nuclear-news

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

Nuclear news – week to 31st October

A bit of good news – Young Europeans are willing to put the planet first.  

TOP STORIES       Australians Call to End Long Persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.     Atoms for Peace was never the plan.

Climate. Earth close to ‘risk tipping points’ that will damage our ability to deal with climate crisis, warns UN. Al Gore on why the ‘deck is stacked against’ COP28.

Nuclear. The Israel-Gaza situation might be bringing the world ever-closer to nuclear war. Colonial genocide – conducted in the past by European nations without being apparent to the whole world, now happens as the whole world watches in horror.

Christina notes.   Australia’s democracy betrayed – by its pathetic subservient-to-USA Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

*******************************************************

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) steps up drive to keep U.S. military expansion out of Australia.                   

South Australia takes another bold leap into deep green energy future.

****************************************

ECONOMICS. 

ENERGY. Is Energy Efficiency our Panacea for Power? Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than most countries, study suggests.

ENVIRONMENT. Oceans: Mechanism for toxic radioactive water release sought. Tepco not a trustworthy judge of radiation levels in Fukushima nuclear wastewater. Decontaminating Fukushima: have the billions spent been worth it?

ETHICS and RELIGION. Ghoulish White House response to genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza. White House Says Continued Civilian Slaughter “Is Going To Happen” In Gaza. World Council of Churches head meets with new director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons .

HEALTH. Fukushima nuclear plant workers sent to hospital after being splashed with radiactively tainted water.

HUMAN RIGHTS.  Australians Call to end the long persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.   Assange Freedom May Be Pivotal in Australia’s Support for US Cold War With China. 

LEGAL. Rolls-Royce facing £350m class action lawsuit from investors.  

US Government & NewsGuard Sued by Consortium News.    Lawyers circle nuclear startup NuScale over claims a 24-reactor deal will fail. Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, to investigate allegations that NuScale may have issued misleading business information. 

Rights Lawyers Release Legal Analysis of U.S. Complicity in Israel’s Unfolding Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.

MEDIA. Israeli Attacks on Journalists Stifle Reporting on Gaza Horrors. Israel Cut Off Gaza’s Communications Because Murderers Don’t Like Witnesses. Propaganda War: Pro-Israel Trolls are Mobbing Twitter’s Community Notes. 

Sizewell Nuclear Court Case on 1st and 2nd November will be available to watch online. Short film explores nuclear legacy through the lens of the Marshallese community.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Welsh campaigners call for nuclear sponsorship ban at National Eisteddfod.

PERSONAL STORIES. Blinken Rejects Idea of Gaza Ceasefire Despite Massive Child Casualties.     Chernobyl hero who was “first on the scene” in nuclear reactor meltdown takes own life..

POLITICS. Kazakhstan: Government does hard sell on nuclear, but public remains wary. 

Amid rising cost worries, UK government promises “practical nuclear roadmap” British Nuclear Fuels resurrected as Great British Nuclear. UK’s new Energy Act gives Energy Security Secretary the power to oversee and give funding to Great British Nuclear (? the poisoned chalice). Lawmakers urged to keep moratorium on new nuclear power plants in Illinois – avoid the fantasy of small modular reactors.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Israel to refuse visas to UN officials after Guterres speech on Gaza war.        US Forbade Ukraine to Make Peace With Russia in March 2022 – Former German Chancellor. USA and Australia oceans apart on nuclear-powered submarines 

SAFETY. IAEA warning after explosions heard near Khmelnitsky nuclear power stations. War Against Renewables Takes Terrifying Turn in Newsom’s Nuke-Powered California .

SECRETS and LIES. A wall of silence: atom bosses remain tight-lipped over Fukushima whistleblower claims.       Ohio House bill would declare nuclear power as ‘green energy.       Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara have decamped to a luxury mansion with a deep nuclear bunker.

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Space debris

SPINBUSTER. Nuclear power would be “clean”! but not renewable under Michigan legislation. Before They Launch Missiles, They Launch Propaganda Campaigns. Israel Has Permanently Lost The Argument.

WASTES. Hanford’s pre-treated nuclear waste might not meet vital plant criteria. Decommission: What happens after a nuclear power station is closed? Thunder Bay Council to debate nuclear waste position. Allowing Lynas to extract thorium from radioactive waste not a practical solution, say activists

WAR and CONFLICT. UN Agency Warns Humanitarian Operations in Gaza on Verge of Total Collapse. Israel-Palestine: Names released of 7,028 Palestinians killed, 2,913 of which are children, after Biden questions death toll. Gaza deaths surpass 5,000 amid UN and EU calls for ceasefire; US increases ‘deterrence’ force near Israel. Why Is Biden Enabling Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF7qndyvmEE    They Let Humanitarian Aid In. Then They Bombed It So That Gaza Would Starve. Zionist think tank publishes blueprint for Palestinian genocide. The World’s Only Muslim Nuclear Power Warns Israel’s War in Gaza Must Stop. NewsReal: Israel and US Implementing ‘Final Solutions’ to End Palestine and Multipolar World. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xULgoxqDGxo&t=198s With Hamas gone, Gaza still wouldn’t be free.      Russia says Ukrainian drone rammed nuclear waste storage facility of Kursk nuclear power plant.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Israel-Hamas war fuels fears of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Why the US fixation on increased nuclear capability won’t deter China but could lead to instability and nuclear war. Experts fear Ukraine will run out of ammo in 2024 – Le Monde. US to build new nuclear gravity bomb.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | 1 Comment

Russia says Ukrainian drone rammed nuclear waste storage facility of Kursk nuclear power plant

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman calls attack ‘nuclear terrorism’

AA, Elena Teslova  |29.10.2023 – MOSCOW 

A Ukrainian drone rammed a nuclear waste storage facility of the Kursk nuclear power plant, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday.

Ukrainian armed forces purposefully attacked the Kursk nuclear power plant with three drones. One armed with explosives, crashed into the wall of the storage facility and two fell on the plant’s administrative buildings, Zakharova said in a statement.

According to preliminary data, components used to build drones were supplied by Western countries, she said, adding that such actions “could not be carried out without approval if not direct instruction of the Western supervisors.”

Zakharova criticized Kyiv and said, “What happened proves that it has no boundaries,” even in issues of acts of nuclear terrorism……………………………..more https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/russia-says-ukrainian-drone-rammed-nuclear-waste-storage-facility-of-kursk-nuclear-power-plant/3036552 #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes #radiation

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C nuclear station-£16.7bn overbudget: Estimated to be 5 years late

From

From HS2 to Wembley, why can’t Britain build on budget? Our
infrastructure projects are invariably late and over-budget compared with
European neighbours. Our planning system, political wrangling and a lack of
civil service expertise is to blame. Hinkley Point C: Final Cost £32.7bn:
£16.7bn overbudget: Estimated to be 5 years late. #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes

 Times 29th Oct 2023 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/from-hs2-to-wembley-why-cant-britain-build-on-budget-9k6xgs8c6

October 30, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear power would be “clean”! but not renewable under Michigan legislation

Michigan Live, By Sheri McWhirter | smcwhirter@mlive.com, 26 Oct 23

LANSING, MI – Legal definitions of renewable energy vs. clean energy were among the issues tackled by Michigan state senators this week.

Under three energy-related bills, nuclear energy would not be considered renewable but would instead be legally defined as clean energy – generated without emitting greenhouse gases, which drive the accelerating climate crisis. If approved and signed into law, renewable energy resources would be defined as solar, wind, geothermal, or hydropower…………………………………………  https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2023/10/nuclear-power-would-be-clean-but-not-renewable-under-michigan-legislation.html #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes #radiation

October 30, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

AUKUS nuclear submarine deal triggers accusations over cost and construction

SMH, By Daniel Keane 30 Oct 23

South Australia’s premier remains insistent that the nation’s future nuclear-powered submarines should be constructed in Adelaide, despite a prominent call for the vessels to instead be built by, and purchased from, another AUKUS nation in order to save taxpayers “billions and billions of dollars”.

Key points:

  • Alexander Downer has called for all of the nation’s future nuclear subs to be built overseas
  • But SA premier Peter Malinauskas says Australia should build them “for national security reasons”
  • Mr Downer also said the question of storage of AUKUS nuclear waste needs to be addressed

Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has described the AUKUS project’s $368 billion price tag as “eye-watering”, and said he expects a future federal government to abandon the local construction element of the deal.

“We’re just going to wreck Australia if we keep promising to spend money on any manner of projects and have no idea where the money is going to come from,” Mr Downer told the ABC on Sunday.

“I don’t think the existing federal parliament or the next one is going to make a decision on this, but I think down the years, in the end, the federal government will decide that this is just too expensive, and they will buy the submarines from overseas.

“I’d be almost certain of that.”

Responding to similar comments Mr Downer made in The Weekend Australian, SA premier Peter Malinauskas said it is vital that Australia develops the ability to build the vessels “for national security reasons”, but also because “neither the US nor the UK in the long term have the capacity” to construct Australia’s entire fleet.

“They are struggling to meet their own demand,” Mr Malinauskas said.

Under the current terms of the AUKUS pact, Australia will get three US-made Virginia-class submarines while it builds up to eight nuclear-powered submarines of its own.

Mr Malinauskas accused Mr Downer of “misunderstanding” the intentions and expected outcomes of AUKUS…………………………………………………………..

But Mr Downer has rejected the premier’s comments, and in turn accused Mr Malinauskas of failing to understand the economics of AUKUS.

“I have a challenge to the premier — to explain where all this money is going to come from, and why does the premier think it’s better we spend eye-watering amounts of money on building nuclear submarines in Adelaide rather than investing … in other parts of our economy?” Mr Downer said……………………

“Peter Malinauskas and [SA opposition leader] David Speirs will be well and truly retired by the time this project comes about.

“It’s easy for them to make any manner of promises about times in the future, which will be way beyond their political life span — we can all make promises about the Second Coming.”

Mr Downer also said the question of storage of nuclear waste from the subs had not been satisfactorily addressed.

“There’s some elements of the Labor Party who have reservations, or are opposed to, nuclear-powered submarines and any association with nuclear power, and so I part company with them on that,” he said.

“But you’re going to have to store the waste somewhere. I’m not sure where that will be stored.”  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-29/sa-premier-defends-aukus-after-alexander-downer-questions-cost/103036822

October 30, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Thunder Bay Council to debate nuclear waste position

Thunder Bay’s city council will debate whether to stake out a position opposing the transportation of nuclear waste through the city.

TBnewswatch.com Ian Kaufman, Oct 27, 2023

THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay’s city council will consider its position on the transportation of nuclear waste through the area on Monday, as a decision to ship the waste to the Ignace area looms.

Citizen groups Environment North and We the Nuclear Free North asked council last year to endorse the “proximity principle,” which would dictate keeping nuclear waste as close as possible to its point of generation.

That ask was referred to the city’s intergovernmental affairs committee, which will present a recommendation against the step at a council meeting on Monday…………..

The groups point to a now decades-old plebiscite in which Thunder Bay voters expressed concerns over nuclear waste disposal.

A 1997 plebiscite asked citizens if they were in favour of nuclear waste disposal in the Thunder Bay area. Of roughly 40,000 who voted, over 91 per cent voted no.

In 2000, city council passed a motion building on that plebiscite, expressing “concern with the transportation of nuclear waste through the city of Thunder Bay.”………………

We the Nuclear Free North has launched a similar call to endorse the proximity principle at Queen’s Park, delivering a long-shot petition in May bearing over 1,000 signatures to the Ontario Legislature.

It wants the province to direct Ontario Power Generation to look to storage systems at or near points of generation, rather than a deep geological repository in other areas of the province.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the industry group tasked with finding a disposal solution for Canada’s nuclear waste, is considering Revell Lake, between Ignace and Dryden, and South Bruce as DGR sites.

A selection between the two sites for the $25-billion project is expected in 2024.   …………………………………………

Wendy O’Connor, communications lead for We the Nuclear Free North, said approving a repository in Ignace would force the region to bear the burden of a nuclear waste a problem “that’s been sidestepped for decades.”

“There is no solution to nuclear waste. There is no good, totally safe way to deal with it,” she said.

However, she believes a solution closer to where waste is generated at sites in Southern Ontario makes more sense………………………………..  https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/council-to-debate-nuclear-waste-position-7745525 #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes

                                                          .

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Canada, politics, wastes | 1 Comment

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara have decamped to a luxury mansion with a deep nuclear bunker

Daily Mail, By MELANIE SWAN, 29 October 2023

  • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara are hiding in a luxury mansion
  • It is owned by US billionaire Simon Falic, and comes with high security 

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara have decamped to the luxury mansion with a deep nuclear bunker, amid growing public anger towards the country’s leaders.

The gated mansion in a Jerusalem mansion, owned by US billionaire Simon Falic, comes with high-level security.

He said the staff are being moved there, including their personal chef, with the preparations suggesting future meetings with world leaders will also be relocated there.

The decision to move into a residence with a deep nuclear bunker is not a common one in Israel, even among the super-rich.

But with the looming threat from Iran, a handful of the PM’s inner circle have built them……………………………………….

Prior to the Hamas atrocities, hundreds of thousands of Israelis had been protesting against the premier and his right-wing coalition over plans to reform the judicial system, allegations of cronyism and allowing Jewish settlers to expand into more areas that were supposed to be occupied by Palestinians.  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12684385/Israeli-prime-minister-Benjamin-Netanyahu-wife-Sara-decamped-luxury-mansion-deep-nuclear-bunker.html #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Israel, safety | Leave a comment

Experts fear Ukraine will run out of ammo in 2024 – Le Monde

Rt.com 29 Oct 23

Russia has a distinct arms production advantage, multiple European analysts told the newspaper

The Ukrainian military will run out of ammunition next year, and Kiev’s Western backers won’t be able to fully restock it until 2025, European military experts told Le Monde on Friday. With Russian arms production in full swing, Moscow is better prepared for a war of attrition, the analysts warned.

In a lengthy article dissecting the failure of Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive, the French newspaper highlighted three key factors: Russia’s decision to voluntarily withdraw from Kherson and construct an elaborate line of defenses in late 2022, Ukraine’s insufficient tactical prowess, and Russia’s “greater strategic depth” – or its ability to replace lost men and materiel.

“2024 is going to be fraught with danger for the Ukrainians,” risk consultant Stephane Audrand told Le Monde. “The equipment that has already been delivered to them will be depleted, but they will only be able to partially reconstitute it, as Western production capacities will not be optimal until 2025.”…………….

Meanwhile, the Pentagon emptied its stockpiles of 155mm ammunition in South Korea and Israel to keep Kiev’s guns firing. With Israel also asking for this increasingly rare ammo, Washington has reportedly diverted tens of thousands of shells back into its Israeli depot, having originally set them aside for Ukraine…………………

Even if the entire Western world were to mobilize its entire arms production capacity exclusively for Ukraine, “that will be not enough for this war,” Ukrainian Strategic Industries Minister Aleksandr Kamyshin told Politico on Monday.   https://www.rt.com/russia/585972-ukraine-run-out-ammunition/

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

With Hamas gone, Gaza still wouldn’t be free

As a classic settler-colonial state, Israel is doing the only thing it knows how to do. So long as the West keeps cheerleading, that includes genocide

JONATHAN COOK, OCT 28, 2023

“……… First, settler colonial movements are distinguished from standard colonialism – like British rule in India – by the fact that the settler population wishes not just to steal the native population’s resources but to replace the native population itself.

There are lots of examples of this: European settlers dispossessed native peoples in what we today call the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for example.

The definition of genocide in international law exactly describes what those Europeans did to the local population: mass killings; inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of all or part of the native community; preventing births within the local population; and forcibly transferring native children to the settler population.

European settlers who today call themselves Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders never had to account for their crimes against those native peoples. Which possibly explains why European countries and their settler colonial outgrowths are today lining up against the rest of the world to support Israel as it intensifies industrial genocide in Gaza.

The truth is the “western” world order was built on genocide. Israel is just following in a long tradition…………………………………………………

The final model for a settler colonial population is to drive the native population over the border, in an act of ethnic cleansing. This was Israel’s preferred option in 1948 and again in 1967, when it decided to expand its borders by occupying the remaining Palestinian lands in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The Palestinians in Gaza are an object lesson in the various ways a native population can be abused by a settler colonial movement……………………………..

Unlike white South Africa, Israel is not looking for peace and reconciliation. It is revisiting other settler colonial options.

In the current attack on Gaza, it is implementing a mixed model: genocide for those who remain in Gaza, ethnic cleansing for those who can get out (assuming Egypt finally relents and opens its borders).

None of that has anything to do with Hamas. The most one can say is that Hamas’ resistance has forced Israel’s hand. It has had to abandon its siege-apartheid model – the long term imprisonment of a population with no resources, no freedom of movement, no clean water, no jobs.

Instead, it has returned to the tried-and-tested formulas of genocide and ethnic cleansing……………………….

Palestinians overthrowing Hamas, or Hamas surrendering, would not turn Gaza into a Dubai-on-the-Mediterranean. Palestinians there would still be prisoners, though possibly allowed slightly better conditions.

If you doubt that, look to the West Bank, which is ruled not by Hamas but by the supine Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. He calls security cooperation with Israel – suppressing on Israel’s behalf the Palestinians’ craving for freedom – a “sacred” duty. His biggest aspiration is a diplomatic solution that creates a severely circumscribed Palestinian mini-state.

If Israel can’t allow freedom to the West Bank under Abbas, how is it ever going to give freedom to tiny Gaza, even without Hamas, especially after the United Nations declared the enclave as fundamentally “uninhabitable” in 2020?

Israel could never allow the Palestinians out of their Gaza prison because their rapid growth in numbers is seen as a threat to Israel’s Jewish majority.

Remember: settler colonial populations are there to replace the native population, not to make peace with them, not to shares resources, not to give them their freedom.

Israel is doing the only thing it knows how to do. And as long as the West is cheerleading, that includes genocide.
 https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/with-hamas-gone-gaza-still-wouldnt #Israel

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Has Permanently Lost The Argument

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, OCT 27, 2023

Israel and its allies get away with a lot by marketing this as a “war”. It’s not a war. Israel launches high-tech military explosives at civilian buildings in a huge concentration camp while Hamas fires back with glorified fireworks which do light property damage. That’s not a war, it’s a massacre.

❖

I was upset when I saw that Israel has killed seven thousand people in its Gaza bombing campaign but then a really smart Israel apologist told me Hamas might be exaggerating those numbers and maybe it’s more like four thousand, so now I think it’s fine…..

Look it’s very simple: if your words say “we’re not targeting civilians we’re targeting Hamas” but your actions say you’re inflicting siege warfare on the civilian population and carpet bombing entire city blocks into rubble, then you’re not really targeting Hamas.

❖

Israel-Palestine is a very complicated, confusing, highly nuanced debate between those who think murdering thousands of children is fine and those who do not.

This is a very complicated genocidal massacre. Most complicated genocidal massacre in the history of genocidal massacres. There’s two sides to this genocidal massacre. This genocidal massacre requires nuance……………………………………..

It keeps surprising me that Israel apologists still expect to be taken seriously. Israel is massacring children by the thousands and turning Gaza into rubble and they still expect you to listen to them receptively when they defend its actions. It’s actually starting to get morbidly fascinating.

❖

Israel has lost the argument. Permanently. There’s no coming back from this.

❖

I cannot adequately express the immensity of my respect for the many, many, many Jewish voices I’ve seen taking a firm and forceful stand against the Gaza massacre. …………more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-has-permanently-lost-the-argument #Israel

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Israel, spinbuster | Leave a comment