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The nuclear rort in Georgia. Consumers may end up paying for billions of dollars in cost overruns on the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion.

Nuclear cost overrun could mean billions in extra Georgia Power profit,  By Matt Kempner, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9 July 21, The more utility spends, the more it can earn; consumers pay price.

Consumers may end up paying for billions of dollars in cost overruns on the Plant Vogtle nuclearexpansion.

But for Georgia Power and its parent Southern Co., the extra costs could represent a huge financial windfall: billions of dollars in extra profit.

That’s because the electric utility’s profit from the sprawling project is tied largely to how much it spends, not whether it stays within budget.

The tab for 2.6 million Georgia Power customers — and the profit for Southern and its shareholders — could start becoming clearer this fall, when elected state regulators hold hearings to determine how much of Vogtle’s initial construction expenses can be added to electric bills for the first time.

By state law, Georgia Power can charge its customers for reimbursement of “prudent and reasonable” capital costs, such as from building a new plant, and for profit set as a percentage of those expenses. The higher the allowed costs, the greater the profit.

The Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates the electric monopoly, could rule that many of Vogtle’s cost overruns weren’t prudent or reasonable, sharply limiting increases in consumer bills and reducing Georgia Power’s total profits.

But so far there are no indications that will happen, at least not in the long term.

Stock analysts, bond-rating agencies and the company’s own executives cite the risk, but they also often praise regulators’ “constructive” relationship with Georgia Power. In late 2019, the PSC agreed to let Georgia Power collect one of the highest rates of return among its peers around the nation.

“Their decisions, for lack of a better term, have been protective of or supported investments of Georgia Power,” saidJeff Cassella, a senior credit officer for bond-rating firm Moody’s Investors Service. He said he’s seen no indication the PSC will deny Vogtle costs.

Vogtle basics

Project: Build two new nuclear reactors near two existing reactors at Plant Vogtle south of Augusta, near the South Carolina line.

Owners: Georgia Power (45.7%), Oglethorpe Power (30%, represents electric membership cooperatives), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%, represents city utilities), Dalton Utilities (1.6%).

Benefits: Expected to provide a reliable, stable power supply for at least 60 years….

Downsides: Beyond concerns such as toxic nuclear waste, the all-in-cost of the new electricity is projected to be higher than that from competing forms of electricity generation, according to state staffers.

Costs: Georgia Power’s portion of the total project cost was slated to be $6.1 billion. So far, it’s increased to $11.1 billion.

How Georgia Power’s portion of the project will be paid for: The company’s customers are already paying a fee in monthly bills for a portion of Vogtle financing costs and company profits on the project. It’s estimated that average residential Georgia Power customer will have paid over $850 in such fees before the project is completed. Then their bills are expected to rise higher to cover all “prudent” and “reasonable” construction costs and company profits that rise with those costs.

Who decides what costs are prudent and reasonable: The five elected members of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power, a territorial monopoly that is part of Southern Company.

Had Georgia Power met its original budget and schedule, it would have made $7.4 billion in profits on the project, according to testimony of state independent monitors and PSC staff. But because costs have soared by billions of dollars, those profits could rise to $12.6 billion over the decades-long life of the two new reactors under construction, they testified in 2017.

Costs at Vogtle have continued to climb since 2017. As a result, profits could rise higher, too……………..

Vogtle’s expansion, meanwhile, has been riddled with problems and delays since the PSC approved the project in 2009. The company negotiated a contractor deal with Westinghouse to insulate the utility and customers from some of the worst of the possible overruns, but that was negated after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy protection.

Georgia Power’s share of the initial estimated total project cost, $6.1 billion, has ballooned to $11.1 billion at the latest estimate.

The reactors were supposed to go into operation in 2016 and 2017, but the timetable has been repeatedly extended. Now, Georgia Power predicts the first unit will be finished in the first quarter of next year. A monitor for the state, though, says the earliest would be the summer of 2022, followed by the second reactor a year later, at best. And he cautioned that constructioncosts for Georgia Power and its partners could rise another $2 billion…………

Vogtle was set up for streamlined U.S. regulatory approvals, billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees and dibs on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits. Georgia’s legislators and then-Gov. Sonny Perdue allowed the company to collect financing costs and some profits years before any electricity was produced.

As a result, the average Georgia Power residential customer will have paid $854toward the project before it goes into operation. That doesn’t include the actual costs of construction, which keep growing.

Echols, the PSC’s vice chairman, said in an email that the enactment of short-term profit reductions shows the regulator is holding the company accountable and “sends a painful and embarrassing message to Georgia Power.”

Those cuts essentially last until the first new reactor goes into operation. Then profit rates can rise back up for what could be decades to come, dwarfing the initial penalties………

Georgia isn’t alone in allowing regulated utilities to potentially profit on project overruns. A number of other states in the Southeast operate under a similar framework, according to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners………. https://www.ajc.com/news/business/nuclear-cost-overrun-could-mean-billions-in-extra-georgia-power-profit/YIA3T3YHZRHI5A7GCZHREIXCPE/ 

July 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

France’s government helps settle the debts of bankrupt nuclear company AREVA (which is now resuscitated as ORANO)

 

French state helps Areva settle Finnish EPR liabilities. To settle a new additional cost of 600 million euros, the State will buy back from the company, for 994.1 million euros, part of the shares it holds in the capital of Orano, the group responsible for managing the fuel cycle.

 Le Monde 8th July 2021

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2021/07/08/nucleaire-l-etat-francais-aide-areva-a-solder-le-passif-de-l-epr-finlandais_6087579_3234.html

July 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

UK residents face higher electricity bills, paying in advance, for the construction of new nuclear reactors

Consumers face higher energy bills to pay for new nuclear power. EDF wants to recoup some of the £20bn cost of the new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk before it starts producing electricity. Households face higher energy bills to help pay for the planned £20bn Sizewell C plant in Suffolk as the Government seeks to replace the UK’s ageing nuclear power stations.

 
Ministers are preparing to introduce legislation so that nuclear developers can recoup some of their costs through energy bills while a new plant is being built, rather than having to wait until it has been developed, the Financial Times reported. Supporters stress the so-called regulated asset base model can help cut the huge costs of nuclear power because it reduces risk for developers, although critics argue it unfairly heaps risk onto consumers. EDF has been in negotiations with the Government since December over a funding deal for its proposed Sizewell C plant amid public debate about the role nuclear power should play in the energy ecosystem.

It was estimated in 2019 that energy bills could rise by about £6 a year if the regulated asset base model is used for Sizewell. The financing model is used for other infrastructure projects such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel
but not yet for power generation, meaning new legislation is needed. The nuclear industry has been increasingly vocal in recent months about the importance of replacing the UK’s nuclear plants, most of which are due to close by the end of the decade.

 Telegraph 7th July 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/07/consumers-face-higher-energy-bills-pay-new-nuclear-power/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

William Perry and Jerry Brown address the unwisdom of spending $2 trillion on new nuclear weapons

Spending $2 trillion on new nuclear weapons is a risk to more than just your wallet, Business Insider, BILL PERRY, JERRY BROWN, JOHN GARAMENDIJUL 7, 2021,

  • The US is pursuing the modernization of all three legs of the nuclear triad, at an estimated cost of $1.7 trillion over 30 years.
  • Simultaneous modernization exceeds what’s needed for an effective nuclear deterrent and is an unnecessarily costly and risky way to achieve our deterrence requirements.
  • Bill Perry is a former US secretary of defense. Jerry Brown is a former governor. John Garamendi is the US Representative for California’s 3rd Congressional District.

The world is witnessing a new, dangerous nuclear arms race. Tensions are rising between the Great Powers. As the US, Russia, and China rush to modernize their nuclear arsenals, the trip wire is becoming more taut by the day.

Observation and communication satellites and systems are increasingly vulnerable to attacks. All three countries are fielding stealth and hypersonic nuclear delivery systems designed to evade detection. The risks of a false alarm or a political miscalculation has always haunted the nuclear landscape, and they do even more today.

Last week, legislation was introduced in the US House of Representatives to address the misguided nuclear modernization strategy the US is currently employing and chart a safer, more cost-effective course for our modernization efforts – one that is predicated on deterrence rather than dominance.

As long as nuclear weapons exist, we must have a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. However, simultaneous modernization efforts across all three legs of the nuclear triad exceed  that scope and are an unnecessarily costly and risky way to achieve our deterrence requirements.

The current US nuclear modernization strategy includes the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the B-21 bomber, the Columbia-class submarine, the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) air-launched cruise missile, the sea launched nuclear cruise missile, and new nuclear warheads.

The costs of these projects are extraordinary: a 2017 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimated that the 30-year cost of nuclear weapons spending would be $1.2 trillion ($1.7 trillion adjusted for inflation).

As the Government Accountability Office recently noted, the current plan to modernize every part of the US nuclear arsenal simultaneously is a recipe for schedule delays and cost overruns.

The ICBM leg of the triad deserves special attention. The total price tag to procure the GBSD is projected to be at least $95 billion, and up to $264 billion when accounting for total life-cycle costs. A pause in the GBSD will help defray short-term costs for the Air Force and will also defer a long-term expenditure.

Additionally, the W87-1, the warhead that is being designed for the GBSD, will cost at least $12 billion to build – and is not part of the estimated GBSD procurement cost of $95 billion. To build new warhead cores for the W87-1, the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) is expanding plutonium pit production, which will cost at least another $9 billion through the late 2020s according to the Congressional Budget Office…………..

Maintaining and upgrading the current Minuteman III missile is not only technically possible – it is also cost-effective. According to a 2017 CBO report, it would cost $37 billion less to maintain the MMIII than developing and deploying the GBSD through 2036.

It’s clear that replacing the Minuteman III for the GBSD is a wasteful and costly undertaking that is not in our national security interest. That’s why we are supporting the “Investing in Commonsense Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) Act of 2021,” which was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week by Congressman Garamendi.

This bill will simply pause the development of the GBSD, and the associated W87-1 nuclear warhead, and life extend the Minuteman III until 2040 – something that is both technically feasible and more cost-efficient. This extension provides time for arms control negotiations and additional debate on the utility of a ground-based system, which may make this program unnecessary.

This legislation will help deescalate the modern nuclear arms race and prevent the unnecessary spending of billions of taxpayer dollars. That’s why nine members of Congress joined Garamendi’s “ICBM Act” as original cosponsors, and it’s why 12 policy experts and arms control associations have joined us in endorsing the legislation.

The “ICBM Act” will strengthen our national security and save billions of tax-payer dollars by:

  • Prohibiting the use of funds for the GBSD program and W87-1 warhead modification program for fiscal years 2022 through 2031;
  • Extending the service life of the Minuteman III missiles until at least 2040, and requiring use of nondestructive testing methods and technologies similar to those used by the Navy for Trident II D5 SLBMs; and
  • Transferring back to the Air Force all unobligated funds for the GBSD program, and transferring unobligated funds for the W87-1 warhead modification program from the National Nuclear Security Administration to the Treasury.

As a former US secretary of defense, governor of California, and current chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, we have an intimate understanding of this issue and the urgency with which we must address it.

We have visited the launch sites. We have met the young Air Force captains who sit in the buried bunker ready to turn the launch keys for atomic bombs capable of destroying a city three times the size of Hiroshima. It sobers the mind and underscores the need to chart a new course for our modernization strategy before we cross a line from which we cannot return.

Bill Perry is the former US secretary of defense who served under President Bill Clinton. Jerry Brown is the former governor of California and is currently the executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. John Garamendi is the US Representative for California’s 3rd Congressional District and chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nuclear-modernization-plans-are-unnecessarily-costly-and-risky-2021-7?r=US&IR=T

July 8, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK Treasury’s new green savings bonds says YES to wind energy, NO to nuclear

the nuclear energy aspect had been scrapped in the process of working out suitable investments.

Yes to wind, no to nuclear: the green bonds investment planSavers can be part of £15bn scheme with just £100m

 Sunday July 04 2021, The Sunday Times The money raised through the Treasury’s new green savings bonds will not be used to fund any nuclear energy projects, despite the power source being a crucial part of the government’s ten-point plan towards net zero.

The term net zero means achieving a balance between the carbon emitted into the atmosphere and the carbon removed from it.

Investors might be able to help fund the government’s plans to “build back better and greener” as early as September, when it is expected that the first tranche of bonds will be launched.

Farnam Bidgoli, the head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) solutions at HSBC, said that the nuclear energy aspect had been scrapped in the process of working out suitable investments. “When doing our market research,……….. (subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/yes-to-wind-no-to-nuclear-the-green-bonds-investment-plan-9pcrz6rsw

July 5, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

United Kingdom will not finance any nuclear-energy related expenditures under its Green Financing Framework

Nuclear energy has been excluded from the UK government’s Green Financing Framework, while several EU Member States have written to the European Commission to oppose nuclear’s inclusion in the bloc’s green taxonomy.

The UK’s Green Financing Framework describes how the government plans to finance expenditures through the issuance of green gilts and the retail Green Savings Bonds that it says will be critical in tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. The framework, which was produced and published yesterday by the Treasury, sets out the basis for identification, selection, verification and reporting of the green projects that are eligible for such financing.

Under ‘exclusions’, the document says: “Recognising that many sustainable investors have exclusionary criteria in place around nuclear energy, the UK government will not finance any nuclear energy-related expenditures under the Framework.”

 World Nuclear News 2nd July 2021

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-excludes-nuclear-from-green-taxonomy

July 3, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

French company EDF’s Plan A – Britain to legislate finance for Sizewell nuclear plant: there is no Plan B.

REUTERS EVENTS EDF calls for funding legislation for new UK nuclear power plant, Kate Holton  LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) – France’s EDF (EDF.PA) called on the British government to deliver the legislation that would underpin the financing of a new nuclear plant, Sizewell C, saying it was now essential………

Asked if his company had a Plan B in the event the government did not advance with the legislation,  Simone Rossi, the UK head of EDF,    said: “We do not really. I have to say that would be for the UK government to consider.”………

China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) which holds a 20% share in the pre-construction phase of the Sizewell C project, is on a U.S. government list of companies Washington deems are acting contrary to U.S. interests………….https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/reuters-events-edf-calls-uk-produce-sizewell-funding-legislation-2021-06-23/

June 24, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

House-building plans thrown into doubt as doubts grow about Wylfa nuclear project

Councillor secures debate amid Welsh language fears Sunday, 20 June 2021 – by Gareth Wyn Williams – Local democracy reporter,

An extraordinary meeting of Gwynedd Council has been called regarding the second homes housing crisis and Welsh language fears.

Backbench members have triggered a mechanism to call a full council meeting amid concerns over the existing Joint Local Development Plan (JLDP).

The document proposes why and where up to 7,184 new homes should be built across Anglesey and Gwynedd over the period up to 2026.

The plan was ratified separately by both authorities in 2017, with a scheduled monitoring review set to take place this year.

But after reaching the minimum allowed threshold of five councillors to trigger an extraordinary meeting of all 75 members, one Llyn councillor has called for a debate on the plans.

Even when Gwynedd Council approved the plan, the knife-edge decision was only made thanks to the casting vote by the council’s chair, facing much opposition due to concerns it would lead to a drop in the number of Welsh speakers in both counties.

Cllr Gruffydd Williams, the unaffiliated member for Nefyn, believes there is a need to go further than the scheduled review and asked councillors to also consider 12 recommendations raised by Porthmadog academic, Dr Simon Brooks, in a recent report on second homes and their impact on Welsh speaking communities.

He said: “When you take into account Brexit, Covid-19 and Wylfa Newydd, so many things have changed since the plan was adopted, house prices are shooting up and the plight of Welsh speaking communities looking more perilous than ever.

“I wanted to called this meeting, having already spoken to around 30 councillors, as I feel it’s only right that all members of Gwynedd, and Anglesey councils in fairness, are given a chance to have their say rather than all the burden being placed on the few that sit on the JLDP committee”

Cllr Williams noted: “It would be desirable to give particular priority, going past what is noted as the usual monitoring period within the plan itself and to submit proposals which correspond to Dr Simon Brooks’ report “Second Homes – Developing New Policies in Wales” which was commissioned by the Welsh Government.”

Adding that with any prospect of a major nuclear development on Anglesey looking more uncertain than ever, he argued that this should be taken into consideration as it was a major cornerstone of the plan when first ratified.

While Wylfa Newydd had been earmarked for a site near Cemaes in northern Anglesey, Gwynedd Council had also made arrangements for increased demand on housing in the Arfon area.

Anti-Nuclear group PAWB has long argued that both the JLDP and the North Wales Growth Plan were drawn up on the assumption that Wylfa B “would happen and that it would be a good thing.”……….The extraordinary meeting will be held next Monday, 28 June https://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=136455&headline=Councillor%20secures%20debate%20amid%20Welsh%20language%20fears&searchyear=2021

June 22, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

French nuclear company and Chinese government once again have a problem with their much vaunted EPR nuclear reactor design

Nuclear reactor problem a new headache for designer and China. Bangkok Post,    16 June 21, PARIS – The emergence of problems in a new-generation nuclear reactor in China threatens to undermine efforts by its French designer to sell it elsewhere, and could hurt Beijing’s nuclear industry, analysts said.

French energy giant EDF and the Chinese government have sought to ease concerns about a gas build-up at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant after a CNN report of a potential leak at the site.

The Chinese foreign ministry said Tuesday that radiation levels remained normal at the site in southern Guangdong province and there were no safety concerns.

But it is the latest snag to hit EDF’s much-vaunted EPR reactor.

The Taishan power station became in 2018 the first site worldwide to use the pressurised water design, which has been subject to years of delays in similar projects in Britain, France and Finland.

A second EPR reactor was launched at Taishan a year later. The facility is partly owned by EDF along with state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group, the majority stakeholder and operator of the plant.

EDF said the plant’s number one reactor experienced a build-up of gases in part of the cooling system following the deterioration of the coating on some uranium fuel rods.

The French company was first informed about the problem with the fuel rods in October, but only learned about the gas build-up on Saturday, according to EDF.

The problem and the silence of Chinese authorities triggered criticism of EDF, whose EPR reactor is supposed to be safer, last longer and produce more electricity than previous versions.

– EDF seeks contracts –

It seems that both the Chinese nuclear regulators and the French nuclear corporations may have acted in bad faith,” said Paul Dorfman, a researcher at the University College London’s Energy Institute.

“If so, this new EPR debacle should have important consequences for any further plans for new EPR builds in France, the UK, and internationally,” he added…….

The Taishan incident comes as EDF, which is currently struggling to finish the Flamanville EPR in France after more than a dozen years of work, is hoping to win new contracts.

France, which must eventually decide whether to renew its park of ageing nuclear reactors, is holding off on making a decision until Flamanville comes online, which is now expected in late-2022 at best………. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2133307/nuclear-reactor-problem-a-new-headache-for-designer-and-china

June 17, 2021 Posted by | China, France, marketing | Leave a comment

The real welfare cheats are weapons makers.

We’re squabbling over Social Security, while the government lavishes infinitely more money on the arms industry. The Nation, By Rebecca Gordon  16 June 21,  ”……………………………..President Joe Biden remains super-glued to the same old post–World War II agreement between the two major parties: They can differ vastly on domestic policies, but they remain united when it comes to projecting US military power around the world and to the government spending that sustains it. In other words, the US “national security” budget is still the third rail of politics in this country…………………………….

WELFARE FOR WEAPONS MAKERS

Of course, there’s a second high-voltage, untouchable rail in American politics and that’s funding for the military and weapons manufacturers. It takes a brave politician indeed to suggest even the most minor of reductions in Pentagon spending, which has for years been the single largest item of discretionary spending in the federal budget.

It’s notoriously difficult to identify how much money the government actually spends annually on the military. President Trump’s last Pentagon budget, for the fiscal year ending on September 30, offered about $740 billion to the armed services (not including outlays for veteran services and pensions). Or maybe it was only $705.4 billion. Or perhaps, including Department of Energy outlays involving nuclear weapons, $753.5 billion. (And none of those figures even faintly reflected full national security spending, which is certainly well over a trillion dollars annually.)

Most estimates put President Biden’s 2022 military budget at $753 billion—about the same as Trump’s for the previous year. As former Senator Everett Dirksen is once supposed to have said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Indeed, we’re talking real money and real entitlements here that can’t be touched in Washington without risking political electrocution. Unlike actual citizens, US arms manufacturers seem entitled to ever-increasing government subsidies—welfare for weapons, if you like. Beyond the billions spent to directly fund the development and purchase of various weapons systems, every time the government permits arms sales to other countries, it’s expanding the coffers of companies like Lockheed-Martin, Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, and Raytheon Technologies. The real beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s so-called Abraham Accords between Israel and the majority Muslim states of Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan were the US companies that sell the weaponry that sweetened those deals for Israel’s new friends.

When Americans talk about undeserved entitlements, they’re usually thinking about welfare for families, not welfare for arms manufacturers. But military entitlements make the annual federal appropriation of $16.5 billion for Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) look puny by comparison. In fact, during Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the yearly federal outlay for TANF hasn’t changed since it was established through the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, known in the Clinton era as “welfare reform.” Inflation has, however, eroded its value by about 40 percent in the intervening years.

And what do Americans get for those billions no one dares to question? National security, right?

But how is it that the country that spends more on “defense” than the next seven, or possibly 10, countries combined is so insecure that every year’s Pentagon budget must exceed the last one? Why is it that, despite those billions for military entitlements, our critical infrastructure, including hospitals, gas pipelines, and subways (not to mention Cape Cod steamships), lies exposed to hackers?

And if, thanks to that “defense” budget, we’re so secure, why is it that, in my wealthy home city of San Francisco, residents now stand patiently in lines many blocks long to receive boxes of groceries? Why is “national security” more important than food security, or health security, or housing security? Or, to put it another way, which would you rather be entitled to: food, housing, education, and health care, or your personal share of a shiny new hypersonic missile?


But wait! Maybe defense spending contributes to our economic security by creating, as Donald Trump boasted in promoting his arms deals with Saudi Arabia, “jobs, jobs, jobs.” It’s true that spending on weaponry does, in fact, create jobs, just not nearly as many as investing taxpayer dollars in a variety of far less lethal endeavors would. As Brown University’s Costs of War project reports:

And if, thanks to that “defense” budget, we’re so secure, why is it that, in my wealthy home city of San Francisco, residents now stand patiently in lines many blocks long to receive boxes of groceries? Why is “national security” more important than food security, or health security, or housing security? Or, to put it another way, which would you rather be entitled to: food, housing, education, and health care, or your personal share of a shiny new hypersonic missile?


Rebecca GordonRebecca Gordon, a TomDispatch regular, teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes (Hot Books, April 2016). Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.  
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/the-real-welfare-cheats-are-war-profiteers/

June 17, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A People’s Guide to the War Industry -5: Portfolio of Conflicts

“They ignored the real threat: The U.S. Armed Forces’ rampant carbon-based military activity contributes to anthropogenic climate change, which melts Arctic ice, which opens up northern sea lanes, into which the Pentagon projects its polluting arsenal, which puts more carbon in the atmosphere.”

A People’s Guide to the War Industry -5: Portfolio of Conflicts — Rise Up Times A PEOPLE’S GUIDE TO THE WAR INDUSTRY -5: PORTFOLIO OF CONFLICTS June 9, 2021 ·
When war is profit, death ensures a healthy bottom line, writes Christian Sorensen in this  final installment of his five-part series on the military-industrial-congressional complex.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (also available on Rise Up Times)   

By Christian Sorensen  Special to Consortium News  June 2, 2021 Without looking at military adventurism through the lens of the corporation, analysts are bound to produce error-filled studies. For example, one analyst contended in an interview on The Real News Network, “Military force is almost never going to achieve your political aims. The Americans learned this in Vietnam. They’re learning it in Afghanistan. They’re learning it in Syria… So [President Barack] Obama supporting the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen is a sign really of incoherence on the part of the United States.”

Far from incoherence, the behavior actually is quite rational. A variety of conflicts, disparate and some seemingly futile, is precisely the aim. Conflict itself — producing untold mountains of profit for war corporations and Wall Street — is the goal.

Recall that capital is money used to expand business in order to make more profit. Capital isn’t just building new factories to produce more goods from which to profit.

Capital is also putting money toward cultivating and promoting politicians who advocate for wars and broad military deployments; media and think tanks to propagandize and generate militant narratives; attaining through neoliberal economic policies a U.S. military establishment so rife with corporations that it becomes one bloated, self-sustaining, profitable entity; arranging industry pressure groups and think tanks to encourage and award high-ranking military officers who support and extend conflicts overseas; and marketing, pushing, and operating goods and services that harm populations and destabilize countries around the world, generating more profitable conflict.

The war industry pursues a portfolio of conflicts as any organized, dominant industry views the global marketplace, parses demographics, shapes consumer tastes, and pursues profit maximization at all costs. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, the Sahel, Ukraine, Yemen — each conflict has advantages and challenges, unique terrain and unique obstacles.

Industry’s products monitor, control and destroy populations. The particular goods and services selected are not the point here. The real rub is that from the eyes of the corporate suite, conflict must endure. Peace is not profitable. A strong portfolio of conflicts, which vary in intensity and scope, is what industry has achieved. Global capitalism demands infinite growth. War corporations’ portfolio approach demands endless, dispersed armed conflicts of varying intensity.

The U.S. war industry sells to capitalist regimes around the world through direct commercial sales and foreign military sales (FMS). FMS tend to deal with big-ticket items or goods and services of a sensitive nature. Through FMS, the U.S. government procures and transfers industry goods and services to allied governments and international organizations.

The U.S. war industry sells to capitalist regimes around the world through direct commercial sales and foreign military sales (FMS). FMS tend to deal with big-ticket items or goods and services of a sensitive nature. Through FMS, the U.S. government procures and transfers industry goods and services to allied governments and international organizations.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) is the intermediary between the U.S. war industry and the FMS customer overseas. On any given day, DSCA is managing “14,000 open foreign military sales cases with 185 countries,” Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper explained at the Brookings Institution in 2019.

Violent and oppressive regimes are frequent customers, including London, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. The Leahy Law, which is intended to prevent U.S. military assistance from reaching militaries that have committed serious human rights violations, is almost never enforced when it comes to FMS. The Arms Export Control Act requires recipients of U.S. war industry goods and services to use them only in self-defense.

So, customers of the U.S. war industry typically affirm that they’re using the goods and services in self-defense, and the U.S. government doesn’t press them on the matter. After all, there is a lot of cash at stake. In fiscal year 2020 alone, the war industry sold $50.8 billion through FMS and $124.3 billion through direct commercial sales.

The Pentagon often cites industry’s claim that FMS reduces the cost of military systems to the U.S. Armed Forces. The Pentagon supports FMS because foreign militaries dependent on U.S. equipment, knowhow, training, parts, and software are more likely to listen to the U.S. government on military matters, the direction to take in regional conflicts, and international policy.

Without tensions, military provocations, and ongoing hot or cold wars (e.g. Japan v. China, South v. North Korea, Taiwan v. China, absolutist Arab regimes and Apartheid Israel v. Iran, Apartheid Israel v. Arab populations, the global war on drugs) to justify endless transactions, the U.S. war industry would lose billions in annual sales to allied regimes and sales to the U.S. military that is “responding” to such conflict.

Major war corporations place people in charge of selling to each Arab country in the Persian Gulf (e.g. Joe Rank, a career soldier who helped guide Middle East policy for the U.S. Secretary of War, now oversees Lockheed Martin’s business with Saudi Arabia). U.S. flag officers who work on FMS often doff the uniform and then join war corporations to help sell goods and services overseas.

For Profit, Against Democracy

From May 2015 through March 2016, U.S. war corporations sold over $30 billion of goods and services to anti-democratic Arab Gulf allies. Given the U.S. war industry’s long sales history to regimes like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it stands firmly on the side of profit, and firmly against democracy. Or, as Raytheon’s website puts it,

“With more than 50 years in the Middle East, Raytheon’s steadfast commitment and uninterrupted presence in the region is a testament to the tremendous value we place on being there for our customers.”

The 1945 Quincy Pact between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz al-Saud started it all: Washington would entrench bases in and around the Persian Gulf and protect the House of Saud, while the latter would keep the oil flowing and give preferential treatment to U.S. corporate interests.

The Saudi regime would later agree to use the dollar in international oil trading. Saudi Arabia purchases a lot of goods and services from U.S. industry, including the war industry. The Washington regime assented when in 2015 the Saudi and Emirati regimes turned U.S. weaponry on Yemen.

The U.S. war industry, in addition to U.S. military and intelligence assistance, has been the cornerstone of the UAE/Saudi destruction of Yemen. Yemenis now suffer from raging famine, disease outbreaks, and crippled infrastructure. The UAE-Saudi coalition has hit civilians (school field trips, funeral processions, weddings, markets) and prevented humanitarian aid from entering Yemen.

In autumn 2018, the head of the U.S. State Department’s legislative affairs team (a former Raytheon lobbyist) certified that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were taking steps to reduce civilian deaths in Yemen. Roughly 233,000 people have died in Yemen as a result of the war, according to the United Nations humanitarian office. Such destruction is evidence of the military-industrial-congressional triangle functioning as designed.

In early February 2021, the Biden administration announced it would halt support for Saudi-UAE “offensive” operations in Yemen. This claim is full of loopholes and is unlikely to substantially alter or end the myriad of ways the U.S. ruling class aids and abets anti-democratic Arab regimes.

Zionism is the ideology that justifies the colonization of Palestine and the maintenance and expansion of that colonization using brutal violence and espionage. Zionists declared independence when they set up a new state, Israel, in Palestine in May 1948, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the land.

Each year, Washington gives roughly $3.8 billion to Israel, which then is supposed to use such monies to purchase from the U.S. war industry. The occupation of Palestine and Zionist aggression against neighboring countries provide the U.S. war industry with a valuable slice of its portfolio: an outsourced proving ground to test, evaluate, use, and improve weaponry.

When war is profit, death ensures a healthy bottom line.

The Advantages of Zionism The aggressive military posture inherent to Zionism is a commercial advantage from an industry perspective. Israel has killed Arabs quite effectively with a variety of aircraft and weaponry purchased from U.S. corporations. The U.S. State Department turns a blind eye, as it is once again doing in the current Israeli operation.  Of course, Israel claims self-defense when using U.S. and Israeli weaponry to kill Arabs……….

This is the final installment in the author’s five-part series.

Christian Sorensen is an independent journalist mainly focused on warprofiteering within the military-industrial complex. An Air Forceveteran, he is the author of the recently published book,Understanding the War Industry. He is also a senior fellow at theEisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of independent veteranmilitary and national security experts. His work is available atWar Industry Muster.   https://riseuptimes.org/2021/06/09/a-peoples-guide-to-the-war-industry-5-portfolio-of-conflicts/

June 10, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Great powers’competition – the war industry’s best tactic

”……………..Pretexts keep the military budget elevated, sustain the war industry’s profits, and incite a violent foreign policy. Manufactured fear is essential. After pumping the “War on Terror” for trillions of dollars — and with veterans and the U.S. public growing skeptical of such interventions — the war industry has returned to targeting Russia and China through “great power competition.  

A PEOPLE’S GUIDE TO THE WAR INDUSTRY -5: PORTFOLIO OF CONFLICTS,  By Christian Sorensen     by Rise Up Times · Great Power Competition , 9 June 21,

  ”……………..Pretexts keep the military budget elevated, sustain the war industry’s profits, and incite a violent foreign policy. Manufactured fear is essential. After pumping the “War on Terror” for trillions of dollars — and with veterans and the U.S. public growing skeptical of such interventions — the war industry has returned to targeting Russia and China through “great power competition.  

Facing off against Russia and China is more comfortable territory for war corporations. In the calculus of corporate suites, the big-ticket items inherent to competition with another major industrial nation are where the real money can be made. A war on terror was lucrative for a decade or two, and it will continue, but it is not enough to justify excessive spending on cyber, submarines, satellites, hypersonic propulsion, anti-ballistic missiles, nuclear weaponry, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and aircraft carriers.

Competition against Moscow and Beijing also continues the militarization of U.S. society, channeling anger (which might otherwise manifest itself as class awareness and/or physical protest against Washington’s corruption) into outrage against a stereotypical enemy that resides overseas — just as the War on Terror did.

Great power competition is fully entrenched in the Pentagon, as made clear by the 2018 National Defense Strategy, developed in 2017 by military and corporate personnel. It emphasized, “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.”

Etching the National Defense Strategy into stone, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford declared in November 2018, that great power competition was here to stay, demanding a shift in Pentagon funding priorities and weapons development. Dunford was speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum, sponsored by corporations (e.g. Boeing, CAE, United Technologies) and NATO, among other powerful groups, including energy and IT firms.

Four months later, the war industry pressure group NDIA presented General Dunford with its most prestigious award. Dunford soon retired and joined the board of Lockheed Martin.

Great power competition has enabled a high volume of war industry goods and services and U.S. military personnel to deploy to Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltic States and Romania, as well as other clients surrounding China, particularly South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Guam. Large engineering and project management firms build and sustain the associated infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s construction is framed as a threat. “I mean, this is insane. Look at all that crazy construction,” remarked a U.S. naval officer observing Chinese military construction projects in the South China Sea. Though a useful bogeyman, Beijing’s construction in the South China Sea does not hold a candle to what Washington has built up overseas.

Great power competition fills peaceful voids. At the Sea Air Space Forum of 2019 (sponsored by CACI, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls), MIC officials cited the “threat” of great power competitors in order to justify expansion of U.S. military power into the Arctic.

They ignored the real threat: The U.S. Armed Forces’ rampant carbon-based military activity contributes to anthropogenic climate change, which melts Arctic ice, which opens up northern sea lanes, into which the Pentagon projects its polluting arsenal, which puts more carbon in the atmosphere.

Great power competition’s consequences are terrifying: increased militarization of an already militarized U.S. economy and public life; greater likelihood of wars big and small; more pollution (notably toxic particulates, carbon emissions, and radiological contamination) in an era of climate catastrophe and mass extinction; nuclear weapons on a hair trigger; narrowing of permissible speech and assembly; and relentless corporatization of the U.S. Armed Forces, the world’s mightiest organization.

The pretext known as great power competition is off to an impressive start, financially, bureaucratically, and industrially. It is incumbent upon the workers of the world to stop it. ”https://riseuptimes.org/2021/06/09/a-peoples-guide-to-the-war-industry-5-portfolio-of-conflicts/

June 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Navy to cancel development of super expensive nuclear missile

Navy eyes canceling nuclear missile

By BRYAN BENDER , 06/09/2021 NIXING A NUKE? Politico, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Harker has issued a memo directing the service to cancel development of a nuclear-armed cruise missile in fiscal 2023, a potential signal that the Biden administration could dial back some nuclear modernization programs, Aerospace Daily scooped on Tuesday.

The June 4 memo, also obtained by POLITICO, is part of preparations to craft a five-year spending plan. The memo declares that the Navy may have to choose either a new fighter jet, destroyer or submarine and delay two of them.

“The Navy cannot afford to simultaneously develop the next generation of air, surface, and subsurface platforms and must prioritize these programs balancing the cost of developing next-generation capabilities against maintaining current capabilities,” Harker wrote.

It “makes clear that budgets aren’t expected to increase enough in the coming years to undertake all of the modernization efforts envisioned by the Navy,” as our colleague Paul McLeary writes for Pros………. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-defense/2021/06/09/navy-eyes-canceling-nuclear-missile-795839

June 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Euphoria about nuclear costs, especially about decommissioning – Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warns Indonesia.

IEEFA: Nuclear power euphoria in Indonesia is all smoke and mirrors with no current technical, financial or market viability,

2 June 21,    https://ieefa.org/ieefa-nuclear-power-euphoria-in-indonesia-is-all-smoke-and-mirrors-with-no-current-technical-financial-or-market-viability/

Renewables should be the focus of Indonesia’s net-zero pledge.   (IEEFA Indonesia):  In growing energy markets like Indonesia, decision makers are facing a barrage of pro-nuclear media coverage as the nuclear industry floods the market with panels and webinars focused on the potential of nuclear power.

A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) highlights that while nuclear is promising as a baseload substitute for coal power, it currently has no technical, financial, or market viability in the Indonesian context. Author of IEEFA’s report Elrika Hamdi says that Indonesian nuclear power supporters often promise that nuclear will be an affordable, safe and sustainable solution for the problem of over-reliance on fossil fuel.

Yet, 70 years after the first nuclear power developments were announced, the technology is quickly losing market share as global power markets pivot toward more cost-competitive renewables and storage solutions.

“Despite the steady erosion of nuclear power’s competitive potential, key Southeast Asian energy ministries continue to be lobbied by nuclear advocates. Many of these lobbyists are international backers of new small modular reactor (SMR) technologies, who are actively engaging with governments and utilities around the region,” says Hamdi.

As old generation large-scale nuclear units face decommissioning, there is little consensus about how long it will take for newer small-scale nuclear technologies to be economically viable or how long-standing safety and waste disposal risks will be addressed.


“Determining the suitability of nuclear for the Indonesian power market will be a challenging task that will require honest and deep engagement by senior policymakers to ensure there is a high degree of accountability as Indonesians need to know the real cost of having nuclear in the power system as well as how the government will handle the problem of nuclear waste.”

Hamdi says that the short-list of nuclear power issues includes technology reliability, safety and safeguards, the geographic conditions of Southeast Asia, the prospects for decommissioning, waste treatment and permanent disposal, fuel availability, affordability, and the risk of persistent cost overruns and frequently overlooked shut-down costs.

Research has shown that an estimated 97% (175 out of 180 projects examined) of nuclear power projects exceed their initial budgets. The average cost overrun for a nuclear power plant was US$1.3 billion per project with construction delays adding 64% more time than initially projected.

Nuclear waste disposal costs also complicate the cost estimation process—typically raising project costs as political risk factors crystallize. The inability of leading nuclear nations to find safe and affordable solutions for permanent high-level nuclear waste disposal leaves expensive back-end cost issues on the table.

The economics of nuclear power in Indonesia is also blurred by the fact that under existing regulations, nuclear accident liabilities for nuclear owners/operators are capped at a maximum of IDR 4 trillion (US$276 million) for power plants with a capacity of more than 2000MWe. It is cut in half as the capacity decreases. This means smaller nuclear reactors would be liable for only a fraction of potential accident costs.

“These open-ended cost issues make it hard to evaluate claims about the market viability of nuclear power in Indonesia’s cost-sensitive market. This is particularly true when most established nuclear nations are pivoting away from commitments to new nuclear power facilities as more flexible renewable plus storage options reshape power sector economics,” says Hamdi.

“If a decision is reached to move ahead with pilot stage nuclear projects, policymakers and the government will need to do a lot of policy work including the technical evaluation, the regulatory preparation and the financial support, including preparation of the currently non-existent third-party liability insurance framework.

“This will place a serious burden on a government already taxed by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to revitalize the financially constrained PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), Indonesia’s national power company.”

PLN also recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060. However, the plan released shows nuclear only entering the energy mix in 2040. This demonstrates that PLN is realistic about the technical, financial, and market challenges that need to be overcome if nuclear power is to successfully integrate into Indonesia’s future energy mix.

Hamdi says that until these issues have been acknowledged and fully addressed, the safe path for Indonesia, for now, would be to pause and set realistic goals for its power development strategy.

This includes taking advantage of Indonesia’s abundance of renewable energy resources and market viability.

“Currently only 2.5% of Indonesia’s 400GW renewable energy potential has been utilized.  That means that new technology options such as nuclear must compete with the deflationary cost curve in evidence with increasingly low-cost and low-risk renewable power solutions.

“New innovations to support grid flexibility such as demand response and storage are providing a cost-effective alternative to baseload-heavy planning disciplines. This trend raises questions about how small-scale nuclear reactors will fit into a more diverse power market where more cost-competitive renewable options could under-cut untested technologies that are years away from realizing economies of scale.

“The smaller, easily dispatchable, and walk-away safe promise of the new Gen-IV SMR technology offer is promising, IF and when the technology reaches commercial stage. But until such technology is proven to be technically and financially feasible, Indonesia’s safest option is to pause and set a more realistic net-zero scenario with resources and technologies that are already readily available with less cost, less risk, and less future liabilities.”

Read the report: Tackling Indonesia’s Nuclear Power Euphoria

June 8, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor, Indonesia | Leave a comment

“IT’S VERY PROFITABLE to prepare for omnicide,”

NOT EVEN COVID-19 COULD SLOW DOWN NUCLEAR SPENDING  https://theintercept.com/2021/06/07/nuclear-weapons-spending-pandemic-ican/
A new report finds that nine countries collectively spent $72 billion in 2020 on nukes., Jon Schwarz,
June 7 2021, “IT’S VERY PROFITABLE to prepare for omnicide,” Daniel Ellsberg, famed whistleblower and anti-nuclear weapons activist, said in a recent interview. “Northrop Grumman and Boeing and Lockheed and General Dynamics make a lot of money out of preparing for such a war. The congressmen get campaign contributions, they get votes in their district and almost every state for preparing for that.”

But don’t just take it from Ellsberg. At an investor conference in 2019, a managing director from the investment bank Cowen Inc. queried Raytheon’s CEO on this subject. “We’re about to exit the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] with Russia,” said the Cowen executive. Did this mean, he asked, whether “we will really get a defense budget that will really benefit Raytheon?” Raytheon’s CEO happily responded that he was “pretty optimistic” about where things were headed.

There are currently nine countries that possess nuclear weapons: the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. ICAN calculated that they collectively spent $72.6 billion in 2020 on nukes. (picture below – a little out of date – 2019 )

The U.S. was responsible for just over half of this doomsday payout, at $37.4 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, U.S. nuclear spending is anticipated to soon increase sharply due to plans for technological upgrades, rising to $41.2 billion next year and totaling $634 billion during the 10 years from 2021-2030.

China came in second in 2020 at an estimated $10.1 billion. Russia was third at $8 billion. Notably, in a year when the world economy was flattened by the coronavirus pandemic, nuclear spending continued on an upward trajectory without a hiccup.

Despite these hefty numbers, they’re probably an underestimate. “There’s always more [nuclear spending] out there … even more still lurking in the shadows,” said Susi Snyder, co-author of the report and managing director of the project Don’t Bank on the Bomb. Snyder points out that “governments, especially U.S., U.K., [and] France are always demanding ‘transparency’ … yet they do not hold themselves to the standards they demand of others.”

A great deal of U.S. nuclear spending consists of profitable contracts with private corporations.

The four companies Ellsberg said were raking in cash “preparing for war” indeed received the most money in 2020:

  • Northrop Grumman — $13.7 billion
  • General Dynamics — $10.8 billion
  • Lockheed Martin — $2.1 billion
  • Boeing — $105 million

These enormous contracts create obvious incentives for these companies to lobby for more government expenditures on Armageddon, and they assiduously do so. Indeed, lobbying unquestionably is the most profitable investment these companies make. According to ICAN’s report, for every $1 they spent on lobbying, they received $239 in nuclear weapon contracts.

The specifics are notable here. Northrop reported $13.3 million in lobbying expenses in 2020. Last year it was formally awarded the enormous initial contract to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile system called the “Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.” It will inevitably receive the contract for the entire program, estimated to be worth $85 billion over its life. In discussion on the GBSD, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition stated that he didn’t see the pandemic affecting nuclear spending.

There is also much more to lobbying than that which goes by the name. In the 2006 documentary “Why We Fight,” journalist Gwynne Dyer explained that President Dwight Eisenhower considered the military-industrial complex actually to have three components: the military, defense corporations, and Congress. But now, Dyer said, there’s a fourth: think tanks, which generally push their funders’ policies under a thin veneer of scholarship.

According to the report, companies profiting from nuclear weapons contributed $5-10 million to think tanks in 2020. Northrop alone spent at least $2 million funding nine of them, including the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution, the Center for a New American Security, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

However, ICAN did not produce the report for passive consumption or as an inducement to despair. Instead, it is part of a sophisticated strategy to eventually make nuclear weapons as taboo worldwide as chemical and biological weapons are now.

ICAN was a key force behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted in 2017 at the United Nations. It makes illegal any activities related to nuclear weapons and has been signed by 86 countries and ratified by 54. It entered into force this past January.

None of the nuclear powers are signatories. Yet they need not be for the treaty to create a noose around those countries and their companies that should tighten over time. For instance, Airbus produces missiles for France’s nuclear weapons arsenal. But it is headquartered in the Netherlands, so if that country ratified the TPNW, it could no longer do so.

This financial threat has now attracted the attention of the stockholders of these nuclear corporations. Snyder notes that a 2020 Northrop shareholders resolution stated that the company “has at least $68.3 billion in outstanding nuclear weapons contracts, which are now illegal under international law,” and it received 22 percent support. A similar Lockheed resolution got over 30 percent support. The KBC Group, the 15th-largest bank in Europe, has announced that it will not fund any nuclear weapon-related activity because of the TPNW.

Success here will obviously require a long-term campaign and increased activism across the world. But the trajectory is headed in the right direction. “The days of spending with impunity on WMD,” believes Snyder, “are numbered.”

June 8, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

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