If you have pinned your hopes on nuclear, I have very bad news to serve: Uranium production will peak (if it hasn’t already). Since exploration has already hit diminishing returns in 2011 this was only a question of when, not if. No wonder: we live on a planet constrained by geology and physics, not money.
Then new reactor designs will surely save us! Well, breeding and 4th generation reactors are still in development phase and nowhere near commercialization. It will take decades to have them approved and to sort out all kinds of technical and safety issues. Even the Chinese, who are the forerunners of this technology, do not plan to build their first experimental reactors till the 2030’s… We don’t have that much time left.
Medium, 3 Apr 23, [good diagrams/charts]
Ever since the first commercial reactors have started to produce electricity for the grid in the 1950’s (um, about 70 years ago now…) we keep hearing how nuclear is the clean, green power of the future. No emissions, no limits, just the infinite power of the atom.……..
………………….. let’s examine the proposed alternative to fossil fuels: nuclear energy.
I’ve mentioned in the introduction to this article how Hubbert has presented a glaring contradiction between the reality of peak oil and his expectations towards nuclear power supposedly providing us all the energy we need for countless millennia to come. I say glaring, because as a geologist it should have been obvious to him that nuclear power is coming from Uranium, a mineral found in finite quantities, in finite reserves on this finite planet. In other words: the same rise and fall in its extraction is all but guaranteed.
Production starts at the best locations, where the most dense and easy to get forms of Uranium ore can be found. Like the ones in Canada, with 20% U content (a fantastically high concentration for any metal by the way). The issue is: such high grade ores are rare. They are like the golden tip of Khafre’s pyramid. Shiny, easy to work with, but not too much compared to the rest of the reserves.
Imagine that all the Uranium ores ever mined (and yet to be mined) were brought into one location by the Gods. There they would pile it up into a shape of a gigantic pyramid, putting the highest quality ores from Canada, like a cherry, on the top. The next, more voluminous layer in this imaginary pyramid of Uranium resources then would consist of ores with 2% Uranium content (where the rest is mining waste containing less valuable metals in various quantities). As you can see we have much more of these, but still not enough to power the entire planet with. Moving down another layer we would find much much more Uranium albeit locked up in ever lower grade ores containing a mere kilogram of pure Uranium in every ton hauled to the surface (or 0.1%).
Notice how we jump orders of magnitude in density as we move up and down this pyramid: 20% on the top is ten times as dense as a 2% ore, which is twenty times as dense as a 0.1% ore in a row below. At the bottom layers we would find common granite and sedimentary rock containing mere grams of Uranium per ton of ore mined: 3–5 ppm that is (or 0.0003%). Good luck mining, hauling then crashing tons of the hardest of rocks this planet has to offer, only to try and extract a few grams of Uranium out of it.
Long story short: we have only a very little amount of high grade, easy to mine Uranium and billions of tons of low grade, hard to find, hard to extract metal dispersed around the surface of the planet. Just like with every single other material we’ve ever mined.
Preposterous as it may sound, our Uranium resources refuse to grow in line with the money we pour on exploration. We are simply unable to grow our good old high quality low cost reserves. What we have found instead is of an ever lower quality type, containing less and less U per ton and costing more and more to extract. Despite a virtual explosion in exploration expenditure (doubling the total amount spent in 12 years between 2005 and 2017) our reserves grew by 60% only — then flat-lined — indicating a peak in exploration.
Let’s face it: Uranium exploration has hit diminishing returns with current reserves are now estimated to be enough for 90 years — not 5000 as suggested by Hubbert. Spending more on exploration will not give us large quantities of high grade resources in return. What we are left with is of ever lower quality and costlier to get ores. It doesn’t matter if the oceans or Earth’s crust contains millions of tons of Uranium in theory. In practice it’s in such a diluted form that it would take more energy to scrub and collect the radioactive metal than the energy we could get out of reactors in the end.
What matters is net energy: if there is nothing to gain, then why do it…?
This is how, Dear Reader, a natural limit to growth look like. (Not unlike the situation we experience with oil.) Perpetuating the myth of “high prices bring about more supply” will not help here. Expecting that higher prices will make the extraction of low grade reserves economic (basically all the new discoveries) in an energy constrained world, is nothing but magical thinking…………………………….
We already face a supply gap, which will only keep growing as cheap resources keep depleting. Expanding the fleet of reactors will further increase this gap, weighing even more on an already stretched supply and national stockpiles.
Needless to say, this is unsustainable. If Uranium prices don’t rise significantly then suppliers will have to stop mining. We are at around 110 USD/kg and most reserves need 130 USD/kg to become economic — not to mention newer reserves needing 260 USD/kg to be tapped. If prices do rise to this level then this would force poorer nations to retire their fleets and cancel projects in droves, causing prices to fall again. Needless to say, this zig-zagging of prices would make any incentive for discovery and ideas of utilizing lower grades vanish. (Just like with oil).
If you have pinned your hopes on nuclear, I have very bad news to serve: Uranium production will peak (if it hasn’t already). Since exploration has already hit diminishing returns in 2011 this was only a question of when, not if. No wonder: we live on a planet constrained by geology and physics, not money.
Then new reactor designs will surely save us! Well, breeding and 4th generation reactors are still in development phase and nowhere near commercialization. It will take decades to have them approved and to sort out all kinds of technical and safety issues. Even the Chinese, who are the forerunners of this technology, do not plan to build their first experimental reactors till the 2030’s… We don’t have that much time left. Oil is about to start its long decline this decade — first slowly and tentatively, then ever faster — causing all sorts of problems preventing us from investing in these untested technologies. Besides, all these new reactors would use is a finite fuel source still (U-235), already peaking then declining.
As diesel gets ever scarcer and harder to get by, servicing older reactors will become ever more problematic. We need long term thinking here: reactors will still need active care and cooling decades after their decommissioning, and if we lose grid stability (which is very much a near term concern), then a longer blackout could cause unwanted problems (again, we will not be able to rely on diesel generators helping us out for long either).
The US Department of Defense and numerous private commentators allege that Russian-Chinese cooperation on fast breeder reactors will provide plutonium for large numbers of Chinese nuclear weapons. Assistant Secretary of Defense John Plumb told Congressional hearings on March 8:
“It’s very troubling to see Russia and China cooperating on this. They may have talking points around it, but there’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons. So I think the [Defense] Department is concerned. And of course, it matches our concerns about China’s increased expansion of its nuclear forces as well, because you need more plutonium for more weapons.”
The Pentagon knows better than this. Anyone conversant with fast breeder reactor technology is aware that the type of plutonium that can be produced in such reactors is much less suitable for nuclear weapons than the plutonium produced in other reactor types, whose design and construction China has long mastered.
It is therefore nonsensical to charge that the main goal of the Chinese fast breeder program is weapons-related. Rather, the motivation for the program is consistent with that of other nations that have pursued fast breeder reactor designs, including greater efficiency in the utilization of nuclear fuel, reduction in the amount and toxicity of nuclear waste and greater independence from outside fuel supplies.
Electricite de France SA is reviving studies to boost the longer-term output of some nuclear reactors as part of a plan to extend the life of its atomic fleet to at least 60 years.
Europe’s energy crisis and rising power prices have put such considerations back “on the company’s agenda for 2023,” according to Sylvie Richard, who’s in charge of the state-controlled utility’s €33 billion ($35.6 billion) spending on reactor maintenance and retrofit for the period from 2022 through 2028. The upgrades could boost the output of some EDF reactors by 4% to 5%. If that proves financially viable and gets approved by the nuclear safety authority, some of the work would take place beyond 2028, Richard told reporters at the Saint-Laurent nuclear power station in central France Thursday.
The French nuclear giant has been tasked by President Emmanuel Macron to extend the lifetime of its 56 reactors and to build at least six new ones to help the country reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. However, EDF has been grappling for more than a year with extended reactor repairs and outages that have worsened Europe’s energy crunch, while triggering a record loss at the company.
German officials have criticized plans by French firm Framatome to produce nuclear fuel in a joint venture with Russia’s Rosatom at a facility in western Germany, and said Thursday that they will consider whether an application to do so can be rejected.
Officials in the state of Lower Saxony have received a request for the Framatome-owned ANF facility in Lingen, near the German-Dutch border, to be allowed to produce hexagonal fuel rod arrangements used in Soviet-designed water-water energetic reactors. Such reactors, known by the Russian acronym VVER, are common in Eastern Europe and the fuel production would take place under license from state-owned Rosatom.
“Doing business with (Russian President) Putin must stop, and that also and especially applies to the nuclear sector,” Lower Saxony’s Energy Minister Christian Meyer said.
Sizewell C permits approved despite concerns over potential mass fish deaths. The Environment Agency has issued three new permits to Sizewell C, despite concerns that the approved cooling system and lack of fish deterrent device could result in “thousands of fish dying every day”.
A GROUP of specialist divers have entered Sellafield’s nuclear pool for the first time in over 60 years. Divers have been carrying out vital clean-up and decommissioning work in the oldest legacy storage pond on the Sellafield site.
The last time a human entered Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Storage Pond was in 1958, when records show a maintenance operator and health physics monitor carried out a dive into the newly constructed pond to repair a broken winch.The pool went out of use in the 1960s but now divers have returned as part of work to decommission and clean up the site.
Polish RadioApril 1, 2023 US Congress OKs sale of Hellfire missiles to Poland: defence minister The US Congress has cleared the sale of 800 Hellfire missiles to Poland, the Polish defence minister has announced, amid Russia’s more than 13-month-long war in neighbouring Ukraine. “The US Congress has approved the purchase by Poland of 800 Hellfire […]
Polish RadioApril 1, 2023 Poland to produce 100 Rosomak military vehicles for Ukraine: PM Poland will build 100 Rosomak armoured military vehicles for Ukraine under a deal agreed with the European Union and the United States, the Polish prime minister said on Saturday. Speaking at an armaments plant in Siemianowice Śląskie in the south of […]
https://beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-winter-webinar/ The Samuel Lawrence Foundation is hosting its “First Friday” Zoom Event at 11:30 AM PST (2:30 PM EST), featuring Brian Toon, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder on:
“Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange.” The event is moderated by Professor Paul Dorfman, Chair of Nuclear Consulting Group, University of Sussex, UK. Professor Toon is a world renowned researcher on the environmental and climate consequences of nuclear war. Even a limited conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, an exchange of 100 nuclear weapons, would have global climate changing consequences. Click here to register for the April 7th webinar.
It’s a pivotal time – this AUKUS-nuclear submarine thing. And not just for Australia – as 3 anglophone nations team up in spreading nuclear weapons-grade technology for the first time – to a non-nuclear nation. All done – not with the consent of parliaments and people – just done with a stroke by the big boys. And all setting up for the next proxy war, Australia in the lead role? – against China.
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. An obnoxious clause in Canada’s draft Act for Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
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.
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