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Scary simulator shows what could happen in the event of a nuclear disaster

Poppy Bilderbeck 21 Jan 24 (Videos on the original site)

Researchers have revealed what it would look like if a nuclear explosion occurred.

You may’ve seen – or heard, if you were in a different room watching Barbie – the sound of an atomic bomb going off in Oppenheimer, but do you know what effect one could have on its surroundings if it went off today?

Well, a team of researchers have harnessed the power of technology to predict what could happen.

A team of researchers from the University of Nicosia (UNIC) in Cyprus looked into what would happen in the event of a nuclear explosion, and how it could impact surrounding buildings and people.

Titled Nuclear explosion impact on humans indoors, the paper investigated what would happen if an intercontinental ballistic missile caused an atomic bomb explosion.

Using advanced computer modeling, the team created two videos showing how such an explosion would alter the temperature of its surroundings, alongside how the sheer force of the air the explosion would generate could impact buildings and people.

And if you wanted to see a simulation of what it looks like from a person’s point of view on the ground, well another video has been shared to X – formerly known as Twitter – by Historic Vids (@historyinmemes), and it’s pretty horrifying………………………………………………………. more https://www.unilad.com/news/world-news/nuclear-explosion-simulator-scary-670922-20240117

January 21, 2024 Posted by | media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Even Britain’s ruling Tory party fear that their “Nuclear Roadmap” plan will end up on the scrap heap.

More nuclear power is the obvious solution to our energy security and Net Zero dilemmas. That doesn’t mean it is ever going to happen.  Conservative Home, 19 Jan 24

Last week, Claire Coutinho published the Government’s “nuclear roadmap”. Sticking with Boris Johnson’s target of having a quarter of our electricity from nuclear by 2050, this attempts to explain how we achieve the quadrupling of nuclear capacity required to achieve the necessary 24 gigawatts (GW).

Rishi Sunak calls nuclear the “perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain”. ………………………..

But the Government’s nuclear ambitions face an immediate stumbling block. At present, our nuclear capacity stands at 5.9GW, produced by five power stations. These are all owned by EDF, the French state energy group. Four of those plants – producing 4.7GW – are set to close in 2028.

EDF has floated keeping them open for longer. Yet even that would require Britain to massively ramp up its nuclear capacity in the next three decades to for us to have any hope of achieving the Government’s aim to come over a bit Doctor Manhatten. Following this, Coutinho has established an ambition to invest in new nuclear capacity of between 3GW and 7GW every five years from 2030 to 2044.

Work is already in progress. Hinkley Point C in Somerset is under construction. Sizewall C is planned for Suffolk, with a final investment decision due to be made by the end of this year. The Government is considering approving the construction of a third similarly sized power station. Additionally, ministers want to build a fleet of “small modular reactors” alongside these larger plants.

………………………………….. Johnson’s tongue-in-cheek vision of an SMR in “every Labour seat” remains as much of a fantasy as any of his mooted grands projets. Putting so much faith in SMRs to deliver our nuclear dreams is wishful thinking by Coutinho. But that is true of her whole “roadmap” and the ambitions behind them.

As Sam Dumitriu points out, when Hinkley opens in 2028, it will not only be the first nuclear power station built in Britain for over three decades, but the second most expensive nuclear power station built in history on a pound-per-megawatt basis. Having been due to open in the early 2020s, it is now expected to cost £32 billion. Some expect its construction could be further delayed into the 2030s.

This bodes poorly for Coutinho’s touted “nuclear awakening”. ………….

Capital costs make up around 60 per cent of nuclear’s levelised cost of energy. The average has been estimated at $6041-per-kilowatt – over 50 per cent more than coal and 500 more than gas. Factoring in that building a nuclear power station in Britain usually takes around 13 years, and it becomes obvious why investing in nuclear remains unattractive. Financing Hinkley involved the Government agreeing to a wholly uncompetitive deal…………………………….

The Government hopes an overhaul of planning rules could allow SMRs to be approved in a variety of locations, especially brownfield sites, away from areas with population densities of more than 5,000 people per square kilometre. However, there is still plenty of opportunity for applications to be denied based on natural beauty, ecology, cultural heritage, size, or flood risk. To combat NIMBYism, we would need to stuff a few mouths with gold.

Britain’s nuclear ambitions are also hampered by our current reliance on EDF. From leading the world in nuclear technology in the 1950s, our long lag since last constructing a plant has seen a loss of know-how, leaving us reliant on EDF for larger plants. Not only has this left us having signed an expensive deal for Hinkley, but it has entrusted our energy security to a company with a record of costly delays.

This is of a piece with our long tradition of nuclear short-sightedness. As Peter Franklin has pointed out, Johnson and Sunak follow Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair in making grand pronouncements of a fleet of new British nuclear reactors. Little has good came of any of them.  Amidst some substantial competition, we can count Hinkley as one of Blair’s most ignominious legacies.

We can expect Coutinho’s proposals to end up on a similar scrapheap.  Labour says they are keen on more nuclear. But they will face the same problems of regulation, construction costs, and political volatility. It might take only another Fukushima for the public to go all German on our  nuclear future…..

January 21, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

The Last Flurry: The US Congress and Australian Parliamentarians seek Assange’s Release

January 19, 2024 : Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/the-last-flurry-the-us-congress-and-australian-parliamentarians-seek-assanges-release/

On February 20, Julian Assange, the daredevil publisher of WikiLeaks, will be going into battle, yet again, with the British justice system – or what counts for it. The UK High Court will hear arguments from his team that his extradition to the United States from Britain to face 18 charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 would violate various precepts of justice. The proceedings hope to reverse the curt, impoverished decision by the remarkably misnamed Justice Jonathan Swift of the same court on June 6, 2023.

At this point, the number of claims the defence team can make are potentially many. Economy, however, has been called for: the two judges hearing the case have asked for a substantially shortened argument, showing, yet again, that the quality of British mercy tends to be sourly short. The grounds Assange can resort to are troublingly vast: CIA-sponsored surveillance, his contemplated assassination, his contemplated abduction, violation of attorney-client privilege, his poor health, the violation of free-speech, a naked, politicised attempt by an imperium to capture one of its greatest and most trenchant critics, and bad faith by the US government.

Campaigners for the cause have been frenzied. But as the solution to Assange’s plight is likely to be political, the burden falls on politicians to stomp and drum from within their various chambers to convince their executive counterparts. In the US Congress, House Resolution 934, introduced on December 13 by Rep. Paul A. Gosar, an Arizona Republican, expresses “the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.”

The resolution sees a dramatic shift from the punishing, haute view taken by such figures as the late Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was one of the first political figures to suggest that Assange be crucified on the unsteady timber of the Espionage Act for disclosing US cables and classified information in 2010. The resolution acknowledges, for instance, that the disclosures by WikiLeaks “promoted public transparency through the exposure of the hiring of child prostitutes by Defense Department contractors, friendly fire incidents, human rights abuses, civilian killings, and United States use of psychological warfare.” The list could be sordidly longer but let’s not quibble.

Impressively, drafters of the resolution finally acknowledge that charging Assange under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for alleged conspiracy to help US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning access Defense Department computers was a fabled nonsense. For one, it was “impossible” – Manning “already had access to the mentioned computer.” Furthermore, “there was no proof Mr Assange had any contact with said intelligence analyst.”

Ire is also directed at the espionage counts, with the resolution noting that “no other publisher has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act prior to these 17 charges.” A successful prosecution of the publisher “would set a precedent allowing the United States to prosecute and imprison journalists for First Amendment protected activities, including the obtainment and publication of information, something that occurs on a regular basis.”

Acknowledgment is duly made of the importance of press freedoms to promote transparency and protect the Republic, the support for Assange, “sincere and steadfast”, no less, shown by “numerous human rights, press freedom, and privacy rights advocates and organizations”, and the desire by “at least 70 Senators and Members of Parliament from Australia, a critical United States ally and Mr Assange’s native country” for his return.

Members of Australia’s parliament, adding to the efforts last September to convince members of Congress that the prosecution be dropped, have also written to the UK Home Secretary, James Cleverly, requesting that he “undertake an urgent, thorough and independent assessment of the risks to Mr Assange’s health and welfare in the event that he is extradited to the United States.”

The members of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group draw Cleverly’s attention to the recent UK Supreme Court case of AAA v Secretary of State for the Home Department which found “that courts in the United Kingdom cannot just rely on third party assurances by foreign governments but rather are required to make independent assessments of the risk of persecution to individuals before any order is made removing them from the UK.

It follows that the approach taken by Lord Justices Burnett and Holroyde in USA v Assange [2021] EWHC 3133 was, to put it politely, a touch too confident in accepting assurances given by the US government regarding Assange’s treatment, were he to be extradited. “These assurances were not tested, nor was there any evidence of independent assessment as to the basis on which they could be given and relied upon.”

The conveners of the group point to Assange’s detention in Belmarsh prison since April 2019, his “significant health issues, exacerbated to a dangerous degree by his prolonged incarceration, that are of very real concern to us as his elected representatives.” They also point out the rather unusual consensus between the current Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and his opposition number, Peter Dutton, that the “case has gone on for too long.” Continued legal proceedings, both in the UK, and then in the US were extradition to take place “would add yet more years to Mr Assange’s detention and further imperil his health.”

In terms of posterity’s calling, there are surely fewer better things at this point for a US president nearing mental oblivion to do, or a Tory government peering at electoral termination to facilitate, than the release of Assange. At the very least, it would show a grudging acknowledgment that the fourth estate, watchful of government’s egregious abuses, is no corpse, but a vital, thriving necessity.

January 21, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, politics | Leave a comment

Military interests are pushing new nuclear power – and the UK government has finally admitted it

……………… the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, - in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.

French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.

Andy Stirling Professor of Science & Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex,  Philip JohnstoneResearch Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex, January 19, 2024 https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118

The UK government has announced the “biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years”. This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.

Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.

So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?

…………………………………………………………………………….. A document published with the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, is also more about affirming official support than substantively justifying it. More significant – in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.

These pressures are acknowledged by other states with nuclear weapons, but were until now treated like a secret in the UK: civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programmes.

The military has consistently called for civil nuclear

Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.

For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be “back with a vengeance”. Widely criticised for resting on a “secret” process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) effectively warning that the UK “industrial base” for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be “masked” behind civil programmes. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.

In repeated parliamentary hearings, academics, engineering organisations, research centres, industry bodies and trade unions urged continuing civil nuclear as a means to support military capabilities.

In 2017, submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshalling the case for expensive “small modular reactors” to “relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability”.

The government itself has remained coy about acknowledging this pressure to “mask” military costs behind civilian programmes. Yet the logic is clear in repeated emphasis on the supposedly self-evident imperative to “keep the nuclear option open” – as if this were an end in itself, no matter what the cost. Energy ministers are occasionally more candid, with one calling civil-military distinctions “artifical” and quietly saying: “I want to include the MoD more in everything we do”……………………………………………………………………………………..

This is even more evident in actions than words. For instance hundreds of millions of pounds have been prioritised for a nuclear innovation programme and a nuclear sector deal which is “committed to increasing the opportunities for transferability between civil and defense industries”.

An open secret

Despite all this, military pressures for nuclear power are not widely recognised in the UK. On the few occasions when it receives media attention, the link has been officially denied.

Other nuclear-armed states are also striving to maintain expensive military infrastructures (especially around submarine reactors) just when the civilian industry is obsolescing. This is true in the US, France, Russia and China.

Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.

This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.

These military pressures help explain why the UK is in denial about poor nuclear performance, yet so supportive of general nuclear skills. Powerful military interests – with characteristic secrecy and active PR – are driving this persistence.

Neglect of this picture makes it all the more disturbing. Outside defence budgets, off the public books and away from due scrutiny, expensive support is being lavished on a joint civil-military nuclear industrial base largely to help fund military needs. These concealed subsidies make nuclear submarines look affordable, but electricity and climate action more costly.

The conclusions are not self-evident. Some might argue military rationales justify excessive nuclear costs. But history teaches that policies are more likely to go awry if reasons are concealed. In the UK – where nuclear realities have been strongly officially denied – the issues are not just about energy, or climate, but democracy.

The Conversation asked the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to comment but did not receive a reply before the publication deadline.  https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118

January 21, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Weatherwatch: UK push for civil atomic power highlights link with nuclear weapons

Government previously denied evidence countries with nuclear weapons favour atomic power over renewables

Paul Brown, Fri 19 Jan 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/19/weatherwatch-uk-push-civil-atomic-power-highlights-link-nuclear-weapons

There is long running debate about whether nuclear power has a role in combatting the climate crisis. The UK government decided last week it was vital and is planning a vast expansion. Most environmental groups remain sceptical, preferring quicker and cheaper renewables.

Whatever the merits of the case there was, buried deep in the government’s nuclear roadmap, a complete somersault on the relationship between civil and military nuclear power. Back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Guardian carried reports from Sussex University’s Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), among others, showing there was a link between the two, the government continuously denied it.

SPRU persevered with its work and noted that despite the UK’s denials, across the world it has become more obvious that states with nuclear weapons remain keen on atomic power while those without them put renewables centre stage.

Last week the government’s arguments in favour of new civil nuclear power swept aside any lingering doubt its predecessors had been covering up the link. The roadmap policy document mentioned 14 times in different sections the need to continue to strengthen the existing cooperation and tie-ups between the civil and military industries to the benefit of both. The logic is to keep to a minimum the training and development costs for both the weapons and power sectors.

January 21, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis.

The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour
due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was
previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional
source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse
of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning
circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences
for humanity. Major ice loss from Greenland as a result of global heating
has been recorded for decades. The techniques employed to date, such as
measuring the height of the ice sheet or its weight via gravity data, are
good at determining the losses that end up in the ocean and drive up sea
level. However, they cannot account for the retreat of glaciers that
already lie mostly below sea level in the narrow fjords around the island.
In the study, satellite photos were analysed by scientists to determine the
end position of Greenland’s many glaciers every month from 1985 to 2022.
This showed large and widespread shortening and in total amounted to a
trillion tonnes of lost ice.

 Guardian 17th Jan 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/17/greenland-losing-30m-tonnes-of-ice-an-hour-study-reveals

January 21, 2024 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

Fuel problems for nuclear power, as the industry continues to languish in the doldrums

Slow and expensive. Yet despite the drive to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear has been languishing in the doldrums. The adoption of small HALEU reactors has, if anything, slowed. The first company with approval, NuScale, cancelled a power plant for Utah in November after costs surged. ‘Costs have kept growing for small modular reactors,’ says Bunn. Solar, wind and natural gas are really, really cheap right now. That’s nuclear’s biggest problem – it’s expensive.’

renewables are outmuscling nuclear. ‘Renewables provided something like 90% of all new electricity capacity [in 2023]

the risk sea level rises and storm surges pose to nuclear power plants at coastal sites. ‘The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [2023] stated that renewables were ten times better than nuclear at CO2 mitigation,’

Nuclear power expansion plans highlight fuel bottlenecks, BY ANTHONY KING 17 JANUARY 2024,  https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/nuclear-power-expansion-plans-highlight-fuel-bottlenecks/4018795.article

Nuclear energy shuffled into the spotlight in December with a declaration at the COP28 climate meeting to triple its capacity by 2050. The declaration lauded the role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Yet many industry watchers doubt this ambition can be achieved. ‘If I was a betting man, I would give ten-to-one odds against this happening,’ says Matthew Bunn, a professor of energy and foreign policy at Harvard University, US. Not enough new reactors are being built.

Meanwhile, the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors is complicated by a reliance on Russia at various points in the supply chain and often a lack of profit for commercial companies involved, which compete against state-backed enterprises in Russia and China.

Read more: Fuel problems for nuclear power, as the industry continues to languish in the doldrums

Uranium is not the main constraint on the supply of nuclear fuel. ‘There’s plenty of uranium in the world,’ says Bunn. Everyone knows how many nuclear reactors are operating, and how much uranium they need. ‘So you would expect prices to be pretty darn stable,’ he explains. ‘That expectation would be wrong.’

Price surge

The price of uranium rose sharply towards $90 (£70) per pound in the second half of 2023, having hovered around $20/lb in 2017, and risen to over $40/lb after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The main drivers ‘are rising demand coupled with a lack of sufficient supply response,’ says Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a market research firm for the nuclear industry.

Kazakhstan is the world’s largest miner of uranium, with around 40% of total production. While some additional mines are expected there, ‘we really need to see more new mines in places like Canada, Australia and Africa,’ says Hinze.

Mining is only the start. The supply chain runs from a mine through three more steps; each is a market onto itself. Uranium is mined and milled into uranium oxide (U3O8), then shipped to facilities for conversion into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), in preparation for enrichment.

Mined uranium is 99.2% U-238 and just 0.7% U-235. Enrichment plants use thousands of centrifuges to enrich U-235 to about 5%, as needed in a typical power plant. But enrichment brings in geopolitics. ‘Unfortunately, concentrating it to 3-5% for a commercial reactor uses exactly the same technology as concentrating it to 90% for a nuclear bomb, and it is an exponentially accelerating process,’ says Bunn.

After enrichment, UF6 is converted to uranium dioxide (UO2) and fabricated into fuel pellets and rods, designed for specific reactor types. The format required depends on who built the reactor, whether it’s a French, US, Chinese or Russia design. A pressurized water reactor generating 1GW of electricity, for example, might contain over 50,000 fuel rods with over 18 million pellets.

Conversion constraints

Kazakhstan is a behemoth in mining, with 13 active mines producing almost 19,500 metric tonnes in 2020. Australia produced 6200 tonnes, Namibia 5400 tonnes and Canada 3800 tonnes. But the Kazakhs rely on Russia for processing uranium into UF6, with Russia holding almost 40% of global conversion market, ahead of China and Canada, with France some way behind.

‘Conversion is extremely constrained at the moment given recent plant outages and other operational challenges,’ according to Hinze. ‘The move by the West and other markets to reduce or eliminate reliance on Russia means that other producers must ramp up capacities to make up for the loss of Russian supplies.’

Unsurprisingly, Russia also holds a significant share of the enrichment stage, with 46% market share in 2018. The state company Tenex supplied 30% of enrichment services to EU utilities in 2019, according to a recent report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, US.

‘Russia is fairly important in the conversion market, but doesn’t have to be,’ says Bunn. There is under-used conversion capacity in several other countries. ‘[But] Russia is hugely important in the enrichment market.’ Enrichment is tougher to change, and is partly a legacy of the Cold War, when Russia ran huge facilities for its civil and military nuclear industry.

Even the US imports enriched uranium from Russia, which started with a programme dubbed ‘megatons to megawatts’ that saw large amounts of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium converted into fuel for US power plants. This ran from 1993 to 2013 and is viewed as one of the world’s most successful non-proliferation endeavours.

The US government privatised its enrichment facilities, creating the United States Enrichment Enterprise in 1992, reborn as Centrus in 2014 following bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Soviet uranium processing facilities continued operating. ‘They had these huge enrichment plants with not much to do, so they offered low prices and got a lot of business,’ says Bunn. ‘Because Russian enrichment was cheap, we all got dependent on Russia.’

Rosatom (Russia) is the biggest enrichment services provider, followed by Urenco (UK, Netherlands, Germany and US) and Orano (France). ‘Urenco, for example, did not expand its capacity, because there was no profit incentive,’ says Bunn. ‘The market was oversupplied with enriched uranium.’

Changes are afoot. In October 2023, Orano said it plans to increase its enrichment capacity in the south of France by nearly 30%, to reduce the dependence of its customers on Russian supplies.

Chinese demand

China, however, has built up substantial conversion and enrichment capacity, exceeding its civilian needs. ‘The Chinese have been expanding their capacity like gangbusters because these are state-owned companies. They don’t have to worry about the profit situation,’ says Bunn. ‘They worry about cut-offs of foreign supply and being self-reliant.’

Some of this enriched uranium will be used to produce weapons, some may be exported. For uranium, China has adopted a three-market strategy: investing in domestic uranium mines, buying mines overseas to send uranium back to China, and buying supplies on international markets.

Between 2010 and 2020, China built 36 new nuclear reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The building of nuclear power plants in China has slowed more recently, says Bunn: ‘They’ve built a heck load of electricity plants and have more electricity than they need.’ Another drag is that new plants can attract public opposition and the Chinese authorities take protests into account when evaluating the performance of local government officials, Bunn adds.

While Western powers discuss moving away from an overreliance on Russia for conversion and enrichment, they are loath to swap for dependence on China. ‘The world outside of Russia and China is quickly moving away from supplies from these nations,’ says Hinze. ‘However, these moves mean that costs of nuclear fuel are rising and supply chains are becoming tighter.’

Russian reactor reliance

Russia has also been also a major exporter of reactors in recent decades. There are Russian reactors operating in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia and elsewhere. More are being built, for example in Turkey, Hungary, Bangladesh and Slovakia. ‘Russia even offers build and operate contracts, where they will come and build you a reactor without you paying a penny,’ says Bunn. ‘They’ll operate the reactor and make the money back on electricity sales over the decades.’ Russia will also take back spent fuel. It’s state company, Rosatom, has large projects with Iran, South Africa and Egypt, among others.

This can render countries reliant on Russia for the operation and/or maintenance of their reactors. And, since each type of plant requires specific fuel assemblies, Russian-designed reactors traditionally use Russian-made fuel. ‘Russia is going to be a big player in nuclear markets for a long time in the future,’ Bunn predicts.

A recent analysis examined Russia’s nuclear energy diplomacy in the context of the war in Ukraine. Since Rosatom is fully owned by the Russian state, it can be used to exert political pressure and project power globally. ‘For most Western-aligned states, it will be inconceivable to enter into any type of new dependence or even non-dependent cooperation with Russia in the nuclear energy sector,’ the authors note.

Nonetheless, alternatives are emerging. In September 2023, US nuclear services provider Westinghouse delivered the first fuel assemblies for Russian-designed reactors in Ukraine from a fabrication facility in Sweden. Ukraine praised the move as the end of the Russian monopoly in this section of the nuclear fuel market.

‘The key question now is how fast Westinghouse can scale up, given that there’s a bunch of countries with Russian-designed plants,’ says Bunn. Others, too, are moving to support domestic fuel supply. Saparro 5 is a group of five nations (Canada, Japan, France, the UK, and the US) that aims to establish a resilient uranium supply market free from Russian influence ‘and the potential to be subject to political leverage by other countries’. It announced plans at COP28 to jointly invest at least $4.2 billion to boost enrichment and conversion capacity over the next three years.

Meanwhile, there are efforts in the US Congress to formally ban all Russian uranium imports by 2028. One sticking point of such efforts has been HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), which is enriched with uranium-235 to between 5% and 20%. ‘Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the only place with a plant licensed to produce material above 5% enrichment,’ says Bunn. The UK’s Civil Nuclear Roadmap, announced on 11 January, promises up to £300 million of investment specifically to develop HALEU fuel production, ‘with the first plant aiming to be operational early in the next decade’.

Advanced reactors, including in the US, are being developed to run on such fuel. These reactors would be ‘smaller, more flexible and less expensive to build and operate,’ according to the US Department of Energy. In the US, Centrus Energy says it is pioneering HALEU to power existing and future reactors. Bunn says the company is well positioned now to seek additional subsidies from the US government to expand its enrichment capacity.

Slow and expensive

Yet despite the drive to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear has been languishing in the doldrums. The adoption of small HALEU reactors has, if anything, slowed. The first company with approval, NuScale, cancelled a power plant for Utah in November after costs surged. ‘Costs have kept growing for small modular reactors,’ says Bunn. Solar, wind and natural gas are really, really cheap right now. That’s nuclear’s biggest problem – it’s expensive.’

Others too say that renewables are outmuscling nuclear. ‘Renewables provided something like 90% of all new electricity capacity [in 2023], and that’s because of the very great difference in cost,’ says Paul Dorfman, chair of the nonprofit Nuclear Consulting Group and visiting fellow at the University of Sussex, UK. ‘And in the context of climate change, nuclear plants take too long.’ He cites UK government findings that it takes up to 17 years for a nuclear reactor to be readied for operation.

A 2021 report authored by Dorfman also warns of the risk sea level rises and storm surges pose to nuclear power plants at coastal sites. ‘The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [2023] stated that renewables were ten times better than nuclear at CO2 mitigation,’ Dorfman adds. ‘It is clear renewables will do the heavy lifting and nuclear is marginal, if not problematic.’


In the decade before the Fukushima nuclear incident in Japan in March 2011, on average about 3GW of nuclear power generation was being added each year. To meet the COP28 target, factoring in how long it will take to build the plants, ‘we’d have to build on the order of 30-50GW every year from now to 2050,’ says Bunn. ‘That means convincing people that nuclear energy is ten times more attractive than it was before Fukushima. That’s a heavy lift.’

January 21, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time

coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media.

By Norman Solomon, World BEYOND War, January 18, 2024,  https://worldbeyondwar.org/how-the-gaza-war-can-be-big-news-and-invisible-at-the-same-time/—

Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.

We are not.

What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.

The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up obscuring those realities all the more.

Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide in human history.”

With enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder — by any other name — has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.

Extraordinary determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day.

“Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

Israel is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists — in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets — remains virtually invisible.

Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate, and easy in the United States.

“Deploring the crimes of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”

With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power — even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war.

“For the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,” scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”

Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.

The horrors in Gaza are being propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.

_____________________________________

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.

January 21, 2024 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

Why nuclear reactors are not the future of energy despite what UK Government would have you think.

– Dr Richard Dixon. The UK Government is trying to create the impression that it’s all go for nuclear. It isn’t.
The UK’s nuclear enthusiasts have been on another PR offensive, with
announcements of new reactors and possible life extensions to old reactors.


All of it denying the reality that nuclear is much too slow to build and
much too expensive to be part of our future energy strategy. Globally
nuclear is in terminal decline. In the last five years more renewable
electricity has been generated by just new schemes around the world than by
all the world’s nuclear reactors. And twice as much again is expected to
be constructed in the next five years, taking renewables output to five
times that of nuclear.

Of course the motivation for this burst of
co-ordinated PR is clear, the $20bn for Sizewell C hasn’t been raised so
the UK Government is desperately trying to give the impression that it’s
all go for nuclear in the UK. When it clearly isn’t.

 Scotsman 17th Jan 2024

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/why-nuclear-reactors-are-not-the-future-of-energy-despite-what-uk-government-would-have-you-think-dr-richard-dixon-4480376

January 21, 2024 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Germany plans to supply Israel with tanks shells as Gaza death toll nears 25,000

Berlin has also announced its intention to ‘intervene’ on behalf of Israel in the genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

The Cradle,   News Desk, JAN 17, 2024

German government officials have “fundamentally agreed behind the scenes” to supply Israel with thousands of rounds of 120-millimeter precision ammunition to fuel the war in Gaza, according to a report by Der Spiegel.

Since receiving an Israeli request for the tank shells in November, the Chancellery, the Defense Department, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have been holding talks to fulfill the request.

“German defense companies were not in a position to deliver the requested ammunition in a short period of time, and the ministries have started on a plan to provide this ammunition from the German army’s own stocks,” the German daily reported on 16 January.

Once completed, the deal would mark the first public arms delivery from Berlin to Tel Aviv since the start of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. Der Spiegel reports that Germany has so far mainly supplied Israel with “medical supplies and protective equipment.”

“Both sides have agreed to keep quiet about the request to send lethal weapons because Israel does not want to allow any conclusions to be drawn about its military capabilities,” the report highlights………………………………………………. more https://new.thecradle.co/articles/germany-plans-to-supply-israel-with-tanks-shells-as-gaza-death-toll-nears-25000

January 21, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chalk River, or low-level nuclear governance.

Monique Pauzé, The author is a Bloc Québécois MP (Repentigny) and Environment critic., January 18, 2024

A few days ago, after several “rounds of work and consultation” that began in 2016, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) ruled in favor of the Chalk River Near Surface Waste Management Facility (NSWMF) project. Opposition to this open-air radioactive dump is undeniable: a multitude of aboriginal communities, citizen groups, scientists and over a hundred cities and municipalities spread around the Ottawa River, including Ottawa, Montreal and Gatineau.

To contextualize the issues surrounding this project, and to grasp the extent to which the authorization given is highly reprehensible, if not absurd, I believe it is pertinent to address it in the light of a study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment, specifically on Canada’s governance of radioactive waste. Held in 2022 and concluding with a report submitted to federal elected officials, the study is absolutely relevant today.

To begin with, we remind you that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made suggestions and recommendations to the CNSC in 2019, during the peer review conducted by the Integrated Regulatory Review Service mission.  As a result, we had confirmation, despite the government’s expressed pride, that Canada was not beyond reproach in this area, and this justified the attention of federal elected officials.

Many decried it: the essential principle of keeping radioactive waste away from sources of drinking water is not respected, and in many respects the project is at odds with the recommendations and guidelines of the IAEA, as well as with the five principles agreed and adopted by the leaders of 133 First Nations in Ontario.

There is an absence of consideration for the possible hazards associated with the project’s location and underground, hazards that attract less attention than the risks of contamination of watercourses, tributaries of the river, from which potentially millions of people draw their drinking water.

Legitimate opposition

In addition, Chalk River is located at the junction of geological fractures and in the western Quebec earthquake zone, a seismic belt that spans the Ottawa Valley, the Laurentians and parts of eastern Ontario. The volume of various radioactive wastes that will be buried in the open pit is substantial. Witnesses and experts have raised the issue of the lack of clarity in identifying the substances that will be introduced into the mound.

Opposition to the project is absolutely legitimate.

Several witnesses to this study accurately addressed the physical characteristics of Canadian radioactive waste, highlighting the redefinition of what constitutes intermediate-level radioactive waste, hidden in a CNSC “proof regulation” adopted in June 2020. William Turner, retired from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and a resident of Deep River, provided the committee with a detailed fact sheet on this issue.

Gilles Provost, a science journalist and witness to the study, wrote in Le Devoir on June 13 of the same year: “[…] we come up against a scientific absurdity: in physics, the activity of a radioactive product is its decay rate. The faster it decays, the higher its activity. This means that a radioactive product with [higher] activity according to physics would now be low-level waste according to the new definition decreed by the CNSC!”

This new definition has concrete effects, since the Chalk River SRWMF is designed to receive only low-level waste. The result? Waste considered to be medium-level by physical science will end up in the mound, since it is now considered to be low-level.

For the Aboriginal communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi, the process chosen by the CNSC constitutes a failure in its duty to consult properly.

In addition to the disturbing comments made or sent by their representatives during the parliamentary committee study in 2022 about the “coercive” nature of the consultative approach, the aboriginal communities are rightly relying on Article 29.2 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that no decision on nuclear waste storage, small modular reactors, transport or decommissioning can be taken without free, prior and informed consent.

“[…] We could explain it to you, but you wouldn’t understand it anyway. We’ll give you all the information and you won’t understand it.” This excerpt from the testimony of Reg Niganobe, Chief of the Grand Council of the Anishinabe Nation and a witness to the 2022 study, is shocking: when a representative of the sector expresses himself in this way, I think the climate they want to create is incredibly unhealthy and contemptuous. Non-native groups have also been subjected to this type of “approach” in similar processes. Their submissions to the committee study attest to this.

If there is indeed a political will to consider the communities most directly affected by these issues, then they must be given the consideration they deserve.

Reconciliation? Participatory consultations? Transparent processes and compliance with IAEA standards? The CNSC reports to Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and the mobilization against Chalk River will continue. The federal government had better change its mind… It has the authority to do so.

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/805514/environnement-chalk-river-ou-gouvernance-nucleaire-bas-niveau

January 21, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Roadmap to warfare: new policy exposes links with UK military nuclear projects

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are keen to assist University of Sussex academics in exposing the links to the military that were revealed in the recent UK Government’s launch of a ‘Roadmap’ for the civil nuclear sector (11 January 2024).[1]

In the public interest, Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy, and Research Fellow Dr Phil Johnstone, both at the University of Sussex, have done remarkable work over many years highlighting the lack of transparency and the extent of cross-subsidy between the civil and military nuclear sectors, despite facing official hostility, obfuscation, or denial. 

NFLA 18th Jan 2024

Roadmap to warfare: new policy expose links with UK military nuclear projects

January 21, 2024 Posted by | UK | Leave a comment

US urges discussions with China on practical nuclear risk reduction steps

Reuters, January 19, 2024

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The United States does not expect formal nuclear arms-control negotiations with China anytime soon, but does want to see a start of discussions on practical risk-reduction measures, a senior White House official said on Thursday.

Pranay Vaddi, the senior White House official for arms control and non proliferation, told a Washington think tank it had been important to have initial arms-control talks in November with China, but stressed the need for them to involve key Chinese decision makers or influencers on the country’s nuclear posture………………………..

The U.S. and China held their first talks on nuclear arms control in nearly five years on Nov. 6, amid growing U.S. concerns about China’s nuclear build up, but the meeting produced no specific results…………………………………………..

The U.S. and China held two days of military talks in Washington last week, their latest engagement since agreeing to resume military-to-military ties.

In its annual report on the Chinese military in October, the Pentagon said China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads and will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.

The U.S. has a stockpile of about 3,700 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,419 strategic nuclear warheads were deployed.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler,  https://www.reuters.com/world/us-urges-discussions-with-china-practical-nuclear-risk-reduction-steps-2024-01-18/

January 21, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley C site fire safety fears trigger enforcement notices


By Phil Hill, @GazettePHill,  https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/24055739.hinkley-c-site-fire-safety-fears-trigger-enforcement-notices/ 17 Jan 24

Pre-planned inspections in November at the Unit 1 HR Building on the site led to ONR identifying the breaches and issuing the notices.

These have been served on licensee NNB Generation Company (HPC) Ltd, contractors Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS and Laing O’Rourke Construction Limited, who are the joint venture partners in BYLOR JV, and REEL UK.

The enforcement notices require improvements to be made to address the shortfalls and prevent re-occurrence.

There were no consequences to employees, the public or the environment as a result of the shortfalls.

However, ONR identified the potential for harm and risk of serious injury, which required regulatory action.

Shane Turner, superintending inspector and head of safety regulation at Hinkley Point C, said: “The enforcement notices require these four organisations to make improvements in fire safety arrangements at the Hinkley Point C site.

We will engage with each of them during the period of the enforcement notice to ensure positive progress is made.”

The notices require necessary improvements are made by March 31.

The enforcement action relates to contraventions under the requirements of Article 22 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

1

January 21, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Kebaowek Nation calls for cancellationof nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River

Nuclear waste disposal would run counter to Aboriginal rights and environmental protection.

by Alexia Leclerc, Pivot, January 16, 2024

The Kebaowek First Nation denounces the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s decision to grant a license to the private company Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to build a radioactive waste disposal facility at Chalk River, on Algonquin Anishinabeg traditional territory. She believes that the Commission did not respect its duty to consult Aboriginal communities, and is concerned about the consequences for health and the environment.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has obtained a federal licence to operate a 37-hectare area for, among other things, the permanent near-surface storage of up to 1,000,000 cubic metres of solid low-level radioactive waste.

This area is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation communities, who reject the project. The area is close to sacred sites such as Oiseau Rock and Pointe au Baptême, as well as the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River) and its watershed, and several animal and plant species important to the ecosystem.

The community of Kebaowek strongly denounces this situation and calls on the federal government to stop the project. “The Commission’s decision is unacceptable,” said Lance Haymond, Chief of the First Nation, in a press release issued on January 9. “The Government of Canada must act quickly and affirm the suspension of the project without delay.”

CNL applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), a federal administrative tribunal, for an amendment to its current operating licence. The Commission, which issues licences to nuclear companies, is mandated to assess the environmental and human impacts of such a project, while ensuring that obligations to consult Aboriginal peoples are met.

Duty to consult not respected

“We believe that consultation has been inadequate, to say the least, and that our Aboriginal rights are threatened by this proposal,” says Lance Haymond.

The communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi, members of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation, intervened with the Commission in June 2022 to inform it that they had not been adequately consulted. The Commission gave them one year to provide a brief that would allow adequate consultation.

Only these two communities were given additional time for consultation activities, although other communities also requested this time.

The brief filed by Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi states that all the communities of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation have potential title, interest and inherent rights over the entire Kichi Sibi watershed, beyond the limits imposed by the reserve and provincial system.

“How do they understand the duty to consult, when ten out of eleven communities refuse the project?” denounces Justin Roy, Councillor for the Kebaowek First Nation. “It’s not enough to simply inform and listen. What the communities want is to be able to sit at the discussion table, to take part in the decision-making and solution-making process.

He acknowledges that nuclear waste management needs to be addressed, but maintains that the current solution is inadequate.

The Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi brief already asserted that approval of this project would violate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This states that states must take effective measures to prevent the storage or disposal of hazardous materials on the territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.

When we asked about the criticisms of the consultations, the Commission simply referred us to its report, without comment. The report describes the consultation process and mentions the additional time granted to the two communities.

Threats to health

Kebaowek Chief Lance Haymond states “it is undeniable that the safety and health of people and the environment will be profoundly impacted for generations to come by this project”.

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, warns of the dangers of storing nuclear substances in the area, despite the Commission’s ruling. “Judging that there will be no significant environmental impacts doesn’t mean that there won’t be any.”

Gordon Edwards points out that even after the active life of this nuclear waste management site is over, radioactive materials from it will still be present in the environment for several thousand years.

The release of radioactive materials into the water of the Ottawa river that flows into the St. Lawrence will be monitored to ensure that the quantity respects Canadian standards, insists the Commission. However, Gordon Edwards warns that no public health or medical data will be collected on the health effects of exposure to people from these substances in the water.

“When we put radioactivity in the water we drink, we expose millions of people. Even if the level of exposure is very low, it exposes a lot of people to these radioactive cancer-causing agents.” He explains that the more people are exposed to radiation, the greater the number of cancers are expected.

“The main reason to keep radioactive materials out of the environment is to keep the number of people exposed to them as minimal as possible,” he sums up.

Impact on endangered species

Despite the Commission’s assessment, the Kebaowek First Nation also remains concerned about the project’s environmental impacts. “The Commission’s final decision is completely unfounded in concluding that the project […] will not have significant environmental effects,” insists Lance Haymond.

Justin Roy points out that several protected species inhabit this environment. For example, he points out that the Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi brief assesses, among other things, that vegetation clearing would have an impact on the black ash, considered an endangered species by the Ontario government. However, there is no mention of the black ash in the Commission’s report.

Construction of the site would also require the destruction of hibernation sites, threatening the black bear population, says Justin Roy.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission affirms that the environmental effects are for the most part insignificant, and that mitigation measures will be put in place to protect endangered species. In response to Pivot’s questions, it states that it will continue to observe the surrounding environment as part of the Independent Environmental Monitoring Program.

La nation Kebaowek demande l’annulation de l’entreposage de déchets nucléaires à Chalk River

January 21, 2024 Posted by | indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment