Patrick Lawrence: The Impotence of Antony Blinken
“Impotence” ! That is too kind.
I cannot at this moment find the statements that Blinken has made in support of Zionism. And they seem to have disappeared from the Internet.
The thing that stands out now is Blinken’s repeated moans about the need for compassion , humanitarian treatment of Gazans – while he continues to support the attack on Gaza.
His slimy hypocrisy is a masterpiece of deception – making sure to prolong wars, while appearing sweet and peace-loving. These quotations from January 2024, – but he’s persistently now made “peaceful” statements and promoted war. Not impotence – but cunning ruthlessness..
“Inside the State Department, Blinken has fielded multiple internal dissent cables decrying U.S. support for Israel.”
“He has made four trips to Ukraine and more than a dozen to visit European allies, reinvigorating the NATO alliance and helping to coordinate more than $110 billion in support of Kyiv.” https://time.com/collection/davos-2024-ideas-of-the-year/6551990/antony-blinken-israel-gaza-us-power/
Antony Blinken goes to Beijing he does not talk to the Chinese: He talks at them
By Patrick Lawrence / ScheerPost https://scheerpost.com/2024/04/28/patrick-lawrence-the-impotence-of-antony-blinken/
Antony Blinken is now in China for his second such journey as secretary of state and his third encounter with senior Chinese officials: This is our news as April marches toward May. I have to say, it is a stranger state of affairs than I can figure when the State Department and the media that clerk for it tell us in advance that America’s top diplomat is going to fail to get anything done as he sets out for the People’s Republic.
“I want to make clear that we are realistic and clear-eyed about the prospects of breakthroughs on any of these issues,” an unnamed State Department official said when briefing reporters last week on Blinken’s agenda. This is how State warns in advance that the secretary will be wasting his time and our money during his encounters in Shanghai and Beijing.
What is this if not an admission of our secretary of state’s diplomatic impotence? Or do I mean incompetence? Or both? This is the man, after all, who arrived in Israel five days after the events of last Oct. 7 to announce, “I come before you as a Jew.” Does this guy understand diplomacy or what?
The media followed the State Department’ lead, naturally, in advising us of the pointlessness of Blinken’s sojourn in China—this at both ends of the Pacific. CNBC: “Washington is realistic about its expectations on Blinken’s visit in resolving key issues.” Japan Times: “While crucial for keeping lines of communication open, the visit is unlikely to yield major breakthroughs.”
Matt Lee, the very able diplomatic correspondent at The Associated Press, got it righter than anyone in his April 22 report: The point of Blinken’s three days of talks with top Chinese officials, he reported, is to have three days of talks with top Chinese officials. “The mere fact that Blinken is making the trip might be seen by some as encouraging,” Lee wrote, “but ties between Washington and Beijing are tense and the rifts are growing wider.”
This is our Tony. As the record makes pitifully clear, there’s no mileage in predicting success when Blinken boards a plane for the great “out there.” This is unequivocally so in his dealings with the western end of the Pacific.
There is a long list of the topics Blinken was set to raise with Chinese officials, notable among these Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Taiwan and the South China Sea, military-to-military contacts, artificial intelligence applications, illicit drug traffic, human rights, trade: These are standards on the American menu when a U.S. official addresses Chinese counterparts. The last is especially contentious just now, given the Biden regime’s disgraceful determination to subvert those Chinese industries with which the U.S. cannot compete. With plans to block imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles already afoot, last week President Biden announced new tariffs on imports of Chinese steel. And it is now “investigating” China’s shipping and shipbuilding industries, which sounds to me like prelude to yet more measures to undermine China’s admirable economic advances.
But the premier question Blinken was to address has to do with Sino–Russian relations. As he made clear before departing, the secretary of state will more or less insist that the Chinese stop selling various industrial goods to Russia because the U.S. considers them “dual use,” meaning the Russians could use such things as semiconductors in their defense industries—so implicating China in Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.
Before going any further, let’s try one of those “imagine if” exercises. Imagine if Beijing sent Foreign Minister Wang to Washington to tell the Biden regime to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine as this implicates the U.S. in Ukraine’s war with Russia and this is not on because China and Russia are friends.
It is not even fun, this “imagine if,” so nonsensical is it. Any such exercise would turn Wang, an acutely skilled diplomat, into another Antony Blinken—the thought of which is nonsensical times 10.
But never mind sense and nonsense. Blinken and those who speak for him at State boldly previewed the secretary’s presentation in the days before his departure. Here is Blinken speaking to reporters last Friday:
We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade. Now, if China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.
A day later the unnamed State Department official elaborated with this:
We’re prepared to take steps when we believe necessary against firms that … severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe. We’ve demonstrated our willingness to do so regarding firms from a number of countries, not just China. We will express our intent to have China curtail that support.
As tough diplomatic talk goes, it does not get much tougher. And as dumb diplomacy goes, it does not get much dumber.
For one thing, the Biden regime is demanding that China act against what we can count Beijing’s closest partner—this as leading non–Western nations are coalescing behind a joint project to create a new, let’s call it post–Western world order. I am reminded of a brilliant tweet someone wrote just after Russia began its Ukraine operation two years ago and the Biden regime sought to recruit Beijing against “Putin’s Russia,” as people such as Blinken insist on referring to the Russian Federation. “Please help us defeat Russia,” the tweet read, “so we can turn our aggression on you when we’re done.”
But precisely.
For another, the Chinese Foreign Ministry made its response to Blinken’s preposterous intentions clear even before the secretary boarded his plane (and just prior to the passage in the House last week of $60.1 billion in new aid for the Kiev regime). “It is extremely hypocritical and irresponsible for the U.S. to introduce a large-scale aid bill for Ukraine,” a ministry spokesperson said last week, “while making groundless accusations against normal economic and trade exchanges between China and Russia.”
I cannot think of a handier way of shutting down Antony Blinken.
One other thing while we are on this topic. Among the principles on which a post–Western global order will rest are respect for the sovereignty of all nations and noninterference into the internal affairs of others. These are two elements of civilized statecraft, as it is destined to be in the 21st century and of which the secretary of state has absolutely no clue.
Why did Secretary Blinken bother to raise this question of Sino–Russian trade when he must have known the response as well as you and I know it. I see two immediate explanations.
One, the crooks in Kiev have already lost Washington’s proxy war with Russia—and goodness knows how much of the just-approved aid they will steal—and Blinken’s presentation in Beijing reflects mounting desperation among the policy cliques who got the U.S. into this hopeless-from-the-start conflict.
Two, and closely related to the above, when Antony Blinken goes to Beijing he does not talk to the Chinese: He talks at them and is not especially concerned about their responses. He is talking only to the American public and the China hawks on Capitol Hill, who have the White House stretching to out-hawk them at every turn.
If you need support for this latter thought, there is Blinken’s assertion Monday, when introducing the State Department’s annual human rights report, that China is guilty of “genocide and crimes against humanity” against the Uighur population in Xinjiang Province. This charge has been highly suspect since Mike Pompeo, Blinken’s fanatically Sinophobic predecessor at State, conjured it before leaving office in 2021. And given no charge of genocide has ever been supported with evidence, what in hell was Blinken doing raising this question (1) on the eve of a diplomatic visit to Beijing during which he purported to want other things out of the Chinese, and (2) given his government’s open sponsorship of what we must now call the Israeli–U.S. genocide in Gaza?
My mind goes back to March 2021 when I read these things. It was then, in an Anchorage hotel (named the Captain Cook) that Blinken and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s new national security adviser, made an utter disaster out of their first encounter with senior Chinese officials, Wang Yi among them. It was then and there that Blinken and Sullivan, all by themselves, tipped over Sino–U.S. relations with just the sort of shockingly ignorant display of late-imperial presumption Blinken is trying on yet again in Beijing this week.
Sino–American ties have never recovered from the encounter in Anchorage. And Blinken has learned nothing from the mess he made.
Grim nuclear anniversary: Zaporizhzhia must not repeat Chornobyl
Shaun Burnie, Jan Vande Putte and Daryna Rogachuk, 26 April 2024 https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/66648/grim-nuclear-anniversary-zaporizhzhia-chornobyl-ukraine/
Chornobyl is one of the most recognised synonyms for disaster in the world. Its legacy is a universal reminder of the horrific consequences of nuclear power when things goes wrong: on this day in 1986, a test procedure produced explosions at the power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, causing a chain reaction that blew a colossal release of radioactive contamination across Europe and eventually much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Millions of Ukrainians have been affected by the destruction of reactor unit 4 and the radiation it released into the environment, either directly or through their families, friends and colleagues and its impact is still felt across generations.
Today, 38 years later, the spectre of nuclear catastrophe looms large – and not only in the abandoned region around Chornobyl: the ongoing illegal Russian military occupation of the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and one of the 10 biggest in the world, installed by force the Russian state nuclear authority Rosatom. In doing so, Moscow placed in danger not only Ukraine, but most of Europe – and with chilling echoes of a Soviet era mentality that prioritised domination over life and safety and produced the catastrophe in Chornobyl.
Chornobyl’s RBMK reactor design had evolved out of the Soviet Union’s 1950s military reactors used for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, and were known even then to be unsafe. Scientists warning of integral instabilities, including a ‘positive steam coefficient’ which could lead to an explosion, were ignored. Twenty years later, that design flaw and others led to two massive explosions that destroyed the Chornobyl unit 4 reactor and shook the world.
In the years between 1986-1990, over 600,000 firefighters, soldiers, janitors, and miners – collectively known as ‘liquidators’ – were sent to the Chornobyl site after the explosion in an attempt to respond to the disaster. Many tens of thousands have suffered long term health consequences and death.
The Russian threat at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
By sidelining Zaporizhzhia’s Ukrainian engineers at gunpoint, and by deliberately firing missiles at Ukraine’s wider energy infrastructure, the Kremlin risks repeating terrible lessons from history. The Russian invasion presence places Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants – South Ukraine, Rivne, Khemelnitsky and especially Zaporizhzhia – at risk of an emergency power loss and station blackout.
Despite heroic efforts by Zaporizhzhia workers and citizens of nearby Energodar to barricade the main access road with vehicles, tyres and sandbags to block the advancing Russian troops, they were overwhelmed and the resulting assault damaged the plant, including its vital electricity infrastructure for maintaining the cooling function of the hot nuclear fuel. One reactor core producing heat for the electricity has the power of two million water cookers: if cooling stopped after shutdown, it would take only hours for the cooling water to boil off, expose the hot nuclear fuel to the air and melt down, leading to a new major nuclear disaster. In peacetime, power plant workers still have several options to restore cooling in an emergency, but in a war zone this is severely and constantly compromised.
There is a long list of dangerous incidents caused by the Russian invasion, including the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023, which not only led to an enormous damage and suffering below the dam, but also emptied the Kakhovka reservoir providing cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Nuclear history repeating itself?
The ultimate blow to nuclear safety however is the plan of Rosatom and Moscow to attempt to restart one or more reactors at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The existing cooling water resources are far from sufficient to cool an operational reactor. Rosatom would have to build a new pump system, which would not be as reliable, and it does not have the workforce and expertise to control an operational reactor, especially in a warzone. Nuclear energy is incompatible with a world marred by conflict and instability.
Russia might have launched a disinformation campaign to pave the way for blaming Ukraine in case something goes very wrong. Hiding behind false flag attacks might make it easier for them to take higher risks. That is why it is so important to remember Chornobyl today, and how it happened, through irresponsible deliberate decisions and acts by the Soviet system.
Greenpeace Germany has written to Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General calling on him to make clear to Rosatom and the Russian government that restart of Zaporizhzhia under Russian control is unconscionable. The IAEA must do all it can to prevent restart and not cooperate with Rosatom, nor seek to accommodate the interests of the nuclear industry, or it risks repeating the grave mistakes of the past.
Chernobyl – the Cloud Lingers On
CHERNOBYL – THE FACTS
- The total radioactively released from Chernobyl was 20 times that of the combined releases of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.
- At least 9 million people have been directly affected by the accident
- Over 160,000 square kilometres of land were contaminated with 42,000 squarekilometres rendered unusable.
- At least 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
- Analysis concluded that the former Soviet Union would have been better off financially if it had never begun building nuclear reactors.
- It is estimated that the total cost of compensation paid to UK farmers is over £12 million.
- The Chernobyl disaster has caused a massive increase in thyroid cancers in the three most affected countries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
- The sarcophagus built to contain the damaged reactor was supposed to last 30 years but some 300 yards of cracks and holes are already evident.
- In Ukraine, two million children live in contaminated areas with 900,000 still living in high-risk zones.
- The stricken reactor will remain radioactive for about 10,000 years.
BY MARIANNEWILDART, https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2024/04/26/chernobyl-the-cloud-lingers-on/
38th Anniversary of Chernobyl
Today is the 38th Anniversary of the ongoing Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A huge steel and concrete sarcophagus covers the site of the meltdown. Under its dome, called the New Safe Confinement, lie 200 tons of lava-like nuclear fuel, 30 tons of highly contaminated dust and 16 tons of uranium and plutonium that continue to release high levels of radiation. There is a rather odd link with the Russian state nuclear body Rosatom and Cumbria. Until recently Rosatom shared the same PR company as West Cumbria Mining – New Century Media. The coal mine plans have an uncanny resemblance to the Chernobyl sarcophagus
The damage from Chernobyl is ongoing, snowballing down through the generations with tenacious charities such as Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) and Chernobyl Childern International doing their utmost to support those whose lives continue to be damaged.
Here we re-publish “The Cloud Lingers On”
a hard hitting article from 1996…in non other than Cumbria Life.
The lifestyle magazine, Cumbria Life, is not where you would expect to find a hard- hitting article on Chernobyl and the nuclear industry. But that is exactly what was published in this Cumbrian coffee table magazine in 1996. ….
(the article is in the public domain but not online – any mistakes in transcript are mine)
Ten years ago a cloud washed over the Cumbrian fells, coating the grass, trees, heather, bracken and rocks with a film of radiation. It came from Chernobyl, a ruptured nuclear reactor in the Ukraine, several thousand miles away. Early, confident predictions that the heavy Cumbrian rain, that brought down the radioactive Caesium in the first place would now wash it from the uplands, were quietly buried. No amount of rain was every going to wash away the poison from Chernobyl. Award winning environmental writer Alan Air reports.
At the height of the Cold War, the superpowers hid behind the perverted logic of the military defence acronym MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – to shore up a global arms industry worth billions of pounds. We pointed our nuclear warheads at them. They pointed their nuclear warheads at us. Would they dare unleash their missiles? Would we dare unleash our missiles? All that awful tension.
Cumbria at first glance a global backwater of lakes, dry stone walls and back packing ramblers, seemed remote from the world stage but it played a part in the divide between West and East; Sellafield’s nuclear complex, the Broughton Moor arms depot, Anthorn’s submarine tracking station and even the Chapelcross nuclear plant just across the Solway Firth were all key components in the UK’s military and nuclear defence strategy.
Britain’s post-war civil atomic power programme was inextricably interwoven with its nuclear defence objectives; no British Government Minister wanted to enter the nuclear conference chamber naked.
Thankfully, Eastern Bloc missiles never did scream over Saddleback or the back o’ Skiddaw but in the spring of 1986, before the Soviet Union started to implode, Cumbrians felt the heat of Cold War politics on its back when an experiment at the Lenin nuclear plant at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine went wrong and Number 4 reactor exploded and threw up over Europe.
Spiralling weather patterns spread the atomic debris to dozens of countries in different time zones, heavy rain brought the radiation down on our county’s mountain tops and the alarms went berserk at Sellafield evoking a home-grown nuclear nightmare, the Windscale fire of ’57 that contaminated large parts of Cumbria and northern England. Chernobyl was nothing if not ironic.
Ten years later and Chernobyl – the noun is now instantly synonymous with the world’s worst nuclear disaster – is now in the hands of a ‘democratic’ Ukraine, but the perilous state of the infamous Number 4 reactor continues to cause concern among the international community. The cracking concrete sarcophagus, hastily erected around the molten core by nuclear workers a the stricken plant, many of whom later died from the radiation, is already crumbling and radioactive water is pouring from the site. Unless a new containment chamber is constructed, and much of the cash would have to come from a kitty topped up by the rich industrial nations of the West, then Chernobyl 2 – The Sequel, is not just a possibility but a probability, warns Janine Allis-Smith of the campaign group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE).
“Chernobyl proved that you can never, ever guard against human error, someone doing something stupid. Whatever nuclear experts say about the design of the Chernobyl reactor it was human error that triggered the explosion. It is bound to happen again,” she predicts.
In the weeks, months and years after Chernobyl, hundreds of Cumbrian hill farmers faced restrictions on the movement, and sale for meat, of radioactive-contaminated sheep. Initial Government estimates about the time it would take for dangerous radiation to leave the animals were constantly revised upwards as the main components of Chernobyl fallout, Caesium 137 and Caesium 134, persisted in dangerous amounts in the beasts’ tissues.
Early, confident predictions that the heavy Cumbrian rain that brought down the Caesium in the first place, would now wash it from the uplands were quietly buried.
It took scientists at the Merlewood Research Station at Grange over Sands in south Cumbria, to uncover some very down to earth truths about the persistence of cancer causing Caesium in the Cumbrian hills. The irony of the scientific explanation wasn’t lost on the county’s loose alliance of anti-nuclear and ‘green’ campaigners forever kicking up a stink about nuclear waste reprocessing at Sellafield.
It was all to do with recycling.
In the nutrient poor uplands of the Lake District, native grasses and heathers survive by carefully safeguarding what minerals are available. Elements – which in 1986 including Caesium – are taken up by the roots and then circulated to the succulent shoot tips during the growing season. However, they are not lost when the plant sheds its leaves in the Autumn. Instead they are sucked back into the woody, permanent tissues, to be stored for re-use in the Spring. By another quirk of nature, Caesium was readily absorbed by Cumbrian hill vegetation because of a lack of potassium in the upland soil.
Scientists discovered that plants in potassium deficient areas have a Caesium take up rate that is 12 times greater than those plants growing in potassium rich soil. Even more bizarrely, many of Cumbria’s hillside plants enjoy ‘symbiotic’ relationships with ‘mycorrhizal fungi’ – tiny plants that survive by assisting the host plant to take up minerals. In the case of Cumbrian heather, these fungi helped move Caesium from the roots to the shoot tips on which the sheep fed. Even the lack of clay in our upland soil, a material that binds Caesium and hinders root absorption meant that vegetation could easily access this radioactive ion.
No amount of rain was ever going to wash away the poison from Chernobyl.
Sheep feeding on hillside vegetation took in Caesium with every mouthful. For Ennerdale sheep farmer, John Hinde, who has a 1,500 strong flock at Low Moor End, the Chernobyl fallout meant nine stressful years of working within Government restrictions and monitoring. He has survived but recalls: “For a time it looked as if there wasn’t going to be any sheep left on the fells.”
Ten years on and only a dozen or so farms in Cumbria are regulated by movement restrictions compared to nearly 400 in Wales. That would appear to be good news for our farmers, and the mutton-eating consumer. Janine Allis-Smith of CORE isn’t so sure that radiation levels on the fells have declined quite so dramatically as the Government would have us believe, and she suggests that the de-restrictions are rooted in political pragmatism.
“It is interesting that the only area where this massive de-restriction has taken place is the Lake District. It is obviously important that Cumbrian and the whole tourist area is seen to be okay. I think a lot of Cumbrian farmers had their eyes opened when it was discovered that only 50% of the radiation on the hills came from Chernobyl. Some of the stuff was there long before May 1986” she says.
Indeed, scientists confirmed that radioactive contamination of the fells was not confined to Chernobyl but that much of it came from global nuclear bomb testing, the Windscale Fire of 1957 and routine discharges from Windscale, now Sellafield, in the 1960s and 1970s. Allis-Smith cites an aerial survey revealed the Ravenglass Estuary was contaminated by radioactive discharges from Sellafield long before Chernobyl dumped on us.
“If radiation was like confetti, the whole bloody Lake District would be like a wedding cake.” She suggests.
Cumbrian hill farmer’s daughter Jill Perry is equally suspicious of recent de-restrictions in the Lake District,
“The hill farm where I was born and brought up was one of those where milk had to be destroyed after the 1957 Windscale fire and one which, 29 years later, was placed under Chernobyl restrictions and has recently been exempted>” she explains.
“I think most farmers originally thought the Chernobyl testing was just a formality and were surprised and dismayed when they were placed under restriction, and equally wonder why restrictions have been lifted more quickly than those in Wales, where the number of restricted farms seems to fall much more slowly.”
Mrs Perry who now acts as the spokesman for West Cumbrian Friends of the Earth group, sees no point in differentiating between Windscale ’57 and Chernobyl ’86.
“What these two incidents show most graphically is that whether a nuclear accident happens locally or in another country, the radiation recognises no international borders and that we cannot afford to take lightly the risks brought about by human error in a high tech industry.”
The greatest irony of Chernobyl may yet lie ahead. British Nuclear Fuels, the company that now runs Sellafield in West Cumbria (and which has polluted areas of the UK coastline with its radioactive discharges) is now spreading tentacles around the globe. Selling its decontamination services to a tainted world. No-one can rule out experts from Sellafield, the plant that spawned the world’s first ‘civil’ nuclear disaster in 1957 and whose alarms bells rung out loud and clear when the Chernobyl could went over, will not, in the future, ret-trace the path of the Chernobyl radiation plume and venture into the plant’s exclusion zone.
Bridget Woodman, an anti nuclear campaigner with Greenpeace believes that Chernobyl taught Cumbrians about the universal nature of the nuclear power threat.
“When the Chernobyl explosion first appeared on the news bulletins, most Cumbrians probably never envisaged that it would impact directly on them. Yet within a few days, people were watching the skies apprehensively. Cumbrians may have become blasé about Sellafield on their own doorstep but Chernobyl proved that a nuclear disaster can affect them even if its happening thousands of miles away. There is no guarantee of safety. Chernobyl proved there is no escape.
“And while many of the restrictions on sheep movements in Cumbria have now been lifted, we should remember that there is no safe dose of radiation. No-one knows what the legacy of Chernobyl fallout will be on existing and future generations of Cumbrians.
RED GROUSEThe Red Grouse has escaped media attention but its almost exclusive diet of succulent heather shoots means that many birds will have concentrated Caesium in their bodies post Chernobyl. Work prior to the Chernobyl disaster established that the heather family, Ericaceae, could accumulate high concentrations of Caesium. Since then, surveys in the Lake District have revealed that one species of heather, calluna vulgaris, accumulates the highest Caesium burden.
CHERNOBYL – THE FACTS
- The total radioactively released from Chernobyl was 20 times that of the combined releases of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.
- At least 9 million people have been directly affected by the accident
- Over 160,000 square kilometres of land were contaminated with 42,000 squarekilometres rendered unusable.
- At least 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Analysis concluded that the former Soviet Union would have been better off financially if it had never begun building nuclear reactors.- It is estimated that the total cost of compensation paid to UK farmers is over £12 million.
- The Chernobyl disaster has caused a massive increase in thyroid cancers in the three most affected countries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
- The sarcophagus built to contain the damaged reactor was supposed to last 30 years but some 300 yards of cracks and holes are already evident.
- In Ukraine, two million children live in contaminated areas with 900,000 still living in high-risk zones.
- The stricken reactor will remain radioactive for about 10,000 years. ENDS
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Applaud $95 Billion Supplemental Arms Package
Defense contractors see “margin growth” with massive escalation of weapons shipments to the Ukraine-Russia war.
LEE FANG, APR 28, 2024
Last weekend, the House of Representatives moved to pass a string of bills to provide over $95 billion in foreign aid and military arms to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Rep. French Hill, R-Arkansas, saluted the funding as akin to the foreign aid that helped the Americans win the Revolutionary War. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., thanked her Republican colleagues for the legislative support and scorned critics of the bill. “You will have blood on your hands,” she said. As the bill passed, legislators waved miniature Ukrainian flags and cheered.
The jubilation for the massive increase in weapons transfers was also heard on Wall Street. The supplemental funding package came just as both Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp, formerly known as Raytheon, announced quarterly earnings.
Christopher Calio, the president of RTX, noted during the investor call that out of the $60 billion in the legislation for Ukraine, his company is prepared to provide “about two-thirds of that” with “RTX products.”
“Think GEM-T, NASAMS, Patriot, AMRAAM, AIM-9X,” said Calio, rattling off a variety of missiles manufactured by RTX. ……………..(Subscribers only)more https://www.leefang.com/p/lockheed-martin-raytheon-applaud?utm_campaign=email-post&r=ln98x&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Protesters in Taiwan demand closure of nuclear power plants
https://www.euronews.com/video/2024/04/27/watch-protesters-in-taiwan-demand-closure-of-nuclear-power-plants Protesters in Taiwan demand closure of nuclear power plants. The
demonstration was against legislators extending the use of Maanshan Nuclear
Power Plant, also known as the “Third Nuclear Powerplant.” Protestors
braved the rain dressed in coats and straw hats, as speakers played the
nuclear leak alarm message. Taiwan currently has four nuclear power plants,
with the first and second in the process of decommissioning, a third one
still in use and a fourth whose construction was suspended in April 2014.
Euronews 27th April 2024
The astonishing growth of renewable energy
Renewable energy is taking over the world!
Energy Revolutions, DAVID TOKE, APR 26, 2024
As I say in my forthcoming book. Energy Revolutions, Profiteering versus Democracy’ (PlutoPress): ‘if recent growth trends in renewable energy continue, then sustainable renewable energy sources (mostly wind and solar PV) will make up 100 per cent of world energy consumption (all energy, not just electricity) by the year 2050. ……..Based on trends over the last ten years, nuclear power would be projected to supply only around 3 per cent of world energy in 2050. There is a consistent trend in the last ten years of world growth in renewable energy (mostly wind and solar power) of 12.6 per cent per year…….By contrast, the total primary energy consumption (that is, all energy, not just electricity) is showing an average growth of 1.4 per cent per year over the previous ten years’ This is shown in a Table below [on original] taken from my Energy Revolutions book:
Nuclear power hardly needs to be included in such charts, since their contribution to world energy by 2050 is likely to be negligible. See the chart below, [on original] also taken from my forthcoming book Energy Revolutions
Nuclear power is actually declining as a proportion of total energy consumed in the world. This is because the amount of energy supplied by electricity is rapidly increasing whilst the volume of nuclear production is static. Increasingly the new electricity supplies are coming from renewable energy sources. Despite the ritualistic pronouncements from the nuclear industry about an imminent upsurge in nuclear power through a new ‘renaissance’ (which has been supposed to be happening for the last 20 years) renewables are triumphing.
Oil and gas corporations like Exxon produce their own fantasy pronoucements about how use of natural gas will increase in the future. Not only are renewables dominating deployments of electricity generation capacity, but the market for fossil fuels is being eaten away as electrification spreads through the world economy. Transport will become dominated by electric vehicles, electric trains and eventually also electric planes. Heating will be increasingly provided by electrically powered heat pumps.
As strong as they are, fossil fuel and nuclear interests cannot stop the renewables takeover. Sure, they can slow it down to an extent by misinformation about renewable energy and technologies like EVs and heat pumps, but green energy will win in the end. That is because there is an unbeatable combination of grassroots energy activists campaigning for renewable energy and also because renewable energy and renewable-friendly technologies are developing so fast! https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/the-astonishing-growth-of-renewable
Pontins Pakefield holiday park to close to public from 2025
An end of era looks set to be marked at a seaside holiday park that has
attracted hundreds of thousands of guests over the past 70 years. Sizewell
C is set to take over the whole of Pontins Pakefield Holiday Village in
Lowestoft from January next year.
This means that the site is set to close
to the public from early 2025 – as it provides accommodation for “about 500
workers” who will be constructing the Sizewell C nuclear power station.
After Sizewell C reached a rental agreement with Pontins Pakefield this
week – which will deliver a “considerable refurbishment” of the site and “a
long-term legacy for the area”, Sizewell C said construction workers would
be housed at the site from January 2025.
East Anglian Daily Times 26th April 2024
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24278600.pontins-pakefield-holiday-park-close-public-2025
The former rail chief now minding the (construction) gap at Sizewell.
The former rail chief now minding the (construction) gap at Sizewell. Rob
Holden, chairman of the Suffolk nuclear plant, says the increasing time
between the start of construction at Hinkley Point and spades in the ground
at Sizewell is a worry.
The delays and swelling cost of building Hinkley
Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in more than two
decades, may not necessarily be a bad omen for its sister station.
According to Rob Holden, the non-executive chairman of Sizewell C, “good
projects start well and get better, bad projects start badly and get worse.
While Sizewell is a replication, technically, of Hinkley, it is a very
different project.”
Thus far Hinkley Point is running up to £28 billion
over budget and is six years past its initial deadline. That has spurred
speculation that Sizewell could be beset by the same troubles. Holden, who
has led the Sizewell C board since the end of 2022, disagrees. The power
plant, which is due to be built on the Suffolk coast, has an “as-built
design”, which should mean far fewer changes than its predecessor to the
west and less time and money lost. Its developers know the quantities of
kit needed and have already been making efforts to procure it.
Nevertheless, for Holden, a widening gap between the start of construction
at Hinkley Point and spades in the ground at Sizewell is a worry. The
project is owned 50-50 by EDF and the government, but they are hoping to
bring in private investment. A final investment decision is slated for
before the end of the year. “What I do know now is that we can’t afford
to allow the time gap to be more than what it currently is between the two
projects, otherwise we will lose the replication benefits.”
Times 26th April 2024
No Drones Over Gaza Or Anywhere!
Direct action at Holloman AFB in New Mexico
LISA SAVAGE, APR 28, 2024.Went to the Bridge – Substack
Dozens converged at for a week of nonviolent resistance to the illegal drone training program at Holloman Air Force Base, including several students and teachers from New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces. Many of their signs noted opposition to the role of drones in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
On April 24, business at the drone training program was interrupted at two main gates by a nonviolent blockade during morning commute hour. After five activists blockaded the less used West Gate for about 20 min, they ended their blockade after the one minute police warning. Some then joined others at the Main gate and continued the interruption of criminal activity at the base. Ultimately six were arrested: Denise Sellers (San Diego), John Reese (High Rolls / Mtn. Park, NM), Natasha Robinson (Berkeley, CA), Toby Blomé (El Cerrito, CA), Virginia Hauflaire (Phoenix, AZ), and Ray Cage (Tucson, AZ). No warning was given at the 2nd gate and arrests occurred.
Arrestees were held at the police station and told that they would be be taken to the Otero County Detention Center to be processed and held over night. But after a few hours arrestees were taken directly to court, arraigned, and released at about 1pm.
Participant Scott Thompson of Alamogordo said, “Our government primarily serves an elite class that profits from wars and is unconcerned with the suffering we inflict on other humans. It is the duty of every good citizen to look beyond the headlines and understand the inhumane waste of resources making unconstitutional wars on others. Via public outreach and thoughtful actions we hope to get the attention of the misinformed.”
New local allies joined the Holloman campaign for its week of actions. …………………………………………
The secrecy of the drone program keeps it from the public eye. “Drone strikes” are rarely mentioned in the media or by the military, and the term “Air Strikes” provides convenient “shelter” from public scrutiny. Our week of action uncovers the secrecy and educates the local community, as well as the base employees! Equally important: The inhumane US drone program causes deep moral injury to our military personnel themselves. We offer alternatives and support to the new recruits and other employees, via signs, banners and leaflets that offer resources for GI support. https://went2thebridge.substack.com/p/no-drones-over-gaza-or-anywhere?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1580975&post_id=144108116&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=c9zhh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Biden’s $61 billion and Kiev’s conscription crackdown… Ukrainians are fleeing the NATO bloodbath, not Russia
I deliberated about republishing this, because of the strong and highly emotive language. Some will see this as pro Russian propaganda, and perhaps it is.
At the same time – it contains facts – important facts – about Ukraine’s conscription methods, the toll on the population, the casualty numbers –
this is not told by the Western mainstream media
Strategic Culture Foundation, Sat, 27 Apr 2024 https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/04/26/biden-61-billion-and-kievs-conscription-crackdown-ukrainians-fleeing-nato-bloodbath-not-russia/
Ukrainians aren’t fleeing from Russian aggression. They are fleeing the horrible parasitic Ukrainian regime and the bloodbath that NATO has unleashed.
This week saw U.S. President Joe Biden proclaiming the Congressional passing of $61 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine as “a good day for world peace”. Biden’s exaltation is ghoulish. The obscenity is that more Ukrainians will be sacrificed for Western imperialism and its brutal NeoNazi regime in Kiev.
The clueless, cynical Western media narrative is that a freedom-loving democratic Ukraine is bravely fighting against Russian aggression. Ukrainian men are, according to this fairytale, courageously battling to defend their country and to save the rest of Europe from Russian invasion.
That’s why the United States Congress this week passed a bill to send $61 billion in more military aid to Ukraine. President Biden had been desperately appealing to Congress to take a stand with Ukraine to defeat Russian aggression. America’s NATO allies have likewise reiterated the same nonsense mantra.
Most people who live outside the echo chamber of Western media know this depiction is total baloney, to use one of Biden’s favorite catchphrases.
The conflict in Ukraine is a U.S.-led NATO proxy war to strategically defeat Russia. The grand scheme got going after the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014. The Kiev regime, fronted by a conman Jewish puppet president Vladimir Zelensky, is a NeoNazi dictatorship. It’s a corrupt junta where the elite like Zelensky have siphoned off billions of dollars and euros donated by Western governments courtesy of their unwitting taxpayers.
This week we saw proof of the Kiev rump reich in action when it announced that it would cut off consular services to all Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 who are currently residing abroad.
It is estimated that since the conflict escalated in Ukraine in February 2022 nearly five million Ukrainian citizens fled to European Union states. Of these, about 20 percent – one million – are adult males.
The cutting off of consular services to any citizen by its government is an unprecedented drastic action. That alone should alert observers that the “government” in question is far from normal. Laughably, the Western media reported the banishing of consular services by the Zelensky regime as if it were somehow banal. In other words, they conveniently covered up for what is a disgraceful violation of international norms.
The reason for the Ukrainian embassies’ taking such action is to force Ukrainian males abroad to declare their details and register for a new conscription drive by the Kiev regime.
Zelensky’s regime earlier this month passed into law much tougher mobilization powers to dragoon Ukrainian men into the armed services.
The new law is deeply unpopular among Ukrainian people for sound reasons. They are being sent to the frontline to be slaughtered by vastly superior Russian forces in a futile war for the NATO side.
It is estimated that 500,000 to 600,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in more than two years of fighting. Millions more have been wounded and maimed. A whole generation of Ukrainian men has been destroyed at a rate that is on par with World War One-type carnage.
According to the United Nations, the civilian death toll from the conflict is around 10,000. All deaths are regrettable, but the relatively low number of collateral casualties is a testament to Russia’s efforts to avoid civilian targets. One may question, therefore, why millions of Ukrainians jumped in their cars and 4x4s to take up residence in Europe if they weren’t being targeted by Russian forces. It is also notable that most Ukrainians have gone to seek safety in Russia more than any other country in Europe. So much for Russia being an evil aggressor.
Zelensky and his NATO puppet regime make the preposterous claim that the Ukrainian military death toll is around 31,000. Of course, the real, 16-fold higher figure must be denied otherwise the Western propaganda would be shamed for the bloodbath that NATO and its regime have instigated.
If for argument’s sake, the impossibly lower figure could be believed, then the question is why is the Kiev regime so desperate to launch its recent draconian conscription. Zelensky has talked about the need to recruit up to 500,000 new soldiers. This is an implicit admission that the higher death toll of 500,000 to 600,000 is indeed accurate if such many replacements must be found.
When the Kiev regime announced its new recruitment drive earlier this month, it was followed immediately by a rush of Ukrainians to embassies across Europe to renew their documents such as passports and driving permits. The rush was because they did not want to have to return to Ukraine to renew their documents otherwise they would be subjected to forcible conscription.
Already, there are myriad reports and videos (not covered by Western media to be sure) of Ukrainian males being snatched off the streets by Kiev regime thugs for military service. Many others have gone into hiding within the country. There have been scandals about Ukrainian families being extorted by recruitment officers for thousands of dollars to spare fathers and sons. Thousands of others have risked their lives by trying to swim across rivers to neighboring countries.
It is a measure of how vindictive and callous the Kiev regime is that it is taking the extreme measure of now denying consular services to its male citizens abroad. The objective is to flush out up to one million recruits for the killing fields along the 1,000-kilometer frontline with Russia in the east of the country.
Here’s where the Western propaganda story becomes absurd. To avoid being dragged back to Ukraine, many of those living abroad are expected to renounce citizenship. If they do not have valid passports and cannot renew their documents they become stateless and illegal. That means hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will by necessity have to claim political asylum in European Union states. In short, their predicament is that they cannot return to their home country out of fear of persecution.
How ridiculous is that? The United States and its European vassals have donated up to $300 billion in public money to prop up a regime whose own citizens are fleeing in fear.
The latest splurge of $61 billion by the United States will not help Ukraine win the NATO-orchestrated proxy war against Russia. The largesse will merely prolong the agony of Ukraine and prop up the corrupt NeoNazi regime. Already, up to half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been slaughtered in a futile criminal war for Western imperialist interests. Many independent military analysts agree that the critical shortage is Ukrainian manpower.
Zelensky and his henchmen are trying to squeeze more bodies into the abattoir. Washington and the European minions are feeding the military profiteering killing machine in tandem with the Kiev regime’s manhunt for new cannon fodder.
It’s heinous and diabolical. It’s also shockingly flagrant – unless that is, you rely on Western media for your “information”.
The truth is the Western public is supporting a regime that even its citizens are cowering in fear of. It’s a double whammy. The West is subsidizing a regime that is needlessly killing its people instead of engaging in peaceful diplomacy with Russia to end this war.
And millions of Ukrainians are living in European countries rent-free placing huge strains on housing and services for European citizens. All because Uncle Sam and European lapdogs are pushing a criminal proxy war.
Ukrainians aren’t fleeing from Russian aggression. They are fleeing the horrible parasitic Ukrainian regime and the bloodbath that NATO has unleashed.
Holocaust Survivor Tells Student Anti-Genocide Protesters: ‘Just Keep Doing It’
“There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism,” said Stephen Kapos. “If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt.”
By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams
A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel’s war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they’re on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who “demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel.” They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, “This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!”
“As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don’t give up,” Kapos said in a video published by Double Down News. “We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail.”
Kapos’ comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found “plausibly” genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an “antisemitic mob.”
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that “the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they’re doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust.”
He said he is also protesting “the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.”
Kapos predicted that “today’s marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that.”
“Today’s marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it.”
“There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism,” Kapos asserted. “If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt without any doubt and I think it is imperative to assert opposition and even some degree of disadvantage and risk if you want to be guilt-free when history judges what’s happening.”
Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Long before today’s growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that “the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid” and that “the Israeli government’s actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family’s experiences under Hitlerism.”
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that “what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation” was “almost identical” to “what was done to the German Jews before the ‘Final Solution,'” and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
Holocaust survivors who stand up for Palestinian rights have been condemned by critics as “antisemites” and “self-hating Jews” who, in Meyer’s case, allegedly abused his status as a Holocaust survivor.
Kapos, who has experienced such slurs, is undaunted and says he has no plans to stop protesting. During a recent rally in London he vowed, “I’ll keep doing it as long as the bombing and apartheid and the injustice is going on.” https://twitter.com/DoubleDownNews/status/1783270524388294756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1783270524388294756%7Ctwgr%5E0eba1ba4fc85a62ab6c36c37d2a5e14fdefd9921%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fscheerpost.com%2F2024%2F04%2F28%2Fholocaust-survivor-tells-student-anti-genocide-protesters-just-keep-doing-it%2F
Kapos’ comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found “plausibly” genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide…………………………………………………………….
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that “the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they’re doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust.”
He said he is also protesting “the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.”
Kapos predicted that “today’s marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that.”……………………………………………….
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that “what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation” was “almost identical” to “what was done to the German Jews before the ‘Final Solution,'” and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism………………………………………. more https://www.commondreams.org/news/holocaust-survivors-gaza-genocide
—
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.
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
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/
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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