nuclear-news

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

Week to 23 December – news counteracting the nuclear-military-industrial-media complex.

Some bits of good news 

– Incredible progress in reducing infant mortality in South Asia – UNICEF, 

India extended health coverage to millions of elderly citizens, The green economy defied sceptics

TOP STORIES

 Syria Today, Iran Tomorrow, and Inevitably China. 

Finding the Unmentionable: Amnesty International, Israel and Genocide.          Israel’s War on Gaza Is a War on Children. 

AI goes nuclear. 

SpaceX Wants to Increase Launches at Boca Chica Without a Full Environmental Review. 

Olkiluoto 3 has been a financial catastrophe for Areva, Siemens. 

Dutton said a reactor’s waste would fill a Coke can: Try 27,000 of them.

Climate. World’s largest iceberg on the move again after months spinning on the spot.

Noel’s notes. ‘Tis the season to be fake about nuclear power, AI, plastic leaves, and a lot of other things.

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AUSTRALIA. The LNP’s nuclear policy is working just fine.    Don’t want nuclear power’: Wild scenes as protestors storm Perth’s CBD during inquiry into nuclear energy. 

The Coalition is playing voters for mugs once again with its nuclear costings.      Coalition’s nuclear plan will hit Earth with 1.7bn extra tonnes of CO2 before 2050.         The glaring gaps and unanswered questions in the Coalition’s nuclear plan and costings. More Australian nuclear news headlines at https://antinuclear.net/2024/12/17/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-17-23-december/

NUCLEAR ITEMS

ART and CULTURE. Power, control and symbolic masculinity: How Freud might diagnose the pro nuclear lobby
ATROCITIES. Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza.
CLIMATE. Major report joins dots between world’s nature challenges.
ECONOMICS.Privatizing Syria: US Plans to Sell Off A Nation’s Wealth After Assad.U.S. Corporate Land Grab in Ukraine Underlies War With Russia.France’s most powerful nuclear reactor joins grid after €13bn holdup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32XKveP01x4Foreign company withdraws from plans for Swedish nuclear power. 
ENVIRONMENT. Risky Revival: How Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant could impact agriculture . Will the legacy of nuclear power ever disappear from our coasts?.
LEGAL. Nuclear company Orano seeks arbitration over Niger mining licence.
POLITICS. Martial Law Fiasco Casts Doubt Over Korea’s Nuclear Power Push. Starmer backs minister accused of embezzling billions in Bangladesh.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Israel, not the ‘liberators’ of Damascus, will decide Syria’s fate. Blinken Confirms the US Is in Direct Contact With al-Qaeda-Linked HTS. Blinded to Syria. How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus.

SAFETY.

SECRETS and LIES. “I don’t care if its tainted money”: Council leader’s telling admission in Nuclear Waste Services cash grab debate.
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. US Space Force conducts ‘simulated on-orbit combat’ training.
TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear shipping will face significant challenges.

Decommissioning. ‘Long journey ahead’ for nuclear plant clean-up. Final German nuclear power plant enters dismantling phase.

WAR AND CONFLICT On Ukraine war, will Trump channel JFK or LBJ? Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria. Overnight Israeli Strike In Syria So Large It Caused Earthquake. Trump And Israel Can’t Wait To Start Bombing Iran.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. With no real enemies, US poised to spend $1.8 trillion for national security in 2025. Despite 100% Pentagon Audit Failure Rate, House Passes $883.7 Billion NDAA. Israel’s not-so-secret nuclear weapons.

December 23, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Israel’s War on Gaza Is a War on Children

Children in Gaza are not merely collateral damage; they are often actively being targeted.

By Henry A. Giroux , Truthout, December 21, 2024

In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”

It is no wonder why the statistic, which came from a survey of families with disabled, injured or unaccompanied children, is so bleak. Amnesty International’s recent report lays bare the magnitude of the crisis: “Israel’s actions … have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.”

This unfathomable suffering — inflicted disproportionately on women and children — represents a moral abomination, a political travesty, and a militaristic cruelty of the highest order. The destruction of lives, institutions and essential humanitarian infrastructure goes beyond the annihilation of a people; it constitutes an assault on future generations and the very fabric of our shared humanity. Genocidal language dehumanizes and legitimizes the unthinkable: an indiscriminate war waged against the most defenseless — children.

Israel’s war on Palestinian youth is genocidal — not only in the starvation, maiming and unimaginable killing of children but in its relentless assault on any viable notion of what it means for these young people to be valued, human and alive with hope. It seeks to strip them of their dignity, rendering them invisible and unworthy in the eyes of the world, as if their lives are expendable, their dreams inconsequential. This overpowering violence amounts to what we may term childcide, which is the deliberate or systematic destruction of children, whether through direct violence, neglect, or the conditions of war and oppression that render them uniquely vulnerable. It is a traumatic manifestation of collective failure — a war against innocence, in which the fragile promise of childhood is extinguished before it can bloom. In Gaza, where children face relentless bombings, displacement and deprivation, childcide becomes not just an act of violence but a moral collapse: the erasure of futures, dreams and entire generations. It is a crime not only against the child but against humanity itself, leaving behind a void that no words can fill and no justice can fully repair…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://truthout.org/articles/israels-war-on-gaza-is-a-war-on-children/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=bdbe0251d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_12_21_08_06_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-5f034c9084-650192793

December 23, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

HS: Olkiluoto 3 has been a financial catastrophe for Areva, Siemens

LKS 20241204 LKS 20230823 LKS 20230520 Olkiluodon ydinvoimala Eurajoella 2. toukokuuta 2023. Voimalat vasemmalta oikealle, OL3, OL1 ja OL2., LEHTIKUVA / MARKKU ULANDER


 Helsinki Times 19th Dec 2024 Finland , https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/25890-hs-olkiluoto-3-has-been-a-financial-catastrophe-for-areva-siemens.html

THE THIRD REACTOR of Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant has been a financial disaster for the two plant suppliers, France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens, writes Helsingin Sanomat.

Helsinki guide

Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the company operating the plant, communicated last week that the suppliers have pledged to inject an additional 80 million euros in capital into a fund set up to guarantee the completion of activities during the warranty period.

“The funds reserved for their completion in the fund mechanism were depleted in the autumn of 2024” the company wrote in a press release issued on 12 December.

The third plant unit has experienced numerous faults and disruptions since it was officially inaugurated in 2022. TVO ordered the plant from the suppliers under a turnkey agreement for a fixed price of roughly three billion euros more than 20 years ago. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2005, with the completion date set for 2009.

Ultimately, the unit was completed 14 years behind schedule, with the original budget comfortably exceeded. The unit began commercial electricity production in mid-2023.

Helsingin Sanomat on 12 December reminded that Areva estimated already in 2012 that the plant would ultimately cost around 8.5 billion euros. The endeavour eventually bankrupt the company, resulting in intense talks in 2016 as the French government decided to incorporate healthy parts of the company into the state-owned Électricité de France (EDF). The concern was that the plant supplier would not be left with the funds and expertise to complete the project.

December 23, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Finland | Leave a comment

Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza

Authorities’ Widespread Deprivation of Water Threatens Survival

Human Rights Watch 19 Dec 24

Israeli authorities have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.

In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide. The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.  

  • Governments and international organizations should take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, including discontinuing military assistance, reviewing bilateral agreements and diplomatic relations, and supporting the International Criminal Court and other accountability efforts. 

(Jerusalem) – Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. 

In the 179-page report, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water,” Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.

“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 66 Palestinians from Gaza, 4 employees of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), 31 healthcare professionals, and 15 people working with United Nations agencies and international aid organizations in Gaza. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery, photographs, and videos captured between the beginning of the hostilities in October 2023 and September 2024, as well as data collected and estimates produced by doctors, epidemiologists, humanitarian aid organizations, and water and sanitation experts. 

Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli authorities have intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza in whole or in part. This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to one of the five “acts of genocide” under the Genocide Convention of 1948. Genocidal intent may also be inferred from this policy, coupled with statements suggesting some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, and therefore the policy may amount to the crime of genocide.

Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”

That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza

December 23, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, civil liberties, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Radioactive spill reported in Northeast Ohio nuclear power plant

 Dec. 18, 2024, By Zachary Smith, cleveland.com

PERRY, Ohio — At least 78 gallons of water containing radioactive chemicals were spilled at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County in 2024, according to a voluntary report from its parent corporation, Texas-based Vistra Corp.

In its report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Vistra says that on Oct. 14, “manipulation of a lid upon a container holding radiological waste” in an outdoor radiologically-controlled area spilled “contaminated water from the container” onto the ground of the Lake County facility.

When plant personnel conducted subsequent research into the event, they found that a total of “78.5 gallons of contaminated water had spilled to the ground” since January 2024, according to the report. Vistra described that figure as a “conservative” estimate.

A representative from Vistra told cleveland.com that this was because the “storage cask lid was not tightly sealed,” allowing rainwater to enter the cask and “causing it to overflow.”

Vistra calculated its estimate of 78.5 gallons of spilled contaminated water by using the recorded rainfall from January to October of this year, the representative said.

Two chemicals contaminated the water, according to the report. The first was cobalt-60, which can cause cancer if someone is exposed to it over a long period, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The second was the less-toxic manganese-54……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

In May, the Perry Nuclear Power Plant closed so inspectors could find and repair a coolant leak.

Perry Nuclear Power Plant was expected to close in 2021 because it was no longer profitable compared to natural gas plants. This was initially avoided when Ohio House Bill 6 was signed into law in July 2019. H.B. 6 added a fee to residents’ utility bills that funded subsidies of $150 million per year to keep Perry and the Davis–Besse nuclear plant operational.

However, the state blocked the collection and distribution of the H.B. 6 nuclear bailout fee.

This was partly due to H.B. 6 being part of the Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s $60 million bribery scheme to benefit FirstEnergy Corp, which Energy Harbor was a subsidiary of at the time.  https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/12/radioactive-spill-reported-in-northeast-ohio-nuclear-power-plant.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawHUI2hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRGZZd3bsRqINuMTDChN1SbcOe9WmyzTMNhIXv48Ps6MxNLvPnj74LdJZQ_aem_yhJN1nrwRbcSYx1Ps_WPHg

December 23, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power Plants Report Massive Uptick In Drone Sightings

The drone reports filed by nuclear power plant operators for the entire year nearly doubled in just the week after Dec. 10.

Howard Altman, The War Zone 21st Dec 2024

he number of drone flyovers of nuclear plants for the entire year nearly doubled in one week, from December 10th to December 17th, according to data provided to The War Zone by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Between Jan. 1 and Dec.10, nuclear facility licensees reported a total of 15 drone events. As of about 1 p.m. Dec., 17, that number had jumped to 26, NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre told The War Zone on Friday in response to our query. While the timeline overlaps with a rash of drone sightings across the country and especially in the New Jersey area – including over military installations and energy infrastructure – it is unclear at the moment what, if any, connection there is to the dramatic increase in suspicious drone events over nuclear facilities…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.twz.com/news-features/massive-uptick-in-official-drone-sightings-by-nuclear-power-plants

December 23, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria

 https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 21 Dec 24

Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government

The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.

For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.

However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”

The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.

Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.

In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”

Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.

Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.

On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.

December 23, 2024 Posted by | Syria, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Aldermaston nuclear bomb factory makes explosives error

 By Niki Hinman, Local Democracy Reporter, 21 Dec 24

 Aldermaston’s nuclear bomb making factory AWE has been ordered to
improve procedures after damaging an explosives component. The Office for
Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served an improvement notice on the Atomic
Weapons Establishment following an incident at its Aldermaston site.

 Newbury Today 21st Dec 2024 https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/awe-told-to-improve-by-nuclear-regulator-after-explosives-er-9397154/

December 23, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Syria today, Iran tomorrow and, inevitably, China

Brian Berletic, New Eastern Outlook, December 19, 2024,

The collapse of the Syrian government in December 2024 was a key moment for the implementation of US geopolitical strategies in the Middle East and beyond.

This development is consistent with long-standing goals, including the eventual disarmament, partition, and destruction of Iran, as well as the overthrow of the Iranian government, the possible displacement of Russian military bases from Syria, and the use of U.S.-sponsored terrorist organizations that have taken over Syria to export terrorism to other target countries both in the region and beyond, including Russia and China.

The United States has sought to undermine Syria’s stability since the 1980s, with its most active efforts beginning in 2007, as detailed in Seymour Hersh’s article “The Redirection” in The New Yorker. The article exposed covert U.S. efforts to support extremist groups to weaken Iran and Syria. These efforts escalated during the Arab Spring of 2011, when protests escalated into armed conflicts backed by the West and Gulf states. By 2012, U.S. intelligence recognized that the so-called Syrian opposition included extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, backed by the West and the Gulf states. The strategy was aimed at creating a Salafist enclave, as evidenced by the rise of the Islamic State, which was used to isolate the Syrian regime.

Through sanctions, military interventions, and the occupation of strategic resources such as oil fields, Syria’s stability was undermined, ultimately leading to the fall of its government. The destruction of Syria’s air defense systems by US- and Israeli-backed forces now facilitates future operations against Iran, including possible airstrikes against its nuclear facilities.

The fall of Syria also strengthens the US’s ability to use militants like the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) against adversaries like China. TIP, which has been linked to terrorist attacks in China’s Xinjiang region, has openly declared its intention to attack Chinese projects around the world. US support for such groups underscores its broader strategy of destabilizing rivals through terrorism and information warfare.

The collapse of Syria demonstrates the US reliance on a multifaceted approach that combines military, economic, and information tools to maintain its dominance. As China and Russia bolster their defenses, the global balance of power will depend on their ability to counter US influence in the information and geopolitical realms.

ED. A longer version of this article – in English – is at more https://journal-neo.su/2024/12/19/syria-today-iran-tomorrow-and-inevitably-china

December 23, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment