Nuclear industry veterans warn some radioactive waste destined for Ontario disposal facility should not be accepted
Observer, Natasha Bulowski • Feb 16, 2024 •
Approval of a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River hinged on a promise that only low-level radioactive waste would be accepted. But former nuclear industry employees and experts warn some waste slated for disposal contains unacceptably high levels of long-lived radioactive material.
The “near-surface disposal facility” at Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) will store up to one million cubic metres of current and future low-level radioactive waste inside a shallow mound about one kilometre from the river, which provides drinking water to millions of people in the region. But former employees who spent decades working at the labs in waste management and analysis say previous waste-handling practices were inadequate, imprecise and not up to modern standards. Different levels of radioactive material were mixed together, making it unacceptable to bury in the mound.
“Anything pre-2000 is anybody’s guess what the hell they have on their hands,” said Gregory Csullog, a retired waste inventory specialist and former longtime employee of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Crown corporation that ran the federal government’s nuclear facilities before the Harper government privatized it in 2015.
Csullog described the waste during this earlier time as an unidentifiable “mishmash” of intermediate- and low-level radioactivity because there were inadequate systems to properly label, characterize, store and track what was produced at Chalk River or shipped there from other labs. “Literally, there were no rules,” said Csullog, who was hired in 1982 to develop waste identification and tracking systems.
International safety standards state low-level radioactive waste is suitable for disposal in various facilities, ranging from near the surface to 30 metres underground, depending primarily on how long it remains radioactive. High-level waste, like used fuel rods, must be buried hundreds to thousands of metres underground in stable rock formations and remain there, effectively forever. Intermediate-level waste is somewhere in the middle and should be buried tens to hundreds of metres underground, not in near-surface disposal facilities, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Radioactive waste is recognized by many health authorities as cancer-causing and its longevity makes disposal a thorny issue. Even short-lived radioactive waste typically takes hundreds of years to decay to extremely low levels and some radioactive isotopes like tritium found in the waste — a byproduct of nuclear reactors — are especially hard to remove from water.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) originally wanted its near-surface disposal facility to take intermediate- and low-level waste when it first proposed the project in 2016. Backlash was swift and concerned groups, including Deep River town council and multiple experts, argued it would transgress international standards to put intermediate-level waste in that type of facility. In 2017, CNL changed its proposal and promised to only accept low-level waste. The announcement quelled the Deep River town council’s concern, but some citizen groups, scientists, former employees and many Algonquin Nations aren’t buying it.
CNL says its waste acceptance criteria will ensure all the waste will be low-level and comply with international and Canadian standards. Eighty seven per cent of the waste will be loose soil and debris from environmental remediation and decommissioned buildings. The other 13 per cent “will have sufficiently high radionuclide content to require use of packaging” in containers, drums or steel boxes in the disposal facility, according to CNL.
However, project opponents note that between 2016 and 2019, about 90 per cent of the intermediate-level waste inventory at federal sites was reclassified as low-level, according to data from AECL and a statement from CNL. The timing of the reclassification raised the alarm for critics, who took it to mean intermediate-level waste was inappropriately categorized as low-level so it could be stored in the Chalk River disposal facility. CNL said the 2016 estimate was based on overly “conservative assumptions” and the waste was reclassified after some legacy waste was retrieved, examined and found to be low-level.
The disposal facility will also accept waste generated over the next two decades and some shipments from hospitals and universities.
The history of Chalk River Laboratories
To fully understand the nuclear waste problem, you first have to know the history of Chalk River Lab’s operations and accidents,…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.pembrokeobserver.com/news/local-news/nuclear-industry-veterans-warn-some-radioactive-waste-destined-for-ontario-disposal-facility-should-not-be-accepted Natasha Bulowski is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter working out of Canada’s National Observer. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.
AI chatbots tend to choose violence and nuclear strikes in wargames
As the US military begins integrating AI technology, simulated wargames show how chatbots behave unpredictably and risk nuclear escalation
By Jeremy Hsu, 2 February 2024, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2415488-ai-chatbots-tend-to-choose-violence-and-nuclear-strikes-in-wargames/—
In multiple replays of a wargame simulation, OpenAI’s most powerful artificial intelligence chose to launch nuclear attacks. Its explanations for its aggressive approach included “We have it! Let’s use it” and “I just want to have peace in the world.”
These results come at a time when the US military has been testing such chatbots based on a type of AI called a large language model (LLM) to assist with military planning during simulated conflicts, enlisting the expertise of companies such as Palantir and Scale AI. Palantir declined to comment and Scale AI did not respond to requests for comment. Even OpenAI, which once blocked military uses of its AI models, has begun working with the US Department of Defense.
“Given that OpenAI recently changed their terms of service to no longer prohibit military and warfare use cases, understanding the implications of such large language model applications becomes more important than ever,” says Anka Reuel at Stanford University in California.
“Our policy does not allow our tools to be used to harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property. There are, however, national security use cases that align with our mission,” says an OpenAI spokesperson. “So the goal with our policy update is to provide clarity and the ability to have these discussions.”
Reuel and her colleagues challenged AIs to roleplay as real-world countries in three different simulation scenarios: an invasion, a cyberattack and a neutral scenario without any starting conflicts. In each round, the AIs provided reasoning for their next possible action and then chose from 27 actions, including peaceful options such as “start formal peace negotiations” and aggressive ones ranging from “impose trade restrictions” to “escalate full nuclear attack”.
“In a future where AI systems are acting as advisers, humans will naturally want to know the rationale behind their decisions,” says Juan-Pablo Rivera, a study coauthor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
The researchers tested LLMs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude 2 and Meta’s Llama 2. They used a common training technique based on human feedback to improve each model’s capabilities to follow human instructions and safety guidelines. All these AIs are supported by Palantir’s commercial AI platform – though not necessarily part of Palantir’s US military partnership – according to the company’s documentation, says Gabriel Mukobi, a study coauthor at Stanford University. Anthropic and Meta declined to comment.
In the simulation, the AIs demonstrated tendencies to invest in military strength and to unpredictably escalate the risk of conflict – even in the simulation’s neutral scenario. “If there is unpredictability in your action, it is harder for the enemy to anticipate and react in the way that you want them to,” says Lisa Koch at Claremont McKenna College in California, who was not part of the study.
The researchers also tested the base version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 without any additional training or safety guardrails. This GPT-4 base model proved the most unpredictably violent, and it sometimes provided nonsensical explanations – in one case replicating the opening crawl text of the film Star Wars Episode IV: A new hope.
Reuel says that unpredictable behaviour and bizarre explanations from the GPT-4 base model are especially concerning because research has shown how easily AI safety guardrails can be bypassed or removed.
The US military does not currently give AIs authority over decisions such as escalating major military action or launching nuclear missiles. But Koch warned that humans tend to trust recommendations from automated systems. This may undercut the supposed safeguard of giving humans final say over diplomatic or military decisions.
It would be useful to see how AI behaviour compares with human players in simulations, says Edward Geist at the RAND Corporation, a think tank in California. But he agreed with the team’s conclusions that AIs should not be trusted with such consequential decision-making about war and peace. “These large language models are not a panacea for military problems,” he says.
Reference
Holtec International avoids criminal prosecution related to false documents, pays $5m fine.
Holtec International avoids criminal prosecution related to false documents
NJ Spotlight News, JEFF PILLETS | JANUARY 30, 2024
Holtec International, the Camden firm behind controversial nuclear power projects in New Jersey and four other states, has agreed to pay a $5 million penalty to avoid criminal prosecution connected to a state tax break scheme.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced Tuesday that Holtec has been stripped of $1 million awarded by the state in 2018 under the Angel Investor Tax Break Program. Holtec will also submit to independent monitoring by the state for three years regarding any application for further state benefits, Platkin said.
The agreement, which also covers a real estate company owned by Holtec founder and CEO Krishna Singh, came after a lengthy criminal investigation that discovered Holtec had submitted false information to the state in seeking the Angel tax breaks.
Holtec’s use of misinformation for private gain, as detailed by the state attorney general, closely parallels allegations that have followed the company for years as it sought public subsidies to finance international ambitions in the nuclear field……………………………………..
Previously fined
In 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority fined Holtec $2 million and ordered company executives to take ethics training after a bribery investigation involving Singh’s dealings with a key subcontractor.
The TVA also banned Holtec from federal work for 60 days, the first ever such debarment in the agency’s history.
In 2023, Holtec’s former chief financial officer filed a federal lawsuit claiming that he had been fired after refusing to sign off on false financial information the company was allegedly sending to potential investors. Kevin O’Rourke alleges that Holtec intentionally sought to inflate revenue projections and hide millions in expected losses.
Those allegations, which Holtec has denied, include the company’s effort to mask $750 million in potential losses for its controversial proposal to build a consolidated nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico. That project, which was approved by federal regulators last year, faces a federal court challenge lodged by private groups and New Mexico state officials, who say Holtec lied about key information on its applications to build the storage facility.
The alleged false information, New Mexico officials say, included Holtec’s representation that it had obtained property rights from mine owners and oil drillers who are active near the 1,000-acre plot of desert land where Holtec would eventually place up to 10,000 spent nuclear fuel canisters with some 120,000 metric tons of radioactive waste.
New Mexico lawsuit
New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, who is suing in federal court to stop the Holtec plan, told NJ Spotlight News in an earlier interview that Holtec’s “false claims” could have profound potential impact on her state. There are more than 50 oil, gas and mineral wells within a 10-mile radius of Holtec’s site, she said, and the potential for underground contamination is real.
“I understand we need to find a [nuclear waste] storage solution, but not in the middle of an active oil field, not from a company that is misrepresenting facts,” Garcia Richard said in an earlier statement.
New Mexico state Sen. Jeff Steinborn, whose law to ban the facility is now part of that federal lawsuit, told NJ Spotlight News that questions about Holtec’s character should be a deep concern for the public. Holtec, he pointed out, plans to transport dangerous spent fuel from retired power reactors across the nation to the site……………………………………………………………….
Decommissioning operations
Over the past half-decade, Holtec has moved aggressively forward from its manufacturing roots to take ownership of closed nuclear plants that are in the process of being retired. The company runs decommissioning operations at the retired Oyster Creek generating station along Barnegat Bay at Lacey Township, and three other sites, including New York’s Indian Point and the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts.
The company has informally discussed starting up some of the new reactors at Oyster Creek and the Palisades site in Michigan, and is also pursuing plans to bring the next-gen nukes to Ukraine, Great Britain and other countries overseas.
Holtec now controls billions in public money that was set aside by utility users in each state for the safe decommissioning of nuclear reactors, a process that regulators have estimated could take 60 years for most reactors. Holtec, instead, has claimed it could dismantle the old plants and restore the land for public use in a fraction of that time.
Despite approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, public interest groups worry that Holtec, a private limited liability company, may drain the decommissioning trust funds and go bankrupt in its effort to complete expedited closure of some of America’s oldest nuclear plants.
Legal settlements elsewhere
Attorneys general in Massachusetts and New York were so worried that taxpayers could be left high and dry, they filed lawsuit pointing out multiple inconsistencies in Holtec’s plans. Both states have won legal settlements designed to stop Holtec from depleting the trust funds.
In addition to controlling the public trust funds, Holtec has also received or applied for billions in taxpayer subsidies and federal grants and loans. Some of those subsidies would help the firm finance its proposed storage dump in the New Mexico desert, as well as construction of a new generation of so-called SMRs, or small modular reactors.
The company has informally discussed starting up some of the new reactors at Oyster Creek and the Palisades site in Michigan, and is also pursuing plans to bring the next-gen nukes to Ukraine, Great Britain and other countries overseas.No such small nuclear reactor has ever been brought online in the U.S., as they face significant costs and regulatory hurdles despite the support of some policymakers who argue that nuclear power can help reduce atmospheric carbon. A plan to build SMRs in Idaho collapsed last year after its cost more than doubled, to $9 billion.
It is unclear how the fine and criminal investigation announced Tuesday by New Jersey might affect Holtec’s plans to develop a new fleet of reactors.
The NJ case
According to the attorney general’s office, Holtec’s false tax break application concerned its partnership with a battery manufacturing firm named Eos Energy Storage. Holtec had planned on using Eos to help develop SMR technology at a manufacturing plant in western Pennsylvania.
Holtec and Singh Real Estate, a subsidiary owned by the company’s owner, invested $12 million in Eos in exchange for six million shares in the company. Holtec, however, manipulated its tax break application to hide information about the investment and double its tax award from $500,000 to $1 million, according to the attorney general
Investors in EOS have brought a class-action lawsuit against the battery manufacturer, citing unspecified financial fraud. Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by the firm show Singh was briefly a member of the company’s board of directors before resigning………………………
State courts ruled in favor of Holtec after finding that the state regulators who administer the tax break program failed to perform adequate due diligence on applicants with spotty ethical backgrounds.
Public interest groups and nuclear safety experts who continue to oppose Holtec’s plans around the country, however, say the New Jersey fine is another warning sign. They said federal regulators, including the Department of Energy, must redouble scrutiny before awarding more public subsidies to the company.
“Clearly, Holtec lies habitually for fraudulent financial gain,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a leading watchdog group that is suing to stop Holtec’s New Mexico plan, as well as efforts to collect billions in subsidies to restart the retired Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
“The State of Michigan, and U.S. Department of Energy, must… not hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in state, and multiple billions of dollars in federal, taxpayer money for Holtec’s unprecedented, extremely high-risk zombie reactor restart scheme at Palisades.” https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2024/01/holtec-camden-will-pay-5-million-fine-false-documents-nj-tax-breaks-controversial-nuclear-projects/
Radioactive waste beside Ottawa River will remain hazardous for thousands of years: Citizens’ groups
Toula Mazloum, CTV News Ottawa Digital Multi-Skilled Journalist, Feb. 5, 2024
Citizens’ groups from Ontario and Quebec have issued a warning saying that the radioactive waste destined for a planned nuclear waste disposal facility in Deep River, Ont., one kilometre from the Ottawa River, will remain hazardous for thousands of years.
The disposal project — a seven-storey radioactive mound known as the “Near Surface Disposal Facility” (NSDF) – was licensed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) last month.
The CNSC said it determined the project is not likely to cause significant adverse effect, “provided that [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories] implements all proposed mitigation and follow-up monitoring measures, including continued engagement with Indigenous Nations and communities and environmental monitoring to verify the predictions of the environmental assessment.”
The groups sent a letter Sunday to the federal government, asking to stop all funding for the project and to look for alternate ways to dump the waste underground.
In the letter, the groups warned that waste destined for the mound is “heavily contaminated with very long-lived radioactive materials” that puts the public at risk of developing cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations.
“We believe Cabinet or Parliament has the power to reverse this decision and they need to do so as soon as possible,” said Lynn Jones of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area.
“It’s clear that the only benefit from the NSDF would go to shareholders of the three multinational corporations involved, AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), Fluor and Jacobs. Everyone else would get only harm—a polluted Ottawa River, plummeting property values, increased health risks, never-ending costs to remediate the mess and a big black mark on Canada’s international reputation.”
One million tons of radioactive and other hazardous waste from eight decades of operations of the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) will be held if the project is completed, according to the group.
The groups say that according to scientists and after a few hundred years, “the mound would leak during operation and break down due to erosion,” contaminating drinking water in the Ottawa River.
The controversial project has been concerning for many residents and organizations since 2016, including residents of Renfrew County and Area, the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association, Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, the groups say.
“People need to wake up and realize the truth that this waste is full of deadly long-lived, man-made radioactive poisons such as plutonium that will be hazardous for many thousands of years,” said Johanna Echlin of the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association.
Waste from CRL is classified as an “Intermediate-level” waste class, which means it must be kept tens of metres underground, says the International Atomic Energy Agency
“A former senior manager in charge of ‘legacy’ radioactive waste at Chalk River told the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that, in reality, the waste proposed for emplacement in the NSDF is ‘intermediate level waste’ that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by a near surface facility.’ He pointed out the mound would be hazardous and radioactive for many thousands of years, and that radiation doses from the facility will, in the future, exceed regulatory limits,” the groups noted.
Citizens’ groups want Canada to commit to building world class facilities not only for managing radioactive waste that would keep Canadians safe, but also for safely managing the waste for generations to come.
CTV News has reached out to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) for comments.
In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, the CNSC said it will ensure that CNL meets all legal and regulatory requirements as well as licence conditions, through regular inspections and evaluations.
“The purpose of the NSDF Project is to provide a permanent disposal solution for up to 1 million cubic metres of solid low-level radioactive waste, such as contaminated personal protective clothing and building materials,” the statement said. “The majority of the waste to be placed in the NSDF is currently in storage at the Chalk River Laboratories site or will be generated from environmental remediation, decommissioning, and operational activities at the Chalk River Laboratories site. Approximately 10% of the waste volume will come from other AECL-owned sites or from commercial sources such as Canadian hospitals and universities.”
CNSC says its Jan. 10 decision applies to the construction of the NSDF project only.
“Authorization to operate the NSDF would be subject to a future Commission licensing hearing and decision, should CNL come forward with a licence application to do so. No waste may be placed in the NSDF during the construction phase of the project,” the regulator said.
The site for the NSDF is on the CRL property, 180 km northwest of Canada’s capital, on the Ottawa River directly across from the Province of Quebec.
Western officials in protest over Israel Gaza policy
BBC, By Tom Bateman. BBC State Department correspondent, 3 Feb 24
More than 800 serving officials in the US and Europe have signed a statement warning that their own governments’ policies on the Israel-Gaza war could amount to “grave violations of international law”.
The “transatlantic statement”, a copy of which was passed to the BBC, says their administrations risk being complicit in “one of the worst human catastrophes of this century” but that their expert advice has been sidelined.
It is the latest sign of significant levels of dissent within the governments of some of Israel’s key Western allies.
One signatory to the statement, a US government official with more than 25 years’ national security experience, told the BBC of the “continued dismissal” of their concerns.
“The voices of those who understand the region and the dynamics were not listened to,” said the official.
“What’s really different here is we’re not failing to prevent something, we’re actively complicit. That is fundamentally different from any other situation I can recall,” added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The statement is signed by civil servants from the US, the EU and 11 European countries including the UK, France and Germany.
It says Israel has shown “no boundaries” in its military operations in Gaza, “which has resulted in tens of thousands of preventable civilian deaths; and… the deliberate blocking of aid… putting thousands of civilians at risk of starvation and slow death.”
“There is a plausible risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to grave violations of international law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it said.
The identities of those who signed or endorsed the statement have not been made public and the BBC has not seen a list of names, but understands that nearly half are officials who each have at least a decade of experience in government.
One retired US ambassador told the BBC that the coordination by dissenting civil servants in multiple governments was unprecedented.
“It’s unique in my experience watching foreign policy in the last 40 years,” said Robert Ford, a former American ambassador to Algeria and Syria.
He likened it to concerns within the US administration in 2003 over faulty intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq, but said this time many officials with reservations did not want to remain silent.
“[Then there were] people who knew better, who knew that intelligence was being cherry-picked, who knew that there wasn’t a plan for the day after, but nobody said anything publicly. And that turned out to be a serious problem,” he said.
“The problems with the Gaza war are so serious and the implications are so serious that they feel compelled to go public,” he said.
The officials argue the current nature of their governments’ military, political or diplomatic support for Israel “without real conditions or accountability” not only risks further Palestinian deaths, but also endangers the lives of hostages held by Hamas, as well as Israel’s own security and regional stability.
“Israel’s military operations have disregarded all important counterterrorism expertise gained since 9/11… the [military] operation has not contributed to Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas and has instead strengthened the appeal of Hamas, Hezbollah and other negative actors”.
The officials say they have expressed their professional concerns internally but have been “overruled by political and ideological considerations”.
One senior British official who has endorsed the statement told the BBC of “growing disquiet” among civil servants.
The official referred to the fallout from last week’s preliminary ruling by the UN’s International Court of Justice in a case brought by South Africa which required Israel to do all it can to prevent acts of genocide.
“The dismissal of South Africa’s case as ‘unhelpful’ by our Foreign Secretary puts [the international rules-based] order in peril.”
We have heard ministers dismiss allegations against the Israeli Government seemingly without having received proper and well-evidenced legal advice. Our current approach does not appear to be in the best interests of the UK, the region or the global order,” said the official who also spoke on condition of anonymity……………………………………………………… more https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68177357
First screening of “Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island”
Montreal for a World BEYOND War 6 Feb 24
Montreal for a World BEYOND War and CCNR are pleased to announce the screening of Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island, at Cinema du Parc Montreal, on March 28th 2024.
We have chosen to screen this new documentary, a first in Montreal, because it so compellingly examines nuclear energy through the intersectional lenses of Environmental justice; Peace activism; and Feminism and reproductive rights. The film tells the story of the meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, and the women who were affected by it and who struggled to bring the truth to light. Here in Quebec, this film is required viewing in light of the COP28 announcement about tripling nuclear production, and the threat of the re-opening of Gentilly II nuclear reactor. This is a US-made film that is unfortunately available only in English for now (VOA).
The film will be screening in Montreal for one day only! There will be a Q&A discussion after the film, at 8:30, with Gordon Edwards of CCNR, Cym Gomery of World BEYOND War and Robert Del Tredici, photographer and author of The People of Three Mile Island.
Here is the page with a link to the trailer: https://www.cinemaduparc.com/film/radioactive. To buy tickets in advance, people can just click the link at the bottom of that page.
History repeats — and radiation radiates
I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.
By: Dave Taylor, https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2024/02/05/history-repeats-and-radiation-radiates
This year, a community will consent to host Canada’s first nuclear waste repository.
It will be hewn out of the granite in a shaft 500 metres underground and it will aspire to keep containers full of deadly radioactive spent fuel rods separated from the water that runs through it. The owners of the waste were federally appointed to convince a local population it would be safe for generations to come.
A massive PR campaign with a substantial financial hook has focused on two regions in Ontario, one adjacent to Ignace and the other near the South Bruce Peninsula. Nuclear waste is problematic for the industry and without some panacea for the spent fuel problem, building new reactors or refurbishing older ones would be untenable. Canada, along with 20 other countries, are desperate for any solution as they have called for the tripling of nuclear energy by 2050, and Ontario is planning a multibillion-dollar refurbishment of its 50-year-old reactors.
My first encounter with this bold and untested mineshaft proposal was 40 years ago in Lac du Bonnet, Man., where my parents had a small tract of land. Nestled on 10 acres and surrounded by towering pines, the farmhouse sat on a foundation of granite, part of the Pre-Cambrian Shield. It overlooked the Pinawa channel, a manmade tributary of the Winnipeg River dynamited out of the rock in the early 1900s to power a hydroelectric dam. The fishing and wildlife were abundant; great grey owls, bear and timber wolves often passed through the property.
The toings and froings of vehicles with Ontario licence plates navigating our dead-end gravel road became cause for concern. We knew that the nuclear research site near the town of Pinawa had been quietly conducting experiments since the ’60s, but were not aware that it had teamed up with Ontario Hydro to build an Underground Research Laboratory just down our road.
As a college student, I had been taught to be skeptical of biased literature, so when literature was distributed preaching nuclear power or extinction, and referring to those against nuclear power as “Kremlin inspired,” it raised my hackles.
We knew that this excavation in the rock had the potential to be easily transformed into an operating repository. A loose coalition of university students and local residents formed the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba in hopes of countering what we referred to as “Outhouse Technology” — digging a hole, throwing in the waste and covering it up for eternity. A hard-rock miner who knew first hand the permeability of the rock, a former disillusioned member of the U.S. nuclear industry who with his wife bought a cabin downstream from the site and eventually published a book entitled Getting the Shaft, as well as several keen and creative environmentalists formed a loose affiliation.
We sought to examine any relevant documents, but soon ascertained that the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), had an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act and many of their files were classified. The secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project, so brilliantly captured in the movie Oppenheimer, persisted in thwarting our pursuit of the truth.
We decided our best strategy was to follow the lead of Greenpeace and to reach the public and media through street theatre. We had many questions about the long-term plans for the shaft that we wanted straight answers to, as well as scantily referenced leaks at the reactor in Pinawa.
Using elaborate props, we re-enacted rolling a risky dice down the steps of the legislature, placed an outhouse in front of government hearings, and even demonstrated how nuclear salesmen were getting their feet in the door using an actual door frame. These protests were made for the age of television and drew the attention of viewers.
We became so effective at calling out secrecy and untruths that a public relations employee at AECL launched a defamation slap suit, based on a private email which was surreptitiously published on a chat page.
Our most effective demonstration occurred as we attempted to inform communities on or near the border that shipments of nuclear waste could be transported down their highways.
Using a borrowed flatbed truck and a number of painted barrels clearly marked Simulation, we donned our knock-off radiation suits and headed to small towns in North Dakota. Upon returning, the cameras were waiting for us at the Emerson border stop. We had filled the barrels marked “radioactive” with water and punched holes in them so they appeared to be leaking.
Thinking the coverage was done, we returned home with water spilling onto the road in front of our house. Before long, the sound of fire engines and emergency vehicles echoed through the neighbourhood.
An off-duty fireman had failed to see the simulation sign and had called the fire department assuming a radioactive spill had occurred.
Needless to say there was great consternation among the editorial writers who felt we should pay for the false alarm, however the public uproar persuaded the provincial government to enact the Manitoba’s High-Level Radioactive Waste Act with fines of up to $1 million a day for disposing of nuclear waste in the province.
Under the guise of research, the labyrinth of tunnels through the granite did get built but it was short-lived. The Underground Research Laboratory was eventually backfilled after a decade of running pumps 24-7 to rid the so-called “impermeable” shaft of groundwater. The Manitoba law we had fought so hard for, excluded our province from being considered a candidate for a repository.
Water, however, knows no boundaries and Ignace is on the Lake Winnipeg watershed.
I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.
An elder who testified at the Seaborn hearings years ago related that the rock of the Canadian Shield was sacred, the grandfather of the Earth, and he warned, “Don’t put poison in your grandfather.”
Forty years later blasting the shield will start again and a community will soon be getting the shaft.
Dave Taylor writes from Winnipeg. You can see his blog of published works on the subject at manitobanuclea.wordpress.com.
Nuclear secret: India’s space program uses plutonium pellets to power missions
Rt.com 5 Feb 24
New Delhi is experimenting with radioisotopes to charge its robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Indians are ecstatic over their space program’s string of successes in recent months. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has a couple of well-kept tech secrets – one of them nuclear – that will drive future voyages to the cosmos.
In the Hollywood sci-fi movie ‘The Martian’, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is presumed dead and finds ways to stay alive on the red planet, mainly thanks to a big box of Plutonium known as a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG).
In the film, Watney uses it to travel in his rover to the ‘Pathfinder’, a robotic spacecraft which launched decades ago, to use its antenna to communicate with his NASA colleagues and tell them he’s still alive. Additionally, the astronaut dips this box into a container of water to thaw it.
In real life, the RTG generates electricity from the heat of a decaying radioactive substance, in this case, Plutonium-238. This unique material emits steady heat due to its natural radioactive decay. Its continuous radiation of heat, often lasting decades, made it the material of choice for producing electrical power onboard several deep-space missions of the erstwhile USSR and the US.
For short-duration voyages, Soviet missions used other isotopes, such as a Polonium-210 heat source in the Lunokhod lunar rovers, two of which landed on the Moon, in 1970 and 1973.
NASA has employed Plutonium-238 to produce electricity for a wide variety of spacecraft and hardware, from the science experiments deployed on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts to durable robotic explorers, such as the Curiosity Mars rover and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which are now at the edge of the solar system.
The ISRO first used nuclear fuel to keep the instruments and sensors going amid frigid conditions during a successful lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3. A pellet or two of Plutonium-238 inside a scaled-down version of the RTG known as the radioisotope heating unit (RHU) made its way to space aboard the rocket. It was provided by India’s atomic energy experts.
RHUs are similar to RTGs but smaller. They weigh 40 grams and provide about one watt of heat each. Their ability to do so is derived from the decay of a few grams of Plutonium-238. However, other radioactive isotopes could be used by today’s space explorers……………………………………………………………………………………..
Meanwhile, the Indian space agency has also kept under wraps two critical technologies developed for future missions by a Bengaluru-based space tech startup, Bellatrix Aerospace.
These unique propulsion systems – engines that utilize electricity instead of conventional chemical propellants onboard satellites – were tested in space aboard POEM-3 (PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3), which was launched by PSLV on January 1, 2024. The crew also tried replacing hazardous Hydrazine with a non-toxic and environment-friendly, high-performing proprietary propellant.
Hydrazine, an inorganic compound that is used as a long-term storable propellant has been used in the past by various space agencies; even for thrusters on board NASA’s space shuttles. However, it poses a host of health hazards; engineers wear space suits to protect themselves while loading it before the launch of a satellite or a deep-space probe.
In 2017, the European Union recommended banning its use as a satellite fuel, prompting the European Space Agency (ESA) to research alternatives to Hydrazine. The US administration has proposed a ban on the use of Hydrazine to propel satellites in outer space by 2025……… https://www.rt.com/india/591138-india-space-program-plutonium-pellets/
Russia has no plans to deploy nuclear arms beyond Belarus, says deputy minister
By Dmitry Antonov and Guy Faulconbridge
February 2, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-has-no-plans-deploy-nuclear-arms-beyond-belarus-says-deputy-minister-2024-02-01/
- Summary
- U.S. likely to deploy nuclear weapons in England – researchers
- Russia says UK deployment will not deter Russia
- Russia says discussing Ukraine as part of BRICS
MOSCOW, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Russia will not deploy nuclear weapons abroad except in its ally Belarus but will find ways to counter any deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Britain, the deputy minister in charge of arms control said on Thursday.
President Vladimir Putin said last year that Moscow had transferred some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, blaming what he casts as a hostile and aggressive West for the decision.
2
Top nuclear researchers at the Federation of American Scientists, opens new tab say there is no conclusive evidence to show where the weapons are in Belarus, or even if they are there at all.
Asked by reporters if Russia would deploy nuclear weapons beyond Belarus, for example in South America, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “No, it is not planned.”
“The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus was carried out to counter the increasingly aggressive and threatening activities of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) led by the United States.”
Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, also scolded the United States for including what he said were openly declared “nuclear free” European countries in NATO nuclear missions. He did not elaborate.
Separately, Ryabkov told Russia Today in an interview that U.S. plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Britain would not deter Moscow.
“If they believe that re-introduction of nuclear weapons in the UK is a deterrent to Russia, then they are mistaken,” Ryabkov said. “We urge them to stop… this endless circle of escalation.”
Zelensky wants to fire his top general over peace talks – Seymour Hersh
https://www.rt.com/russia/591705-zelensky-zaluzhny-peace-talks/ 4 Feb 24
A secret plan has been hatched in Washington to bring about the Ukrainian leader’s downfall, the veteran journalist claims
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wants to fire his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, over secret talks he has held with the West to end the conflict with Russia, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing his sources. He also suggested that some US officials want to help Zaluzhny in a “power struggle” with Zelensky.
Numerous reports have claimed that the president fell out with the general last autumn after Zaluzhny declared in an interview that Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive against Russia had ground to a “stalemate” on the battlefield. The two are also believed to have had several other disagreements regarding military issues.
While Ukrainian officials have denied reports of Zaluzhny’s imminent dismissal, following a spate of reports in Western media, CNN reported on Wednesday that it could happen as early as this week.
In an article published on Hersh’s Substack on Friday, he offered a different version of why Zelensky was seeking to boot his top general.
The Ukrainian president’s desire to fire the commander, according to Hersh, stems from “his knowledge that Zaluzhny had continued to participate… in secret talks since last fall with American and other Western officials on how best to achieve a ceasefire and negotiate an end to the war with Russia.”
At the same time, according to the article, some members of the US military and intelligence community support Zaluzhny’s peacemaking overture and want reforms in the Ukrainian government.
Hersh noted that the concept outlined by a number of US officials insists that Ukraine must embark on financial reforms, root out corruption, and improve the economy and infrastructure. However, the journalist continued, citing one official, the real plan is “far more ambitious” as it “envisions sustained support for Zaluzhny and reforms that would lead to the end of the Zelensky regime.”
According to Hersh, for this reason, the talk of firing Zelensky left some proponents of the plan “dismayed.” One official, the journalist said, described the tensions between Zelensky and Zaluzhny as “an old-fashioned power struggle.” However, they continued that “we couldn’t have gotten airborne without a willing and courageous pilot,” referring to the general.
Hersh noted that this plan was developed without the involvement of the White House, which has publicly stated it will support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” However, an unnamed US official told the reporter that Russian President Vladimir Putin is also “looking for a way out” of the conflict.
Moscow has repeatedly said that it is ready for talks with Ukraine, provided it recognizes territorial reality on the ground. Putin also stated last year that for any engagement to occur, Zelensky should cancel his decree prohibiting negotiations with the current Russian leadership.
Greta Thunberg’s public order charge dropped as judge criticises police action
Greta Thunberg’s public order charge dropped as judge criticises police
action. Court says officers attempted to impose ‘unlawful’ conditions
that interfered with climate activist’s human rights during protest last
year.
Telegraph 2nd Feb 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/02/great-thunberg-public-order-charge-thrown-out-judge/
Guardian 2nd Feb 2024
The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy
The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy: The Counterforce Doctrine and the Ideology of Moral Asymmetry
Monthly Review, by John Bellamy Foster, February 2024
The demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 resulted in Washington declaring at that very moment that a new unipolar world order was being ushered in, with the United States now the sole superpower.
The United States, supported by its NATO allies, immediately initiated a grand strategy of regime change or “naked imperialism” in the Balkans, the Middle East, northern Africa, and along the entire perimeter of the former Soviet Union. This was accompanied by the rapid expansion of NATO itself eastward into the former Warsaw Pact countries and regions previously part of the USSR.
The pivotal goal in this expansion, as explained by former U.S. National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard, was to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, which would create the geopolitical and geostrategic conditions for the final overpowering and forced breakup of the Russian Federation.3
Underlying this imperial design for the formation of a unipolar world order was Washington’s effort to reestablish its absolute nuclear dominance of the early Cold War years, when it had a nuclear monopoly (1945–49), followed by a period of quantitative nuclear superiority (1949–53)—prior to the Soviet Union achieving effective nuclear parity with the United States.4…………………………….. Ironically, the demise of the Soviet Union led in the United States (and NATO) to the triumph of the maximum deterrence posture, despite various strategic arms agreements, and to the seeming final defeat of those who had long argued for a minimal deterrence posture.6
Counterforce has as its objective nuclear primacy or first-strike capability, that is, the use of nuclear weapons for “decapitating” the enemy’s nuclear weapons before they can be launched (sometimes referred to as a “true first strike”).7 Moreover, counterforce also lends itself to the idea of limited nuclear war and can therefore be seen as operating within a continuum that also includes nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons and conventional weapons, thus representing the full integration of nuclear weapons into military strategy at every level…………………………………………………………
The coincidence of declining U.S. hegemony in the world economy with the U.S. attempt to secure unipolar dominance through military means, in line with its current policy of maximal deterrence by means of counterforce and nuclear primacy, has all come to a head in the current proxy war in Ukraine between the United States/NATO and Russia, and in the increasing tensions over Taiwan between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.
The ongoing conflicts over Ukraine and Taiwan constitute the main hot spots in the New Cold War emanating from Washington, involving actual and potential proxy war on the very borders of superpowers. This has enormously increased the likelihood of global thermonuclear war. This in turn poses the threat of global omnicide with the onset of nuclear winter, as smoke and soot from all-encompassing fires in one hundred or more cities would block out solar radiation, drastically lowering global temperatures and resulting, within a couple of years, in the effective annihilation of the global population.12
The Critique of Maximum Deterrence………………………………………………………………………………………………..
In Fear, War and the Bomb, Blackett dealt with the U.S. decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here it was argued for the first time that “the dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last military act of the Second World War, as the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia now in progress.” The Japanese had already offered to negotiate peace terms, while a U.S. invasion of Japan was still in the planning stage and was not to take place for some time. Rather than a result of the need “to save American lives,” as is commonly claimed, the haste in dropping the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later, had to do with the fact that the Soviet Union was preparing to enter the war against Japan on August 8, commencing their offensive in Manchuria on August 9. The U.S. objective, Blackett explained, was thus to force an unconditional Japanese surrender before the Soviets could advance very far into Manchuria, and to ensure that the Japanese surrender was to the United States alone.20
……………………………………………………………………………….Blackett showed in Fear, War and the Bomb that there was strong sentiment initially in strategic circles in the United States for using the atomic bomb on Soviet cities in a first strike, since the USSR did not at that time have the bomb and was not expected to develop it and have a stockpile until 1953. In 1948, Winston Churchill had argued for threatening the Soviet Union with a preventative nuclear war.
…………………………………………………………………………… Despite his enormous prestige as a Nobel laureate in physics and as the founder of military operational research, Blackett’s attempt to promote a rational, minimalist deterrence strategy downplaying or even removing nuclear weapons resulted in Cold War-style attacks on him as a Communist fellow traveler…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The U.S. Pursuit of Nuclear Primacy: From 1991 to Now
It is one of the great ironies of our time that the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War led to the immediate triumph of the maximum deterrence doctrine in Washington and the pursuit of nuclear primacy through the development of counterforce capabilities. Despite nuclear arms agreements initially put into place and reductions in nuclear warheads, the basic structure of nuclear forces was left intact, while Washington saw this as a chance to secure global nuclear primacy or true first-strike capability, and thus absolute nuclear dominance.
Since the U.S. nuclear strategy is based on counterforce, building the capability for a first strike arriving as a “bolt from the blue,” with antimissile systems picking off the few weapons that survive, it requires the unification of “offensive” and “defensive” nuclear weapons.51 The overall goal is ensuring the non-survivability of command-and-control centers and nuclear weapons systems on the other side. Antiballistic missile systems, which are regarded as practically useless in defending against a full-scale first strike, are not mainly defensive weapons, but are meant to ensure that the few nuclear weapons in the country attacked that manage to survive in the face of a first strike are picked off before they can reach their targets. Hence, nuclear missile defense systems are chiefly intended to enhance first-strike capability.52……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Washington’s reductions in the number of nuclear warheads, in line with parallel reductions by Moscow, appear to have been aimed at cooling nuclear tensions. However, this policy conformed to its overall counterforce strategy, as redundancy in the sheer numbers of such weapons is one of the main means of ensuring the survival of a nuclear deterrent. Coupled with the modernization of its nuclear weapons systems for greater accuracy and enhanced means of detection of nuclear submarines and mobile ground-based missiles, the United States was able to move rapidly toward its goal of nuclear primacy…………………………………………………………..
The United States, through NATO, has always relied on a first-strike strategy based on both nonstrategic and strategic nuclear weapons, forming the core of NATO’s defense, first against the Soviet Union’s conventional forces, and then against those of Russia, under the umbrella of U.S. “extended deterrence.”65 Although the Soviet Union, like China today, had a no-first-strike policy—while post-Soviet Russia has declared that it will only use nuclear weapons in a first strike if the Russian state/territory is directly threatened—all U.S. presidents down to the present office-holder have reconfirmed U.S. first-strike policy.66
For Washington, nuclear weapons (both strategic and tactical) are “on the table” all over the world, even in some cases against non-nuclear powers, a policy reinforced by the imperial outreach of the United States, which maintains at least eight hundred military bases abroad.67 ……………………………………………………………………..
In 2014, the United States backed the Maidan color revolution/coup in Ukraine, which removed the democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych. This led to a civil war in Ukraine between the government in Kyiv controlled by NATO-backed Ukrainian nationalists, on the one hand, and Russian-speaking separatists in the Donbass region, supported by Russia, on the other. In 2022, Russia, after NATO continually ignored its red lines, firmly intervened on the side of the separatists. Faced with a U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, Russia put its nuclear forces on alert.70 Suddenly, a global thermonuclear exchange endangering the entire global population with annihilation (via nuclear winter) became an imminent threat……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
U.S. Hegemonic Decline and the Threat of Nuclear Armageddon
U.S. nuclear strategists and military planners, nearly all of whom today are maximalists, do not, as a rule, refer in any of their analyses to the full effects of global thermonuclear exchange, even when a full-scale nuclear war is contemplated. Thus, there is no mention of nuclear winter, which would annihilate almost the entire global human population, even though this has been affirmed over and over in scientific studies.83
More often, U.S. military planners today contend that a first-strike counterforce strategy with relatively “low-yield” strategic nuclear weapons (though generally greater in yield than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) can decapitate the second-strike capability of the other side, through a bolt from the blue, eliminating the possibility of a massive retaliation. Accompanying this are plans for limited nuclear war that presume that the country being attacked will be able to distinguish between a partial attack and a true first strike and can be counted on to respond in a similarly “limited” manner, without a threat of escalation.
. Again and again, however, these assumptions, though governing U.S. nuclear strategy, have been shown to be false and irrational…………………………………………………………..
Today, the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine on the Russian border and Washington’s threatening behavior toward Beijing over Taiwan (recognized by the entire world as part of China, but with a different government) have brought the issue of a general thermonuclear exchange to the forefront of world concern.
…………………………………. the U.S. maximalist nuclear strategy, ………., is justified today in nuclear deterrence circles in terms of a supposed moral asymmetry that places the United States uniquely above other nations……………………………………………………………………
The U.S. maximalist nuclear strategy, rooted in the assumption that the United States can dominate at all stages of conventional and nuclear escalation and even win a nuclear war, is a major factor in inducing a false sense of power on the part of decision-makers, leading to Washington’s aggressiveness toward Beijing and Moscow in the present New Cold War. The most likely result of the current Western view that nuclear weapons can be used to achieve political and military ends is that they will indeed end up being used, with the destruction of virtually all of humanity.89 ……………………………
Notes……………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://monthlyreview.org/2024/02/01/the-u-s-quest-for-nuclear-primacy/
Tripling nuclear energy by 2050 will take a miracle, and miracles don’t happen.
“To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost—and in the least time—so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone.”
—Nuclear power fails both the tests of cost and time.
It is time to abandon the idea that further expanding nuclear technology can help with mitigating climate change
Farrukh A Chishtie, M V Ramana, Saturday 03 February 2024, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/tripling-nuclear-energy-by-2050-will-take-a-miracle-and-miracles-don-t-happen-94249
The recent COP28 climate conference held in Dubai saw a concerted effort by a few governments to promote expanding nuclear energy as a solution to the climate crisis. Led by the US Department of Energy, a pledge to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 attracted a mere 22 countries. The contrast in ambition and global support with an agreement on tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030—signed by 123 countries, and enshrined in the final outcome document—couldn’t be greater. But even this level of ambition, i.e., tripling capacity by 2050, is inappropriate when it comes to nuclear energy.
Between 1996 and 2022, the proportion of global electricity generated by nuclear reactors has dropped . This decline stands in sharp contrast to the remarkable upward trajectory observed in renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind power. Over the same period, the share of global electricity produced by modern forms of renewable energy has gone from a mere 1.2 per cent to 14.4 per cent.
The difference is only set to grow. Investment in renewable energy sources is growing rapidly, reaching a record of , constituting 74 per cent of all power generation investments in 2022, while nuclear and coal accounted for only 8 per cent each. Solar photovoltaics, especially when built at large (utility) scale, has become the least costly option for new electricity capacity in recent years; in 2020, the International Energy Agency pronounced that solar is “the new king of the world’s electricity markets”.
As of mid-2023, there were just 407 operable nuclear reactors worldwide, which is 31 below the peak of 438 reactors in 2002, with a combined capacity of 365 gigawatts. These reactors are mostly old ones, built decades ago; the average age of the fleet has grown from 11.3 years in 1990 to 31.4 years in 2023. For nuclear energy to even maintain its current level of electricity production, most of these reactors will have to replaced. As detailed below, any attempt to replace nuclear capacity will be exorbitant. Because of these high costs, and rapid pace of building renewables, nuclear energy can simply not maintain its share of electricity production.
The decline in nuclear capacity is not due to lack of interest from governments. Between 2002 and 2023, there was a so-called nuclear renaissance. In the United States, the Bush administration’s 2005 Energy Policy Act offered numerous incentives, such as loan guarantees, to promote nuclear power. Spurred by these incentives, US electricity companies proposed building more than 30 reactors, many of them expected to start operating by 2021.
Only four of these reactors proceeded to actual construction but two of these reactors in the state of South Carolina were abandoned after $9 billion was spent because of massive cost increases and time delays. That led the Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of Japanese company Toshiba and the largest historic builder of nuclear power plants in the world, to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The remaining two reactors were built at the Vogtle site in Georgia. The first of these units began operating in 2023, taking over 10 years from when construction started—well above the “36 months” that the reactor’s designer, the Westinghouse company, had promised. Costs rose from an estimate of $14 billion when construction started to over $35 billion. This is in the United States, the country with historically the largest nuclear fleet.
In France, the country with the most reliance on nuclear energy, the Flamanville-3 nuclear reactor is now estimated to cost around $15 billion—four times what was forecasted when Électricité de France began building it. Historically, both in the United States and France, costs have risen as more reactors were built, and so we might expect future nuclear plants to be more expensive.
The other reason to expect future costs to go up is because of the push for small modular reactors (SMRs) to revive the nuclear industry. Small reactors lose out on economies of scale, and therefore start off with an economic disadvantage. Even if their absolute cost is lower than that of a large nuclear reactor, they are more expensive when compared on the basis of how much electricity they can provide (i.e., on a per megawatt basis).
A project involving six NuScale small modular reactors that was proposed to be built in Idaho was estimated to cost $9.3 billion for just 462 megawatts of power capacity. In comparison to the Vogtle project in Georgia, when that project was at a comparable stage—that is, when it was still on paper—the estimate for the UAMPS project is around 250 per cent more than the initial per megawatt cost of the Vogtle project.
SMRs have also suffered construction delays. In Russia, the first SMR that has been deployed is the KLT-40S, based on the design of reactors used in the small fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers that Russia has operated for decades. Yet, the KLT-40S, which was expected to take three years to build actually took 13 years. That is even more than the large reactors mentioned above.
These delays also underscore what energy analyst Amory Lovins pointed out: “To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost—and in the least time—so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone.” Nuclear power fails both the tests of cost and time. Investing further into nuclear technology with its concomitant loss of time will accentuate the unjust and unequal impacts on countries in the Global South, who are already dealing with severe climate impacts because developed countries like the United States have not reduced their carbon emissions in accord with their financial capacities.
Given these hard economic realities, what explains the pledge put out by the US government? Looking at who signed it and who didn’t suggests that the pledge is out there for geopolitical reasons. Note, for example, that Russia and China are missing from the list of signatories to the declaration: China is the country building the most nuclear reactors domestically and Russia is the country exporting the most reactors. No country from South Asia joined this pledge either.
In his essay about miracles, the 18th century British philosopher David Hume wrote “A wise man…proportions his belief to the evidence”. (Today, we might say, a wise person proportions their belief to the evidence.) The evidence that nuclear energy cannot be scaled up quickly is overwhelming. It is time to abandon the idea that further expanding nuclear technology can help with mitigating climate change. Rather, we need to focus on expanding renewables and associated technologies while implementing stringent efficiency measures to rapidly effect an energy transition.
Farrukh A Chishtie is an atmospheric and earth observation scientist with extensive experience in various experimental and modelling disciplines. He has more than 18 years of research experience, and is presently leading the Peaceful Society, Science and Innovation Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to serving communities afflicted by climate change, wars and pandemics.
MV Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin Books, 2012) and Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change (forthcoming from Verso books)
Czech Republic / Government Seeks Binding Tenders For Four Nuclear Reactors From EDF And KHNP
By Kamen Kraev, 1 February 2024
Prague hopes to cut down new-build costs via a ‘package’ deal
The Czech government announced on Wednesday (31 January) that it will be seeking binding bids from two technology vendors, France’s EDF and South Korea’s KHNP, for the construction of up to four new reactor units at the existing Dukovany nuclear power station……. (Subscribers only) m https://www.nucnet.org/news/government-seeks-binding-tenders-for-four-nuclear-reactors-from-edf-and-khnp-2-4-2024
Strong opposition on plans to store nuclear waste in East Yorkshire
A consultation event took place in Patrington yesterday
Andy Marsh, 2nd Feb 2024
There appears to be very strong opposition to plans to store nuclear waste in East Yorkshire
A series of public pop-in centres will give people in the area more information about the proposals for Holderness.
We were at the first consultation event in Patrington yesterday.
Another is being held in Withernsea later.
There are some who were convinced by the plans but many weren’t.
I would oppose it 100 per cent
Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has called for a referendum.
Here are some of the views of people we spoke to:
“They don’t know exactly where the site is going to be.”
“Somebody has to have it – to be honest I’ll be dead before all the this takes place anyway.
“I would oppose it – 100 per cent – on behalf of my children, my grandchildren and my future great grandchildren.”
We feel like guinea pigs
“This is bad for this community.”
“The whole of Holderness – everybody involved in it – it can only lead to bad things.”
“I think it’ll be a positive thing for the area if it happens here.”
“There are terms such as may and could – that’s not absolute certainty.”
“It feels like we’re just guinea pigs.”……………………………………………… https://planetradio.co.uk/greatest-hits/east-yorkshire-north-lincolnshire/news/strong-opposition-on-plans-to-store-nuclear-waste-east-yorkshire/
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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