nuclear-news

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

Ukraine war – the changing face of weaponry

I mused today on the lovely words of the lovely war-mongering Australian Minister for Defence – Richard Marles. He’s nearly as good as that USA smarm master Antony Blinken – in choosing the nicest words to cover nasty stuff.

Today he was talking about Australia sending $millions to Ukraine – for:

uncrewed aerial systems air-to-ground precision munitions  spurring on competition among Western nations to harness technology and drive down the equipment’s production cost.

All these weasel words sort of obscure the reality that one big goal is to support the American, Australian, and even Israeli weapons companies. Yes – Israel.  In February, the Israeli company Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department.

The other goal is to be part of American militarism and its experimental work in Ukraine.

You see – the beauty of the Ukraine war, for America, is that there should be no American lives at risk. Tough about the Ukrainian lives, (and of course the thousands more Russian soldiers’ lives don’t count).

But this is a sort of experimental interim-type war – between having troops of soldiers getting killed and just having heaps of civilians getting killed, (and seeing if America can win by having no persons at risk in it).

World War 1 was the classic – the ultimate war for killing soldiers. – estimated 9.7 million and also 10 million civilians

World War 2 an even bigger killer of soldiers – 20 million, but also 40 million civilians – an “improvement” in killing civilians.

The “in-between” wars – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – have still been a mixture of killing soldiers and civilians – but especially with the Afghanistan war – the emphasis shifted towards drone killings, with the officer directing the killing from the distant comfort of an office in USA.

So – getting back to the lovely Marles – he avoided words like “drones” and “missiles” – thus sort of obscuring the fact that Australian weapons are headed right into Russian territory as part of an American long distance attack. Of course, it is called defence – though it is not at all clear that Australia is under military threat from Russia.

Anyway, Ukraine is a good practise ground for deploying weapons that can kill civilians of another country. The weapons-makers are getting better and better at this. The Biden administration last month secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine. The newest 1$billion package  will include additional long-range ATACMS. Nuclear weapons might be deployed in Poland. Biden administration’s $850 billion defense budget request for fiscal year 2025 includes $69 billion for nuclear weapons.

It’s all great fun. USA will be able to more or less comfortably fight another country (? China) without putting any “boots on the ground”, (except perhaps a few Taiwanese boots – but after all, they’re not even being worn by white feet, so – no matter, really)

The only fly in the ointment is that American militarism is causing a reaction in other countries. They have populations and leaders who feel that they will have to reciprocate. And they too have gee-whiz clever men with little-boy minds who devise killing machines.

It is truly a vicious circle. There’s a lack of leaders with wisdom. But no shortage of the mealy-mouthed Marles and Blinkens who make it sound as if everything is OK.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | , , , , | Leave a comment

TODAY. Japan – the return of the “Nuclear Village”?

A first in Japan – The municipal assembly of Genkai in southwestern Japan will request a survey to see if their area is suitable for an underground disposal site for highly radioactive waste. When the Mayor approves this survey,  the Saga Prefecture town, will receive up to 2 billion yen ($12.9 million) in state subsidies for allowing the survey.

Local business associations had submitted separate requests for the survey to the assembly, hoping the subsidies and survey activity will prop up the local economy. The associations called on the town, as already a host of a nuclear power plant, to proactively cooperate with the central government.

That would be just the start. The nuclear lobby everywhere is well experienced in arranging “community benefits”. And in nowhere better than Japan.

It starts with the catch-cry of “Jobs Jobs” – first in the construction industry, then in the operations of the nuclear facility, local contractors, and then onward – to the promise of enlivening the local economy. But this wonderful goal is also to be achieved by all sorts of grants and subsidies –  “incentives for acceptance” -in Japan Japan: “siting promotion subsidy” – community funds for local development.

For Japan, this could be back to the bad old days.

in the late 1990s, Iida Tetsunari3 coined the term ‘nuclear village’ to describe the ‘syndicate’ of actors pushing Japan’s nuclear power program – institutional and individual pro-nuclear advocates in the utilities, the nuclear industry, the bureaucracy, the Diet (Japan’s parliament), business federations, the media, and academia. 

The influence of the nuclear industry over government and the judiciary was powerful and involved ‘regulatory capture’ – industry influence over safety regulation. In safety-related class-action lawsuits, the courts tended to decide in line with government interests to further develop Japan’s nuclear power program

Beyond just “normalisation” of areas hosting nuclear facilities, the “nuclear village” became a celebration of the wonderful, positive role of the nuclear industry in Japanese life, lauded in politics, business, and. education.

That worked out well for Japan, (and for the USA) – in Japan’s great industrial leap forward, and in overcoming and atoning for that old nuclear disaster – the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan’s success became a pointer towards other nuclear villages.

But then came the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in 2011, – and it all ground nearly to a halt. Public opposition to nuclear power has held the industry back over the years since.

But the small global phalanx of nuclear promoters continues to work assiduously to control public opinion. It preys on people’s fear of global heating, and on fears of economic downturn, and promotes nuclear facilities as ‘the answer”. It looks as if that message might now be being heard by at least one municipality in Japan.

Could this be the start of Japan’s nuclear village all over again?

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

How much will the UK’s new nuclear submarines really cost?

The terrible truth is that nobody knows how much this will cost.

25th April

 What does it cost, and how many jobs does it actually create? This is
especially important now with the next generation of nuclear-powered
submarines, the “Dreadnought” class, starting construction.

When the UK Government announced the programme to replace the current Valiant class
boats, the cost they announced in Parliament, £31 billion, was to build
four submarines.

This is as disingenuous as announcing the cost of a
revamped NHS as the cost to build four hospitals. The total cost of
ownership over the projected 30-year lifespan is much larger.

We have reached a figure of over £600bn. Shocking? Indeed. Surprising? Compared to
what, the HS2 rail link? The terrible truth is that nobody knows how much
this will cost. The annual report of the government’s own
“Infrastructure and Projects” authority has a lot of bad news,
including a “red” score for the development of the Dreadnought boats’
new engines. In short, this means it can’t be done. Sounds expensive.

 The National 25th April 2024

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24277002.much-will-uks-new-nuclear-submarines-really-cost

April 28, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game

BY HARVEY WASSERMAN 26 Apr 24

For the first time since 1954, no large new atomic reactors are under construction or on order in the United States.

On March 1, 2024, Vogtle Unit 4 connected to the Georgia grid …years behind schedule and billions over budget.   Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” America’s last large light-water reactor thus forever froze the “Peaceful Atom” in financial failure.

Despite enormous public hype and subsidies, ZERO new US atomic reactors—large or small— are likely to become significantly available here for at least a decade.

The first will likely be an unproven “Small Modular Reactor” prototype already leaning toward a trillion-dollar failure.

***

When it comes to the myth of nuke power helping to fight global warming…there’s no there there.

Atomic reactors cause climate chaos.  Some 415 reactors directly heat our air and water in concert with mega-explosions like Chernobyl and Fukushima.  All pour radioactive carbon 14 into a lethal brew of filth and wastes.

Despite the latest round of “Nuclear Renaissance” hype, the US lacks the industrial capacity to produce impactful new reactors—large or small— before 2030, if then.

The void comes when we most desperately need to reduce carbon emissions.  The mega-grift for unproven new nukes cripples the vital transition to renewables, multiplying the planet-killing impacts of fossil fuels…and of decrepit old reactors whose average age is now over 40.

The original fantasy that the “Peaceful Atom” would be “too cheap to meter” came from Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey, Jr., in “Oppenheimer.”

Harry Truman’s 1952 Paley Commission Report on the future of energy had predicted an epic boom in renewables, including 15,000,000 solar heated US homes by 1975.

But in December, 1953, President Eisenhower—in a remarkably war-like speech—told the United Nations that “Atoms for Peace” would limitlessly power the planet.

On September 6, 1954, the Navy and Westinghouse began building the first US commercial reactor, which opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1958.

In 1974 Richard Nixon promised a thousand US reactors by the year 2000.  There were in fact 104.  With Vogtle 4’s opening, there are now 94—and none on order or under construction.

Atomic power has become what Forbes Magazine called in 1985 “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”

A 2014 study of 180 nukes worldwide said 175 of them cost 117% more than promised, while going 64% beyond schedule.

Despite the early hype, the Peaceful Atom’s financial catastrophes are too frequent to count, and with price tags too huge to compile, including…

X  the 1966 “We Almost Lost Detroit” accident at Michigan’s Fermi I, costing at least $100 million;

X  the 1979 Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which—aside from killing innumerable downwinders—converted a $900 million asset to a $2 billion liability;

X  the 1983 Washington Public Power System’s $2 billion pubic bond default, the first of its kind, killing four reactors then under construction;

X  Sacramento’s 1989 landslide vote to shut the municipal utility’s money-losing Rancho Seco reactor, where surrounding solar panels (unlike the dead nuke) still produce juice;

X  the Public Service of New Hampshire’s 1988 dump of Seabrook Unit Two, fueling the first investor-owned utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression;

X  the 1998 failure of New York’s never-to-operate $7 billion Shoreham, which shattered the Long Island Lighting Company;

X  the 2017 collapse of South Carolina’s VC Summer, whose $9 billion dead loss joined Vogtle’s $20 billion cost overrun to bankrupt Westinghouse;

X  NuScale’s 2023 SMR collapse in Idaho, fusing into financial failure the industry’s ever-escalating crises in safety, seismic instability, un-insurabililty, heat and radiation emissions, terrorism, war.

Massive explosions at Russia’s Kyshtym and New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project underscore the industry’s unsolved waste management problem.  So does radioactive devastation at California’s Santa Susanna and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

After seven decades of experience, massive 21st century catastrophes continue in the US, Finland, France, England.

Westinghouse’s Summer/Vogtle bankruptcy follows 70 years of a “negative learning curve.”

Finland’s Olkiluoto, France’s Flamanville and England’s double reactor project at Hinckley Point are all hugely over budget and years behind schedule.  Olkiluoto has occasionally shut to make way for cheaper wind and hydro.

Many of France’s flagship 56 reactors regularly curtail their output for generic repairs…or as rivers become too global-heated to cool the cores without serious downstream eco-damage.

But Germany’s 2023 final reactor closures allow more than half its power to come more cheaply and reliably from renewables.

California’s similar-sized economy now often gets 100+% of its power from renewables, dwarfing remnant double reactors at Diablo Canyon, now costing $1+ billion/year over market.

Undaunted, Brussels’ World Nuclear Summit just hyped a tripled global fleet, calling for investments beyond $5 trillion to fund a production schedule than many believe is simply impossible.

The international banking response has been a grim “Just Say No”…accompanied by a vote of confidence in a renewable future.

But most terrifying is the demand that decrepit reactors (average age 42+) operate without meaningful inspections or insurance…………………………………………. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/

April 28, 2024 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Three Cheers for Our Red, White, and Blue War Profiteers

“For not even 9 percent of the annual defense budget over the past two years, one of the US’ two main adversaries has suffered over 300,000 casualties and lost tens of thousands of pieces of equipment.”

New Eastern Outlook26.04.2024 Author: Phil Butler

……. It’s been reported hundreds of times in alternative media, the big win for the U.S. military-industrial complex for every Ukrainian or Russian killed in a stupid conflict that never should have happened. But, war between two Slavic peoples is a game show for those born and bred to push Russia and Russians down. What surprises me most is the transparency with which some Western media reports on the situation.

Return on Investment: Justifying Aid to Ukraine” by The Defense Post proves once and for all that my country would murder on any scale for a return on assets or a good-paying job at Lockheed. Return on investment, ROI, the hold grail for a once great society. Wow! And we don’t even deny it anymore. Just the other day, I reported about Germany getting set to milk Ukraine dry from financing to rebuild the country once enough Ukrainians have bled to death or been blasted into the afterlife. Today, I followed the Peskov statements and immediately found The Defense Post story, which did not simply report the actual game but justified it.

The big “pitch” in the story by West Point graduates First Lieutenant Dean D. LaGattutais and First Lieutenant Jordan D. Teevens is all about the “rejuvenation of the nation’s defense industrial base.” However, the most damnable justification and investment potential listed is the value of testing weapons on Russians. The story even uses an AFP photo of a dead Russian soldier lying in the snow next to a tank for impact. The U.S. Army Intelligence Officers work to metastasise a proxy war against Russia into an economic discussion for murder. Read the story if you do not believe me.

Finally, the ugly truth behind my country’s actions against countries we’ve made into adversaries is blasted out in West Point cadence like some marching tune in a bad U.S. war movie. The lead of the story reads:

“For not even 9 percent of the annual defense budget over the past two years, one of the US’ two main adversaries has suffered over 300,000 casualties and lost tens of thousands of pieces of equipment.”

The post is unbelievable, even though most analysts already know the NATO march into Ukraine was always about profit, profit, and more profit for all Western concerns. What we do not always watch, hear, or read is how the people behind all this blood spill care nothing about the Ukrainians. Paraphrasing these Army officers, “the United States is now selling the Ukraine conflict on an ROI basis, rather than some moral or strategic imperative.” Yes, you read that correctly. First, military aid to Ukraine was broadcast to the people of America as our moral duty. Second, the taxpayers who foot the bill for all this killing have been made to fear so that a strategic necessity can be met.

The reality is that the hundreds of thousands dead, the millions displaced, and Ukraine destroyed was and is about money in the pockets of Western oligarchs. Never in all my years of reporting have I witnessed a TASS (or Kremlin) announcement clarified and verified so quickly and clearly. The two reports were within 24 hours of one another. It’s pitiful. It’s sad. We no longer arm ourselves or fight for honor, patriotism, or glory. We’ve become accessories to the wanton killing of entire races of people for money.

“There cheers for the red, white, and blue, for the red is the blood of our brothers….”  

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Decrepit nuclear reactors operate without meaningful inspections or insurance.

Convicted of 92 federal felony manslaughter counts, Diablo’s Pacific Gas & Electric is a criminal operation.  Its 2010 negligence at San Bruno gas lines incinerated eight people.  Its faulty transmission lines killed 84 people in northern California’s infamous 2017 Camp Fire.  No PG&E executive went to prison any of those killings.  In 2021 its CEO was paid $51.2 million. 

.

Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game, BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 26 Apr 24

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Thus Congress has just extended the 1957 Price-Anderson Act which exempts reactor owners from liability for a major disaster, an official vote of no confidence in the industry’s ability to guarantee the public safety.

With the February 29 passage of the Advanced Atomic Reactor Act, the industry stands to grift billions in public subsidies for decrepit reactors whose licenses they want to extend for 60-80 years while fighting basic safety inspections from federal regulators.

Thus the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—whose financial support comes from the operation of the reactors it supposedly regulates—is infamous for its blind eye to the deep structural and operational holes that could soon doom the aging US fleet.

The NRC is currently green-lighting operations at Diablo’s 40-year-old Unit One despite a dangerously embrittled core that could irradiate all of downwind California.  Ohio’s Davis-Besse is riddled with mismanagement and decay.  Ohio’s Perry, Virginia’s North Anna and Diablo have all been recently shaken earthquakes.  California’s San Onofre shut in 2014 because its newly-installed unfixable steam turbines leaked radiation.

Convicted of 92 federal felony manslaughter counts, Diablo’s Pacific Gas & Electric is a criminal operation.  Its 2010 negligence at San Bruno gas lines incinerated eight people.  Its faulty transmission lines killed 84 people in northern California’s infamous 2017 Camp Fire.  No PG&E executive went to prison any of those killings.  In 2021 its CEO was paid $51.2 million. 

For the public, the costs in health, ecological and economic damage at any US reactor could climb into the trillions, with radioactive clouds and multiple bankruptcies leaving countless victims dead, destroyed, destitute.

According to the US Government Accountability Office, from 2001 to 2006 alone, more than 150 reactor incidents violated acceptable safety guidelines.  A 2010 survey of US nuclear accidents showed least 56 by then involved loss of human life or more than $50,000 in property damage.

Said former Vice President Al Gore in 2009:

“Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.[53]

Yet New York is dumping $7.6+ billion into keeping four decrepit reactors on line (one of which opened in 1969).  Ohio’s legislature recently pocketed $61 million in bribes to scam a $1 billion taxpayer bailout for two 40 and 50-year old nukes irradiating Lake Erie.  Michigan wants $8 billion to revive the 51-year-old Palisades reactor—which shut two years ago—even though Holtec (the waste management company designated to revive Palisades) has no experience building or operating any nuclear power reactor.  Pieces of the reactor have already been sold off for scrap.………………………………………..more https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/

  .

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Reference, safety, USA | Leave a comment

The US secretly sent long-range ATACMS to Ukraine — and Kyiv used them

The transfer of Army Tactical Missile Systems with a nearly 200-mile range ends a yearslong drama between Washington and Kyiv.

By ALEXANDER WARD and LARA SELIGMAN, Politico, 04/24/2024

The Biden administration last month secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine for the first time in the two-year war — and Kyiv has already used the weapon twice to strike deep behind Russian lines.

In March, the U.S. quietly approved the transfer of a number of Army Tactical Missile Systems with a range of nearly 200 miles, said a senior Biden administration official and two U.S. officials, allowing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s forces to put at risk more Russian targets inside Ukrainian sovereign territory.

The administration will include additional long-range ATACMS in a new $1 billion package of military aid President Joe Biden approved on Wednesday, one of the U.S. officials said.

The provision of the long-range version of the ATACMS ends a lengthy drama in which Ukraine clamored for years to receive the weapon, driving a wedge between Washington and Kyiv. The U.S. quietly sent the medium-range version of the missile in October, but Ukraine continued to press for a weapon that would allow it to strike farther behind Russia’s lines.

Ukrainian forces have used the long-range missiles twice, first against a Russian military base in Crimea and more recently against Russian forces east of Berdyansk near the Sea of Azov, the senior administration official said.

The U.S. on Wednesday announced a new $1 billion package of weapons that will quickly be transferred to Ukraine now that Biden has signed off on the long-delayed foreign aid bill that passed the Senate this week. Among other weapons, the tranche will include Stinger anti-aircraft missiles for air defense; 155mm artillery rounds; Bradley Fighting Vehicles; Javelin anti-tank systems; and Claymore anti-personnel munitions, according to a Pentagon press release.

POLITICO first reported in March that the U.S. was sending Ukraine a second round of a different version of ATACMS, one that travels 100 miles and carries warheads containing hundreds of cluster bombs. The senior administration official, who like others was granted anonymity to detail a sensitive decision, said the March shipment also included the long-range version, and that the missiles arrived in Ukraine this month.

Russian military bloggers posted images of a strike on the Dhzankoy airbase last week and speculated that Ukraine used ATACMS.

The U.S. was initially reluctant to send ATACMS — even under sustained domestic and international pressure — due to stockpile concerns and fear of escalating the war. But Russia’s increasingly brutal tactics and more American production of the long-range version convinced Biden to authorize the transfer.

Comment: Perhaps ‘brutality’ is in the winking eyes of the beholders. Biden was always set on this course, provided he created the ‘right’ excuse.

The Biden administration warned Russia that attacking Ukraine’s energy grid and using North Korean-provided missiles would lead the U.S. to reconsider sending ATACMS to Ukraine. Those strikes continued, leading top officials — national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown — to unanimously recommend the weapons transfer.

The Biden administration believes providing ATACMS can give Ukraine some new momentum in the two-year war, forcing Russia to move back critical command and control nodes and other high-value targets such as aviation assets, said the second U.S. official.

Comment: More likely Russia will make quick work of this development.

The long-range strategic missiles will also allow Ukraine to hold key parts of Crimea at risk, the official said. That includes the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, as well as ports and naval facilities in the peninsula from which Russia’s Black Sea Fleet operates.

The official acknowledged that Ukraine is still in a tough fight, and that Russia continues to throw manpower and resources at the battlefield.

The official said:

“There’s no silver bullet weapon that’s going to change the character of the battlefield. Ukraine’s got something in their toolkit that they can use at a time in place of their choosing, that creates impact, that gives them an advantage.”

Biden approved the ATACMS decision in mid-February, the official said, but had to wait for the funding battle over the supplemental to play out in Congress. The House finally green-lighted more than $61 billion in Ukraine funding on Saturday and the Senate followed suit Tuesday, sending it to Biden’s desk for his signature on Wednesday.

In early March, however, Pentagon officials alerted colleagues that cost savings on other weapons contracts and humming production lines allowed the U.S. to deliver long-range ATACMS before the supplemental’s passage.The weapons were then secretly sent as part of a $300 million tranche of military aid announced in March.

Comment: If this was the case, Biden side-swiped Congress.

Biden last year approved sending the medium-range version of the missile but was still reluctant to send the long-range type Ukraine wanted. The U.S. secretly shipped the medium-range weapon, called Anti-Personnel/Anti-Material, and Ukraine used it for the first time last fall.

But now having long-range ATACMS in its arsenal allows Ukraine to threaten Russian assets inside the whole of Crimea as well as the Black Sea Fleet. The transfer could also boost morale among Ukrainian troops increasingly fearful that they have lost the advantage in the fight.

The House Ukraine bill approved on Saturday called on the Biden administration to send long-range ATACMS to Ukraine “as soon as practicable.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

more https://www.sott.net/article/490940-The-US-secretly-sent-long-range-ATACMS-to-Ukraine-and-Kyiv-used-them—

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Quickly burying the “Peaceful Atom” and its fossil-fueled partners will be the task of our lifetimes.

According to nuclear expert Lindsay Krall, in conjunction with research conducted by former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, SMRs could create thirty times more radioactive wastes per kilowatt-hour than the original light water reactors now reaching oblivion.  Like them, the SMRs would emit radioactive carbon while generating planetary heat and threatening major disasters that remain uninsured.

Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game, BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 26 Apr 24“…………………………………………………………………………Projected costs are already very far beyond currently available renewables…and rising.

According to nuclear expert Lindsay Krall, in conjunction with research conducted by former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, SMRs could create thirty times more radioactive wastes per kilowatt-hour than the original light water reactors now reaching oblivion.  Like them, the SMRs would emit radioactive carbon while generating planetary heat and threatening major disasters that remain uninsured.

Aside from operating old uninsured reactors in lethal perpetuity, the industry has hyped three options:

X  Oft-mentioned thorium-fueled reactor designs have no existing prototypes here in the US, and have no prospects for impacting the American energy picture in the near future.

X  Fusion research, centered on the multi-billion-Euro ITER facility in France, has no credible date for a working prototype.

X  As for Small Modular Reactors, the industry-leading Wyoming-based NuScale just lost its sole tangible order due to soaring costs and fading deadlines. 

Warns Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists: “I think the current hype about SMRs is mostly a bunch of hot air…Most of these startups greatly underestimate the resources and time necessary to develop new nuclear technologies.”

As prices soar, the earliest workable SMR prototypes are years away.  Mass deployment—even for Bill Gates’s hugely funded Terrapower and other SMR developers— can’t come significantly on line until well into the 2030s, if then.

Projected costs are already very far beyond currently available renewables…and rising.

According to nuclear expert Lindsay Krall, in conjunction with research conducted by former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, SMRs could create thirty times more radioactive wastes per kilowatt-hour than the original light water reactors now reaching oblivion.  Like them, the SMRs would emit radioactive carbon while generating planetary heat and threatening major disasters that remain uninsured.

Current cost projections show Gates would do far better investing in Wyoming’s abundant wind power than in the SMR factory he wants to begin building there this summer.  Proven wind technology is far cheaper to run and quicker to deploy than any new nuclear technology still in speculative development.

.Indeed, amidst all the billions being thrown at yet another “Nuclear Renaissance,” renewable energy far outstrips the risky, unproven SMRs on which the industry is gambling so many public billions.

As you read this, electricity “too cheap to meter” DOES pour from west Texas wind turbines spinning through fierce winter nights as locals charge their house and car batteries, run their computers, lights and washing machines for free.

The first off-shore US wind turbines have opened near Long Island, with cost projections far below nuclear.

Despite persistent official sabotage, wind power may finally come to Lake Erie, one of the world’s most powerful wind resources.

The costs of solar “photovoltaic” cells have recently risen slightly due to interest and supply chain issues

But since their 1953 inception at Bell Labs, PV—and wind power—have soared in direct opposition to atomic power, combining epic price drops with rising efficiency.  

Thus renewables are now public enemy number one for a fossil/nuclear industry whose larcenous end game means to grab endless public money while desperately sabotaging Solartopia.

In 2014, Ohio’s corrupt, gerrymandered legislature imposed a “set back clause” that killed $4 billion in wind projects. Ohio’s “North Coast” is ideal for commercial wind, with steady breezes, flat terrain, farmers seeking lease payments, and ample transmission to Toledo, Cleveland, Akron et. al.

Privately funded projects promised trillions of cheap, clean, safe, carbon-free kilowatt-hours along with thousands of jobs and saving hundreds of farms.  But with a single sentence the legislature killed it all…while also freezing additional turbine development in Lake Erie’s powerful wind streams.

The lawmakers then pocketed $61 million in bribes to throw a $1 billion lifeline to the dangerously decayed Davis-Besse and Perry nukes…plus two ancient coal burners, one of them in Indiana…while killing the state’s highly successful energy efficiency programs.

Likewise, California is attacking a rooftop solar industry that once employed 70,000 workers installing a PV network producing far more power far more cheaply than the state’s decrepit, uninsured Diablo Canyon atomic reactors.  Killing at least 17,000 jobs, the Public Utilities Commission hurled countless solar firms toward bankruptcy.

But Newsom’s legislature is handing a $1.4 billion lifeline to Diablo reactors endangered by earthquakes and riddled with severe structural decay.  Diablo produces far less power than the state’s rooftop solar industry, but does it at $1 billion over annual market prices.

Overall the bottom line is this:  the United States now gets more usable power from wind and solar than from coal or nuclear.  Gas and oil will soon follow.

Because with thousands of square miles of usable rooftops spread throughout the US, and with millions of acres on land and water usable for large-scale wind generation, the fossil/nuclear industry is now facing oblivion.

The ultimate Solartopian threat to King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) has arrived.  With proven available technology in wind, solar, batteries, efficiency, geothermal, some bio-fuels and more, an era has ended.  Within a few short years, our energy picture can be totally dominated by renewables that are cheaper, cleaner, safer, faster to build and more than fossil or nuclear fuels.

For what has been humankind’s biggest business—obsolete energy—it’s a wholly unacceptable image of extinction.

Thus, across the land, bought governors, legislatures and utility commissions are waging a desperate, last-ditch war against renewables while handing billions to dangerously decayed reactors whose half-century history of failure forever deepens.

Renewables’ accelerating cost, safety and reliability breakthroughs join battery and efficiency technologies for a definitive market advantage over the obsolete fossil/nuclear technologies that are destroying our ability to survive on this planet.  “We need to massively develop renewable energies,” says France’s Prime Minister Macron, “because it is the only way to meet our immediate electricity needs, since it takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor.”

But rear-guard bail-outs and the continual demand to run unsafe planet-hearing old reactors until they explode threaten our survival.

So do the nuclear industry’s roots in the weapons production that gave it birth.  Said Macron in 2022, “Without civilian nuclear energy there is no military use of this technology – and without military use there is no civilian nuclear energy.”

Thus nuclear power boils, irradiates, threatens and bankrupts us all.

But nuclear weapons and all that “Renaissance” hype aside, the market and Mother Nature are clearly pushing for Solartopia.  What’s likely the biggest techno-ecological-economic revolution in human history—the conversion to renewable energy—is very much upon us. 

But to get there, quickly burying the “Peaceful Atom” and its fossil-fueled partners will be the task of our lifetimes.

Harvey Wasserman wrote THE PEOPLE’S SPIRAL OF US HISTORY: FROM JIGONSASEH TO SOLARTOPIA.  Most Mondays @ 2-4pm PT, he co-convenes the Green Grassroots Election Protection Zoom (www.electionprotection2024).  The Mothers for Peace (www.mothersforpeace.org) could use your help in the struggle to shut the Diablo Canyon nukes.   https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/

April 28, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks

 https://blogs.gwu.edu/elliott-iistp/research-2/ 26 Apr 24

IISTP Research Professor Sharon Squassoni publishes a comprehensive report assessing the risks of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

Read the complete report: “New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks“.

GWU REPORT: NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS GROW WITH NEW NUCLEAR ENERGY

Drone strikes against Ukraine’s nuclear reactors highlight risks 

WASHINGTON, DC – April 23, 2024 – Proliferation of nuclear weapons, nuclear terrorism, sabotage, coercion and military operations – these risks associated with nuclear energy can all be expected to grow as countries seek to implement their new nuclear energy objectives, according to a new report published today by George Washington University’s (GWU) Sharon Squassoni.  The aim of 22 countries to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, announced on the margins of COP-28, was adopted with little thought to the national security implications. The promotion of small modular reactors (SMRs)– specifically tailored to developing countries – will heighten, not diminish risks. 

The report by GW professor Sharon Squassoni, “New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks,” comes as drone strikes against Ukrainian nuclear power plants highlight nuclear reactor vulnerabilities. Other national security risks will accompany significant nuclear growth as renewed interest in nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sparks programs across the globe. Squassoni, a professor at GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs, now researches risk reduction from nuclear energy and nuclear weapons after serving in the State Department, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Congressional Research Service. 

Proliferation and nuclear terrorism are the top two national security risks, but sabotage, coercion and military operations pose other risks. An attempt to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers – a national security risk itself — using nuclear energy could worsen the risk of proliferation by motivating fuel cycle independence.  SMRs are still in development, with few restrictions on designs. Reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium or plutonium will increase risks of proliferation and terrorism because those materials are weapons-usable. Reactors designed to include lifetime cores will build up plutonium over time. Fast reactor designs that require reprocessing, especially continuous recycling of fuel, could ultimately confer latent nuclear weapons capabilities to many more states. In sum, the kinds of reactors now under consideration do nothing to reduce known risks, and some pose heightened risks. There appears to be no attempt to forge agreement among suppliers or governments to restrict reactor choices that pose greater proliferation risks.

If the mass production of small modular reactors lowers barriers to entry into nuclear energy, there will be many more states deploying nuclear power reactors, including those with significant governance challenges. Russian and Chinese programs to promote nuclear energy target many of those states. Cooperation among key states essential to minimize the safety, security and proliferation risks of nuclear energy is at an all-time low. The call to triple nuclear energy coincides with the disintegration of cooperation, the unraveling of norms and the loss of credibility of international institutions that are crucial to the safe and secure operation of nuclear power.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Blinken threatens China over Russia ties (VIDEO)

 https://www.sott.net/article/490922-Blinken-threatens-China-over-Russia-ties-VIDEO 26 Apr 24

The US Secretary of State says Washington is prepared to impose more sanctions on Beijing over the alleged transfer of military components.

Washington is ready to introduce more sanctions against China over its alleged transfer of dual-use goods and components, which can supposedly be used by the Russian military industrial complex, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the US official recalled that Washington has already imposed sanctions against more than 100 Chinese entities and is “fully prepared to act” and “take additional measures.”

Blinken claimed that China’s alleged support for the Russian defense industry raises concerns not only about the situation in Ukraine, but also about a “medium to long-term threat that many Europeans feel viscerally that Russia poses to them.”

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal had also reported that the US was drafting sanctions that could cut off some Chinese banks from the global financial system unless Beijing severs its economic ties with Russia.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal had also reported that the US was drafting sanctions that could cut off some Chinese banks from the global financial system unless Beijing severs its economic ties with Russia.

The outlet claimed that US officials believe trade with China has allowed Russia to rebuild its military industrial capacity and could help it defeat Ukraine in a war of attrition.

Beijing has vehemently rejected accusations of “fueling” the Ukraine conflict and has instead blamed NATO for instigating the crisis by continuing its expansion in Europe and refusing to respect Russia’s national security concerns.

Following his meeting with Blinken, President Xi suggested that the US and China “should be partners, not rivals” and should strive towards achieving “mutual success and not harm each other.”

“I proposed three major principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. They are not only a summary of past experience, but also a guide to the future,” the Chinese leader was quoted as saying.

Beijing has maintained a policy of neutrality on the Ukraine conflict, with Chinese officials repeatedly stating that the country is not selling weapons to either Russia or Ukraine. Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning insisted that China “regulates the export of dual-use articles in accordance with laws and regulations,” urging “relevant countries” not to “smear or attack the normal relations between China and Russia.”

In December last year, US President Joe Biden issued a decree which enabled sanctions on foreign financial institutions that continue to deal with Russia. It targeted lenders outside US and EU jurisdictions that help Russia source sensitive items, which reportedly include semiconductors, machine tools, chemical precursors, ball bearings, and optical systems.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international | Leave a comment

Nation gone ballistic -The Star Bungled Banner

So Congress has voted US$61 billion in “aid for Ukraine”.

The US has finally admitted that it has already supplied Ukraine with 100 ATACMS missiles, each one worth $1.5 million. A single Patriot battery is about $1 billion.

In other words, this war is really aid for MICIMATT. You gotta include the media, think tanks, and academia in this—in addition to the military-industrial complex and the political class. They are all stakeholders.

The $61 billion is part of a bigger package – $95 billion for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Similarly, this is really aid to the US defense industry– which sells unnecessarily sophisticated weaponry, whose “added value” often as not just means “added cost” and added impracticality. It’s US business underwriting the death of innocents.

JULIAN MACFARLANE, APR 26, 2024

The US is ballistic.

Like an old-fashioned ballistic missile, it blasted off with fire and fury, as people cheered. The first stage separated. The second stage took it beyond the atmosphere. Now momentum propels it through the ether.

People say, “how wonderful!”

No one really knows what its target is –or even if it has one — just that it has velocity and direction— a trajectory– but when it comes down there will be a huge explosion and a lot of people will probably die!

You see, the missile will circle the globe always returning to where it started, which is most likely where it will come down.

Sad, because this missile could be nuclear.

US foreign policy is ballistic

Basically, unguided once launched.

So it is that the US is engaged in a proxy war against Russia, using Ukrainians to fight for it and does not really know where the war is going – just that hoping it will end badly in a ball of fire for the “other side”.

But Russia is growing and prospering. And likely, in the end Ukraine will also do fine—since as part of Russia, it will have a bright future.

You will not be able to say the same for the US’s new colonies in Europe, Oceania, the Far East and the Americas—and, when the US has exhausted their resources, the US itself.

The US is a rocket without mind or purpose or meaning.

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Forewarned is forearmed

How do you deal with crazy people?

Carefully.

The Russian SMO is proceeding incrementally and slowly towards moral and military victory, supported by and simultaneously supporting the development of the Russian nation and the multipolar world.

In military terms, Russia advances at a snail’ s pace – a village at a time—for the battle is not for territory or even for lives — but for hearts and minds. Russia is successful. Ukrainian soldiers are deserting, surrendering, and joining the Russian army. The end of this conflict was decided long ago. It has always been in sight. Just now more visible.

The trajectory of US policy seems almost accidental. And, as I said, it is ballistic. It cannot be changed in flight.

So Congress has voted US$61 billion in “aid for Ukraine”. The overall amount provided to Ukraine for the purchase of weapons would be $13.8 billion. Ukraine would receive more than $9 billion of economic assistance in the form of “forgivable” loans.

“Forgivable” at the discretion of the president – which might be Trump .

As you know, I have dyscalculia– meaning I am bad at simple arithmetic— but it seems to me that this aid to Ukraine is not actually $61 billion—but about $23 billion— with 13.8 billion going to buy weapons, which, if past experience is any indication, will not arrive for two years or so, if ever.

In two years there maybe not independent Ukraine.

$9 billion goes to pay salaries and governmental expenses. LOL. You know what that means. Another villa for Zelensky.

Is it my bad math or is $37 billion left over?

That appears to go to US defense contractors to pay for weapons already supplied. Pay back plus alpha, of course. You have to add in the politicians cut . Er… Political donations from corporate budgets.

I think the idea is to “replenish” US stockpiles, which again might take a couple of years.

The US has finally admitted that it has already supplied Ukraine with 100 ATACMS missiles, each one worth $1.5 million. A single Patriot battery is about $1 billion.

In other words, this war is really aid for MICIMATT. You gotta include the media, think tanks, and academia in this—in addition to the military-industrial complex and the political class. They are all stakeholders.

The $61 billion is part of a bigger package – $95 billion for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Similarly, this is really aid to the US defense industry– which sells unnecessarily sophisticated weaponry, whose “added value” often as not just means “added cost” and added impracticality. It’s US business underwriting the death of innocents.

Not that weapons are as advertised.

We have seen the failure of US weaponry in the Ukraine. More recently, we have seen it in Israel.

Such outlay is intended to prolong the conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and the South China Sea. But the rocket that is US policy is old in a faltering close Earth orbit and must eventually come down. Where? When?

For the time being the Russians – and the Chinese and the Iranians – just want the Americans to do what they do best – live beyond their means and destroy themselves.

In the case of the Ukraine, the intransigence of the US and its NATO thugs will mean that Russia can never be secure until it takes all of Ukraine and puts nuclear missiles on the Polish border.

As for the US, a new song is needed:

The star bungled banner hangs limply

O’er the Land of the Unfree

And the Home of the Shameless

April 28, 2024 Posted by | USA | Leave a comment

Noelle McAfee, Emory Philosophy Department chair detained in protests,

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Thirty-eight years on, lessons from Chernobyl

DAVE SWEENEY, Australian Conservation Foundation, 26 April 24  https://www.acf.org.au/38-years-on-lessons-from-chernobyl
—

On 26 April 1986, an exercise at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine went badly wrong.

Operators lost control of the reactor unit and the cooling systems failed.

The rapid rise in pressure and heat caused a fire and an explosion that blew apart the reactor’s containment shield.

Uncontrolled radiation spewed from the plant and was carried in the smoke of the dark night sky over a swathe of eastern and western Europe, and far beyond.

Firefighters and emergency service responders were the first to fall.

They were followed by numerous ‘liquidators’ – army conscripts with scant training or safety gear – who were sent in to contain the contamination.

Tens of thousands of community members were relocated – some forcibly – from areas near the stricken reactor.

But greater distance did not neatly translate into lesser danger. The radiation plume was erratic and unpredictable, but always damaging.

Chernobyl starkly demonstrated that radiation does not respect political borders or need a passport to travel.

The last leader of the then Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, reflected that Chernobyl “was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later” and that the disaster “showed the horrible consequences of nuclear power, even when it is used for non-military purposes. One could now imagine much more clearly what might happen if a nuclear bomb exploded.”

Thirty-eight years later, adverse health, economic and environmental impacts persist. The Chernobyl complex remains a radioactive running sore, complicated by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

There has also been active fighting at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant and a disturbingly frequent battleground between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Earlier this month the director-general of the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency spoke of a “major escalation of the nuclear safety and security dangers facing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant” and a significant increase in “the risk of a major nuclear accident.”

Whether by accident in 1986 or artillery in 2024, there is no question nuclear power is the world’s most easily weaponised energy system. Reactors have been described as pre-deployed terrorist targets.

On a good day nuclear power means high level radioactive waste. On a bad day Chernobyl. And the very bad day of nuclear weapons is the stuff of nightmares.

On the anniversary of Chernobyl and against a backdrop of deep global uncertainty and conflict, we need to heed the lessons of history and build a safer future.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear-waste dams threaten Central Asia heartland

 Dams holding large amounts of nuclear waste can be found in Kyrgyzstan’s
scenic hills. However, following a 2017 landslide they have become
unstable, threatening a possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster if they
collapse.

 Reuters 24th April 2024

April 27, 2024 Posted by | ASIA, safety, wastes | Leave a comment

The long path of plutonium: A new map charts contamination at thousands of sites, miles from Los Alamos National Laboratory

Plutonium hotspots appear along tribal lands, hiking trails, city streets and the Rio Grande River, a watchdog group finds

Searchlight New Mexico, by Alicia Inez Guzmán, April 25, 2024

For years, the public had no clear picture of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium footprint. Had the ubiquitous plutonium at LANL infiltrated the soil? The water? Had it migrated outside the boundary of the laboratory itself?

A series of maps published by Nuclear Watch New Mexico are beginning to answer these questions and chart the troubling extent of plutonium on the hill. One map is included below [on original] , while an interactive version appears on Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s website. The raw data for both comes from Intellus New Mexico, a publicly accessible clearinghouse of some 16 million environmental monitoring records offered in recent decades by LANL, the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy.

Approximately 58,100 red dots populate each map at 12,730 locations, marking a constellation of points where plutonium — a radioactive element used in nuclear weapons — was found in the groundwater, surface water or soil. What’s alarming is just how far that contamination extends, from Bandelier National Monument to the east and the Santa Fe National Forest to the north, to San Ildefonso tribal lands in the west and the Rio Grande River and Santa Fe County, to the south.

The points, altogether, tell a story about the porous boundary between LANL and its surrounds. So pervasive is the lab’s footprint that plutonium can be found in both trace and notable amounts along hiking trails, near a nursing home, in parks, along major thoroughfares and in the Rio Grande.

Gauging whether or not the levels of plutonium are a health risk is challenging: Many physicians and advocates say no dose of radiation is safe. But when questions about risk arise, one of the few points of reference is the standard used at Rocky Flats in Colorado, where the maximum allowable amount of plutonium in remediated soil was 50 picocuries per gram. Many sites on the Nuclear Watch map have readings below this amount. Colorado’s construction standard, by contrast, is 0.9 picocuries per gram. 

Nuclear Watch’s driving question, according to Scott Kovac, its operations and research director, concerned a specific pattern of contamination: Had plutonium migrated from LANL dump sites into regional groundwater? The answer, Kovac believes, is yes. 

That conclusion began to form when Nuclear Watch compiled data from between 1992 and 2023 for plutonium contamination below the soil, and plotted each point into the organization’s now-sprawling map. Red dots coalesce at LANL dump sites. They also appear in the finger-like canyons surrounding the Pajarito Plateau, namely in Los Alamos Canyon, “the main contaminant pathway to the Rio Grande,” a Nuclear Watch summary says.

Much of the contamination likely occurred from the 1940s to the 1960s, during the lab’s “Wild West,” in Kovac’s words — a time of little environmental oversight when the surrounding plateaus, canyons and the entire ancestral Pueblo of Tsirege doubled as a dumping ground, laboratory and wasteland………………..

A 1999 environmental impact statement and other documents reveal the extent of that contamination and the many places where LANL buried radioactive waste or dumped effluent, including landfills, canyons, drain lines, firing sites and spill locations.
“Plutonium and uranium have been released into canyons…since the Manhattan Project,” according to another 1999 report, this one focused on the lab’s contribution to radioactive contamination in Cochiti Lake. “In Los Alamos Canyon, these contaminants have been carried by flood flows several tens of kilometers” — more than 12 miles — “downstream into the Rio Grande.”

Airborne plutonium releases were also frequent and largely unchecked until the late 1970s, other reports show. The legacy of contamination has been the subject of some piecemeal remediation efforts on lab property and public lands. But the maps stand as forceful arguments for a “genuine cleanup” that is comprehensive and lasting, said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch.

“We need to permanently protect precious, irreplaceable groundwater and the Rio Grande while providing high-paying cleanup jobs for decades,” Coghlan wrote Searchlight in an email. Instead, the lab is focusing on a historic expansion to produce plutonium pits for nuclear weapons. “New Mexicans,” he said, “don’t need more nuclear weapons.”

‘A full reckoning’ of detritus

The lab’s campus is undeniably riddled with plutonium, including beneath the deep groundwater aquifer in certain of its technical areas, the map shows. One concentration appears on the campus’s northern flank, around Material Disposal Area C, a 12-acre site that served as the primary dump for plutonium and other radioactive and toxic waste between 1948 and 1973. The unlined dump comprised seven disposal pits and 108 shafts that workers dug directly into the tuff, burying cyanide, mercury, sulfuric acid, beryllium, plutonium and other wastes four to 25 feet deep……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The lab is juggling this legacy cleanup at the same time that it’s attempting to make 30 plutonium pits per year by 2030, a mission described as the “new Manhattan Project.” Worker shortages and supply-chain bottlenecks have already derailed the timeline; meanwhile, the cleanup of the lab’s Cold War sites is only half complete, the DOE reports. Indeed, as the lab barrels toward a new Cold War, there hasn’t been a full reckoning with the detritus of the last one.

Contamination near Buckman…………………………………………………………………………………………..

more https://searchlightnm.org/the-long-path-of-plutonium-a-new-map-charts-contamination-at-thousands-of-sites-miles-from-los-alamos-national-laboratory/?utm_source=Searchlight+New+Mexico&utm_campaign=17a169b807-4%2F25%2F2024+-+The+long+path+of+plutonium&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8e05fb0467-17a169b807-395610620&mc_cid=17a169b807&mc_eid=a70296a261

April 27, 2024 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries