nuclear-news

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

to 4th September – nuclear news this week

Some bits of good news. How UNESCO is supporting Afghan girls and women with literacy classes.    Wind-powered shipping is back as a quiet revolution sweeps the seas.  Plant-based filter removes up to 99.9% of microplastics from water.

TOP STORIES. 

Australian Teachers in boycott of nuclear submarine project. 

US Victim of Own Propaganda in Ukraine War. Sen. Blumenthal: US Getting Its ‘Money’s Worth’ in Ukraine Because Americans Aren’t Dying.    Nuclear “lobbying” blurs into bribery

Climate. The extreme summer weather that scorched and soaked the world.

Nuclear and war. Over the years, I have been surprised, and encouraged, at the interest that people have shown in stories about ETHICS.  Some pretty shocking stories about Ethics have come up this week –  the number of influential politicians and journalists who actually rejoice in the carnage of the Ukraine war –  because it’s all making money for American shareholders while cleverly organised not to risk any American lives – only Ukrainian ones – who apparently don’t matter.

CLIMATE. Chinese government acknowledges problems for nuclear power due to climate change.

ECONOMICS. 

ENERGY. The UK Government’s seventh Energy Secretary in the space of four years has “a huge amount of catching up to do” to kickstart a renewables revolution.     Focus on renewables, not nuclear, to fuel Canada’s electric needs

ENVIRONMENT. Radiation. Fukushima floodgates: dilution of the wastewater will not alter the total amount of radionuclides released. Brink of catastrophe: Japan as Pacific polluter. The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Still Casts a Shadow Over Japan. We are all Hibakusha- the global footprint of nuclear fallout.

Nuclear weapons testing cause of radioactivity in wild boars, study says.

ETHICS and RELIGION. US Officials Keep Boasting About How Much The Ukraine War Serves US Interests. Rocket-Launching Billionaires Promise a New Pie in the Sky. Archbishop Caccia recalls harm done by nuclear energy.

LEGAL. Federal appeals court blocks plan to ship nuclear waste to West Texas. Top prosecutors back compensation for those sickened by US nuclear weapons testing.

 MEDIA. Why is The New York Times Burning Peace Activist Jodie Evans at the Stake?        Critics Picked Up on Oppenheimer’s All-Too-Timely Warning on Nuclear War. ‘Then the black rain fell’: survivor’s recollections of Hiroshima inspire new film.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. Hinkley Point C Nuclear Station will need daily 4,200 Olympic swimming pools’ amount of cooling water.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . A bottomless pit of public money for the UK government’s nuclear vanity project.          ‘Unrealistic and irrational’: Government announces Sizewell C nuclear station £341m speed-up despite local backlash in Suffolk.    Anger over claims RAF Lakenheath could host US nuclear weapons.

POLITICS. An Argument for the Relevance of RFK, Jr.       ‘Peaceful Atom’ Sparks Fierce Debate In Kazakh Village Slated To Host Nuclear Power Plant.         German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power, Deutschlandfunk reports. Chancellor Scholz dismisses talk of keeping nuclear energy option open in Germany.

UK Government’s investment in Sizewell C nuclear plant passes £1bn. Money thrown at Sizewell C to win hearts and minds.. South Koreans worry about Fukushima water: more disapprove of President Yoon.      Peace a winning strategy for Democrats in ‘24.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 

SAFETY. Atomic Blackmail: Ukraine war realises predictions of nuclear power plant threat, says Leicester civil safety expert.     Over 100 security incidents at UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) nuclear weapons body.      USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission ready to remove “barriers” so as to speed up licensing of new untested nuclear reactors.

WASTES. Germany facing up to its nuclear waste problem.

WAR and CONFLICT. Ukraine’s army is running out of men to recruit, and time to win. Ukraine conflict may be lengthy – Canadian PM. The Economist says West enables Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian civilian targets. NATO’s ‘proxy war’ blues: How the US-led campaign to use Ukraine to ‘cripple’ Russia has failed. 

Report: US, Israel to Conduct Joint Drills Simulating Attacks on Iran. Living on a War Planet.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Nuclear “lobbying” blurs into bribery

So will Congress continue to stanch the bleeding by authorizing more federal funds through the IRA and other legislation in its determination to squander funds on slow, expensive new reactors that could take decades to arrive? Or could the deep pockets of a US oligarch like Gates present an overwhelming temptation to channel some off-the-books funding his way? Is there any reason to assume that members of the US Congress are any less corruptible than their counterparts in the statehouses of Illinois and Ohio?

As money changes hands on Capitol Hill, is it lobbying or bribery?

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, 3 Sept 23

In part two of our investigation into bribery and corruption in the nuclear power sector, we look at lobbying. Does it cross a fine ethical line of undue influence? And how does it really differ from the crimes committed by nuclear executives and corrupt politicians, as we detailed in our July 2nd article? …………..

The temptation toward nuclear bribery and corruption as we detailed in earlier stories on Ohio, South Carolina and Illinois, and updated on July 2, may prove not to be a unique event. The pattern of struggling nuclear power plant owners is countrywide, as the aging US reactor fleet becomes ever more uneconomical, even as owners seek second 20-year operating license extensions out to 80 years. 

After a flurry of nuclear plant closures, mainly in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, new laws have changed the economic landscape and some plant owners are now making the grab for federal and even state subsidies to keep reactors scheduled for shutdown — or, in the case of Palisades in Michigan, already shut down — running for many more years.

But these subsidies may not be enough. And the owners of old reactors are not the only ones with their hands out.

So-called “new” reactor designs, most of which fall under a category known as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), are likewise too expensive to fund unaided. 

For example, even billionaire Bill Gates asked for and got what was effectively a “matching grant” from Congress for his company, TerraPower, to cover the at least $4 billion cost of his proposed Natrium molten salt fast reactor. The US government has agreed to provide Gates with $1.9 billion for the Natrium, $1.5 billion of which will come out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes $2.5 billion for advanced nuclear reactors.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) already provides various incentives for new reactors, including a $25-per-MWh production tax credit during a new plant’s first 10 years of operation, or a 30 percent investment tax credit for those plants that start operation on or after 2025.

But, as TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque, reminded the press in a November 2021 video call, “One important thing to realize is the first plant always costs more.”

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), has discovered precisely that. Of the Salt Lake City-based group of 50 municipal utilities in six Western states, 36 originally forged a deal with the Portland, Oregon-based small modular reactor manufacturer, NuScale, to explore construction of a commercial SMR production plant. But the costs are exploding.

NuScale, the only company to receive a federal design certification license for a small modular reactor so far, first projected a $4.2 billion cost, which it revised in 2020 to $6.1 billion. Today the estimated all-in construction cost stands at $9.3 billion. The plant is to be built at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory site near Idaho Falls.

As prices began to climb from an initially estimated $55/MWh, eight of the public utilities involved pulled out and the proposed nuclear project dropped from 12 modular units to six. By late 2020, the projected completion date had already been extended by three years.

The target power price estimates have since climbed higher, from $58/MWh in 2021 to $89/MWh today. That number factors in an approximate $30/MWh subsidy from the IRA. Without it, the still volatile target price would be $119/MWh. 

One municipal representative described NuScale’s cost increase announcement as “a punch to the gut,” while another told his board of directors that the project will “probably fail” the economic competitive test.

So will Congress continue to stanch the bleeding by authorizing more federal funds through the IRA and other legislation in its determination to squander funds on slow, expensive new reactors that could take decades to arrive? Or could the deep pockets of a US oligarch like Gates present an overwhelming temptation to channel some off-the-books funding his way? Is there any reason to assume that members of the US Congress are any less corruptible than their counterparts in the statehouses of Illinois and Ohio?

Energy companies have a long history of powerful lobbying influence on Capitol Hill. In a 2014 paper for Princeton University, authors Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page observed that “it is well established that organized groups regularly lobby and fraternize with public officials, move through revolving doors between public and private employment, provide self-serving information to officials, draft legislation, and spend a great deal of money on election campaigns.”

These groups, including lobbyists and executives from major energy companies promoting nuclear power, represent their own business and shareholder interests and rarely, as Gilens and Page noted, “the poor or even the economic interests of ordinary workers”. 

With climate change mitigation very much on the agenda at the White House and in Congress, energy companies have ramped up their spending power and influence. This is particularly true of fossil fuel companies, ……………………………

The Chicago-based company, Exelon, operates the most US reactors at 14, and  has enjoyed similar open door access, particularly during the Obama administration. Future Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, orchestrated the $16 billion merger of Unicom Corp. and PECO Energy Co. that created Exelon Corp., and later became President Obama’s chief of staff. When offered the job, Emanuel immediately phoned Exelon CEO, John Rowe, for advice. Unsurprisingly, Rowe urged him to take it.

Exelon then enjoyed unprecedented access in Washington, DC, doubtless helped in no small part by John W. Rogers Jr., a top Obama fundraiser and Exelon board member and David Axelrod, Obama’s long- time political strategist and a former Exelon consultant.

In 2022, Exelon fielded 39 lobbyists to work the Congressional beat, according to Open Secrets, which also detailed the involvement of Exelon lobbyists in H.R. 4024, the Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021, introduced on June 21, 2021 by Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. of New Jersey. The Act allows a new business-related tax credit through 2030 for the production of electricity from what it misleadingly describes as “zero-emission” nuclear power.

All of this is perfectly legal, of course, a kind of sanctioned corruption that allows the corporations with the deepest pockets and greatest access to broker the best deals for their interests, mainly those of shareholders, not consumers. This year, TerraPower’s director of external affairs, Jeff Navin, will be back on the Hill like Oliver Twist, asking for yet more to shore up the Natrium project, which currently relies on a fuel only produced in Russia. 

But some nuclear company executives — and the compliant politicians who take their money — have seemingly crossed that rather blurry legal boundary between lobbying and bribery and are now facing the consequences. 

Former Ohio House speaker, Larry Householder and his fellow conspirators were convicted for taking bribes in exchange for favorable legislation from FirstEnergy, which has paid a heavy fine.  On June 29, Householder was handed down the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. His co-conspirator, Matt Borges, the former Ohio GOP Chairman, was sentenced on June 30 to five years in federal prison.

In South Carolina, the debacle over the canceled new nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer have seen SCANA CEO, Kevin Marsh go to prison for two years, while SCANA COO, Stephen Byrne received a 15-month sentence in March.

Two Westinghouse executives were also charged, although company executive, Jeffrey Benjamin, has walked away, for now, from all charges when the judge in August dismissed the case, agreeing with defense lawyers who argued that negatively affected South Carolina ratepayers were improperly allowed on the grand jury, thereby denying Benjamin an unbiased jury. However, the judge did not prevent prosecutors from seeking another indictment against Benjamin if conducted properly.

In Chicago, former Illinois House Speaker, Mike Madigan and his long-time ally, former legislator and lobbyist, Michael McClain, were indicted on 22 counts in an alleged $3 million criminal enterprise that included racketeering conspiracy, attempted extortion, bribery and other charges. 

McClain was tried separately from Madigan, along with former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former ComEd lobbyist, John Hooker, and former head of the City Club of Chicago, Jay Doherty. On May 2, all four were found guilty on nine different counts of conspiracy, bribery and falsification of records.

US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David DeVillers, a Trump appointee, may be feeling vindicated by Householder’s 20-year sentence. In July 2020, when DeVilliers arrested the former speaker, he called Householder’s crimes, “likely the largest bribery money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.” And it made him angry.

“We’ve got people dying of overdoses of fentanyl, people stacked up like cord wood at a coroner’s office,” DeVillers said at the press conference announcing the arrests. “And we have to take our resources away from those real victim cases and investigate and prosecute some politicians who just won’t do their damn job.” 

Householder created an enterprise, DeVillers said, that “went looking for someone to bribe them”. But where does lobbying end and bribery begin? The fine line between Householder’s orchestration of bribes for bills and the Capitol Hill lobbyists who pay for — and even write — them, is blurry indeed.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/09/03/undue-influence/

September 4, 2023 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

US Officials Keep Boasting About How Much The Ukraine War Serves US Interests

Last November the imperial war machine-funded think tank Center for European Policy Analysis published an article titled “It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia,” subtitled “The cost-benefit analysis of US support for Ukraine is incontrovertible. It’s producing wins at almost every level.”

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 3, 2023

One of the most glaring plot holes in the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine is the way US officials keep openly boasting that this supposedly unprovoked war which the US is only backing out of the goodness of its heart just so happens to serve US interests tremendously.

In a recent article for the Connecticut Post, Senator Richard Blumenthal assured Americans that “we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment.”

“For less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half,” writes Blumenthal. “We’ve united NATO and caused the Chinese to rethink their invasion plans for Taiwan. We’ve helped restore faith and confidence in American leadership — moral and military. All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost, and without any diversion or misappropriation of American aid.”

As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp recently observed, this type of “investment” talk about Ukraine has been getting more common. Last weekend Senator Mitt Romney called the war “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.”

“We’re losing no lives in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are fighting heroically against Russia,” Romney said. “We’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money … a weakened Russia is a good thing.”

Last month Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued that Americans should support the US government’s proxy warfare in Ukraine because “we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” adding that the spending is helping to employ Americans in the military-industrial complex.

“Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons,” McConnell said. “So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

McConnell has been talking about how much this war benefits the US since last year. During a speech back in December the ailing swamp monster argued that “the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests.”

……………. As we’ve discussed previously, US empire managers have been talking about how much this war serves US interests ever since it began.

In May of last year Congressman Dan Crenshaw said on Twitter that “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea.”…………

Last November the imperial war machine-funded think tank Center for European Policy Analysis published an article titled “It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia,” subtitled “The cost-benefit analysis of US support for Ukraine is incontrovertible. It’s producing wins at almost every level.”

“US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment,” gushed the article’s author Timothy Ash. “If we divide out the US defense budget to the threats it faces, Russia would perhaps be of the order of $100bn-150bn in spend-to-threat. So spending just $40bn a year, erodes a threat value of $100–150bn, a two-to-three time return. Actually the return is likely to be multiples of this given that defense spending, and threat are annual recurring events.”

And of course the mass media have been all aboard the same messaging. A few weeks ago The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:

“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)…………………………..

So on one hand the western political/media class have been hammering us in the face with the message that the invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked” and that the US and its allies played no antagonistic role in paving the road to this conflict whatsoever, and on the other hand you’ve got all these empire managers enthusing about how much this war benefits US interests.

Those two narratives seem a wee bit contradictory, do they not?

A critical thinker can reconcile this contradiction in one of two ways. First, they can believe that the world’s most powerful and destructive government is just a passive, innocent witness to the violence in Ukraine, and is only benefitting immensely from the war as a complete coincidence. Second, they can believe the US intentionally provoked this war with the understanding that it would benefit from it.

From where I’m sitting, it’s not difficult to determine which of these is more likely.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-officials-keep-boasting-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=136680185&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

September 4, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Religion and ethics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Germany facing up to its nuclear waste problem

German nuclear phaseout leaves radioactive waste problem

Klaus Deuse, August 30, 2023  https://www.dw.com/en/german-nuclear-phaseout-leaves-radioactive-waste-problem/a-66661614?maca=en-Facebook-sharing&mibextid=2JQ9oc&fbclid=IwAR1xPxzvz3kfLoNV1JbUx70rWCRa5tiML4tl2jffIm0ILDquq2-av2j7bxw

While Germany searches for a permanent storage facility for its nuclear waste, it risks sitting on piles of dangerous waste for decades. The problem drains public finances by hundreds of millions of euros every year.

Germany ended the era of nuclear energy in Europe’s biggest economy when it decommissioned the last three remaining nuclear power plants on April 15 this year. Decades of nuclear power generation, however, have left a legacy that is unlikely to go away as smoothly as the phaseout: nuclear waste.

Since a permanent German storage facility is out of sight in the near future, the spent fuel rods, packed into specialized containers called Casks for Storage and Transport of Nuclear Material (CASTOR), will likely remain in interim storage for decades.

About 1,200 CASTOR containers are currently stored at 17 interim sites in Germany. A state-owned company, the Bundeseigene Gesellschaft für Zwischenlagerung mbH (BGZ), is tasked with operating the sites.

BGZ spokesperson Janine Tokarski told DW that the company finally expects “about 1,800 containers from across Germany to be designated for final disposal.”

Another state company, the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE), is exploring sites in Germany for the final disposal of the dangerous waste. According to Tokarski of BGZ, experts plan to find a site and, more importantly, reach a political consensus on it “in the 2040s at the earliest.”

From then on, another 20 to 30 years are likely to be spent on planning and construction, said Tokarski. She anticipates the beginning of final storage “in the 2060s at the earliest.” The shipping of all the waste from the various interim sites will probably take another 30 years, she added.

The century-long operation is expected to cost hundreds of billions of euros. Last year alone, BGZ spent €271 million ($292 million) just to ensure Germany’s nuclear waste is safely stored — €191 million of the sum on operating the interim sites and €80 million on investments in them.

A nuclear fortress

In 1992, the first CASTOR containers with highly radioactive fuel rods were stored in the interim storage site of Ahaus in northwestern Germany.

The 200-meter-long (218-yard-long) central storage building towers 20 meters high above the flat landscape of the Münsterland region and is protected by a wire fence surrounding the sprawling 5,700-square-meter (61,354-square-feet) site.

Bisected by a reception and maintenance area, the building currently holds more than 300 yellow casks containing burned fuel rods. Additionally, six CASTOR containers, each 6 meters long and weighing 120 tons, are stored in one of the two halls, keeping the waste leak-tight for a calculated 40 years.

Leak tightness is achieved through a pressure switch installed in the double-wall sealing system of these containers, said David Knollmann from BGZ in Ahaus.

“A gas is inserted between the two walls, specifically helium gas, at a certain pressure. This switch ensures the pressure doesn’t fall below a certain level,” he told DW.

David Knollmann proudly added that in 30 years, there hasn’t been a single case of a container requiring repairs.

The nuclear safety at the Ahaus interim storage site is not only overseen by German nuclear authorities but also by Euratom, an independent nuclear energy organization run by European Union member states, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Their auditors inspect the site regularly but without advance notice.

Pressure of time

In addition to the two central interim storage facilities in Ahaus and Gorleben, Germany operates other decentralized temporary storage facilities at the sites of all former German nuclear power plants.

Moreover, additional waste, shipped for reprocessing to France and the UK, will eventually return to Germany. Knollmann said this will only happen “when all the necessary regulatory conditions are met.”

Much of the waste, he explained, comes from “dismantled nuclear power plants” and includes contaminated pumps and filters. Those would eventually be stored at the Schacht Konrad site near the town of Salzgitter, a former iron ore mine proposed as a deep geological repository for medium- and low-level radioactive waste.

The Schacht Konrad mine, said Tokarski, is expected to become operational as a nuclear waste storage “around the early 2030s.”

All German interim storage sites are subject to limited operating permits of 40 years. For example, the permit for the Ahaus site will be up for renewal by 2028 at the latest. As all experts agree that a final central repository for Germany’s nuclear waste won’t be fully operational before 2090 at the earliest, the country faces the problem of what to do with the radioactive material until then.

Without political consensus on the issue, Ahaus residents fear that their neighborhood’s storage facility might secretly become “a final repository solution.”

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Germany, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Report: US, Israel to Conduct Joint Drills Simulating Attacks on Iran

The US and Israel held their largest-ever joint exercise earlier this year

By Dave DeCamp / AntiWar.com September 3, 2023  https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/03/report-us-israel-to-conduct-joint-drills-simulating-attacks-on-iran/

The US and Israel will simulate striking Iranian nuclear facilities as part of a series of joint military exercises that will be held in the coming months, The Times of Israel reported Wednesday, citing Israeli TV.

Back in January, the US and Israel conducted the Juniper Oak exercises, which were the largest-ever joint drills between the two nations. The Israeli military said Juniper Oak was just the first of a series of drills that the US and Israel will hold this year.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported one of the upcoming drills would simulate Israel facing a multi-front missile attack that will involve the US deployment of Patriot missile systems. Another drill will rehearse a joint US-Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The plan to simulate attacks on Iran has not been publicly confirmed by the US or Israel, but the two nations have previously rehearsed bombing Iran, including during drills that were held over the Mediterranean Sea in November 2022.

While nuclear facilities would be the target in the simulated drills, there’s no sign Iran is looking to build a nuclear weapon, which was affirmed by a recent US intelligence report. Often missing from the conversation about Iran’s civilian nuclear program is the fact that Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program and an arsenal of nukes that the US does not acknowledge exists.

The report comes amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf. The US seizure of a tanker carrying Iranian oil in April provoked two Iranian tanker seizures, and the US responded by beefing up its military presence in the region.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

An Argument for the Relevance of RFK, Jr.

He is showing himself a serious candidate with his measured stance on stopping the Ukraine war

It is clear that despite the relentless propaganda, the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is lost, with the failed Ukrainian “spring offensive” meeting its demise due to overwhelming Russian firepower and the futility of Ukraine’s U.S.-ordered suicide charges against impregnable Russian defenses. Biden’s debacle in Ukraine may be added to his humiliating departure from Afghanistan.

byEDITORSeptember 3, 2023

By Ricard C. Cook / Original to ScheerPost

The U.S. today is facing catastrophe with the leading 2024 election candidates of both the Democratic and Republican parties being fatally compromised at a moment when our foreign policy is on the verge of collapse.

I believe that we can assess that President Joe Biden has less than a 25 percent chance of remaining in office until the election only 14 months from now.  According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll, 77 percent of respondents, including 69 percent of Democrats, say Biden is too old to run for office again. Further, I would make a 50 percent assessment that Biden will face an impeachment inquiry for his alleged financial crimes within three to six months. These developments could force Biden to step down. But Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have a zero percent chance either of guiding the country to safety abroad or becoming the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee.

We can further assess that ex-President Donald Trump has less than a 10 percent chance of avoiding prison time. But Trump has no credible Republican opponent ready to step in, with Mike Pence having no support, Ron DeSantis slipping, and Vivek Ramaswamy only a curiosity. The other candidates appear to be running for a VP or cabinet position or just publicity.

It is clear that despite the relentless propaganda, the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is lost, with the failed Ukrainian “spring offensive” meeting its demise due to overwhelming Russian firepower and the futility of Ukraine’s U.S.-ordered suicide charges against impregnable Russian defenses. Biden’s debacle in Ukraine may be added to his humiliating departure from Afghanistan.

The loss of Ukraine will explode the myth of U.S. full-spectrum dominance and discredit NATO. China can only be emboldened. The Russia-China showcase institution of BRICS just doubled in size, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and several other countries becoming full members. The loss of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency is on the way to happening, which will cause the mechanism to disappear by which the U.S. has maintained global military hegemony since World War II. Europe is on the verge of rebellion against U.S. overlordship due to the deindustrialization resulting from the Ukraine war and U.S. culpability in cutting off Europe from Russian energy sources.

…………………………………………………………….. Meanwhile, the Biden administration and Congress continue to pour billions of dollars into Ukraine as they pressure that unfortunate country into losing hundreds of thousands of lives in a war where the main beneficiaries are the holders of stocks and bonds in the U.S. military-industrial complex. Also profiting are members of Congress, starting at the top, who themselves own stock or receive campaign contributions from rich donors or directly from the weapons suppliers.

…………………………………………………………….Who then will be our next president, the individual we will be asking to face this mess?

………………………………………………………………………..The most credible candidate remaining on either side may be Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose standing is rising daily. Even though only about 20 percent of Democratic voters favor him over Biden, his numbers will rise dramatically as Biden fades into oblivion

………………………………He is showing himself a serious candidate with his measured stance on stopping the Ukraine war

…………………………………………..I believe we can make an assessment of a 40-50 percent chance at present of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., winning the Democratic Party nomination. If he does, I would assess his chances of winning the presidency at 90 percent.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

China Outlines ‘Obstacles’ to Resuming High-Level Military Talks With U.S.

The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan but has never financed the purchases or provided them free of charge until this year. China is opposed to all US arms sales to Taiwan, and the new military aid especially angers Beijing.

A Chinese official mentioned US sanctions on China’s defense minister, US military support for Taiwan, and US patrols in the South China Sea

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com  https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/02/china-outlines-obstacles-to-resuming-high-level-military-talks-with-us/

A spokesman for the Chinese Defense Ministry on Thursday outlined “obstacles” that are preventing the resumption of high-level military talks between the US and China.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu both attended the Shangri-La Security Dialogue in Singapore back in June. Beijing declined to hold a meeting between Austin and Li, primarily due to US sanctions that are imposed on the Chinese defense chief.

The US sanctioned Li in 2018, when he was in a lower-level position, and has refused to lift the measures since he became defense minister. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian outlined other issues impeding high-level military talks, including US support for Taiwan, and US military activity in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Wu noted that while there have not been talks at the defense minister level, there are other communications between the US and Chinese militaries. “I want to clarify that military-to-military communication between China and the United States has not stopped,” he said at a press briefing, according to The South China Morning Post.

Wu said that Gen. Xu Qiling, deputy chief of China’s Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, attended a recent US-hosted military conference in Fiji, the 25th annual Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense. While at the conference, which took place from August 14-16, Xu met with his American counterparts.

But Wu said that there were a series of “difficulties and obstacles” preventing talks between Austin and Li, including new forms of military aid the US recently approved for Taiwan, which is unprecedented since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979.

The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan but has never financed the purchases or provided them free of charge until this year. China is opposed to all US arms sales to Taiwan, and the new military aid especially angers Beijing.

Addressing US military activity in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, Wu said the US should “mind its own business.”

“China urges the US to stop its military provocations to prevent any extreme events that the world doesn’t want to see happening. We can only have communication and dialogue that is in line with our principles and does not go against our bottom lines,” he said.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | China, politics international | Leave a comment

‘Then the black rain fell’: survivor’s recollections of Hiroshima inspire new film

A major feature film on Hiroshima is going into production, inspired in
part by an unpublished memoir of a Japanese man who witnessed the
devastation of the city after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

Scriptwriter Elisabeth Bentley was taken aback by the personal
recollections of Kiyoshi Tanimoto in a 230-page memoir that she unearthed
in a US archive. A Christian convert, Tanimoto was a Methodist priest whose
life was saved because he was moving a large wardrobe to another town on a
cart when Hiroshima was bombed.

Observer 3rd Sept 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/03/then-the-black-rain-fell-survivors-recollections-of-hiroshima-inspire-new-film

September 4, 2023 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission ready to remove “barriers” so as to speed up licensing of new untested nuclear reactors.

U.S. regulators are ready to review and license the next generation of
nuclear reactors while staying committed to safety, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) says. The NRC is under pressure to show it can move fast
on a new generation of nuclear technology, including small modular reactors
(SMRs) and other previously untested designs, as many in the industry call
for deep reforms at the regulator.

The regulator must be willing to remove
operational and organizational barriers that are in the way of rapid and
efficient licensing and understand that time is of the essence to reduce
emissions and solve energy security issues, critics say.

Reuters 1st Sept 2023

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-regulator-ready-next-generation-nuclear-nrc-2023-09-01/

September 4, 2023 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Chancellor Scholz dismisses talk of keeping nuclear energy option open in Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed a suggestion by a junior coalition
partner that the country should keep open the option of using its closed
nuclear power plants, declaring that atomic energy is a “dead horse” in
Germany.

Germany switched off its last three nuclear reactors in April,
completing a process that received wide political support after Japan’s
Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011. But some argued for a rethink
after energy prices spiked because of the war in Ukraine. Among those who
advocated a reprieve were members of the Free Democrats, a pro-business
party that is part of Scholz’s governing coalition.

Daily Mail 2nd Sept 2023

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-12472971/Scholz-dismisses-talk-keeping-nuclear-energy-option-open-Germany.html

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Germany, politics | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C Nuclear Station will need daily 4,200 Olympic swimming pools’ amount of cooling water.

Hinkley Point C nuclear power station will keep itself cool by drawing in
and flushing out enough water to fill 4,200 Olympic swimming pools – every
day. To do this, it needs 5.5 miles (8.8 kilometers) of tunnels located
nearly 100 feet (30 meters) underneath the Bristol Channel, which has the
second highest tidal range in the world. …………..These are the first nuclear qualified tunnels to be designed in the U.K.,” says Jacobs’ HPC Marine Works Project Manager Steve Marshall.

“They will have the capacity to transfer 2.7 billion U.S. gallons (10.4 million cubic meters) of coolingwater a day. “There is a blueprint for building reactors but marine works
to deliver the cooling water can never be exactly the same because we’re
always dealing with different geology and tidal ranges,” he explains.

“Added to this we have the nuclear safety aspect and the need to build
structures that are capable of doing their jobs for an 85-year design life
with very little maintenance. They also have to be capable of withstanding
a 1-in-10,000 year earthquake and extreme waves in the stormiest sea
conditions.”

 Market Screener 1st Sept 2023

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/JACOBS-SOLUTIONS-INC-13160/news/Ruling-the-Waves-A-Look-at-Hinkley-Point-C-Nuclear-Power-Station-44751607/

September 4, 2023 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

Top prosecutors back compensation for those sickened by US nuclear weapons testing.

Niagara Gazette, SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | Associated Press 4 Sept 23

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and 13 other top prosecutors from around the U.S. are throwing their support behind efforts to compensate people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing.

The Democratic officials sent a letter Wednesday to congressional leaders, saying “it’s time for the federal government to give back to those who sacrificed so much.”

The letter refers to the estimated half a million people who lived within a 150-mile (240-kilometer) radius of the Trinity Test site in southern New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945. It also pointed to thousands of people in Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Montana and Guam who currently are not eligible under the existing compensation program.

The U.S. Senate voted recently to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act as part of a massive defense spending bill. Supporters are hopeful the U.S. House will include the provisions in its version of the bill, and President Joe Biden has indicated his support.

“We finally have an opportunity to right this historic wrong,” Torrez said in a statement………………………………………………………..

The attorneys general who signed onto Torrez’s letter are from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

The attorneys mentioned the work of a team of researchers who mapped radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the U.S., starting with the Trinity Test in 1945. The model shows the 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. Fallout reached 46 states as well as parts of Canada and Mexico.

“Without any warning or notification, this one test rained radioactive material across the homes, water, and food of thousands of New Mexicans,” the letter states. “Those communities experienced the same symptoms of heart disease, leukemia, and other cancers as the downwinders in Nevada.”………………………………………….. more https://www.niagara-gazette.com/news/top-prosecutors-back-compensation-for-those-sickened-by-us-nuclear-weapons-testing/article_1458a962-4903-11ee-94c0-7b044542b2ae.html

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Ukraine war: how China can get the world to step back from nuclear Armageddon

China and the US have reached nuclear weapons agreements before. After India and Pakistan launched nuclear tests in 1998, China and the US, in a rare show of solidarity, declared they would not target their nuclear weapons at each other. This led to a joint statement in 2000 from the five nuclear-weapon states of China, the US, Britain, France and Russia that their nuclear weapons would not target each other or any other state.

  • Hope lies in getting nuclear powers to agree to a ‘no first use’ policy. If China can persuade the US, then Britain and France are likely to fall in line
  • The challenge is getting Moscow on board – which is likely to require Nato to agree to ‘no first use’ against Russia and back down on its eastward expansion

SCMP, Zhou Bo 4 Sept 23

No one knows how long the war in Ukraine will last. But everyone knows what the worst nightmare is: Russia unleashing nuclear weapons. The Russian leadership has repeatedly hinted at this.

Russian scholars such as Sergei Karaganov and Dmitri Trenin have recently joined the chorus, calling for tactical nuclear attacks on a Nato country, say Poland, to break “the West’s will” and convince them that Russia’s nuclear threats are no bluff.

By giving people pause, Russia’s nuclear deterrence seems to be working. But what if Moscow is not bluffing?

With the West nibbling away at its own red lines by sending more sophisticated weapons to Kyiv that were considered taboo at the beginning of the war effort, how can one rest assured that Moscow will not reach for nuclear weapons eventually?

The battle is in a stalemate. Kyiv’s attack drones have reportedly been found in Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently warned that “war is returning” to Russia. As the threat of an unspeakable horror against humanity looms larger, there is an urgent need to prevent a nuclear fallout.

Perhaps China can persuade the US to agree first to a nuclear weapons policy of “ no first use”, which can then be joined by Britain, France and finally – hopefully – Russia.

China and the US have reached nuclear weapons agreements before. After India and Pakistan launched nuclear tests in 1998, China and the US, in a rare show of solidarity, declared they would not target their nuclear weapons at each other. This led to a joint statement in 2000 from the five nuclear-weapon states of China, the US, Britain, France and Russia that their nuclear weapons would not target each other or any other state.

More recently, in January last year, a month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the five nuclear power powers agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”.

So why can’t they pledge a “no first use” policy? Such a stance would neither exclude nuclear retaliation nor neutralise a nuclear power’s ability to deter an attack.

For China, “no first use” has been its ironclad policy since its detonation of a nuclear device in 1964. Relations with Russia will not change China’s time-honoured policy. The Biden administration has declared that it “would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners”. This stance is not so far away from that of Beijing……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3233136/ukraine-war-how-china-can-get-world-step-back-nuclear-armageddon

September 4, 2023 Posted by | China, politics international | Leave a comment

Peace a winning strategy for Democrats in ‘24.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL  3 Sept 23

Many of my progressive comrades are terrified President Biden will lose reelection to Trump or other regressive Republican. So am I.

And rightly so. Biden narrowly defeated traitor Trump in ’20 by clawing back 5 swing states Trump won in ’16. The GOP nominee has a good shot at keeping the 25 states Trump won and clawing back those 5 precious states to retake the White House.

What not to do? For starters, close ranks behind Biden’s foreign policy, the worst foreign policy their lifetime. Progressives can’t brook any opposition to Biden’s provoking nuclear confrontation at opposite ends of the globe with Russia and China simultaneously. That is not progressive, it’s self-destructive.

While the possible confrontation with China over Taiwan is simmering, the US proxy war against Russia is on the big front burner and may boil over into mushroom clouds every day this failed war continues.

How failed? For the US homeland, $137 billion in treasure is gone, with the total likely to reach half a trillion bucks if the war ends today. Fageddabout that. Crazed US war planners led by Biden are planning for a multiyear war to topple Russia, making it our next trillion dollar plus war.

How failed? Ukraine has ceased to be a functioning country, kept on life support by the US/NATO and a couple others. 80% of the world’s 195 nations are either neutral or supporting Russia, in part to degrade US worldwide hegemony.

How failed? Upwards of 400,000 Ukrainians have died, almost as many as all US WWII deaths. US deaths? Zero. That is grotesque…and mostly on Biden.

What about the new Hitler, Putin? Had Biden implemented Minsk II and proclaimed “No NATO for Ukraine”, Putin would not have invaded. But Biden, Congressional Democrats and their sycophantic media, airbrushed that preface out of the US narrative, making the Russian invasion virtually inevitable.

What my progressive comrades appear to dismiss in their unwavering support for a monstrous foreign policy, is that public opinion is turning against US weaponing this war in perpetuity. If they would join us peaceniks in demanding an end to weapons and promoting a negotiated settlement, President Joe just might get the message. Biden promoting a negotiated settlement is not only the correct thing to do to keep Ukraine from completely collapsing while it builds more cemeteries, it will help him stay in the White House for another 4 years.

Come on my progressive comrades. Join the peace movement for Ukraine and send a message to President Biden that just might get him reelected. Maybe even a Nobel Peace Prize.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment