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Scottish independence would end the UK’s nuclear delusion.

The oncoming submarine crisis is not the only threat to the UK’s ability to maintain its nuclear weapon capability. The recent upsurge in the aspiration for Scottish independence should remind us that we are in a unique position with the potential not only to rid ourselves of these horrific weapons, but also to undermine the ability of the UK to persist with them since there is no credible alternative to the Clyde bases elsewhere the UK.

29th September, By David Mackenzie

LAST week a UK nuclear weapon Vanguard-class submarine returned to its base in Faslane, covered in algae and barnacles, reportedly after a patrol that lasted more than six months.

This prompted the pro-navy (and pro-nuclear-weapon) magazine Navy Outlook to publish a long article discussing the increase in the length of patrols and suggesting that this is down to the difficulty, due to refits and maintenance problems arising from skill shortages, of maintaining the pattern of always having one boat on patrol at all times. The article acknowledges that there is now great pressure on the submariners and that risks are being taken to maintain the patrol pattern.

The four Vanguard-class boats are now more than 30 years old and the replacement Dreadnought- class is already well behind schedule, so the question arises as to whether the current submarines can be patched and crewed sufficiently to close the potential gap in availability.

The Dreadnought programme is seriously hampered by a shortage of assembly space at Barrow and delays to the Derby unit where the reactor cores will be built. The UK Government refuses to say when it expects the new boats to be ready. The stretching of the patrol length to six months and beyond suggests that the crisis point may not be far away and that in the interim more and more risks will be taken with material and personnel.

The oncoming submarine crisis is not the only threat to the UK’s ability to maintain its nuclear weapon capability. The recent upsurge in the aspiration for Scottish independence should remind us that we are in a unique position with the potential not only to rid ourselves of these horrific weapons, but also to undermine the ability of the UK to persist with them since there is no credible alternative to the Clyde bases elsewhere the UK.

When the UK was setting up Polaris, its first system for the submarine launching of nuclear weapons, the Ministry of Defence conducted a study to determine what sites would be suitable for two essential items – a port for berthing the submarines and a nearby but separate armaments depot for storing the warheads and loading them onto the missiles in the submarines.

The study rejected all the projected locations in England and Wales (including Falmouth, Milford Haven, Portland, Devonport, Barrow, and completely new “greenfield” sites). So we have the submarines based at Faslane and the warhead storage and management facility at Coulport. The Clyde sites offer deep water access and a ready route to the Atlantic. Two other locations outwith the UK have been raised – one is moving the bases to King’s Bay in Georgia, US.

This would rip away the last tissue of pretence that the UK system is an independent one. Also mooted has been the sharing of the French facilities on Île Longue near Brest but this is seen as politically beyond the pale. In short, there is no feasible alternative to the Clyde bases. This analysis is accepted by the UK defence establishment. This makes Scottish independence a critical threat to the UK’s nuclear weapons.

It has also been pointed out that the increasing fragility of the UK nuclear weapon system may have prompted the projected return of US nuclear weapons to the US base at Lakenheath in Suffolk. If the UK is seen as an increasingly wobbly part of the Nato nuclear fabric this may represent a belt-and-braces tactic.

The third shaky-nail factor is the growing worldwide movement for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which came into force as UN law in January 2021, has acquired huge worldwide support – to date 69 ratifications, 93 signatures and the regular support of around 130 states on the floor of the UN General Assembly, to say nothing of such strong supporters as Ireland, Austria, Pope Francis and The Elders. Meanwhile, financial institutions are disinvesting from nuclear weapons, frequently ascribing their stance to the TPNW.

The nuclear war threat is like an open petrol can that is kept close to an open fire on a shoogly table. This is a uniquely dangerous moment.

Yet there is an overwhelming desire for prohibition from the majority of UN member states, especially from those who would suffer the most from the climatic effects of an exchange of nuclear weapons.

We can hope that these three factors will enable a fundamental rethink of the UK’s nuclear posturing.

We can certainly hope that Scotland will take its own clear stance on the matter with worldwide support.

David Mackenzie is secretary of Secure Scotland

September 30, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Japan to release second batch of wastewater from Fukushima nuclear plant next week

UN-approved release to go ahead despite China’s ban on all Japanese sea imports following first batch

Japan will begin releasing a second batch of wastewater from the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant from next week, its operator has said, an exercise
that angered China and others when it began in August.

Guardian 29th Sept 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/japan-fukushima-nuclear-powerplant-wastewater-release-second-batch

September 30, 2023 Posted by | Japan, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

‘Unprecedented nuclear crisis’ at Russian-controlled power plant with 148 attacks

An alarming dossier compiled by Greenpeace is being sent to
Western governments warning international regulators are currently
incapable of properly monitoring safety at the Zaporizhzhia plant in
Ukraine.

Mirror 28th Sept 2023

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/unprecedented-nuclear-crisis-russian-controlled-31050468

September 30, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Polish minister calls for extradition of Ukrainian Nazi honored in Canada

 https://www.rt.com/news/583631-poland-extradition-canada-ukraine-nazi/ 29 Sept 23

Przemyslaw Czarnek wants a probe into Yaroslav Hunka’s possible war crimes

Polish Minister of Education Przemyslaw Czarnek has signaled that he intends to seek the extradition of a Ukrainian Nazi SS veteran who was cheered in the Canadian Parliament last week.

Czarnek was reacting to the controversy surrounding Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian who fought for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician Division, formed by Nazi Germany from mostly Western Ukrainians, that took part in atrocities against Russian, Polish, and Jewish civilians during WWII.

Hunka received a standing ovation during the ceremony in the House of Commons after being introduced by now-former House Speaker Anthony Rota as “a hero… who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky also attended the ceremony.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Minister Czarnek said that “in view of the scandalous events in the Canadian Parliament,” he “has taken steps towards the possible extradition” of the SS veteran to Poland. The minister also appealed to Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance to “urgently examine the documents whether Yaroslav Hunka is wanted for crimes against the Polish nation and Poles of Jewish origin.”

Commenting on a potential extradition request from Poland, however, Canadian Attorney General Arif Virani said he had not seen one. “What I would say to you is that an extradition process is a sensitive matter,” he told Politico. He refused to elaborate on the issue until the document was produced for him, arguing that this “would jeopardize the investigation.”

The controversy sparked fierce international backlash, especially from the Jewish community. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said it was “appalled” by the celebration. At the same time, The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs said it “can’t stay silent when crimes committed by Ukrainians during the Holocaust are whitewashed.”

The Russian and Polish foreign ministries also joined the condemnation. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow blasted Ottawa for abusing the memory of victims of the Nazisms as well as “unbridled Russophobia.” Meanwhile, in addition to calls for charges against Hunka, Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk urged then-Speaker Rota to step down over a lack of diligence and historical knowledge.

For his part, Rota issued a public apology and later announced his resignation, while Trudeau admitted that the latest scandal was “deeply embarrassing” for Ottawa.

September 30, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Caitlin Johnstone: Neocons Love the Ukraine War

Empire managers were openly discussing the ways a war in Ukraine would directly benefit the U.S. empire long before the invasion. 

They knew exactly what they were doing when they provoked this war, and they know exactly what they’re doing by keeping it going. 

And they’re loving every minute of it.

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe is that this war simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance the strategic interests of the government accused of provoking it.

By Caitlin Johnstone, September 28, 2023

The Bill Kristol-led group “Republicans for Ukraine” has released a TV ad to help drum up GOP support for Washington’s proxy war against Russia, and it’s surprisingly honest about what this war is really about: advancing US strategic interests using Ukrainians as sacrificial pawns.

Here’s a transcript:

“When America arms Ukraine, we get a lot for a little. Putin is an enemy of America. We’ve used 5% of our defense budget to arm Ukraine, and with it, they’ve destroyed 50% of Putin’s Army. We’ve done all this by sending weapons from storage, not our troops. The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally, China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine.”

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe is that this war simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance the strategic interests of the government accused of provoking it. 

From the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 Westerners were aggressively hammered over and over and over again by the mass media with the uniform propaganda message that this was an “unprovoked invasion.”

But ever since then they’ve also been receiving these peculiar messages from U.S. empire managers and spinmeisters that this war is helping the United States crush its geopolitical enemies and advance its interests abroad.

This bizarre two-step occurs because the U.S.-centralized empire needs to convey two self-evidently contradictory messages to the public at all times:

  • that the U.S. is an innocent little flower who just wants to help its good friends the Ukrainians protect their democracy from the murderous Russians who invaded solely because they are evil and hate freedom, and
  • that it’s in the American interest to continue this war.

The second point is required because the message that the U.S. is merely an innocent passive witness to the violence in Ukraine necessarily causes certain political factions to ask, “Okay, so what are we doing there then? Why are we pouring all this money into something that has nothing to do with us?” 

So another narrative is required to explain that backing this proxy war also just so happens to be a massive boon to U.S. strategic interests abroad while creating American jobs manufacturing weapons at home.

It doesn’t benefit normal Americans at home, but it absolutely does serve the interests of the globe-spanning empire that’s centralized around Washington. That’s why the empire deliberately provoked it.

Empire managers were openly discussing the ways a war in Ukraine would directly benefit the U.S. empire long before the invasion. 

In 2019 a Pentagon-funded Rand Corporation paper titled “Extending Russia —Competing from Advantageous Ground” detailed how the empire can use proxy warfare, economic warfare and other Cold War tactics to push its longtime geopolitical foe to the brink without costing American lives or sparking a nuclear conflict. 

The U.S. Army-commissioned paper mentioned Ukraine hundreds of times, and explicitly discussed how a war there could be used to promote sanctions against Moscow and attack Russia’s energy interests in Europe.

In December of 2021 John Deni of NATO propaganda firm The Atlantic Council authored a piece for The Wall Street Journal, “The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine,” subtitled “An invasion would be a diplomatic, economic and military mistake for Putin. Let him make it if he must.” 

Deni argued that “there are good strategic reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach” against Moscow and refuse to negotiate or back down over Ukraine, because if doing so provokes Russia to invade it would “forge an even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe,” “result in another round of more debilitating economic sanctions that would further weaken Russia’s economy” and “sap the strength and morale of Russia’s military while undercutting Mr. Putin’s domestic popularity and reducing Russia’s soft power globally.”  

[Related: Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War – Consortium News]

The minds on the inside of the empire were talking about how this war would benefit the U.S. before the invasion, and they’ve been talking about how much it benefits the U.S. ever since. 

As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it this past July: 

“these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

The managers of the empire are getting everything they want out of this war. In public they rend their garments and cry crocodile tears and call it a terrible criminal atrocity, but every now and then they look at the camera and flash it a quick Fleabag-style grin.

They knew exactly what they were doing when they provoked this war, and they know exactly what they’re doing by keeping it going. 

And they’re loving every minute of it.

September 30, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Portuguese youths sue UK and 32 others for climate change failure.

Britain and 32 other countries are in the dock in Strasbourg today for
failing to tackle global warming as a group of Portuguese children and
young people claim political inaction is damaging their human rights. The
group of six, aged between 11 and 24, will argue at the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) “that the forest fires that have occurred in Portugal
each year since 2017 are a direct result of global warming”.

Times 27th Sept 2023

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/portuguese-youths-sue-uk-and-32-others-for-climate-change-failure-3hnmhv0tm

September 30, 2023 Posted by | climate change, Legal | Leave a comment

Film examines France’s nuclear history in Algeria

Documentary gives voice to villagers who lived through explosions and still suffer from deadly effects

Melissa Gronlund, Sep 29, 2023  https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/2023/09/29/france-algeria-atom-bomb/

etween 1960 and 1966, the French government detonated 13 atom bombs in the Algerian Sahara. The tests signalled France’s accession to the nuclear club and were hailed in Paris as a victory.

“Hoorah for France,” wrote President Charles de Gaulle the morning after the first blast, in a message to his army minister.

Little is known about the bomb’s effect in Algeria itself. According to a witness, 60 people died in 1962 after an explosion went wrong.

Inhabitants of the nearby village of Mertoutek say they were evacuated for 24hours and then told it was safe to return. More than 60 years later, they still say the land and water beneath it is contaminated. When they perform ablutions before prayers, for example, the water hurts their skin.

The international incident, which has been gaining exposure over the past few years, is the subject of a new short film And still, it remains by British filmmakers Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah.

The husband and wife team had been thinking about how to represent the end of the world and the nuclear tests presented them with the example of a community who had – when they heard the detonations – believed the world was ending.

But when they began investigating the event, they realised there was only documentation of the French side of the story.

“[There was] nothing about the villagers themselves and absolutely nothing in terms of what happened next,” says Aburawa, who grew up in Manchester, UK, in a Palestinian family. “We were interested in the lack of perspective of people on the ground. How did they experience this moment, and then how did they experience life after that?”

Commissioned by the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival to look into how the climate crisis is affecting the Arab world, Aburawa and Shah spent two years researching the tests. In 2022, they travelled to the small village of Mertoutek.

Located in the foothills of the Hoggar Mountains, Mertoutek is profoundly isolated. Most of the villagers have never been to the nearest town, which is four hours away – itself a two-hour plane ride from Algiers. Most trace their ancestry to tribes from Mali and Niger who migrated to the village 400 years ago.

Aburawa and Shah were prepared to be ignored, but they were instead immediately welcomed. The villagers were keen to tell their side of history, the pair say, and were as interested in Aburawa and Shah as the filmmakers were in them and their stories.

Aburawa, who could communicate in Arabic with some of the elders of the village, was invited into gatherings with the women, who wanted to know how she celebrated her traditions as a Palestinian. Every morning, the young girls of the village would come by their house to see if she wanted to come herd the goats, she says, or to teach her their games.

The villagers ended up changing the shape of the film. Aburawa and Shah had initially been taken by the very poetic metaphor that followed the detonations – that the dust cloud of radioactive material travelled along the northern winds towards France, in effect returning to pollute the country that had perpetrated the tests.

“But when we visited Mertoutek, we learnt they have a long, long history. They told us how their families had been in the village for hundreds of years, and people before that for thousands of years,” says Aburawa.

“Suddenly, our concept of time and how to place a community’s experience in the moment massively shifted. We wanted to acknowledge that people have long histories and the land has an even longer history.”

And still, it remains treats the landscape as a main character. The pair filmed with a wide anamorphic lens in order to bring in more of the surroundings, and they pay attention to the sensory feel of life outdoors – fingers dig holes in the soft sand to create a board game; the wind whips painfully through spindly leaves.

Longer sequences give the sense of the world turning. In one stunning scene, the sky turns from bright, almost lurid orange to a faded pink, as the sun rises and the craggy mountains transform from outlines to legible sandstone edifices.

“What’s happening right now in the climate crisis and what happened in colonialism are so deeply connected,” says Aburawa. “They are both colonial mindsets of extraction and toxifying without thinking of the consequences.

“The situation in Algeria is saying, ‘You can’t escape these things. They don’t just disappear. A bomb exploded in the 60s, but it hasn’t gone away. It still remains with us.’ And that’s what inspired the title of the film.”

Today, the townspeople of Mertoutek still live in danger. At one point, one of the villagers recounts in the film that her father and some other men from the village went to the test site to take scrap metal to use for their gardens. The men all got sick. The recounter’s father got brain cancer and died.

“We asked them, did you ever think of leaving?” says Shah. “And they said, ‘But where would we go?’ There wasn’t anywhere for them to leave to. It was never an option.”

And still, it remains is showing at Lux in Waterlow Park, London, until October 14. More information is available at lux.org.uk

September 30, 2023 Posted by | AFRICA, media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

It’s Time to Admit the Truth About the War in Ukraine—and Course Correct

If it wasn’t clear to Washington before the offensive started that the fundamentals of combat operations and principles of war indicated Ukraine would likely fail, it should now be crystal clear.

DANIEL L. DAVIS , SENIOR FELLOW, DEFENSE PRIORITIES ON 9/18/23  https://www.newsweek.com/we-can-no-longer-hide-truth-about-russia-ukraine-war-opinion-1826532?amp=1

As leading American politicians, generals, and pundits continue advocating for open-ended support to Kyiv in their war against Russia, a sober, accurate analysis of Ukraine’s nearly completed summer offensive reveals that the heroic sacrifice Ukraine continues to make is producing little to no meaningful progress toward the objective of evicting Russia from Ukraine’s territory.

Washington should instead employ a necessary course correction and form a new policy, based on the harsh, ground-truth combat realities in Ukraine. Revising the objectives would give Washington and Kyiv a chance to preserve Ukrainian lives and American interests.

Washington’s current policies do neither.

Despite great hopes for a rapid success, Ukraine’s months-in-the-making offensive has sputtered from the outset. That shouldn’t have surprised anyone in the White House. On April 5, two months before the start of the offensive, I wrote that “Zelensky’s troops—with little to no air power and a dearth in artillery ammunition—could suffer egregious casualties while gaining little.”

Five days later, The Washington Post revealed the contents of a leaked Top Secret U.S. intelligence assessment which likewise predicted the Ukrainian offensive would probably fall “well short” of expectations, and that “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive.” Total Ukrainian deaths in the war at that point were estimated to be as low as 17,500.

About a month before the start of the offensive, I again warned that the odds were stacked heavily against Kyiv. To succeed, I explained, Ukraine would “have to conduct the most difficult task in modern land warfare: a combined arms operation into the teeth of a dug-in enemy force that is prepared for an attack,” complicated by the shortage of artillery ammunition along with “limited airpower and minimal air defense.” Nevertheless, on the eve of battle, some Western analysts remained optimistic.

Once the offensive began on June 5, however, that optimism quickly evaporated. In the first two weeks of the fighting, Ukraine’s spearhead brigades suffered massive losses in armor and personnel while capturing virtually no territory. By the end of the third week, they had lost an estimated fifth of their strike force, requiring Ukraine to dramatically change tactics. Instead of leading with tanks and other armored vehicles (which were predictably getting chewed up in minefields and by Russian anti-tank missiles and artillery shells), Ukraine moved to an infantry-centric attack system.

While this change did result in producing incremental gains, the cost was exorbitant. On Aug. 29, the BBC reported that new leaked reports suggested Ukrainian battle deaths exploded since the offensive started. Whereas Ukraine was reported to have lost 17,500 troops in the first year of the war, it is presently assessed to have lost a breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths, for a total of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded.

If it wasn’t clear to Washington before the offensive started that the fundamentals of combat operations and principles of war indicated Ukraine would likely fail, it should now be crystal clear. Although Ukraine appears to have finally penetrated the first line of Russia’s main defense, the most difficult part of Russia’s defensive system has yet to be overcome: the hundreds of kilometers of dragon’s teeth, tank ditches, and yet more vast minefields.

It is unclear at this point whether Ukraine has enough striking power remaining in its offensive forces to reach, much less penetrate, Russia’s second main line—beyond which is a third main line followed by a fortress-defense at Tokmak, which is still 75 road kilometers from the Azov coast. Given these realities, the best Ukraine can likely do for the rest of the year is to hold what they have and prevent the possibility of losing more territory to a potential Russian counteroffensive this fall.

The United States, however, would be wise to adjust its policies to reflect the reality of Ukraine’s slim chances against Russia’s fortified lines. Washington has spent nearly $113 billion over the course of this war, provided Ukraine with an astounding volume of modern arms and ammunition, and delivered an impressive array of training and intelligence support. After almost a year of preparation, it hardly dented the Russian lines.

There is no realistic basis, therefore, to believe that Ukraine has the capacity to attain its stated strategic objective to reclaim all its territory, including Crimea. What is realistic is to continue providing Kyiv with the military wherewithal to defend itself from further Russian incursions. This goal should be combined with shifting an increasing percentage of the burden for additional arms and ammunition to our rich European friends. The U.S. should continue to ensure the war does not expand beyond the borders of Ukraine, and increase diplomatic efforts with all relevant parties to end the war on the best terms possible for Kyiv—all of which are beneficial to American interests.

Rather than repeating over the next year and a half what has already not worked—potentially costing Ukraine yet additional hundreds of thousands of losses—it’s time to try something that has a chance to succeed. In other words, it’s time to acknowledge objective reality and employ policies that can work.

Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America. Follow him @DanielLDavis1

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France’s nuclear power sector is not delivering

Euractiv, By Philippe Girard,  Sep 26, 2023 

The dominant player in France’s energy sector, Electricité de France (EDF), must leave room for smaller energy providers who offer an innovative alternative to the national nuclear energy champion model, writes Philippe Girard.

Philippe Girard is CEO of E-Pango and an expert in energy and electricity markets.

As the International Energy Agency has recently warned, Europe could face a very difficult winter this year despite coping impressively with the challenges of sky-high natural gas prices that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Surprisingly, France needs to prepare to face another energy crisis this winter.

France’s nuclear energy sector has been hailed as the best in Europe, if not the world, for decades. France’s once robust nuclear sector, responsible for 70% of its energy production, should have positioned the country as a dominant force in Europe’s energy landscape.

However, in 2022, France was forced to import electricity from Germany, Spain and the UK when a significant proportion of France’s nuclear reactors had to close for unscheduled maintenance. How did this happen?

Many analysts attribute France’s current energy crisis to a combination of external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, inconsistent government policies and plain bad luck. Yet, pinning this crisis on these factors alone would be a mistake.

The story behind France’s energy sector turmoil is intimately linked to the machine behind it all, Electricité de France (EDF), the state-controlled energy company. Years of poor decision-making and mismanagement have eroded the country’s nuclear advantage, resulting in France importing energy rather than exporting it……………………………………………………………………….

In a landscape dominated by EDF, its responsibility must be questioned. By the end of 2022, EDF’s debts had reached a staggering €64.5 billion, making it one of the most heavily indebted companies globally. The full acquisition of EDF by the French State in 2023 was crucial for the company’s survival. Presently, the French government needs to boost EDF’s revenues without imposing higher electricity expenses on consumers. At the same time, it must navigate the delicate path of avoiding prosecution by the European Commission for potential infringements related to illegal state aid and distortion of competition.

The importance of preventing one dominant player from having a quasi-monopoly on non-intermittent capacity cannot be understated. In the case of EDF, it has negatively impacted the European and UK electricity markets.

Considering the turmoil caused by EDF and its place within the French energy ecosystem, ending EDF’s monopoly on the energy sector by diversifying energy providers and embracing innovation should be the way forward. Smaller energy providers offer an innovative alternative to the national champion model.

Consumers will have much to gain from introducing competition in France’s electricity market. https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/opinion/frances-nuclear-power-sector-is-not-delivering/

September 29, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Microsoft Is Using a Hell of a Lot of Water to Flood the World With AI

Angely Mercado, September 12, 2023 https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/09/microsoft-is-using-a-hell-of-a-lot-of-water-to-flood-the-world-with-ai/
—

As artificial intelligence is increasingly developing and data centres are erected to further this tech, it’s becoming clear that AI has a water usage problem.

Microsoft’s latest sustainability report revealed that the software giant’s water usage saw a tremendous spike between 2021 and 2022. In 2021, the company used up 4,772,890 cubic meters of water. In 2022 that went up to 6,399,415—which is around a 30 percent increase from one year to the next. That’s almost 1.7 billion gallons of water in just one year, which is enough to fill more than 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Why did Microsoft draw so much freaking water? Data centres that run AI supercomputers are hot. Equipment heats up, and if a centre overheats, those computers can shut down. The increase in water use is directly tied to the company’s investment and development of AI. Microsoft has backed OpenAI, which has a data centre in Des Moines, Iowa. During the summer months, the centre has to use a ton of water to keep equipment cool, especially as Iowa experiences rising temperatures due to climate change.

The water is drawn from nearby watersheds including the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers to cool the supercomputer that develops AI systems, the Associated Press reported. However, local waterways also provide drinking water for nearby communities. The volume used by the data centres has become a concern for the local utility company, West Des Moines Water Works.

A document from the utility dated April 2022 outlined that officials and the utility will only “consider future data centre projects beyond Microsoft Data Center Project Ginger East and West” unless the new projects can significantly lower their water usage. “This approach to resource conservation will help preserve the water supply for current and future commercial and residential needs of West Des Moines,” the document read.

Google, another tech giant that has heavily invested in AI products, has also seen a spike in water usage. An environmental report released this July outlined that the company’s water usage increased about 20% from 2021 to 2022. “We’re working to address the impact of our water consumption through our climate-conscious data centre cooling approach and water stewardship strategy,” a spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email this July.

As the planet becomes warmer, it may become harder for large tech companies to cool facilities. Many data centres are in cooler locations like the Pacific Northwest and states like Iowa in the upper Midwest, but neither location has been spared from heat waves.

Other tech companies have experienced challenges with keeping their centres online during especially hot weather. Last September, equipment at then Twitter’s data centre in Sacramento shut down during a heat wave. Increased instances of heat waves due to the climate crisis have also plagued data centres overseas. Last July, Google and Oracle’s London-based data centres went offline as England baked through sky-high temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | technology, USA, water | Leave a comment

Microsoft May Go Nuclear to Support Its Energy-Hungry AI.

powering that AI is extraordinarily costly, even more so than its other cloud-based products. Microsoft’s latest sustainability report noted that the company’s water consumption has increased 30% year over year in order to keep its AI supercomputers cool.

Kyle Barr, September 28, 2023  https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/09/microsoft-may-go-nuclear-to-support-its-energy-hungry-ai/

Artificial intelligence has proved a costly endeavour—well, yes, in terms of money, but AI requires massive amounts of energy, and water consumption to operate at scale. That hasn’t stopped big tech companies such as Google and Microsoft from putting that energy-hungry AI into practically every single one of their user and enterprise end-products. Big daddy Microsoft has been trying to keep its (OpenAI-assisted) lead in the AI rat race, and it may need to grab the fuel rod by both hands if it wants to continue its big AI ambitions.

And when we say fuel rod, we mean it literally. Microsoft put out calls for a program manager on “Nuclear Technology” on Monday. As first reported by CNBC, The job specifically mentions that this new initiative would use “microreactors” and “Small Modular Reactors” to power the data centres used by Microsoft Cloud and AI. Whatever it is, the scope for Microsoft’s nuclear AI could be “global” as Microsoft has Azure data centres in all parts of the globe.

Microsoft declined to comment on any plans for future nuclear endeavours. The company instead linked to past blog posts on company sustainability initiatives. It’s unclear what plans Microsoft may have for nuclear-powered AI. The position references that the nuclear program manager would build a “roadmap for the technology’s integration,” which would also mean selecting partners for developing and implementing how the hell the tech giant would facilitate nuclear.

Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, are a proposed class of reactors that would be a purportedly smaller version of a full-on nuclear plant with a smaller power capacity. The idea is they can be built in one location and then moved to a separate site. There are only a few prototype SMRs implemented in Places like Russia and China, though the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy only approved its first SMR design in January this year.

Back in May, Microsoft signed a power purchase agreement with nuclear fusion startup Helion set to start in 2028. That’s different than an SMR, which still uses fission to generate power, and while there have been some recent successes with fusion this past year, we still could be a long way off from any kind of energy pivot.

Microsoft has spent the last year implementing generative AI into practically every one of its software products. Most recently, the Redmond, Washington company announced its AI copilot for Windows 11 to act as a kind of virtual assistant on a desktop. Court documents have shown that Microsoft has been looking for ways to implement more AI capabilities on its Azure cloud platform.

But powering that AI is extraordinarily costly, even more so than its other cloud-based products. Microsoft’s latest sustainability report noted that the company’s water consumption has increased 30% year over year in order to keep its AI supercomputers cool. Microsoft has put billions of dollars into a partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and the Redmond company now being forced to power and cool its partner’s growing energy needs to train OpenAI’s latest models. Training GPT-3 consumed enough water to fill a full nuclear reactor’s cooling tower, according to one recent study.

Studies have shown AI is responsible for massive amounts of carbon emissions, and OpenAI’s GPT-3 model was responsible for CO2 emissions than most other large language models. The company’s GPT-4 model is purportedly 1,000 times more powerful than GPT-3.5 and was trained on nearly four times as much data. Running a larger AI model would require several times as much power as smaller models, and AI companies aren’t slowing down.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | ENERGY, technology | Leave a comment

Nuclear experts raise new concerns about industry-led policy proposals to separate plutonium in Canada

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility Sept. 25 2023  http://www.ccnr.org/Media_Release_final_Sept_25_2023.pdf

Twelve internationally recognized nuclear experts have sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, expressing new concerns over nuclear weapons proliferation risks associated with a government-funded nuclear reprocessing project in New Brunswick. 

The authors cite new information obtained through Access to Information. They quote from recently released internal documents that reveal a governmental “policy-making process on reprocessing in collaboration with the international CANDU Owners Group (COG)”.

The letter points out that such activity runs counter to the G7 statement that Canada endorsed in Hiroshima, on 19 May 2023, pledging “to reduce the production and accumulation of weapons-usable nuclear material for civil purposes around the world.”

In 2021, Ottawa gave $50.5 million to Moltex, a UK-based company. Moltex plans to separate plutonium and other materials from used nuclear fuel already stored at Point Lepreau nuclear plant on the Bay of Fundy. Moltex hopes to use the materials as fuel in its “molten salt” reactor.

Moltex says its technology is proliferation resistant, that the material extracted is not “weapons usable”. However, the letter cites two expert U.S. studies , published in 2009 and 2023, that challenge that claim. Both conclude that protection against weapons use is marginal at best.

Reprocessing is a technology for extracting plutonium from used nuclear fuel. It is a sensitive technology because plutonium is a nuclear explosive.  Any nation or subnational group with access to separated plutonium can use it to make a nuclear bomb. 

In 1974 India exploded its first atomic bomb using plutonium from a Canadian research reactor.  U.S. President Carter banned reprocessing in 1977, and Canada followed suit by nixing commercial reprocessing in Canada.

Civilian reprocessing runs the risk of spreading the bomb by making weapons-usable materials more easily available. This is especially true when such technology is exported, as Moltex eventually hopes to do. But even without exports, government funding of reprocessing sends a signal to other countries that reprocessing is perfectly acceptable as a civilian energy strategy.

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility warns that the new information raises questions about the extent to which nuclear promoters are writing public policy on nuclear issues in Canada.

In fact, Canada’s 2019 Impact Assessment Act exempts reprocessing plants of a certain size from Environmental Assessment, implying that such plants are under consideration. A plant producing 100 tonnes of plutonium per year (enough for 15,000 A-Bombs annually) is exempt from review.

Frank von Hippel, PhD, Professor of Peace and International Affaoirs, Princton University, fvhippel@princeton.edu

Gordon Edwards, PhD, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, ccnr@web.ca, (514) 489 5118.

Susan O’Donnell, Coalition for Responsible Energy Development N.B., susanodo.ca@gmail.com , (506) 261 1727

September 29, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, Canada | Leave a comment

Kiev’s counteroffensive unlikely to achieve its goals – US officials to New York Times

Ukrainian forces will need to pause in a few weeks to restock and recover after summer fighting, the paper reports, citing sources

Officials in Washington have suggested that Ukraine’s military forces won’t be able to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea as part of their counteroffensive or achieve other key goals, the New York Times has reported.

“Some American officials have said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive appears likely to fall short of its strategic goals,” the paper reported in an article on Friday.

Kiev’s forces are struggling to achieve the aim of reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, because the minefields set up by Moscow’s forces, they say, have proven to be “a potent defense,” the Times added.

According to US officials, conducting offensive operations would also soon become even more difficult for Ukraine “as the ground becomes soft and muddy” in the region.

The NYT also said that some in Washington have warned that “within a few weeks, the Ukrainian army will need time to rebuild their stockpile of equipment and to rest forces exhausted by the summer fighting.”………………………………more https://www.rt.com/news/583443-ukraine-counteroffensive-us-zelensky/—

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

What will happen to 140-tonne stockpile of combustible sodium at Dounreay?

Dounreay’s operators have still to decide what to do with the remaining 140
tonne stockpile of sodium on site. Plans are afoot to build a new plant to
neutralise what is one of the most hazardous legacies from its days as the
UK’s testbed for fast reactors.

But Magnox Ltd has not ruled out hauling
the material to a disposal plant, if it can find one able and willing to do
the job. An update was given at Wednesday evening’s meeting of Dounreay
Stakeholder Group (DSG) when the site management came under fire for not
dealing with the issue years ago.

 John O’Groat Journal 25th Sept 2023

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/what-will-happen-to-140-tonne-stockpile-of-combustible-sodiu-327391/

September 29, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

A mature design or junk? EDF plan for Sizewell C continues to rely on controversial EPR reactor

26 Sept 23  https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/a-mature-design-or-junk-edf-plan-for-sizewell-c-continues-to-rely-on-controversial-epr-reactor/

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities were incredulous to hear the recent claim by Sizewell C’s Joint Managing Director that EDF’s project plan was based on ‘a mature reactor design’.

Julie Pyke’s bold assertion was included in the media statement issued last week by government ministers announcing they were seeking private sector investment in the controversial project.

EDF Energy, the wholly-French-stated-owned operator of Britain’s nuclear reactor fleet, intends to deploy its European Pressurised Reactor (or EPR) at Sizewell C, should the project ever become operational.

Cynics have assigned the EPR a less complimentary sobriquet, ‘European Problem Reactor’, for this is the same reactor design that was involved in an accident at the Taishan-1 plant in China. Here radioactive gas leaked, seemingly because of corrosion and faulty parts. It is also same reactor which, at Olkiluoto-3 in Finland, took over a year to bring online, after being delivered fourteen years late, following the discovery of repeated faults.

In response to last week’s official investment launch for Sizewell C, Andy Mayer, the Chief Executive of the Institute of Economic Affairs, was quick to rubbish its prospects saying that:

“The underlying EPR tech is junk, resulting in projects that run over-time/budget [and] when built are riddled with corrosion…investors would be mad to back Sizewell. If built, it will be late & obsolete”.

And in December of last year, the former Chief Executive of EDF (surely a man who should know), Henri Proglio, told a hearing of the French National Assembly in exasperation that:

“The EPR is too complicated, almost unbuildable. We see the result today.”

The Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, said in response to Ms Pyke’s claim:

“Whether you believe the EPR is turnkey or turkey, we suspect that this is a classic case of someone in authority adopting an attitude of hope over expectation as the history of EPRs has so far been the stuff of nightmares rather than something to write home about.

“Hinkley Point C will be delivered around a decade late at a cost of at least £33 billion, nearly double the original budget. The development at Sizewell C with its extra geographical complexities, will we suspect take even longer and cost so much more – and that is assuming that the whole project is not kiboshed by the serious legal challenge being pursued by our friends in Together Against Sizewell C and their allies”.

The timing of the government’s announcement is itself suspect as Barclays have previously been appointed by government to solicit investors and there have been many pronouncements, usually negative, by the leaders of major financial institutions on their prospects of investing in Sizewell C.

Being of similar mind to Mr Mayer, the NFLAs have been active in backing our friends in the campaign group, Stop Sizewell C, in writing to prospective investors to point out the pitfalls that might befall backing the White Elephant.

Gratifyingly, so far, the market has proven lukewarm in embracing new nuclear, with a typically prescient comment made by a spokesperson for Legal & General Capital to The Telegraph:

“Our stance hasn’t changed: we are focused on investing in and supporting other innovative, viable, and cost-effective clean energy solutions that are already delivering results.”

The NFLAs hope that this will be the uniform response of the market and that this unwanted and unneeded nuclear waste of public money will soon be abandoned.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

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