nuclear-news

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

For the sake of Suffolk, Nuclear Free Local Authorities urge Centrica to ‘Say Non to Sizewell C’

Sizewell C is also a site presenting unique challenges. It is located on the Suffolk Heritage Coast, facing the increasing threat of storm surges……………

The Chairs of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) Steering Committee and the NFLA English Forum have written to the Chief Executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, urging him ‘for the sake of our planet, the people, fauna and flora of Suffolk, the wallets of your hard-pressed electricity customers, and your own company bottom-line’ to say NON to Sizewell C.

The Times reported in July that Chief Executive Chris O’Shea was considering taking a stake in the project and Councillors O’Neill and Blackburn in their letter point out the pitfalls of investment ‘which would bring with it clear financial, ESG and reputational risks for Centrica’.

EDF Energy, now wholly owned by the French state, is currently building a similar plant at Hinkley Point C in Somerset – its history has not been a happy one with the project hugely behind schedule and massively over budget. In addition, Sizewell C will utilise the same EPR reactor as Hinkley Point C, a reactor design with a chequered safety and reliability record. A reactor in China was involved in an accident and is currently again shutdown (Taishan-1) and in Finland a second one only came online after the operator was forced to carry out repairs after a succession of equipment failures (Olkiluoto-3).

Sizewell C is also a site presenting unique challenges. It is located on the Suffolk Heritage Coast, facing the increasing threat of storm surges and coastal erosion, and with climate change modelling suggesting it would become inundated and isolated; there are several sites of scientific interest nearby; and the county is under increasing water stress with fears that there will be insufficient fresh water to meet the needs of the plant as well as local people.

The Councillors point out that several prospective investors who manage large pension funds have clearly indicated that ‘they will not be dipping their financial toe into the radioactive water’ of Sizewell C. Pension managers at The People’s Pension; Nest; BT; BBC; Tesco; and Pearson have all, in correspondence seen by campaigners at Stop Sizewell C, indicated they will not be backing Sizewell C, whilst the Daily Mail reported that Nat West and BT told the paper they would also not be investing and Legal and General’s Nigel Wilson told the BBC’s Today programme: “We are not big fans of HS2 and Sizewell C”.

Councillor O’Neill believes this to be sage advice:

“At a current projected cost of £32.7 billion, Hinkley Point C’s budget is fast approaching twice its first estimate at the time of financial close, and there is no reason to believe that Sizewell C will be delivered any more quickly or any more cheaply as the construction of large nuclear power plants in the UK is a litany of projects being delivered late and vastly over budget.”

Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLAs English Forum, is a co-signatory to the letter. He is urging opponents of the project to also contact Centrica to ask them not to invest:

“It would be far wiser for Centrica to direct every available penny into the proven renewable technologies that we already have now – these would generate power and heat far more quickly and more cheaply, and generate for them a more immediate financial return, than any further investment in this monstrous nuclear boondoggle.

“The NFLAs are pleased to back the campaign launched by Stop Sizewell C asking supporters to send an email directly to Mr O’Shea asking him not to invest in Sizewell C.

“You can take this direct action in just a few clicks by going to the site at https://action.stopsizewellc.org/centrica 

August 24, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

The role of nuclear in the UK’s energy mix.

In 2022, nuclear power provided 13.9% of total electricity supplied in the UK. However, as the table below [on original] illustrates, its contribution has fallen significantly since
the 1990s, when it provided around a quarter of the UK’s total
electricity supply.

Since 1995 there have been eight nuclear plant
closures, with no new plants coming online, reducing installed nuclear
capacity reducing by more than a quarter.

Declining nuclear capacity has
been (more than) compensated for by the rise of renewable energy, whose
share of electricity generation rose from 3% in 2000 to 42% in 2022.

The chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, Dr Doug Parr, said that the nuclear
industry was making “speculative claims” regarding the proposed
benefits of SMRs relative to conventional nuclear power. He said that
“SMRs have no track record, but initial indications are that the familiar
problems of cost overruns and delays will be repeated”.

In addition to these concerns, Steve Thomas, an emeritus professor of energy policy at the
University of Greenwich, suggests that the focus on SMRs will divert time
and resources away from energy efficiency and renewables which he believes
are the “answers” to net zero electricity generation.

Professor Thomas’s position is in line with that of the Green Party, the Liberal
Democrats, and the Scottish National Party. The co-leader of the Green
Party Adrian Ramsey has described nuclear as an “expensive
distraction”, arguing that renewable energy technologies and energy
efficiency are “cleaner and cheaper solutions that can be delivered far
quicker than nuclear ever can”.

Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat
energy and climate change spokesperson, has also criticised the expense of
nuclear power relative to renewables. Referring to the Nuclear Energy
(Financing) Act 2022, she argued it was “madness” that the government
had “recently passed a new law that will allow them to add levies to
energy bills to fund new nuclear plants”.

Scotland’s last remaining
nuclear power plant in Torness is due to close in 2028 and SNP energy
spokesperson Alan Brown has said that the UK government should be focussing
its efforts on Scotland’s “renewable energy potential” rather than
attempting to build more nuclear power stations.

 House of Lords Library 23rd Aug 2023

The role of nuclear in the UK’s energy supply

August 24, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

French nuclear watchdog ASN issues first lifespan extension to 40-year-old reactor

 French nuclear watchdog ASN issued a decision allowing for the continued
operation of state-owned utility EDF’s Tricastin 1 nuclear reactor in
southern France, the first lifetime extension granted to a French reactor
after 40 years of operation.

In a decision published on Aug. 10 and seen by
Reuters on Tuesday, ASN granted the reactor an extension until its next
review, so for another ten years. Some 32 of France’s fleet of 56 reactors
are up for their fourth ten-yearly inspection this decade, leaving French
energy production reliant on securing a swathe of reactor extensions for
another ten years.

 Reuters 22nd Aug 2023

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-nuclear-watchdog-asn-issues-first-lifespan-extension-40-year-old-reactor-2023-08-22/

August 24, 2023 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Global Campaign Against Ocean Dumping of Nuclear Wastewater Worldwide Urgent Actions against Japan’s ocean dumping of nuclear wastewater on Aug 24th.

1. The USA

  • Los Angeles, Aug 23rd, 12 – 1 PM @ Japanese Consulate
  • New York, Aug 23rd, 12 – 1 PM @ Japanese Consulate  (E 49th St & Park Ave.)
  • Washington DC, Aug 25th, 11am @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seattle, Washington, Aug 26th, 2pm @ Seattle Downtown  ‘West Lake Park’

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

2. UK

  • North Wales, Aug 25th, 5pm @ Bangor pier

Organized by PAWB ( People Against Wylfa B) and CADNO

3. Germany

  • Berlin, Aug25th, 5 pm @ Brandenburg Gate
  • Frankfurt, Aug 26th, 3 pm @ Rathenauplatz (Goetheplatz)
  • Hamburk, September 9th

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

4. Fiji

  • Suva, Aug 25th, 10am @ Japanese Embassy

Organized by PANG, Alliance for Future Generations, Pacific Conference of Churches; FWRM, DIVA for Equality and others joining the March including the largest Indigenous women’s network. 

5. Japan

  • Tokyo, Aug 22nd @ Japanese PM house
  • Tokyo, Aug 23rd @ TEPCO
  • Fukushima Iwaki, Aug 27th 

Organized by Japanese CSOs alliances

6. Switzerland

  • Zurich, September 16th

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

7. Canada

  • Civil Zoom rally, on August 24, 5 pm

Organized by  civil society in Canada

8. Australia

  • Melbourne, Aug 26th (Sat), 5 pm @ Korea Society of Victoria

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

9. Korea

  • Seoul, Aug 23rd, 7pm @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seoul, Aug 24th, 7pm @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seoul, Aug 26th, 6pm @ Korea Press Center
  • 17 local cities nationwide in Korea hold a press conference and rallies from Aug 22nd~31st

Organized by Korean civil society alliances / Korean Peoples’ Action to Stop Dumping of Fukushima Daiichi Radioactive Water(KPA-SDFDRW)

August 24, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Ukraine likely to fail in key counteroffensive aim, says US intelligence

Roland Oliphant, Telegraph, Fri, 18 Aug 2023,  https://www.sott.net/article/483699-Ukraine-likely-to-fail-in-key-counteroffensive-aim-says-US-intelligence

Ukraine’s counter-offensive will likely fail in its key objective to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea this year, according to a US intelligence assessment briefed to members of Congress.

Instead, Ukraine’s attack is expected to stop some way short of the key city of Melitopol, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous officials familiar with the assessment.

The reported assessment, which The Telegraph could not immediately verify, could foreshadow mutual recriminations between members of the pro-Ukraine alliance over the offensive’s slow progress.

Ukraine launched a long-planned counter-offensive in June. Its main objective was to reach the sea of Azov and sever Russia’s land bridge to the annexed Black Sea Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine and its allies hoped newly supplied Western equipment such as Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles would help achieve a breakthrough. But the assault immediately ran into stronger than anticipated Russian resistance and has struggled to make progress.

In an effort to reduce losses, analysts said Ukraine has now switched back to the strategy of smaller assaults and strikes on supply lines that eventually led to success in the southern Kherson region last year.

Melitopol, about 50 miles south of the current front line, is often called the “gateway” to Crimea and sits astride two roads and a railway controlling access to the peninsula. To reach it, the Ukrainians would have to puncture three layers of reinforced defensive lines and minefields, and bypass or capture several heavily fortified towns and villages en route.

Playing down tensions

In public, Ukrainian and Western officials generally seek to play down tensions over the slow progress of the fighting.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Thursday that Ukraine does not feel under pressure from Western allies to deliver quicker results.

But mutual recriminations have begun.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said in July that the operation was originally planned for spring but delayed for months because of insufficient weapons systems and munitions. That delay in turn gave the Russians time to dig in and sow minefields, he said.

Other critics have accused Western governments of hypocrisy for expecting Ukraine to achieve a combined-arms-style breakthrough without air superiority or long-range precision missiles to hit supply lines, minimum requirements for any similar Nato operation.

No ‘panaceas’

US and other Western officials have denied decisions on arms supplies have hampered the offensive.

A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told the Washington Post the main issue remains piercing the Russian defensive lines and that there was “no evidence” F-16 fighters or longer-range missile systems such as ATACMS would have been a “panacea” to that problem.

Late last month, a German military intelligence report blamed slow progress on Ukraine’s generals splitting Western-trained brigades into small units to assault objectives, which it said negated advantages in force and firepower.

It said an “operational doctrine” particularly entrenched in senior officers with combat experience meant Nato training was not being put into practice.

The Biden administration gave the green light to European countries to provide F16 fighters and associated training to Ukrainian pilots and crews in May, following months of Ukrainian lobbying.

The United States on Friday formally assured Denmark and the Netherlands that it would give permission for F-16s to be exported to Ukraine when training is complete, but that is not expected to be until early next year.

It has so far rebuffed Ukrainian requests for ATACMS precision missiles.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Fukushima: wastewater from ruined nuclear plant to be released from Thursday, Japan says

Release plans approved by UN nuclear authority have caused outcry in China and concern for the reputation of Japan’s seafood

Guardian Justin McCurry in Tokyo 22 Aug 23

Japan is to begin releasing wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from Thursday, in defiance of opposition from fishing communities, China and some scientists.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said that disposing of more than 1m tonnes of water being stored at the site is an essential part of the long and complex process to decommission the plant.

But the plan, announced by Kishida on Tuesday, has caused controversy because the water contains tritium, a radioactive substance that can’t be removed by the facility’s water filtration technology.

The decision comes weeks after the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the discharge, saying that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.

South Korea and China banned seafood imports from some areas of Japan after Fukushima Daiichi suffered a triple meltdown in the March 2011 triple disaster along the country’s north-east coast.

The South Korean government recently dropped its objections to the discharge, but opposition parties and many South Koreans are concerned about the impact the discharge will have on food safety. China remains strongly opposed, while Hong Kong, an important market for Japanese seafood exports, has also threatened restrictions.

Some experts point out that nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides.

“Tritium has been released [by nuclear power plants] for decades with no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects,” said Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide.

Greenpeace, however, has described the filtration process as flawed, and warned that an “immense” quantity of radioactive material will be dispersed into the sea over the coming decades.

The government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), also face opposition from local fishers, who say pumping water into the Pacific Ocean will destroy their industry.

In a meeting on Monday with Masanobu Sakamoto, the head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, Kishida attempted to reassure fishing communities that the discharge was safe………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/22/fukushima-wastewater-from-ruined-nuclear-plant-to-be-released-from-thursday-japan-says

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Much hype, enthusiasm, tax-payers’ largesse, for Britain’s “new nuclear”. (What could possibly go wrong?)

There would be up to £20 billion in subsidies, if needed, to get between five and eight SMRs up and running by early next decade, and about £160 million in grants to keep R&D ticking over into AMRs and nuclear fuels.

Britain fires starter’s gun on race to nuclear

In the second instalment of the Nuclear Option series, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is suddenly ready to shower billions of pounds on getting modular nuclear reactors up and running by the early 2030s.

Australian Financial Review Hans van Leeuwen, Europe correspondentAug 22, 2023 – London

The British government is ready to trowel more than £20 billion ($38 billion) of taxpayers’ money into turbocharging the country’s nuclear industry, as the daunting task of decarbonising the UK’s energy sector looms ever larger.

With offshore wind and solar unlikely to ensure Britain has uninterrupted baseload power, the official goal is to get 24 gigawatts of nuclear energy onstream by 2050 – up to a quarter of British power demand, up from 15 per cent now.

But hefty new gigawatt-scale nuclear power stations are struggling to get off the ground, so the government’s hopes are increasingly pinned on an early lift-off for small modular reactors (SMRs)

…………… …. Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain’s Nuclear Industry Association. says that although successive Downing Street administrations have all understood Britain’s flagging nuclear industry needs fresh legs, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is now gripped with urgency. And it has clocked the key catalysing role of taxpayers and public policy.

“The lesson from anywhere in the world where nuclear power has been deployed is that unless the state is actively involved in encouraging it to happen, it doesn’t happen,” Greatrex says.

“It is public policy that has driven it, basically because the infrastructure is so big and capital-intensive.”

The government recently unfurled a £170 million investment into hurrying up work on the embryonic but enormous Sizewell C, a 3.2-gigawatt nuclear reactor to be built by the mid-2030s. This came on top of £700 million in earlier subsidies.

But the real action must of necessity be elsewhere. Construction of the next big new nuclear reactor, the 3.2-gigawatt Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, has been subject to seemingly endless delays and cost blowouts. And of the five creaky old mega-reactors now operating, all but one will be shut in the next five years.

So, the focus is squarely on SMRs, which in theory can be rolled out more cheaply and snappily; and also on advanced modular reactors (AMRs), which use exotic new tech or methods that are still either largely on the drawing board or even just a glint in some scientist’s eye.

A week before the Sizewell announcement, the government confirmed it would set up a new agency, revelling in the Tory-boilerplate name of Great British Nuclear, to gee up the industry.

There would be up to £20 billion in subsidies, if needed, to get between five and eight SMRs up and running by early next decade, and about £160 million in grants to keep R&D ticking over into AMRs and nuclear fuels.

“I look forward to seeing the world-class designs submitted from all around the world through the competitive selection process, as the UK takes its place front and centre in the global race to unleash a new generation of nuclear technology,” energy minister Andrew Bowie trumpeted.

Leaders of the pack

At the front of the SMR pack is Rolls-Royce, leading a consortium that has already received £210 million in government grants. It has beefed up its SMR workforce to about 600 people.

……………………………………………. GE Hitachi is Rolls-Royce’s main rival. Media reports say it already has a BWRX-300 under construction and regulatory review in Canada, a.nd its model is under consideration in the US. The company claims to be the only contender with a realistic shot of getting an SMR operational by 2030.

The two are very likely to feature on Great British Nuclear’s short-list, which will be compiled by the end of the year. Other contenders could include Nuscale and Westinghouse.

The lucky winners will get access to the government’s subsidy scheme, which could be worth £20 billion if that’s what it takes.

It’s unclear exactly what form this largesse will assume. It could use the “regulated asset base” model, where investors are given a guaranteed minimum return, funded by a levy on consumer energy bills.

Another model might involve “strike prices”: a guaranteed price per unit, to smooth out the risks and uncertainty involved in committing so much capital upfront.

Whatever the capital cost, it won’t be as much as required for a mega-reactor: perhaps £2 billion to get an SMR up and running, as opposed to the £20 billion-plus for Sizewell C, thanks to the SMR’s modular, factory-based construction method. The catch, of course, is that you get just 50 to 500 megawatts of energy, rather than 3.2 gigawatts.

“It’s the economics of volume versus the economics of scale,” Greatrex says.

The initial batch of SMRs will almost certainly be built on the site of decommissioned larger reactors: communities there are socialised to nuclear; there are good grid connections; and the geography favours PWRs. This could help overcome a raft of potential political, planning or permit obstacles.

Dark horses

While the SMRs bolt towards an early-2030s target, the government hopes to back other horses in slower time. The AMRs might use technologies that ultimately prove more efficient, such as MoltexFlex’s molten-salt reactor. Or they might have different applications, such as local start-up U-Battery………………………….

U-Battery ‘s key backer, Urenco, ultimately couldn’t pull in investors, and in March handed the intellectual property to the government-backed National Nuclear Laboratory.

Other AMRs have higher-profile investors: TerraPower has Bill Gates; NewCleo has Italy’s Agnelli family. Most are working across multiple markets. X-Energy, for example, is using US funding to build a pilot of its gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor in Texas, which it says would allow it to roll out quickly in Britain…………………

The government has fired the starter’s gun, and the race in Britain is on. There’s bipartisan political support and investor interest, so Greatrex’s only anxiety is that Westminster might become distracted.

“It’s about maintaining momentum and focus. When something is at the top of the agenda it gets that attention and focus,” he says. “But if that focus is lost, that drive and commitment is lost? Then things could go back to taking a very long time.”  https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/britain-fires-starter-s-gun-on-race-to-nuclear-20230726-p5dr9r

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation Linked to Solid Cancer Mortality

Elana Gotkine Aug 21, 2023  https://www.applevalleynewsnow.com/news/health/exposure-to-low-dose-ionizing-radiation-linked-to-solid-cancer-mortality/article_6ed70b06-3ba4-549e-828c-e2892b462550.html

  (HealthDay News) — Protracted exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is associated with an increased risk for solid cancer mortality, according to a study published online Aug. 16 in The BMJ.

David B. Richardson, Ph.D., from the University of California in Irvine, and colleagues examined the effect of protracted low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation on the risk for cancer in a multinational cohort study involving workers in the nuclear industry in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants included 309,932 workers with individual monitoring data for external exposure to ionizing radiation, with follow-up of 10.7 million person-years.


The researchers identified 103,553 deaths, including 28,089 due to solid cancers. There was a 52 percent increase in the estimated rate of mortality due to solid cancer with cumulative dose per Gy, which lagged by 10 years. The estimate of association was approximately doubled on restriction of the analysis to the low cumulative dose range (0 to 100 mGy) and with restricting the analysis to workers hired in more recent years, when estimates of occupational external radiation were more accurate. The estimated magnitude of the association was modestly affected by exclusion of deaths from lung cancer and pleural cancer, indirectly indicating that the association was not substantially confounded by smoking or asbestos exposure.

“The study provides evidence in support of a linear association between protracted low-dose external exposure to ionizing radiation and solid cancer mortality,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

August 23, 2023 Posted by | health | 2 Comments

EDF Warns of French Nuclear Output Cuts in Weekend Heat Wave

Bloomberg, By Francois De Beaupuy, August 22, 2023

Electricite de France SA will probably have to reduce nuclear output over the coming weekend as a heat wave affecting a large part of the country warms rivers used for cooling some of its reactors.

Due to the high temperatures forecast on Rhone river, production restrictions are likely to affect production at its Tricastin power plant — where two of its four 900-megawatt reactors are already………….(Subscribers only) more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-21/edf-warns-of-french-nuclear-output-cuts-in-weekend-heat-wave#xj4y7vzkg

August 23, 2023 Posted by | climate change, France | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear wastewater – should we be worried?

August 22, 2023  https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/leaders/2023/08/945792/nst-leader-japans-nuclear-wastewater

FUKUSHIMA is a dreaded word in the region because what happens there doesn’t stay there. There in Japan on March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami, in that order, knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant, releasing untreated radioactive water into the sea.

Given the state of the nuclear plant technology then — or even now — there wasn’t the time for the radioactive elements to self-destruct. The human mind, including the Japanese ones, for some reason didn’t perceive that calamities can happen all at once.

The Fukushima disaster is such a tale of instantaneous conjunction of calamities. On a visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was quoted by news agency AFP as saying that he was refraining from “commenting on a concrete timing of the release into the ocean at this point in time”, leaving ample room for a prime ministerial hint that it will be soon.

Some 500 Olympic-size swimming pools of wastewater, accumulated over 12 years after the disaster, are expected to be released into the Pacific Ocean. The fact that it would be a slow release over 10 years registered no effect in the region’s dread meter.

The region is on dread-watch, but much of it is coated with diplomatic niceties. China has been the most vociferous in opposing the release of the wastewater into the ocean. In China, dread comes mixed with geopolitical anger, given that Tokyo is a tango partner of Washington.

If a taste of Chinese animus is needed, here is one quote from a Beijing official, gleefully circulated by the Western media: Japan is treating the sea as its sewer. An interesting take, we must say, now that all nations without exception are treating the seas as their sewer.

How many marine lives were destroyed or how many people have ingested radioactive materials through seafood after the accident 12 years ago is hard to tell. Nuclear literature tells us if the water isn’t treated properly, dangerous isotopes can have devastating effects, including DNA-damaging ones. Should we fear? Yes and no. Start with yes.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the crippled nuclear plant, and Japanese regulators stand accused of negligence, notwithstanding the earthquake and tsunami. Now that Tepco and the government are saying the 1.34 million tonnes of wastewater planned to be released into the Pacific Ocean is safe, many in Japan don’t believe them. Both are victims of trust deficit.

Kishida, though he wasn’t prime minister when disaster struck in 2011, is in need of reputation management advice. Not just to repair the trust deficit at home, but also abroad.

China has banned seafood from Fukushima and considering a wider ban. Others in the region are beginning to be infected by China’s isotope fear, not because of Beijing’s geopolitics, but because of the nightmarish outcome of radioactive contamination. If the dread grows, it will cripple more than Fukushima.

Now for the no, our second response to Japan’s release of the treated wastewater into the ocean. The world shouldn’t fear because the Japanese guarantee that the dangerous radioactive elements have been filtered out and comes stamped with the approval of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency

Unless, of course, if the world has reasons to believe that the IAEA, too, comes branded with a trust deficit.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

End Nuclear Testing Forever, Says Secretary-General in Message for International Day

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day against Nuclear Tests, observed on 29 August:

Since 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have inflicted terrifying suffering on people, poisoned the air we breathe and ravaged landscapes around the world.

On the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, the world speaks with one voice to end this destructive legacy.

This year, we face an alarming rise in global mistrust and division.  At a time in which nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled around the world — and countries are working to improve their accuracy, reach and destructive power — this is a recipe for annihilation.

A legally binding prohibition on nuclear tests is a fundamental step in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons.  The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, though not yet in force, remains a powerful testament to humanity’s will to lift the shadow of nuclear annihilation from our world, once and for all.

In the name of all victims of nuclear testing, I call on all countries that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so immediately, without conditions.

Let’s end nuclear testing forever.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Japanese fishing industry leader is “greatly concerned” over the pending disharge of Fukushima radioactive water into the ocean.

 The leader of a Japanese fisheries industry group told officials on Monday
he was “greatly concerned” about the discharge of treated radioactive water
set to be released into the sea from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

The government is expected to decide soon, perhaps within days, when to
start releasing the water, equivalent to the contents of 500 Olympic-size
swimming pools, despite objections at home and abroad to the plan.

 Reuters 21st Aug 2023

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-kishida-meet-with-fishermens-group-monday-afternoon-jiji-2023-08-21/

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Biden’s rival, Robert F. Kennedy Junior, labels F-16s for Ukraine ‘a disaster for humanity’

21vAug 23 ,  https://www.rt.com/news/581543-kennedy-ukraine-f16-delivery/1

Supplying US-made fighter jets to Kiev would only benefit the defense industry, RFK Jr. says

The looming delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not prevent the “collapse” of the country’s military and will only benefit the military-industrial complex, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Junior has claimed.

The Ukrainian conflict should be resolved through negotiations, RFK Jr. argued in a thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating that supplying F-16s to Kiev was a “great decision for the defense industry, but a disaster for Ukraine and humanity.”

“F-16s won’t stop the collapse of the Ukrainian military (which some experts say is imminent). These planes require a lot of training and maintenance. This isn’t the movies,” Kennedy stressed.

The presidential hopeful has long-opposed the enduring Western aid to Ukraine, spearheaded by Washington, arguing that the US should admit its “failure” in the country and focus on domestic issues instead. Kennedy’s criticism of the fighter-jet delivery comes after Washington enabled its European allies to re-export older planes to Ukraine, and hours before the move was officially announced by Denmark and the Netherlands.

The upcoming delivery was heralded by Dutch PM Mark Rutte on Sunday as he hosted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a military airbase in Eindhoven.

“Today we can announce that the Netherlands and Denmark commit to the transfer of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force, including cooperation with the United States and other partners once the conditions for such a transfer have been met,” Rutte said at a press conference.

Simultaneously, the Danish Ministry of Defence released a statement confirming its pledge to provide Kiev with F-16s from its inventory, once certain “conditions” are met. The conditions “include, but are not limited to, successfully selected, tested and trained Ukrainian F-16 personnel as well as necessary authorizations, infrastructure and logistics,” it said.

Kiev has long-demanded modern aircraft, as well as other, increasingly sophisticated weaponry, from its Western backers, arguing the planes would help it turn the tide of the conflict with Russia, which has been going on since February 2022. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop the military deliveries, arguing they would only prolong the hostilities rather than change their ultimate outcome.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, USA elections 2016, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US derides wimpy Ukrainians that have become ‘casualty adverse’

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 21 Aug 23

The US has come up a clever way of masking their contempt of the Ukrainian military in their failed counteroffensive against Russia.

Dismayed that Ukraine is squandering US weapons by hurling them at Russian forces instead hurling themselves at the well-fortified invaders, armchair US military are calling the Ukrainians ‘casualty adverse’, a nice way of calling them ,cowards. US/UK war games ahead of the June counteroffensive envisioned Ukraine taking large casualties in order to reclaim Donbas so they could start brutalizing Donbas Ukrainians again.

That was OK for the US war party. Hey, didn’t that work for England and France during trench warfare during WWI? Apparently, US strategists forgot those allies lost a few million soldiers to take at best a few hundred yards. The Ukraine general staff shot back: “We simply don’t have the resources to do the frontal attacks that the West is imploring us to do.”

The US knew Ukraine had neither the human nor explosive resources to regain territory, a US precondition for ending the war thru negotiations. That makes the US proxy war against Russia, shedding only Ukrainian blood and only destroying the Ukrainian economy, a grotesque US moral crime that must be resisted by every peace loving American.

President Biden has painted the US into a corner of death and despair he spent the last half century leading up to promoting American empire and exceptionalism. It may be too late for the electorate to inspire an epiphany in Biden to pivot to peace.

But we must try.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Oppenheimer Imperative: Normalising Atomic Terror

Resilience becomes part of the semantics of contemplated, and acceptable mass homicide. Emphasis is placed on the bounce-back factor, the ability to recover, even in the face of such weapons.

To be tactical is to be somehow bijou, cute, and contained, accepting mass murder under the guise of moderation and variation. One can be bad, but bad within limits.

Australian Independent Media, by Dr Binoy Kampmark, 20 Aug 23 https://theaimn.com/the-oppenheimer-imperative-normalising-atomic-terror/#comment-1092670

The atomic bomb created the conditions of contingent catastrophe, forever placing the world on the precipice of existential doom. But in doing so, it created a philosophy of acceptable cruelty, worthy extinction, legitimate extermination. The scenarios for such programs of existential realisation proved endless. Entire departments, schools of thought, and think tanks were dedicated to the absurdly criminal notion that atomic warfare could be tenable for the mere reason that someone (or some people) might survive. Despite the relentless march of civil society against nuclear weapons, such insidious thinking persists with a certain obstinate lunacy.

It only takes a brief sojourn into the previous literature of the nuke nutters to realise how appealing such thinking has proven to be. But it had its challenges. John Hersey proved threatening with his 1946 New Yorker spectacular “Hiroshima”, vivifying the horrors arising from the atomic bombing of the Japanese city through the eyes of a number of survivors.

In February 1947, former Secretary of War Henry Stimson shot a countering proposition in Harper’s, thereby attempting to normalise a spectacularly vicious weapon in terms of necessity and function; the use of the bombs against Japan saved lives, as any invasion would have cost “over a million casualties, to American forces alone.” The Allies, he surmised, “would be faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft, belonging to a race which had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight literally to the death.”

Inadvertent as it was, the Stimson rationale for justifying theatrical never-to-be-repeated mass murder to prevent mass murder fell into the bloodstream of popular strategic thinking. Albert Wohlstetter’s The Delicate Balance of Terror chews over the grim details of acceptable extermination, wondering about the meaning of extinction and whether the word means what it’s meant to, notably in the context of nuclear war. 

 “Would not a general thermonuclear war mean ‘extinction; for the aggressor as well as the defender? ‘Extinction’ is a state that badly needs analysis.” Wohlstetter goes on to make a false comparison, citing 20 million Soviet deaths in non-atomic conflict during the Second World War as an example of astonishing resilience: the country, in short, recovered “extremely well from the catastrophe.”

Resilience becomes part of the semantics of contemplated, and acceptable mass homicide. Emphasis is placed on the bounce-back factor, the ability to recover, even in the face of such weapons. 

These were themes that continued to feature. The 1958 report of the National Security Council’s Net Evaluation Subcommittee pondered what might arise from a Soviet attack in 1961 involving 553 nuclear weapons with a total yield exceeding 2,000 megatons. The conclusion: 50 million Americans would perish in the conflagration, with nine million left sick or injured. The Sino-Soviet bloc would duly receive retaliatory attacks that would kill 71 million people. A month later, a further 196 million would die. In such macabre calculations, the authors of the report could still breezily conclude that “[t]he balance of strength would be on the side of the United States.”

Modern nuclear strategy, in terms of such normalised, clinical lunacy, continues to find form in the tolerance of tactical weapons and modernised arsenals. To be tactical is to be somehow bijou, cute, and contained, accepting mass murder under the guise of moderation and variation. One can be bad, but bad within limits. Such lethal wonders are described, according to a number of views assembled in The New York Times, as “much less destructive” in nature, with “variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.”

The journal Nature prefers a grimmer assessment, suggesting the ultimate calamity of firestorms, excessive soot in the atmosphere, disruption of food production systems, the contamination of soil and water supplies, nuclear winter, and broader climatic catastrophe.

Some of these views are teasingly touched on in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a three-hour cross narrative jumble boisterously expansive and noisy (the music refuses to leave you alone, bruising the senses). While the idea of harnessing an exceptional, exterminating power haunts the scientific community, the Manhattan Project is ultimately functional: developing the atom for military purposes before Hitler does. Once developed, the German side of the equation becomes irrelevant. The urgent quest for creating the atomic weapon becomes the basis for using it. Once left to politics and military strategy, such weapons are normalised, even relativised as simply other instruments in inflicting destruction. Oppenheimer leaves much room to that lunatic creed, though somehow grants the chief scientist moral absolution.

This is a tough proposition, given Oppenheimer’s membership of the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee that would, eventually, convince President Harry Truman to use the bombs. In their June 16, 1945 recommendations, Oppenheimer, along with Enrico Fermi, Arthur H. Compton and Ernest O. Lawrence, acknowledged dissenting scientific opinions preferring “a purely technical demonstration to that of a purely military application best designed to induce surrender.” The scientific panel proved unequivocal: it could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

In the film, those showing preference for a purely technical demonstration are given the briefest of airings. Leo Szilard’s petition arguing against a military use “at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender” makes a short and sharp appearance, only to vanish. As Seiji Yamada writes, that petition led a short, charmed life, first circulated in the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, only to make its way to Edward Teller at Los Alamos, who then turned it over to Oppenheimer. The petition was, in turn, surrendered to the Manhattan Project’s chief overseer, General Leslie Groves, who “stamped it ‘classified’ and put it in a safe. It therefore never reached Truman.”

Nolan depicts the relativisation argument in some detail – one that justifies mass death in the name of technical prowess – during an interrogation by US circuit judge Roger Robb, appointed as special counsel during the 1954 security hearing against Oppenheimer. In the relevant scene, Robb wishes to trap the hapless scientist for his opposition to creating a weapon of even greater murderous power than the fission devices used against Japan. Why oppose the thermonuclear option, prods the special counsel, given your support for the atomic one? And why did he not oppose the remorseless firebombing raids of Tokyo, conducted by conventional weapons?

Nolan also has the vengeful Lewis Strauss, the two-term chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, moan that Oppenheimer is the less than saintly figure who managed to get away, ethically, with his atomic exploits while moralising about the relentless march about ever more destructive creations. In that sentiment, the Machiavellian ambition monger has a point: the genie, once out, was never going to be put back in.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »