Westinghouse Electric’s parent company wants to put the nuclear company on the market
ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 May 22,
Brookfield Business Partners is looking to sell all of its interest in Cranberry-based nuclear icon Westinghouse Electric Company, four years after buying it out of bankruptcy.
The reason? Westinghouse has been so profitable, Brookfield has accomplished everything it wanted to, company executives told analysts last week. It’s time to move on, they said.
Brookfield Business Partners, an arm of the Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management, owns a 44% interest in Westinghouse. The remaining 56% is owned by private equity funds that are managed by Brookfield.
If Westinghouse is such a profit machine, why not keep it and grow it in-house? That’s what one analyst wondered.
…………………….. Brookfield now wants to sell its entire interest in Westinghouse.
…………… “Today, Westinghouse is the only alternative to the Russian companies to supply fuel to Russian reactors outside of Russia,” Westinghouse’s CEO Patrick Fragman said. “And we are already in intense discussions to provide fuel to several operators of those Russian reactors in Eastern Europe, including in the EU.”
………………. Mr. Fragman also talked up the company’s eVinci microreactor, which he dubbed a “nuclear battery.”
French nuclear output down 20.2% in April
French nuclear output down 20.2% in April, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-nuclear-output-down-202-april-2022-05-11/PARIS, May 11 (Reuters) Reporting by Gus Trompiz, editing by Sybille de La Hamaide and Jane Merriman – Nuclear power generation at EDF’s (EDF.PA) French reactors in April fell by 20.2% year on year to 21.7 terawatt hours (TWh), the energy company said on Wednesday.
Total nuclear generation in France since the start of the year was 113.4 TWh, down 10.3% compared with 126.4 TWh for January-April 2021, EDF said on its website, citing reduced availability of the nuclear fleet that was mainly due to the discovery of stress corrosion at some sites
In Britain, EDF said its nuclear production last month rose 11.8% compared with April 2021 to 3.8 TWh, while cumulative output since the start of 2022 was up 9.4% versus the same period last year at 15.2 TWh.
$6 Billion to Keep Uncompetitive Nuclear Plants Alive
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $6 billion to create a credit program to extend the life of existing nuclear power plants, the largest source of carbon-free energy in the nation. The first deadline to bid for credits is May 19.
Planetizen, May 11, 2022, By Irvin Dawid
“While the Infrastructure Bill is wide-reaching, it includes a number of nuclear energy-related provisions, including support for keeping nuclear power plants facing economic hardship operating and funding for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program,” write Amy Roma & Stephanie Fishman for the law firm, Hogan Lovells, on November 15, 2021, the day President Joe Biden signed the bill.
An example of a projected funded through that demonstration program is TerraPower’s (a Bill Gates’ startup) Natrium reactor that will replace a coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming (see AP article, Jan. 18, and the Planetizen post when it received the funding from the Energy Department last November shortly after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act became law.
Civil Nuclear Credit Program
In February, the Energy Department established a $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit Program to tackle the first issue – extending the life of existing nuclear plants, particularly those that are facing imminent closure largely for economic reasons, by “allowing owners or operators of commercial U.S. reactors to apply for certification and competitively bid on credits to help support their continued operations,” according to their press release on Feb. 11………………………..
Let the Bidding Begin
Two months later, the Energy Department announced that it was seeking applications for the new program.
“The guidance published today directs owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down due to economic circumstances on how to apply for funding to avoid premature closure,” states their press release on April 19.
The credit program “aims to give a financial lifeline to plants facing imminent shutdown for economic reasons,” writes Evan Halper for The Washington Post (source article) on April 19.
The first round of credits are set aside for plants that have already announced plans to close. There are at least two such operations in the United States: Diablo Canyon in California and Palisades in [Covert] Michigan.
But the nation still has a sizable nuclear fleet, with 55 plants in 28 states. Most of them have at least two reactors. Many of them have fallen under financial hardship as the prices of renewable energy and natural gas dropped in recent years.
The Office of Nuclear Energy has set May 19 as the deadline for applications
for the first cycle of civil nuclear credit awards……………………………. https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/05/117103-6-billion-keep-uncompetitive-nuclear-plants-alive
US nuclear power: Status, prospects, and climate implications
that final abdication can’t rescue nuclear power, which stumbles33 even in countries with impotent regulators and suppressed public participation. In the end, physics and human fallibility win. History teaches that lax regulation ultimately causes confidence-shattering mishaps, so gutting safety rules is simply a deferred-assisted-suicide pact.
Science Direct, Amory B.Lovins, Stanford University, USA The Electricity Journal, Volume 35, Issue 4, May 2022,
Abstract
Nuclear power is being intensively promoted and increasingly subsidized in both old and potential new forms. Yet it is simultaneously suffering a global slow-motion commercial collapse due to intrinsically poor economics. This summary in a US context documents both trends, emphasizing the absence of an operational need and of a business or climate case.
In 2020, the world added1 5.521 GW (billion watts) of nuclear generating capacity—just above the 5.491 GW2 of lithium-ion batteries added to power grids. The average reactor was then 29 years old—39 in the United States, whose fleet is the world’s largest—so it’s not surprising that in 2020, maintenance or upgrade costs, safety concerns, and often simple operational uncompetitiveness caused owners worldwide to close 5.165 GW. The net nuclear capacity addition was thus the difference, 0.356 GW. Yet in the same year, the world added3 278.3 GW of renewables (or 257 GW without hydropower)—782× as much. Adjusted for relative US 2020 average capacity factors4, renewables’ net additions in 2020 thus raised the world’s annual carbon-free electricity supply by ~232× as much as nuclear power’s net additions did. That is, nuclear net growth increased the world’s carbon-free power supply in all of 2020 only as much as renewable power growth did every ~38 hours. Renewables also receive5 ~10–20 times more financial capital—mostly voluntary private investments—while nuclear investments used mainly tax revenues or capital conscripted from customers. These ratios look set to continue or strengthen6. Indeed, in 2021, world nuclear capacity fell by 1.57 or 2.48 GW—the seventh annual drop in 13 years9—while renewables were expected to add ~290 GW10.
In a normal industry, such market performance, let alone dismal economics (below), might dampen enthusiasm. Yet the nuclear industry’s immense lobbying and marketing power continues to yield at least tens of billions of dollars in annual public subsidies, still rapidly rising.
This reflects broad bipartisan support among US and many overseas political leaders (strong nuclear advocates lead seven of the ten nations with the biggest economies)—often contrary to their citizens’ preferences and, as we’ll see, to the goal of stabilizing the Earth’s climate. To explore this seeming paradox, here is my frank personal impression of nuclear power’s status, competitive landscape, operational status, prospects, and climate implications in the United States.
1. Status
When nuclear power emerged, from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, US utilities—vertically integrated, three-fourths private, technically and culturally conservative—didn’t want it. Yet powerful Federal actors offered heavily subsidized fuel and let them own it, largely relieved them of accident liability, and ultimately tempted and coerced them into a vast nuclear building spree, under implicit threat of displacing them with Federal nuclear utilities11………………….
As construction costs and durations relentlessly rose12, regulators and customers were assured their initial pain would usher in decades of low-cost generation. This too proved false. Some plants failed early, others’ operating costs rose, and decades later, owners are demanding huge new subsidies to keep running. After these scarifying experiences, capital markets are disinclined to invest in nuclear newbuild in the US or elsewhere. Contrary to a widely cultivated myth, the successive accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi) widely blamed for this rejection all occurred after the business case and investor confidence had collapsed13……
………………….The US supply chain to sustain the 93 existing reactors persists, more or less, but of the four original US reactor vendors, all have merged (GE with Hitachi), exited, or failed, most recently Westinghouse19—bought by Toshiba, bankrupted20 by its new US projects, then restructured by a Canadian private-equity partnership (which recently considered selling it21) to maintain the plants it once built. Export markets have proven elusive: as Siemens’ power engineering CEO foresaw in 199122, “The countries that can still afford our nuclear plants won’t need the electricity, and the countries that will need the electricity won’t be able to afford the reactors.” Yet strong government promotion persists…………… Market appetite for big new reactors is anemic overseas and zero at home—and only for as many smaller units as taxpayers will largely or wholly pay for……………….
US public acceptance of nuclear power fluctuates, and depends strongly on how, by whom, and to whom the question is put. Nuclear advocates reported an even split in the 2019 Gallup Poll25 after long and intensive publicity campaigns, though renewables attract far larger and more consistent support…………………..
After decades of intense political pressure, industry capture26 of US nuclear safety and security regulation appears complete, with rules and processes arranged to the operators’ liking. The skill and integrity of some US Nuclear Regulatory Commission technical experts are commendable, but on major matters, their role is only to advise, not decide. ……………… new “reforms” are taking a singularly dangerous turn: as I summarized elsewhere29,
SMRs’ [Small Modular Reactors’] novel safety30 and proliferation31 issues threaten threadbare schedules and budgets, so promoters are attacking bedrock safety regulations. . NRC’s proposed Part 5332 would perfect long-evolving regulatory capture—shifting its expert staff’s end-to-end process from specific prescriptive standards, rigorous quality control, and verified technical performance to unsupported claims, proprietary data, and political appointees’ subjective risk estimates.
Continue readingDiseconomics and other factors mean that small nuclear reactors are duds
Such awkward realities won’t stop determined lobbyists and legislators from showering tax funds on SMR developers, seen as the industry’s last hope of revival (at least for now). With little private capital at stake, taxpayers bearing most of the cost, and customers bearing the cost-overrun and performance risks190 (as they did in the similarly structured WPPSS nuclear fiasco four decades ago), some SMRs may get built. I expect they’ll fail for the same fundamental reasons as their predecessors, then be quickly forgotten as marketers substitute the next shiny object.
A lifetime of such disappointments has not yet induced sobriety. As long as the industry can fund potent lobbying that leverages orders of magnitude more federal funding, the party will carry on.
US nuclear power: Status, prospects, and climate implications, Science Direct, Amory B.Lovins, Stanford University, USA The Electricity Journal, Volume 35, Issue 4, May 2022,
”…………………………………………………….. Advanced” or “Small Modular Reactors,” SMRs174, seek to revive and improve concepts generally tried and rejected decades ago due to economic175, technical176, safety177, or proliferation178 flaws179. BNEF estimates that early SMRs might generate at ~10× current solar prices, falling by severalfold after tens of GW were built, but not by enough to come anywhere near competing. Despite strong Federal support, proposed projects are challenged to find enough customers180 and markets181. Developers and nations are also pursuing >50 diverse designs—a repeatedly reproven failure condition.
SMRs’ basic economics are worse than meets the eye, because their goalposts keep receding. Reactors are built big because, for physics reasons, they don’t scale down well. Small reactors, say their more thoughtful advocates, will produce electricity initially about twice as costly as today’s big ones, which in turn, as noted earlier, are ~3–13× costlier per MWh than modern renewables (let alone efficiency). But those renewables will get another ~2× cheaper (say BNEF and NREL) by the time SMRs could be tested and start to scale toward the mass production that’s supposed to cut their costs. High volume cannot possibly cut SMRs’ costs by 2 × (3 to 13) × 2-fold, or ~12× to ~52×.
Indeed, SMRs couldn’t compete even if the steam they produce to turn the turbine were free. Why not? In big light-water reactors, ~78–87% of the prohibitive capital cost buys non-nuclear components like the turbine, generator, heat sink, switchyard, and controls. Thus even if the nuclear island were free and a shared non-nuclear remainder were still at GW scale so it didn’t cost more per unit182, the whole SMR complex would still be manyfold out of the money.
SMRs are also too late. Despite streamlined (if not premature) licensing and many billions in Federal funding commitments, the first SMR module delivery isn’t expected until 2029. That’s in the same smaller-LWR project that just lost over half its subscribed sales as customers considered cost, timing, and risk183, and may lose the rest if they read a soberly scathing 2022 critique184. That analysis found that the vendor claims very low financial and performance risks but opaquely imposes them all on the customers. The first “advanced” reactors (a sodium-cooled fast reactor and a high-temperature gas reactor), ambitiously skipping over prototypes, are hoped by some advocates to start up in 2027–28. DOE in 2017 rosily assessed that if such initial projects succeeded, a first commercial demonstrator would then take another 6–8 years’ construction and 5 years’ operation before commercial orders, implying commercial generation at earliest in the late 2030s, more plausibly in the 2040s. But the US Administration plans to decarbonize the grid with renewables by 2035, preëmpting SMRs’ climate mission185.
An additional challenge would be siting new SMRs or clusters of them (which cuts cost but means that a problem with one SMR can affect, or block access to, others at the same site, as was predicted and experienced at Fukushima Daiichi). It looks harder to secure numerous sites and offtake agreements than a few. It would take roughly 50 SMR orders to justify building a factory to start capturing economies of production scale, and hundreds or thousands of SMRs to start seeing meaningful, though inadequate, cost reductions. A study assuming high electricity demand and cheap SMRs estimated a US need for just 350 SMRs by 2050186; some advocates expect far more. It’s hard to imagine how dozens of States and hundreds of localities could quickly approve those sites, especially given internal NRC dissension on basic SMR safety187 and the obvious financial risks188.
No credible path could deploy enough SMR capacity to replace inevitably retiring reactors timely and produce significant additional output by then—but efficiency and renewables could readily do that and more, based on their deployment rates and price behaviors observed in the US and global marketplace. For example189, through 2020, CAISO (wholesale power manager for a seventh of the US economy) reported 120 GW of renewables and storage in its interconnection queue, plus 158 GW in the non-ISO West; just solar-paired-with-storage projects in CAISO rose to over 71 GW by 5 Jan 2022, with the paired solar totaling nearly 64 GW—all three orders of magnitude more than the first 77-MW NuScale module hoped to enter service many years later.
Such awkward realities won’t stop determined lobbyists and legislators from showering tax funds on SMR developers, seen as the industry’s last hope of revival (at least for now). With little private capital at stake, taxpayers bearing most of the cost, and customers bearing the cost-overrun and performance risks190 (as they did in the similarly structured WPPSS nuclear fiasco four decades ago), some SMRs may get built. I expect they’ll fail for the same fundamental reasons as their predecessors, then be quickly forgotten as marketers substitute the next shiny object.
A lifetime of such disappointments has not yet induced sobriety. As long as the industry can fund potent lobbying that leverages orders of magnitude more federal funding, the party will carry on. But where does its seemingly perpetual disappointment leave the Earth’s imperiled climate?…………………………. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619022000483
Fear in Europe, of nuclear war causes soaring demand for nuclear bunkers
 | |||
Demand for Nuclear Bunkers Soars as Russia-Ukraine War Fuels Fear in Europe.
NewsWeek, BY NATALIE COLAROSSI 4/30/22 Companies across Europe are reporting a sharp rise in demand for bomb shelters and bunkers as citizens fear Russia may soon use nuclear weapons in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
Residents in Germany, Switzerland, France and the U.K. have increasingly been seeking information about building and buying protective shelters amid fears that the war could spread further into Europe, several companies recently told The Telegraph. Russia has repeatedly warned the West not to interfere in its invasion of Ukraine, and has alluded to the possibility of using nuclear weapons if tensions further escalate.
Following two months of bloody fighting in Ukraine, Europeans—and even some Americans—are fearful that Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon target other nations with deadly weapons…………………………….. https://www.newsweek.com/demand-nuclear-bunkers-soars-russia-ukraine-war-fuels-fear-europe-1702467
Poor outlook for Joe Biden’s $6 billion effort to keep old nuclear reactors going
Biden’s $6B nuclear plan hits ’24th hour’ roadblock
By Peter Behr, Hannah Northey | 04/28/2022 The Biden administration’s $6 billion effort to keep struggling nuclear plants operating is facing a barrier in Michigan and California.
A top energy executive yesterday confirmed that one of the first plants poised to qualify for financial support under the Energy Department’s newly unveiled lifeline — Michigan’s Palisades plant — remains on schedule to close May 31, throwing the Midwestern state’s climate goals into question.
Leo Denault, CEO of Entergy Corp., owner of the Palisades plant, told security analysts yesterday that a buyer who succeeded in acquiring the generator would also bear refueling costs and other expenses.
“We will work with any qualified party,” he said. But he added, “I do want to be very clear. Entergy is exiting the merchant nuclear business. The plant will have to stop operating in May. We’ll be out of fuel.”………………….
Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the Diablo Canyon owner, has also said the DOE offer does not change its intention to close the California facility. Diablo Canyon’s reactors 1 and 2 have planned closing dates of November 2024 and August 2025, respectively……….
A spokesperson for DOE said yesterday they were unable to speak about the unique challenges and closure decisions facing various nuclear plants, nor could they provide a precise number of struggling plants potentially eligible for financial assistance…………………………… https://www.eenews.net/articles/bidens-6b-nuclear-plan-hits-24th-hour-roadblock/
Effort to stop banks financing nuclear weapons industry
PNC shareholders defeat proposal on nuclear weapons lending for second time
PATRICIA SABATINI, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 27 Apr 22,
Like the threat of nuclear war, the “Stop Banking the Bomb” campaign aimed at getting banks to stop financing companies involved in the nuclear weapons industry refuses to go away.
For the second year in a row, a proposal backed by a group opposed to such financing was defeated at PNC Financial Services Group’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday.
Presented by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood in New York, the proposal asked that Pittsburgh-based PNC issue a report on the risks associated with lending to companies involved in making nuclear weapons.
The campaign has been targeting the bank for several years, demonstrating outside of PNC offices and shareholder meetings.
“PNC faces significant legal, financial and reputational risks if it continues to be linked to the nuclear weapons industry,” according to the proposal.
In addition, it said, the bank has a moral responsibility to address “adverse human rights impacts that it may cause, contribute to, or be directly linked to its business.”
PNC’s board recommended voting against the proposal, saying a review of the bank’s lending business concluded it did not pose a “material credit, legal or reputational risk to PNC,” and was properly vetted for potential environmental and human rights risks……………………
The proposal was defeated by a majority of shareholders. The exact vote count was not immediately available. ………………. https://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2022/04/27/pnc-financial-services-group-shareholders-nuclear-weapons-lending-banking-bomb/stories/202204270137
Nuclear weapons manufacturers see stock prices rise
Nuclear weapons manufacturers see stock prices rise amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
CNBC, MON, APR 25 2022 Charlotte Morabito @IN/CHARLOTTEMORABITO/ @MORABITOCM Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many defense stocks have skyrocketed. Defense companies secure billions of dollars every year from government contracts to maintain and construct nuclear weapons.A March 2022 analyst note from Citi predicts that the “defense [sector] is likely to be increasingly seen as a necessity that facilitates ESG as an enterprise, as well as maintaining peace, stability and other social goods.”
Many of these companies like Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are publicly traded, which means they have millions of shareholders and investors.
“We’ve seen even the biggest defense contractors in the world will change their business with pressure from the investment community,” said Susi Snyder, financial sector coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “And that pressure comes from everyday investors.”
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the U.S. government could spend $634 billion between 2021 and 2030 on nuclear forces. This is a $140 billion increase from the previous estimate of $494 billion between 2019 and 2028.
…………. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/nuclear-weapons-makers-russian-ukraine-war.html
Over a third of the world’s uranium is supplied by Russian-owned sources
| The European nuclear power sector is highly dependent on imports of Russian uranium, according to a report by NGOs Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), the Nuclear Free Future Foundation, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Greenpeace and Ausgestrahlt. In 2020, EU countries received 20.2 percent of their uranium needs from Russia and another 19.1 percent came from Russian ally Kazakhstan, according to the report. The dependency on Russian uranium is highest in Eastern Europe, where 18 nuclear power plants are calibrated to use the hexagonal fuel elements provided by Rosatom. This Russian statecorporation also has shares in uranium mines in Canada, the USA and above all Kazakhstan, making it the second largest uranium producer in the world, the report states. More than a third of the global demand for enriched uranium, which is needed for the operation of nuclear power plants, comes from the Russian company. According to German nuclear power plant operator PreussenElektra, Germany’s three remaining reactors are also mainly running on Russian and Kazakh uranium. Clean Energy Wire 22nd April 2022 https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/europe-highly-dependent-russian-uranium-nuclear-power-plants-report |
Bechtel and Westinghouse will be big on talk but short on delivery for UK’s nuclear projects – Nuclear Free Local Authorities
The Conservative Welsh Secretary Simon Hart MP has recently visited the
Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia, USA, but the Nuclear Free Local
Authorities believe that Bechtel and Westinghouse will be big on talk but
short on delivery if they are selected as Britain’s commercial partners
to build a new power plant at Wylfa.
If there are two certainties with anynuclear power project, they are that it will be delivered way beyond budgetand that it will be delivered very late. At present, the sole new nuclear
project under construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset is costing £23
billion and is ten years behind schedule; and operator, French-state owned
EDF Energy, has announced that it will again be revising the final budget
upwards and the end-date backwards, over the summer.
The Vogtle project,
being built by engineering firm Bechtel with two AP-1000 Westinghouse
light-water reactors, has so far cost US $30 billion, ironically around the
same price tag as Hinkley Point C, with this monstrous boondoggle being
bankrolled from the deep pockets of its eventual operator Georgia Power and
backed by US $12 billion in loans from the US Department of Energy. The
other AP-1000 project at VC Summer in South Carolina was abruptly
terminated in July 2017 after limping along for nine years and at a cost of
US $9 billion. This decision contributed to Westinghouse declaring Chapter
11 bankruptcy and subsequently several former Westinghouse officials,
including a Senior Vice-President, have been charged with a range of
serious offences relating to the company’s fraudulent actions.
NFLA 19th April 2022
U.S. Is Set to Launch a $6 Billion Effort to Save Nuclear Plants
Ari Natter, Bloomberg News 18 Apr 22, — The Energy Department is expected to provide details as soon as Monday on a $6 billion program aimed at keeping uneconomical nuclear plants in service, providing a lifeline to an industry that’s seen a raft of early reactor retirements driven by competition from cheaper power sources.
The program, funded through the $550 billion infrastructure bill signed into law last year, will let owners and operators of commercial nuclear reactors apply for credits for plants that are likely to shut down for economic reasons if the closures would lead to higher emissions. The agency is set to issue a guidance document this week detailing the application process.
……………….The program, known officially as the Civil Nuclear Credit Program, could provide a boost to operators including Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., Constellation Energy Corp. and Energy Harbor Corp. U.S. reactors have struggled to survive in the face of competition from cheap natural gas and renewable power. A dozen have already retired early for economic reasons,………
The Energy Department, which will administer the program, plans this week to issue guidance about how to apply for the program and will open a process for certification. The agency expects to issue preliminary credit award decisions following an application period of about 30 days, and “the first award cycle will prioritize and be limited to reactors that are approaching near term closure.” https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/u-s-is-set-to-launch-a-6-billion-effort-to-save-nuclear-plants-1.1753474
The average American tax-payer gave $900 to military contractors last year.
Most serious of all, there’s the problem of U.S. weapons feeding conflicts in ways the Pentagon didn’t foresee, but probably should have.
Compared to the $900 for Pentagon contractors, the average taxpayer contributed only about $27 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $171 to K-12 education, and barely $5 to renewable energy.
Average US Taxpayer Gave $900 to Military Contractors Last Year, https://truthout.org/articles/average-us-taxpayer-gave-900-to-military-contractors-last-year/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1f951de0-ce82-4df9-b85e-0a76f6faf974
Lindsay Koshgarian, OtherWordsPUBLISHEDApril 17, 2022
ost of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time.
You’ve probably heard a lot about corporations not paying taxes. Last year, individuals like you contributed six times more in income tax than corporations did.
But have you heard about how many of your tax dollars then end up in corporate pockets? It’s a lot — especially for corporations that contract with the Pentagon. They collect nearly half of all military spending.
The average taxpayer contributed about $2,000 to the military last year, according to a breakdown my colleagues and I prepared for the Institute for Policy Studies. More than $900 of that went to corporate military contractors.
In 2020, the largest Pentagon contractor, Lockheed Martin, took in $75 billion from taxpayers — and paid its CEO more than $23 million.
Unfortunately, this spending isn’t buying us a more secure world.
Last year, Congress added $25 billion the Pentagon didn’t ask for to its already gargantuan budget. Lawmakers even refused to let military leaders retire weapons systems they couldn’t use anymore. The extra money favored top military contractors that gave campaign money to a group of lawmakers, who refused to comment on it.
Then there’s simple price-gouging.
There’s the infamous case of TransDigm, a Pentagon contractor that charged the government $4,361 for a metal pin that should’ve cost $46 — and then refused to share cost data. Congress recently asked TransDigm to repay some of its misbegotten profits, but the Pentagon hasn’t cut off its business.
Somewhere between price-gouging and incompetence lies the F-35 jet fighter, an embarrassment the late Senator John McCain, a Pentagon booster, called “a scandal and a tragedy.”
Among the most expensive weapons systems ever, the F-35 has numerous failings. It’s spontaneously caught fire at least three times — hardly the outcome you’d expect for the top Pentagon contractor’s flagship program. The Pentagon has reduced its request for new F-35s this year by about a third, but Congress may reject that too.
Most serious of all, there’s the problem of U.S. weapons feeding conflicts in ways the Pentagon didn’t foresee, but probably should have.
When U.S. ground troops left Afghanistan, they left behind a huge array of military equipment, from armored vehicles to aircraft, that could now be in Taliban hands. The U.S. also left weapons in Iraq that fell into the hands of ISIS, including guns and an anti-tank missile.
Even weapons we sold to so-called allies like Saudi Arabia have ended up going to people affiliated with groups like al Qaeda.
Military weapons also end up on city streets at home. Over the years, civilian law agencies have received guns, armored vehicles, and even grenade launchers from the military, turning local police into near-military organizations.
Records also show that the Pentagon has lost hundreds of weapons which may have been stolen, including grenade launchers and rocket launchers. Some of these weapons have been used in crimes.
Taxpayers shouldn’t be spending $900 apiece for these outcomes. My team at the Institute for Policy Studies and others have demonstrated ways to cut up to $350 billion per year from the Pentagon budget, including what we spend on weapons contractors, without compromising our safety.
Even better, we could then put some of that money elsewhere.
Compared to the $900 for Pentagon contractors, the average taxpayer contributed only about $27 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $171 to K-12 education, and barely $5 to renewable energy.
How much more could we get if we invested even a fraction of what we spend on military contractors for these dire needs?
Compared to the $900 for Pentagon contractors, the average taxpayer contributed only about $27 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $171 to K-12 education, and barely $5 to renewable energy.
How much more could we get if we invested even a fraction of what we spend on military contractors for these dire needs?
Most Americans support shifting Pentagon funds to pay for domestic needs. Instead of making Americans fork over another $900 to corporate military contractors this year, Congress should put our dollars to better use.
Scientist fired after raising questions about safety at nuclear waste plant
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4 Investigates: Scientist fired after raising questions about safety at nuclear waste plant https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/4-investigates-scientist-fired-after-raising-questions-about-safety-at-nuclear-waste-plant/6445723/
Brittany Costello, April 14, 2022 CARLSBAD, N.M— There are some things we just leave up to the experts – that includes the science and research that goes into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the only-of-its-kind facility that stores transuranic radioactive waste from around the country.
What if we told you there are questions about the science of its long-term safety? KOB 4 spoke with a former scientist who said he lost his job after raising the red flag.
There’s an expectation, a reputation that follows the name Sandia National Labs. Its advanced scientific work is something many of us take for granted. Not Dr. Charles Oakes, who is a geochemist who used to work for Sandia National Labs in Carlsbad at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, also known as WIPP.
Part of his job was to make sure WIPP, and all of the transuranic radioactive waste stored inside, is safe for years to come.
This is a case where they weren’t, not only were they not doing their job, they were claiming they were doing their job but falsifying all the evidence that went into the claims that they were doing the job,” Dr. Charles Oakes said.
From the outside, there’s not much to see at WIPP. That’s because all the waste is stored more than 2,000 feet below ground.
“WIPP is the only facility of its kind in the world, deep geologic repository for nuclear waste,” said Don Hancock, Director of the Nuclear Waste Program a Southwest Research and Information Center.
Hancock has served as a WIPP watchdog even before the first disposal at the Department of Energy site in 1999.
“Essentially what’s in WIPP are elements that are contaminated from the manufacturing of components in nuclear weapons, particularly the plutonium core, the heart of it,” said Hancock. “That includes machinery that includes gloves, and booties, that includes sludges.”
It might sound complex, but the key to safe storage of radioactive material is simple: accurate, reliable science and research. Regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency demand it.
Sandia National Labs is contracted to do it, at a cost of $18-million a year.
It’s so important that, in order for WIIPP to continue accepting waste, every five years, it has to recertify that its projections show the facility will be safe after it’s filled up and closed down.
Safe from that point and 10,000 years beyond it.
“The most common feared way that the radiation will get to the surface is through the flow of water,” said Dr. Oakes. “There are some aquifers in the rock of the repository. One of the fears is that a well will be drilled through the repository or near to this repository and water may flow through the repository and intersect with a well bore.”
Dr. Oakes said his job was to look at how much of that radioactive material would make it to the surface.
“If you do have radioactive material dissolved in the water, will it react with rocks, minerals along the way, and be removed from the water, in which you removed the threat, or will it carry on its merry way dissolved and get to the surface where it can potentially hurt people and the environment,” he said.
During his time at Sandia National Labs, Dr. Oakes said he discovered inaccuracies that called into question WIPP’s long-term safety, what he believed to data errors.
Oakes said he brought it up to his bosses, the Department of Energy and even the EPA.
After he spoke up, Oakes said Sandia labeled him a problem employee and showed him the door.
Oakes is being represented by attorney Timothy White – and Nick Davis of Davis Law. Their goal is to address much more than what they believe to be retaliatory discharge.
“We’re trying to achieve a certain safety standard here and the information that is being used to allegedly show that we’ve achieved that standard, that we should be recertified to manage the WIPP project, is built on bad science leading to fraud,” said White.
KOB 4 wanted to hear from Sandia National Labs. A spokesperson told us they cannot comment on these accusations because of the pending lawsuit.
There are a number of defendants named in the suit: Honeywell International, National Technology and engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, Carol Adkins, and Paul Shoemaker.
Attorneys representing the defendants have responded in court. Documents allege Oakes was fired after multiple “inappropriate interactions with colleagues” but they did not go into detail.
Attorneys are also asking a federal judge to dismiss the case.
As far as all of that expansive data is concerned, officials at the Department of Energy, with the WIPP project, said there are quality assurance procedures in place including several independent reviews.
They said a recertification decision is expected later in April or early May.
Rolls Royce shares dive as JP Morgan warns that small nuclear reactors will not be profitable
The new markets business of Rolls-Royce, focusing on electrical power for
small aircraft and taxpayer-backed small modular nuclear reactors, could be
lossmaking into the 2030s, a broker has warned, pushing the engineering
group’s share price lower.
Rolls-Royce announced changes to its reporting
structure at its full-year results in February, including the creation of
its new markets unit, which is pursuing opportunities from the transition
to net zero.
In an equity research note to clients yesterday, JP Morgan
Cazenove said the venture “offers good long-term sales potential but
there is no guarantee of good profits”. Rolls-Royce secured £490 million
of funding last year, including about £50 million provided by the company
and £210 million from the government, to help to support investment in the
design of the small modular reactors (SMRs). JP Morgan said demand could
“grow strongly as countries seek to cut emissions and increase ‘energy
security’.
But SMRs need to compete with other energy sources and we see
a high risk of the first SMRs being well over budget.”
Times 13th April 2022
Rolls-Royce dives as JP Morgan casts doubt on its plans for mini nuclear
power stations and electric planes.
This is Money 12th April 2022
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