nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

It really IS a climate emergency – but here is nuclear news, anyway

What went right this week: the good news you should know about.   A pathway emerged to an Aids-free future,  Deforestation fell in the Colombian Amazon.   California Military Base is Being Transformed Into one of the Largest City Parks in the U.S.

TOP STORIES

If Everybody’s Going to Join NATO, Then Why Have the United Nations?

The Empire Knows It’s Pouring Ukrainian Blood Into An Unwinnable Proxy War.

The Forever Dangers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.

‘Artificial Escalation’: Imagining the future of nuclear risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9npWiTOHX0

Nuclear trash on indigenous land ?- a court decision puts Australia in a very difficult spot.        UK campaigners call on Australian PM to withdraw Kimba nuke dump threat.

CLIMATE. Heatwaves are new normal as 50C hits US and China – UN.  How deadly are these heatwaves – and how hot will they get? (nb. kids under 5 especially endangered)          Europe heatwave: EU sends planes to Greece as thousands flee fires.      Highof 48C expected on continent as red spreads across the European weathermap. From body bags of ice to pavement burn: US grapples with new extreme heat reality. Rain fury: Floods batter North Indian states – nearly a foot of rain in 14 hours recorded.

Christina notes. Is it now OK to talk about ethics again?    We need decision-making by women, if we’re going to survive in this nuclear age.

Nuclear. Again – it really is the climate that is the overwhelming news this week –   while global leaders busily focus on new ways to plan to kill each other’s populations .

CLIMATE. “Nuclear Power Is Already a Climate Casualty”

ENERGY. Does Nuclear slow down the scale-up of Wind and Solar? France and Germany can’t agree.

ECONOMICS. Is the UK Government unable to fund its promised nuclear renaissance? These are the companies that will get the British government’s nuclear bribes. US Asset Managers Have ‘Significant Investments’ in Nuclear Weapons and Cluster Bombs: Analysis.          France needs to invest 25 billion euros ($28 billion) each year to maintain its nuclear energy programme.     The Big Problem With Small Nuclear Reactors.

ENERGY. Not nuclear, but wind and solar still cheapest – CSIRO

ENVIRONMENT. Cesium 180 times limit found in fish at Fukushima nuke plant 12 years after disaster. Hong Kong tightens radiation inspection of Japanese seafood imports.

ETHICS and RELIGION. Will we ban nuclear weapons, or will Biden and Putin get us all cremated equally?

HEALTH. Nuclear power: Is it safe to use nuclear energy ?- there are the health risks with it.

INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Nuclear Projects Torment Life on Earth.

LEGAL. Court rules in favour of Barngala people, preventing nuclear waste facility in Kimba.  Examining the impact of the legal decision against the planned Kimba nuclear waste dump

MEDIA. The Nuclear Age Grimly Descends in “Oppenheimer”.       ‘Oppenheimer’ is a pitch-dark American nightmare. We cannot look away. What We Can Still Learn From J. Robert Oppenheimer.      Anti-nuclear groups welcome Oppenheimer film but say it fails to depict true horror.    The Dynamics of War Insanity: NATO’s Ukraine Roulette. Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ warned us of nuclear annihilation. It’s still a hot-button issue with a new play at the Sydney Theatre Company.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. UK nuclear future: “China is the world leader in renewables” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0R-h4GV8s         Repeating This Nuclear Power Mistake Will Be Catastrophic For Artificial Intelligence – Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.     Oppenheimer biographer supports US bill to bar use of AI in nuclear launches.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Best foot forward: Campaigners are marching again for a Nuclear Free Wales. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) condemns additional billions for Britain’s nuclear arsenal.     Scottish CND hit out over ‘nuclear threat‘ in MPs’ military report.          Putting the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle.

PERSONAL STORIES. Karina’s father went blind at Emu Field. Now, she’s fighting for a treaty on nuclear weapons.

POLITICS. UK government launches”Great British Nuclear” with big bribes, and big promises, for the “small nuclear reactor” industry.         Don’t believe the UK government’s hype about small nuclear reactors and Great British Nuclear.       Tory nuclear expansion programme.   

Prime Minister Albanese must abandon South Australian nuclear waste dump.  

Council defers decision over Test of Public Support on the issue of disposal of high level nuclear waste. Ontario – Ford government’s electricity plan takes wrong approach. Ontario opts for high-risk nuclear over low-risk energy sources.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

RADIATION. Science and Global Security Maps Radioactive Fallout from U.S. Nuclear Weapon Tests, Beginning with July 1945 Trinity Test. Backgrounder on health consequences of nuclear radiation fallout and the Anthropocene. China’s blanket radiation testing could spell trouble for Japanese seafood imports.

SAFETY. Safety lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Incidents. A 90 million gallon nuclear tragedy. The US should end its use of nuclear power plants – the intractible problem of dangerous spent fuel rods. An inherent potential for catastrophe.

SECRETS and LIES. Europe’s black hole: How much of the more than $185 billion given by the West to Ukraine has been stolen?         Corruption In Ukraine & The U.S. Mutually Rewarding.

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. SpaceX Starlink satellites had to make 25,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in just 6 months — and it will only get worse. US DOE delivers plutonium-238 for NASA missions.

SPINBUSTER. UK government announces fantasy small modular reactor programme as a cover for Sizewelll C failure.       Great British Nuclear: High on hype, Low on substance.

WASTES. Dumping doubts: Releasing Fukushima’s wastewater.      To the Pacific islands, the West’s support for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear waste ocean dumping is hypocrisy.        The dilemma of continuing to produce nuclear trash which will remain harmful for millennia.       Feds digging up nuclear waste in Los Alamos for disposal at Carlsbad-area repository. AUKUS’ nuclear waste dump is the secret no-one talks about. So what’ll it cost?

WAR and CONFLICT. Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia.    Ukraine Again Bombs Crimean Bridge.     Kiev strikes ammunition depot in Crimea – official. Architect of Annihilation: Oppenheimer’s Deadly Legacy of Nucle ar Terror.      Putin warns of Poland’s intentions in Ukraine and Belarus.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Nuclear Notebook: French nuclear weapons, 2023.     US turning Ukraine into ‘burial ground’ for lethal waste – Russian envoy.      In Ukraine, US Adds to Barbaric Cluster-Bomb Legacy.     USA government – more money, $19 billion, grant for making deadly plutonium.    The True Symbol Of The United States Is The Pentagon.

WOMEN. Brussels: Global Women For Peace United Against NATO Meet With EU Parliament, NATO Representatives.  

July 24, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | 8 Comments

The Empire Knows It’s Pouring Ukrainian Blood Into An Unwinnable Proxy War

That’s right kids! We’re turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland of death and dismemberment to save the Ukrainians

.

Caitlin’s Newsletter CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JUL 24, 2023

In a new article titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Michaels reports that western officials knew Ukrainian forces didn’t have the weapons and training necessary to succeed in their highly touted counteroffensive which was launched last month.

Michaels writes:…………………………………………………

The claim that western officials had sincerely believed Ukrainian forces might be able to overcome their glaring deficits through sheer pluck and ticker is undermined later in the same article by a war pundit who says the US would never attempt such a counteroffensive without first controlling the skies, which Ukraine doesn’t have the ability to do:

“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” the U.S. Army War College’s John Nagl told WSJ. “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following on the latest WSJ revelation:

“Leading up to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was launched in June, the Discord leaks and media reports revealed that the US did not believe Ukraine could regain much territory from Russia. But the Biden administration pushed for the assault anyway, as it rejected the idea of a pause in fighting.”

So the empire is still knowingly throwing Ukrainian lives into the meat grinder of an unwinnable proxy war, even as western officials tell the public that this war is about saving Ukrainian lives and handing Putin a crushing defeat whenever they’re on camera.

This attitude from the empire is not a new development. Last October The Washington Post reported that “Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table.”

Now why might that be? Why would the western empire be so comfortable encouraging Ukrainians to keep fighting when it knows they can’t win?

We find our answer in another Washington Post article titled “The West feels gloomy about Ukraine. Here’s why it shouldn’t.”, authored last week by virulent empire propagandist David Ignatius. In his eagerness to frame the floundering counteroffensive in a positive light for his American audience, Ignatius let slip an inconvenient truth:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

Anyone who believes this proxy war is about helping Ukrainians should be made to read that paragraph over and over again until it sinks in. The admission that the US-centralized power structure benefits immensely from this proxy conflict is revealing enough, but that parenthetical “other than for the Ukrainians” aside really drives it home. It reads as though it was added as an afterthought, like “Oh yeah it’s actually kind of rough on the Ukrainians though — if you consider them to be people.”

The claim that this war is about helping Ukrainians has been further undermined by another new Washington Post report that Ukraine is now more riddled with land mines than any other nation on earth, and that US-supplied cluster munitions are only making the land more deadly.

That’s right kids! We’re turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland of death and dismemberment to save the Ukrainians.

We should probably talk more about the fact that the US empire is loudly promoting the goal of achieving peace in Ukraine by defeating Russia while quietly acknowledging that this goal is impossible. This is like accelerating toward a brick wall and pretending it’s an open road.

The narrative that Russia can be beaten by ramping up proxy warfare against it makes sense if you believe Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine, but the US empire does not believe that Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine. It knows that continuing this war is only going to perpetuate the death and devastation.

“Beat Putin’s ass and make him withdraw” sounds cool and is egoically gratifying, and it’s become the mainstream answer to the problem of the war in Ukraine, but nobody promoting that answer can address the fact that the ones driving this proxy war believe it’s impossible. In fact, all evidence we’re seeing suggests that the US is not trying to deliver Putin a crushing defeat in Ukraine and force him to withdraw, but is rather trying to create another long and costly military quagmire for Moscow, as western cold warriors have done repeatedly in instances like Afghanistan and Syria.

Wanting to weaken Russia and wanting to save lives and establish peace in Ukraine are two completely different goals, so different that in practice they wind up being largely contradictory. Drawing Moscow into a bloody quagmire means many more people dying in a war that drags on for years, with all the immense human suffering that that entails.

The US does not want peace in Ukraine, it wants to overextend Russia, shore up military and energy dominance over Europe, expand its war machine and enrich the military-industrial complex. That’s why it knowingly provoked this war. It’s posing as Ukraine’s savior while being clearly invested in Ukraine’s destruction.

It is not legitimate to support this proxy war without squarely addressing this massive contradiction using hard facts and robust argumentation. Nobody ever has.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-knows-its-pouring-ukrainian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=135389526&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

July 24, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | 3 Comments

If Everybody’s Going to Join NATO, Then Why Have the United Nations?

 Slowly, NATO is positioning itself as a substitute for the UN, suggesting that it – and not the actual international community – is the arbiter and guardian of the world’s ‘interests, security, and values’.

 Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. by VJ Prashad, 20 July 23

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit on 11–12 July in Vilnius, Lithuania. The communiqué released after the first day’s proceedings claimed that ‘NATO is a defensive alliance’, a statement that encapsulates why many struggle to grasp its true essence. A look at the latest military spending figures shows, to the contrary, that NATO countries, and countries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons.

untries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons. Many of these countries possess state-of-the-art weapons systems, which are qualitatively more destructive than those held by the militaries of most non-NATO countries. Over the past quarter century, NATO has used its military might to destroy several states, such as Afghanistan (2001) and Libya (2011), shattering societies with the raw muscle of its aggressive alliance, and end the status of Yugoslavia (1999) as a unified state. It is difficult, given this record, to sustain the view that NATO is a ‘defensive alliance’.

………………………………………………. NATO’s increasing membership has doubled down on its ambition to use its military power, through Article 5, to subdue anyone who challenges the ‘Atlantic Alliance’.

The ‘Atlantic Alliance’, a phrase that is part of NATO’s name, was part of a wider network of military treaties secured by the US against the USSR and, after October 1949, against the People’s Republic of China.

This network included the Manila Pact of September 1954, which created the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and the Baghdad Pact of February 1955, which created the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). Turkey and Pakistan signed a military agreement in April 1954 which brought them together in an alliance against the USSR and anchored this network through NATO’s southernmost member (Turkey) and SEATO’s westernmost member (Pakistan). The US signed a military deal with each of the members of CENTO and SEATO and ensured that it had a seat at the table in these structures.

At the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reacted strongly to the creation of these military alliances, which exported tensions between the US and the USSR across Asia. The concept of NATO, he said, ‘has extended itself in two ways’: first, NATO ‘has gone far away from the Atlantic and has reached other oceans and seas’ and second, ‘NATO today is one of the most powerful protectors of colonialism’.

 As an example, Nehru pointed to Goa, which was still held by fascist Portugal and whose grip had been validated by NATO members – an act, Nehru said, of ‘gross impertinence’. This characterisation of NATO as a global belligerent and defender of colonialism remains intact, with some modifications.

SEATO was disbanded in 1977, partly due to the defeat of the US in Vietnam, and CENTO was shuttered in 1979, precisely due to the Iranian Revolution that year. US military strategy shifted its focus from wielding these kinds of pacts to establishing a direct military presence with the founding of US Central Command in 1983 and the revitalisation of the US Pacific Command that same year.

The US expanded the power of its own global military footprint, including its ability to strike anywhere on the planet due to its structure of military bases and armed flotillas (which were no longer restricted once the 1930 Second London Naval Treaty expired in 1939). Although NATO has always had global ambitions, the alliance was given material reality through the US military’s force projection and its creation of new structures that further tied allied states into its orbit (with programmes such as ‘Partnership for Peace’, set up in 1994, and concepts such as ‘global NATO partner’ and ‘non-NATO ally’, as exemplified by Japan and South Korea).  In its 1991 Strategic Concept, NATO wrote that it would ‘contribute to global stability and peace by providing forces for United Nations missions’, which was realised with deadly force in Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2003), and Libya (2011)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The war in Ukraine provided new life to the Atlantic Alliance, driving several hesitant European countries – such as Sweden – into its ranks. Yet, even amongst people living within NATO countries there are groups who are sceptical of the alliance’s aims, with the Vilnius summit marked by anti-NATO protests. The Vilnius Summit Communiqué underlined Ukraine’s path into NATO and sharpened NATO’s self-defined universalism. The communiqué declares, for instance, that China challenges ‘our interests, security, and values’, with the word ‘our’ claiming to represent not only NATO countries but the entire international order. 

 Slowly, NATO is positioning itself as a substitute for the UN, suggesting that it – and not the actual international community – is the arbiter and guardian of the world’s ‘interests, security, and values’. This view is contested by the vast majority of the world’s peoples, seven billion of whom do not even reside in NATO’s member countries (whose total population is less than one billion). Those billions wonder why it is that NATO wants to supplant the United Nations.  https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/nato-united-nations/

July 24, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international | 1 Comment

Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia

U.S. and Kyiv knew of shortfalls but Kyiv still launched offensive

WSJ, By Daniel Michaels, July 22, 2023 

BRUSSELS—When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.

They haven’t. Deep and deadly minefields, extensive fortifications and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops. Instead, the campaign risks descending into a stalemate with the potential to burn through lives and equipment without a major shift in momentum.

As the likelihood of any large-scale breakthrough by the Ukrainians this year dims, it raises the unsettling prospect for Washington and its allies of a longer war—one that would require a huge new infusion of sophisticated armaments and more training to give Kyiv a chance at victory.

The political calculus for the Biden administration is complicated. President Biden is up for re-election in the fall of 2024 and many in Washington believe concerns in the White House about the war’s impact on the campaign are prompting growing caution on the amount of support to offer Kyiv.

The American hesitation contrasts with shifting views in Europe, where more leaders over recent months have come to believe that Ukraine must prevail in the conflict—and Russia must lose—to ensure the continent’s security.

But European militaries lack sufficient resources to supply Ukraine with all it needs to eject Moscow’s armies from the roughly 20% of the country that they control. European leaders are also unlikely to significantly increase support to Kyiv if they sense U.S. reluctance, Western diplomats say.

The shift in trans-Atlantic political winds, evident in tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. officials at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania, has come as Ukraine’s long-expected offensive appears stalled. Kyiv’s inability to make headway against Russian defenses has persuaded many Western military observers that Ukrainian forces need more training in complex military maneuvers, more-potent air defenses and much more armor.

Moscow’s military, meanwhile, is grappling with low morale because of exhaustion, poor supplies and infighting among Russian leaders, Ukrainian and Western intelligence indicates. Russia appears unable to seize the initiative and attack Ukrainian positions, but its forces remain robust enough to man hundreds of miles of fortifications and large numbers of aircraft, which are keeping Kyiv’s troops at bay……………………………………………………………………………… more https://archive.is/D6CQZ#selection-625.0-634.1

July 24, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cesium 180 times limit found in fish at Fukushima nuke plant 12 years after disaster.

July 19, 2023 (Mainichi Japan)

FUKUSHIMA — Radioactive cesium 180 times Japan’s legal maximum has been found in fish caught in the port at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, revealing that the March 2011 triple meltdown there continues to impact the local ecosystem.

The cesium in the black rockfish caught in May measured 18,000 becquerels per kilogram. The legal limit under the Food Sanitation Act is 100 becquerels per kg. According to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Holdings Inc., the fish was captured inside the inner breakwater, close to the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors at the seaside plant, where decommissioning work continues.

When it rains, the rainwater streams into the “K drainage” — one of several drainpipes at the plant — after running through debris and over the ground, both contaminated with radioactive substances. It is then discharged into the station’s small port.

TEPCO claims that it has confirmed the cesium levels in the discharged rainwater are below the government criteria of 60 becquerels per liter for cesium-134 and 90 becquerels for cesium-137. But compared with other drainages at the plant, runoff with higher concentrations of radioactive materials has been discharged within the inner breakwater. The seabed sediment in the area was also found to contain cesium-137 up to 130,000 becquerels-plus per kilogram and cesium-134 up to 3,400 becquerels-plus as of the end of January this year………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………….”We urge that TEPCO take thorough measures to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the ocean, even within the port,” a fisheries federation official urged, refering to the black rockfish with more than 100 becquerels per kg caught in May at the nuclear complex’s port.

Toshihiro Wada, an associate professor of fish ecology at Fukushima University, said of the heavily contaminated fish, “It’s likely that cesium was concentrated within the fish from the food chain, confined as it is by the inner breakwater where radioactive substances have accumulated from the drainages flowing into the port.”

He continued, “Unless fundamental measures are taken to lower the concentrations of radioactive materials discharged from the ‘K drainage,’ fish surpassing the maximum will likely keep being found,” even as TEPCO has stepped up measures to prevent fish from getting away…………………………………

Radioactively contaminated water has been swelling daily at the plant as water injected to cool nuclear fuel debris that melted down in the 2011 disaster has been accumulating with groundwater and rainwater mixing into it. TEPCO processes the contaminated water using ALPS, or multi-nuclide removal equipment, and stores the treated water in tanks after reducing the radioactive levels apart from tritium, which is difficult to remove from water.

‘Set treated water aside’

The Japanese government plans to release treated water from the Fukushima plant into the ocean around the summer, after diluting it to get tritium concentrations below 1,500 becquerels per liter, or one-fortieth of the national standard. It plans to release the water about 1 kilometer offshore via an undersea tunnel.

“Unlike cesium, tritium does not concentrate in fish even if they ingest it, according to data,” associate professor Wada said. “Experimental results have shown that if treated water is put into regular seawater, the concentration (of tritium) is reduced. We need to consider (tritium) separately from cesium.”

(Japanese original by Riki Iwama, Fukushima Bureau, and Hideyuki Kakinuma, Iwaki Local Bureau) https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230718/p2a/00m/0na/019000c?fbclid=IwAR2R-0GtuaSlHvGQZ13yqRzQdZ1HUr3RNu4yHWzLBLytboJldZs2eMLHmxM

July 24, 2023 Posted by | environment, Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Backgrounder on health consequences of nuclear radiation fallout and the Anthropocene.

Mary Olson — July 21, 2023

Since fatal cancer and some catastrophic impacts to pregnancy originate from damage to a single living cell, there is no amount of ionizing radiation that is safe. It is therefore extremely appropriate in terms of human and environmental health, that particles of plutonium from nuclear weapons fallout has been chosen as the marker for the new geologic epoch in which the dominant force acting on this planet is us.

The Anthropocene is, so far, a time of imbalance and disease, including destabilization of our climate, destruction of natural habitat sending extinction rates up and biodiversity down, made worse by dumping new toxic chemicals widely, polluting air, water and food. Radiation from nuclear fission adds the additional scrambling of genes and genomes.

Fallout warrants an update from the health perspective. The disproportionate impact of bomb radiation on women and girls is established, and particularly troubling given the global distribution of fallout particles. However, a new paper from Dr Alfred Körblein is the first to find the correlation of very large numbers of lives lost and fallout. Körblein reports the death rate of infants (live-birth) in five European nations (UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain) and the U.S. during and following the period of atmospheric nuclear testing (1945—1963). After a tour de force statistical analysis, Körblein concludes: “atmospheric nuclear weapons testing may be responsible for the deaths of several million babies in the Northern Hemisphere.”

A clear spike (25% increase) in infant deaths was previously reported by Tucker and Alvarez  citing New Mexico state records after the 1945 Trinity Test. These are live births, not losses of pregnancies, which may have been much higher. Körblein examined biological sex as a factor, but found no strong correlation. Infant death was likely due to insufficient immune capacity.

Fallout is not only in the past, when worldwide 528 nuclear detonations were made in our atmosphere. In 2021 Science Magazine reported detection of Cesium-137 in honey in the United States. While only trace levels were found in the honey, radioactivity from Cesium, a major constituent of the fine particles of fallout that drift back down, or are carried down in much higher concentrations by rain. Cesium, inhaled or ingested mimics potassium in the body, where uptake is primarily to muscle, including the heart. Cardiovascular damage has now been linked to radiation as a causal agent for heart disease and stroke.

Highly radioactive fallout particles have been dispersed worldwide, not only the lake in Canada where the Anthropocene spike will be placed. This is demonstrated in the modern digital modeling work of Sebastien Philippe and his team on French nuclear tests in Polynesia.   

The widescale distribution of highly radioactive cesium, iodine, strontium and also plutonium, known carcinogens at any concentration have been contributors to the widescale suffering of cancers. Fission products in our air, food and water have contributed to reproductive impacts. Due to many factors, the global birth rate has dropped in half since 1950 and the impact of fallout is likely to be part of this.

Exploding a nuclear weapon in the biosphere is not only a test of the weapon—it is a test of life itself, in a massive, uncontrolled experiment. Thankfully, our species retains the capacity to change our minds, and invest in a healthy future. The United Nations General Assembly declared a healthy environment to be a universal Human Right in July, 2022. Perhaps the Anthropocene will also be a time of healing.

July 24, 2023 Posted by | radiation | Leave a comment

How deadly are these heatwaves – and how hot will they get?

Babies and children under 5 years of age ssare especially endangered by hot nights

As record-breaking temperatures hit the planet, stresses on the body include heatstroke and heart, kidney and lung disease

Ajit Niranjan, Harvey Symons and Antonio Voce

Sat 22 Jul 2023

Heat is a silent killer. When it gets too hot, the heart pumps faster, blood races and organs begin to fail. The stress overwhelms the body as it struggles to cool itself down. Internal temperatures rise from regular (37C) through feverish (38C) to deadly (40C).

Many people who spend most of their time outside, such as farmers, builders and the homeless, die outright from heatstroke. But far more lives are claimed by heart, lung and kidney disease made worse in hot weather. Research pegs the death toll from heat in Europe last summer at 61,672 people – more than a jumbo jet crashing out of the sky every day.

Am I safe if I stay inside during the day?

Record-breaking temperatures in the day grab the most attention. But relentless hot nights are when much of the damage is done. The body can’t cool down, dragging out the time its organs spend under stress, and people struggle to sleep, cutting into crucial recovery time.

Hot nights and bad sleep are uncomfortable for all but deadly for some. Studies show the sleep deprivation inflicted by hot weather hits older people and women hardest – the same people who die at the highest rates during heatwaves – and hot nights are associated with high mortality from heat………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/22/heatwaves-how-dangerous-hot-extremes

July 24, 2023 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

From body bags of ice to pavement burn: US grapples with new extreme heat reality

From body bags of ice to pavement burn: US grapples with new extreme heat
reality. As unrelenting, record-breaking temperatures continue across many
states, pressure is mounting on US healthcare systems due to an increasing
number of people in heat distress coming through their doors.

In the Southwest, doctors are relying on tried-and-tested measures such as body
bags packed with ice to quickly bring down dangerously high body
temperatures. Doctors at Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston, Texas,
told The Independent that there has been an increase in the number of
patients presenting with heat-related illnesses including heat stroke,
which can be potentially fatal if not treated rapidly.

 Independent 22nd July 2023

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/heatwave-arizona-texas-deaths-burns-b2378285.html

July 24, 2023 Posted by | climate change, health, USA | Leave a comment

Science and Global Security Maps Radioactive Fallout from U.S. Nuclear Weapon Tests, Beginning with July 1945 Trinity Test

July 21, 2023

SGS has released research showing in unprecedented detail the spread of radioactive fallout from 94 continental U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapon tests, including the first nuclear weapon test – the 16 July 1945 Trinity explosion that was a key part of the Manhattan Project. This work has been reported in The New York Times. 

The new model shows the nuclear explosions carried out in New Mexico and Nevada between 1945 and 1962 led to widespread radioactive contamination, with Trinity making a significant contribution to exposure in New Mexico, in neighboring states, and reaching 46 of the 48 contiguous United States as well as Canada and Mexico. The study also documents significant deposition in Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and Idaho, as well as dozens of federally recognized tribal lands. 

The research provides estimates of the deposition of radioactivity over 10 days following the detonation of the Trinity nuclear explosion, and for five days subsequent to the atmospheric tests in Nevada. It highlights that significant radioactive deposition took place in locations in New Mexico and on federally recognized tribal lands not covered by the U.S. Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. It also reveals that plutonium carried by the wind from the Trinity test explosion reached Crawford Lake in Canada on July 20, 1945. The presence of plutonium in Crawford Lake sediments has been proposed as one maker for the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch……………………………………….. more https://sgs.princeton.edu/news-announcements/n

July 24, 2023 Posted by | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ warned us of nuclear annihilation. It’s still a hot-button issue with a new play at the Sydney Theatre Company 

ABC News The Conversation / By Alexander Howard, 23 Jul 23

“……………………………….. the nuclear threat is still very much at the top of our collective mind.

The Sydney Theatre Company is staging the very first stage adaptation of Shute’s novel “On the Beach”. And Oppenheimer, one of 2023’s two most-hyped films, tells the story of the man referred to as “the father of the atomic bomb”.

‘Australia’s most important novel’

Journalist Gideon Haigh calls On the Beach “arguably Australia’s most important novel — important in the sense of confronting a mass international audience with the defining issue of the age”.

British-born Shute emigrated in 1950 to Australia, where he lived outside Melbourne. As well as writing novels, he worked as an aeronautical engineer.

The title of On the Beach — which started life as a four-part story called The Last Days on Earth — ostensibly referred to a Royal Navy expression for reassignment. (Shute spent time in the Royal Naval Reserve during World War II.) However, as readers of Eliot’s poetry will know, the phrase also appears late in The Hollow Men:

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

As in Eliot’s poem, the characters that cluster together in the pages of Shute’s novel, set in and around Melbourne between 1962 and 1963, tend on occasion to avoid speech…………………………

The reason why the guests at Peter’s party are so keen to avoid serious talk is both simple and depressing. They are trying very hard to forget that they are all going to be dead from radiation poisoning in a matter of months.

Shute brings the reader up to speed after the dinner party wraps up. A massive nuclear war has devastated the entire northern hemisphere, wiping out all forms of life there. And the radioactive fallout generated during the conflict is now creeping — slowly but surely — into the southern hemisphere.

Shute makes it clear there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about this. In tonally dispassionate prose, he reveals that vast swathes of Australia have already been rendered uninhabitable due to radiation poisoning. The only thing the characters who remain can do is wait.

…………………………………………………………………………… This is the way Shute’s novel of nuclear extinction ends: not with a bang but with a whimper. Released at the height of the Cold War, On the Beach struck a chord with millions of concerned readers.

………………………………………………………………………Shute’s didactic inclinations are evident towards the end of the novel. “Peter,” the character Mary asks, “why did this all this happen to us?” Even at this late stage, Mary, whose radiation-racked body is spasming uncontrollably, wants to know whether things might have panned out differently. Her husband’s reply is revealing:

“I don’t know … Some kinds of silliness you just can’t stop,” he said. “I mean, if a couple of hundred million people all decide that their national honour requires them to drop cobalt bombs upon their neighbour, well, there’s not much that you or I can do about it. The only possible hope would have been to educate them out of their silliness.”

………………………..While the science in the novel was somewhat flawed, Shute’s cautionary tale undoubtedly spoke to the collective zeitgeist.

………………………………………………..

Shute’s vision of humanity’s self-inflicted destruction is eerily resonant in our time of climate emergency. The nuclear threat remains, too, in our perilous historical moment of democratic backsliding and failing nuclear states.

It seems increasingly likely the world as we know it is coming to an end — if it hasn’t already. The question remains: will it be with a bang or a whimper?

On The Beach runs at the Sydney Theatre Company July 24 to August 12, 2023, with previews July 18–21. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-23/nevil-shute-on-the-beach-nuclear-annihilation-hot-button-issue/102621052

July 24, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, media | Leave a comment

Will we ban nuclear weapons, or will Biden and Putin get us all cremated equally?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDflqw_tYpk%3Fsi%3D0qCwuURsp9hNAe8c

paulrodenlearning 23 July23

After the Civil War, “dumb-dumb bullets” that mushroomed on impact were banned. After World War I chlorine, phosgene and mustard and other chemical weapons were supposedly banned, despite the Chemical Weapons Ban Treaty, the US at least is finally destroying their stockpiles of nerve gas, mustard gas and other gas munition stockpiles.

And after the horrors of Hiroshoma & Nagasaki, Eisenhower started “Atoms for Peace,” and now both India and Pakistan both have the bomb. Then we had troops practicing manuvers on the “atomic battlefield,” marching into the fallout & blast zones to see the effectivesness of military troops after nuking an enemy. Now so many of those soldiers and sailors who witness and marched both those “small yield nukes,” and the nuclear tests in the Pacific, are dieing or have died from radiation sickness, cancer and other early death diseases.

This is all shown in the documentary, “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.” Paul Jacobs a journalist, who walked into the “atomic battlefield,” and testing zones when we still did atmospheric testing, died of cancer shortly after the film was completed

We have developed the “neutron bomb” which had supposedly limit blast impact that was designed just to kill people with radiation to save the buildings. Imagine, conquering a foreign nation and securing the remaining buildings with no people, just corpses.

And now with artificial intelligence, we will be living on a trip wire, of “launch on warning,” and if you can remember the General that George C. Scott played in “Dr. Strangelove,” “we will get the Russians with their pants down.” One thing for sure, both Biden and Putin will prove that we are all cremated equally.

July 24, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

The True Symbol Of The United States Is The Pentagon

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

JUL 22, 2023

The real symbol of the United States is not the stars and stripes, nor the bald eagle, nor the Statue of Liberty, nor even the mighty McDonald’s logo. The real symbol of the United States is the Pentagon.

The Pentagon should feature centrally on the US flag. It should be on the coins and on all the bills, and it should appear next to the name of every American in the Olympics. When anyone sees a five-sided polygon, they should immediately think “United States of America”.

There is nothing more representative of the most significant things about the United States than the Pentagon. Sure the US has lovely national parks, an abundance of fast food chains and 500 million-dollar superhero movies, but nothing has anywhere near the effect on the world as the US government’s ability to project force around the planet with military violence and the threat thereof.

That is the main thing that makes the US unique among nations, after all. Americans are taught from childhood to take special pride in their nation’s “freedom” and “democracy” (of which they have neither), when what actually makes their country stand out against the crowd is its role as the hub of a globe-spanning empire that is held together by nonstop military aggression. The five-sided building which houses the US Department of Defense — formerly called the Department of War until someone noticed that was a bit too truthful — is the perfect symbol for that empire. It conveys what the United States is really putting out into the world more accurately than any other…………………………………….. more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-true-symbol-of-the-united-states

July 24, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Tory nuclear expansion programme

Renew Extra Weekly, 22 July 23

“…..a bit delayed, the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Grant Shapps, has officially launched Great British Nuclear (GBN), the new ‘arm’s-length’ government agency that is meant drive the delivery of new nuclear energy projects- especially small modular reactors (SMRs). The press release was very up tempo…………………………………………

………talk of a ‘massive revival’ of UK nuclear may be a bit premature. In all about £233m has been allocated to new SMR work so far, plus £700m for the big Sizewell C., and it’s far from clear whether either of these options, big or small, will get the go ahead.  Funding Sizewell C will not be easy, according to a review in Nuclear Engineering International, with few investors coming forward, and a review of SMR options concluded that ‘none of the tested concepts is able to compete economically with existing renewable technologies’.  

Nevertheless, a tender for procurement contracts for SMRs has been launched which states that between one and four awards could be made for grant funding, and, ultimately, up to £20bn spent on developing designs and funding construction. However, that’s all a bit speculative. ……………………………the £20bn will mostly presumably involve GBN seeking partnerships with private sector companies and private finance. Shapps stressed that this was ‘not a spending commitment’ by government. 

……… It will in any case take a while for GBN to get fully established, at present it hardly exists, and even longer for SMRs to exist- the Guardian noted that, in relation to the SMR competition, ‘a final decision on each project will not occur before 2029’.  

……..the Rolls Royce isalso not exactly a small reactor. At 470MW, it is actually larger than unit 1 at Fukushima and most of the old UK Magnox reactors.

…………………………..chided by Labour, with Shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead saying ‘it’s shambolic that after 13 years of Tory government, not one of the 10 nuclear sites approved by the last Labour government have been built,’ the UK does now have an ambitious nuclear programme, at least on paper, with a commitment to build a massive 24GW of nuclear capacity, the equivalent of a quarter of total generating capacity, by 2050. But, as I have indicated, it is far from clear if it can be achieved, especially given the low cost of renewables.

……………………….Leaving aside the cost issue and the still unresolved issue of long term radioactive waste disposal, nuclear enthusiasts do sometimes claim that we will need nuclear to back up variable renewables. However, there are cheaper ways to do that, including advanced batteries,………………………….

Given options like these, the whole idea of needing ‘baseload plants’ has become redundant.  Certainly building new large inflexible nuclear plants for backup would be very expensive and inefficient, and we have no idea if SMRs would be any better. ………………………………………………….. more https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/07/tory-nuclear-expansion-programme.html

July 24, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear power: An inherent potential for catastrophe

   by beyondnuclearinternational

Nuclear energy should not be an “inalienable right” and isn’t
“peaceful”

This excerpt on nuclear power is taken from Reaching Critical Will’s 2023 NPT Briefing Book. The handbook is being released in advance of the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which will meet from July 31 to August 11 2023 at the Vienna International Centre in Vienna, Austria.

Nuclear weapons are not the only nuclear risk. Nuclear energy also has inherent risks and the capacity to unleash uniquely horrifying forms of devastation upon human bodies, the environment, and our socioeconomic infrastructure.

In 1953, just a few years after the United States used two nuclear weapons against Japan, US President Eisenhower launched his Atoms for Peace program at the United Nations.

It resulted in the spread of nuclear technology and materials around the world for so-called peaceful uses—energy, medicinal uses, and research. In reality, nuclear technology is anything but peaceful.

Nuclear power is the most expensive and dangerous way to boil water to turn a turbine. It contains the inherent potential for catastrophe. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear reactor. All aspects of the nuclear fuel chain, from mining uranium to storing radioactive waste, are devastating for the earth and all species living upon it. Radiation is long lasting and has inter-generational effects. 

Nuclear energy is not a solution to the climate crisis. It not only is not carbon-neutral, but its other environmental impacts and risks of contamination through accidents and attacks pose grave risks to the world’s ecosystems and living beings. As hundreds of civil society groups said to the UN Climate Conference (COP26), nuclear power is “a dangerous distraction from the real movement on the climate policies and actions that we urgently need.”

Yet the nuclear industry and certain governments continue to promote nuclear energy as clean, safe, and reliable. This has everything to do with capitalism and nothing to do with protecting the planet or its people. 

For the nuclear power industry, the primary motive for operation is profit. History shows us that increasing profit is often best achieved in ways that are not consistent with designing or operating the relevant equipment for the lowest risk to humanity or the planet. 

Profit is less likely to be achieved by honestly exploring alternative sources of energy that might necessitate initial investments, or that might not be eligible for the same government (i.e. taxpayer-funded) subsidies as nuclear is in many countries. 

Profit is also less likely to be achieved by designing economically efficient, need-oriented, and environmentally sound sources of energy. Scientists and activists alike have noted that nuclear power, which produces energy “in large, expensive, centralized facilities” is not useful “for solving the energy needs of the vast majority of [the world’s] population, much less so in a way that offers any net environmental gains.”

In the meantime, the spread of nuclear energy around the world since 1953 has enabled the development of nuclear weapons in several countries, and to the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology that are becoming susceptible to terrorist attack or accidents.

The situation at Zaporizhzhia………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Abolishing all nuclear materials and technologies

Within the NPT context, nuclear energy is upheld by most states as an “inalienable right”. This means that most states laud its perceived benefits and promote its expansion, regardless of the risks to humanity, the environment, and proliferation. 

However, since 1945, many scientists, activists, and government officials have pointed out that nuclear material, technology, and facilities are dangerous whether they are in weapons form or for “peaceful uses”.

Eliminating all nuclear materials and technology, whatever its designated purpose, is the only way to ensure that it is does not result in catastrophe, by accident or design. A few states parties recognize these inherent risks and have chosen not to pursue or to phase out nuclear power as part of their energy mixes. The more states parties that follow this path, the better for us all.

Recommendations

  • Delegations should raise concerns with the health, environmental, safety, and security impacts of nuclear power, including in the context of climate change. While the NPT indicates states can use nuclear power, this does not mean it’s in best interest of humanity or the planet.
  • Delegations should support the 25 May 2011 declaration by the governments of Austria, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, and Portugal, in which they argued that nuclear power is not compatible with the concept of sustainable development and called for energy conservation and a switch to renewable sources of energy worldwide.
  • States should also support the February 2011 call from a group of Hibakusha for phasing out all sources of radiation—from uranium mining, nuclear reactors, nuclear accidents, nuclear weapons development and testing, and nuclear waste—and for investment in renewable, clean energy for a sustainable future.
  • States should commit to working for a sustainable future by reducing the use of energy, investing in renewable and non-carbon emitting sources of energy, phase-out nuclear energy, and not further develop harmful, radioactive technologies.
  • Delegations should call on all states that currently use nuclear energy to abide by all nuclear safety and nuclear security instruments and norms and to end the dangerous transshipment of radioactive waste and nuclear materials.
  • Delegations should condemn armed conflict and military activities at or near nuclear power facilities and abide by and indicate support for the IAEA General Conference decision on the “Prohibition of armed attack or threat of armed attack against nuclear installations, during operation or under construction” (GC(53)/ DEC/13).
  • States must not engage in armed conflict and military activities at or near nuclear power facilities. Russia should end its war against and occupation of Ukraine, along with the withdrawal of its armed forces from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and other related sites and cease military activities at or near nuclear facilities.

Reaching Critical Will is the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the oldest women’s peace organization in the world. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/07/23/an-inherent-potential-for-catastrophe/

July 24, 2023 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

NewsReal: As Ukraine Counter-Offensive Fails, Putin Warns Warsaw Against Joining War


Sott.net, Sun, 23 Jul 2023

The NATO-backed Ukrainian ‘counter-offensive’ to break through Russian defensive lines in southern Ukraine (now claimed by Russia) is still – two months in – going nowhere fast. Last week the Ukrainians targeted the Kerch Bridge – again – ending the ‘grain deal’ and shutting down Ukrainian access to the Black Sea.

Putin, confident the offensive has been a complete failure, claims it has cost the lives of over 26,000 Ukrainian and foreign mercenaries. He is also ‘exposing’ Polish designs on moving into, and militarily occupying, western Ukraine, suggesting a new and more dangerous turn in the Great NATO-Russia War of 2022-2023.  https://www.sott.net/article/482691-NewsReal-As-Ukraine-Counter-Offensive-Fails-Putin-Warns-Warsaw-Against-Joining-War

July 24, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment