the TPNW, of which Kmentt, and many others, can be so rightfully proud. You can indeed guarantee zero chance of a nuclear war if there are zero nuclear weapons in the world. “With the TPNW, deterrence was rejected,” Kmentt said. A first. In another first, “it is the first treaty that recognizes the injustices done.”
Those injustices are invariably meted out to smaller nations, and it was they who lined up in significant enough numbers to both sign and then ratify the TPNW. “If deterrence fails, small states are the collateral damage,” Kmentt pointed out.
In fact, the TPNW is so innovatory — Kmentt referred to it as “an avant-garde treaty”— that it departed from all earlier treaty scripts by encouraging full inclusion and participation. Framing it was “open to outside voices, to civil society and to academia,” Kmentt told the Hamburg audience. “There were observers.” This set it apart from the halls-of-power treaties that preceded it.
And it remains an open process. “We are clear that we are welcoming to whoever wants to engage with us on arguments around the treaty,” said Kmentt. “If countries didn’t show up, it was not a reaction to something we did.”
There has been —and remains — as Kmnett noted, considerable opposition toward the TPNW, particularly from the nuclear weapon countries. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley, now apparently running for president on the Republican ticket, was so frightened by the Treaty that, as ICAN reported, “on the first day of treaty negotiations, she hosted a press conference outside the room where negotiations were to take place, criticizing the pursuit of a prohibition treaty.”………………………………… more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/02/the-cost-of-being-wrong/
Polish RadioApril 3, 2023 Poland supplied first MiG-29 jets to Ukraine: official A senior aide to the Polish president has said that Poland has already transferred the first batch of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to help Kyiv fight the Russian invasion. Marcin Przydacz made the statement in a radio interview on Monday… *** He […]
Satellite images indicate North Korea may be close to completing a new reactor in its major nuclear complex in Yongbyon, according to 38 North, a Washington-based website that tracks events in the country. Construction crews are working on a support building at the site’s Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR) development and water discharges have been spotted near the ELWR’s pump house that could be associated with testing of the reactor’s cooling system, the website said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a facility producing nuclear bombs earlier this week and reiterated his order to massively expand the North’s nuclear arsenal. Kim said North Korea is ready to use nuclear weapons “anytime and anywhere,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported. His visit to the facility came as the nation carried out series of weapon tests including ballistic missiles designed to deliver a nuclear warhead. The Yongbyon site’s existing 5 MWe reactor has been running since July 2021 and commercial satellite images from March show there’s new construction for the reactor’s spent fuel storage building, according to 38 North.
World: ¶ “The Oceans Just Reached Their Hottest Temperature On Record As El Niño Looms” • Ocean temperatures have steadily risen over the past several years – despite a lengthy cooling La Niña. The oceans have been record-warm for the past four years, scientists reported in January, temperatures are still rising, and an El Niño […]
nuclear-news 