Myanmar signs new nuclear energy agreement with Russia. The Intergovernmental Agreement on cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will see the two countries working together on the use of nuclear technology in a number of areas, including training of a workforce for building and running a small modular reactor.
“Based on the information available as of December 31, 2022, the United States cannot certify the Russian Federation to be in compliance with the terms of the New START Treaty.”
This finding was not unexpected. In August 2022, in response to a US treaty notification expressing an intent to conduct an inspection, Russia invoked an infrequently used treaty clause “temporarily exempting” all of its facilities from inspection. At the time, Russia attempted to justify its actions by citing “incomplete” work regarding Covid-19 inspection protocols and perceived “unilateral advantages” created by US sanctions; however, the State Department’s report assesses that this is “false:”
Contrary to Russia’s claim that Russian inspectors cannot travel to the United States to conduct inspections, Russian inspectors can in fact travel to the United States via commercial flights or authorized inspection airplanes. There are no impediments arising from U.S. sanctions that would prevent Russia’s full exercise of its inspection rights under the Treaty. The United States has been extremely clear with the Russian Federation on this point.”
Instead, the report suggests that the primary reason for suspending inspections “centered on Russian grievances regarding U.S. and other countries’ measures imposed on Russia in response to its unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Echoing the findings of the report, on February 1st, Cara Abercrombie, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for defense policy and arms control for the White House National Security Council, stated in a briefing at the Arms Control Association that the United States had done everything in its power to remove pandemic- and sanctions-related limitations for Russian inspectors, and that “[t]here are absolutely no barriers, as far as we’re concerned, to facilitating Russian inspections.”
Nonetheless, Russia has still not rescinded its exemption and also indefinitely postponed a scheduled meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission in November. In a similar vein, this is believed to be tied to US support for Ukraine, as indicated by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who said that arms control “has been held hostage by the U.S. line of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia,” and that Russia was “ready for such a scenario” if New START expired without a replacement.
These two actions, according to the United States, constitute a state of “noncompliance” with specific clauses of New START. It is crucial to note, however, the distinction between findings of “noncompliance” (serious, yet informal assessments, often with a clear path to reestablishing compliance), “violation” (requiring a formal determination), and “material breach” (where a violation rises to the level of contravening the object or purpose of the treaty).
It is also important to note that the United States’ findings of Russian noncompliance are not related to the actual number of deployed Russian warheads and launchers. While the report notes that the lack of inspections means that “the United States has less confidence in the accuracy of Russia’s declarations,” the report is careful to note that “While this is a serious concern, it is not a determination of noncompliance.” The report also assesses that “Russia was likely under the New START warhead limit at the end of 2022” and that Russia’s noncompliance does not threaten the national security interests of the United States.
The high stakes of failure: worst-case force projections after New START’s expiry
Both the US and Russia have meticulously planned their respective nuclear modernization programs based on the assumption that neither country will exceed the force levels currently dictated by New START. Without a deal after 2026, that assumption immediately disappears; both sides would likely default to mutual distrust amid fewer verifiable data points, and our discourse would be dominated by worst case thinking about how both countries’ arsenals would grow in the future……………………………………………………….
Cameco Corp. said it agreed to terms with SE NNEGC Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned nuclear energy utility, to provide natural uranium hexafluoride, or UF(6), through 2035.
“Key commercial terms, such as pricing mechanism, volume and tenor, have been agreed to, but the contract is subject to finalization, which is anticipated in the first quarter of 2023,” Cameco said.
The deal, which runs from 2024 to 2035, will see all deliveries in the form of UF(6). “The contract will contain a required degree of flexibility, given present circumstances in Ukraine,” Cameco said.
The agreement will see Cameco supply 100% of Energoatom’s UF(6) requirements for the nine nuclear reactors at the Rivne, Khmelnytskyy and South Ukraine nuclear power plants. The deal also has an option for Cameco to supply six reactors at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, should it return to Energoatom’s operation, the companies said.
On February 16, 2022, a full week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army began the heavy bombardment of the area (in east Ukraine) occupied by mainly ethnic Russians. Officials from the Observer Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were located in the vicinity at the time and kept a record of the shelling as it took place. What the OSCE discovered was that the bombardment dramatically intensified as the week went on until it reached a peak on February 19, when a total of 2,026 artillery strikes were recorded. Keep in mind, the Ukrainian Army was, in fact, shelling civilian areas along the Line of Contact that were occupied by other Ukrainians.
We want to emphasize that the officials from the OSCE were operating in their professional capacity gathering first-hand evidence of shelling in the area. What their data shows is that Ukrainian Forces were bombing and killing their own people.This has all been documented and has not been challenged.
So, the question we must all ask ourselves is this: Is the bombardment and slaughter of one’s own people an ‘act of war’?
We think it is.And if we are right, then we must logically assume that the war began before the Russian invasion (which was launched a full week later) We must also assume that Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” was not unprovoked at all but was the appropriate humanitarian response to the deliberate killing of civilians. In order to argue that the Russian invasion was ‘not provoked’, we would have to say that firing over 4,000 artillery shells into towns and neighborhoods where women and children live, is not a provocation? Who will defend that point of view?
No one, because it’s absurd. The killing of civilians in the Donbas was a clear provocation, a provocation that was aimed at goading Russia into a war. And –as we said earlier– the OSCE had monitors on the ground who provided full documentation of the shelling as it took place, which is as close to ironclad, eyewitness testimony as you’re going to get.
This, of course, is a major break with the “official narrative” which identifies Russia as the perpetrator of hostilities. But, as we’ve shown, that simply isn’t the case. The official narrative is wrong. Even so, it might not surprise you to know that most of the mainstream media completely omitted any coverage of the OSCE’s fact-finding activities in east Ukraine. The one exception to was Reuters that published a deliberately opaque account published on February 18 titled “Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling”. Here’s an excerpt:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced alarm on Friday over a sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine and accused the OSCE special monitoring mission of glossing over what he said were Ukrainian violations of the peace process….
Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the Donbass could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine. Tensions are already high over a Russian military buildup to the north, east and south of Ukraine.
“We are very concerned by the reports of recent days – yesterday and the day before there was a sharp increase in shelling using weapons that are prohibited under the Minsk agreements,” Lavrov said, referring to peace accords aimed at ending the conflict. “So far we are seeing the special monitoring mission is doing its best to smooth over all questions that point to the blame of Ukraine’s armed forces,” he told a news conference.
Ukraine’s military on Friday denied violating the Minsk peace process and accused Moscow of waging an information war to say that Kyiv was shelling civilians, allegations it said were lies and designed to provoke it.” (Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling, Reuters)
Notice the clever way that Reuters frames its coverage so that the claims of the Ukrainian military are given as much credibility as the claims of the Russian Foreign Minister. What Reuters fails to point out is that the OSCE’s report verifies Lavrov’s version of events while disproving the claims of the Ukrainians. It is the job of a journalist to make the distinction between fact and fiction but, once again, we see how agenda-driven news is not meant to inform but to mislead.
The point we are trying to make is simple: The war in Ukraine was not launched by a tyrannical Russian leader (Putin) bent on rebuilding the Soviet Empire. That narrative is a fraud that was cobbled together by neocon spin-meisters trying to build public support for a war with Russia. The facts I am presenting here can be identified on a map where the actual explosions took place and were then recorded by officials whose job was to fulfill that very task. Can you see the difference between the two? In one case, the storyline rests on speculation, conjecture and psychobabble; while in the other, the storyline is linked to actual events that took place on the ground and were catalogued by trained professionals in the field. In which version of events do you have more confidence?
Bottom line: Russia did not start the war in Ukraine. That is a fake narrative. The responsibility lies with the Ukrainian Army and their leaders in Kiev.
And here’s something else that is typically excluded in the media’s selective coverage. Before Putin sent his tanks across the border into Ukraine, he invoked United Nations Article 51 which provides a legal justification for military intervention. Of course, the United States has done this numerous times to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to its numerous military interventions. But, in this case, you can see where the so-called Responsibility To Protect (R2P) could actually be justified, after all, by most estimates, the Ukrainian army has killed over 14,000 ethnic Russians since the US-backed coup 8 years ago. If ever there was a situation in which a defensive military operation could be justified, this was it. But that still doesn’t fully explain why Putin invoked UN Article 51. For that, we turn to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who explained it like this:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation”…. under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.… Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led “special military operation.” [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]
..The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction.
While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground.” (“Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression”, Consortium News)
Here’s a bit more background from an article by foreign policy analyst Danial Kovalik:
“One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev… claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more … The government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples … precisely because of their ethnicity. ..
While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.
In light of the above, it is my assessment.. that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself.” (“Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”, RT)
So, has anyone in the western media reported on the fact that Putin invoked UN Article 51 before he launched the Special Military Operation?
No, they haven’t, because to do so, would be an admission that Putin’s military operation complies with international law. Instead, the media continues to spread the fiction that ‘Hitler-Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet empire’, a claim for which there is not a scintilla of evidence. Keep in mind, Putin’s operation does not involve the toppling of a foreign government to install a Moscow-backed stooge, or the arming and training a foreign military that will be used as proxies to fight a geopolitical rival, or the stuffing a country with state-of-the-art weaponry to achieve his own narrow strategic objectives, or perpetrating terrorist acts of industrial sabotage (Nord-Stream 2) to prevent the economic integration of Asia and Europe. No, Putin hasn’t engaged in any of these things. But Washington certainly has, because Washington isn’t constrained by international law. In Washington’s eyes, international law is merely an inconvenience that is dismissively shrugged off whenever unilateral action is required. But Putin is not nearly as cavalier about such matters, in fact, he has a long history of playing by the rules because he believes the rules help to strengthen everyone’s security. And, he’s right; they do.
And that’s why he invoked Article 51 before he sent the troops to help the people in the Donbas. He felt he had a moral obligation to lend them his assistance but wanted his actions to comply with international law. We think he achieved both.
Here’s something else you will never see in the western media. You’ll never see the actual text of Putin’s security demands that were made a full 2 months before the war broke out. And, the reason you won’t see them, is because his demands were legitimate, reasonable and necessary. All Putin wanted was basic assurances that NATO was not planning to put its bases, armies and missile sites on Russia’s border. In other words, he was doing the same thing that all responsible leaders do to defend the safety and security of their own people.
Here are a few critical excerpts from the text of Putin’s proposal to the US and NATO: [on original]………………………….
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Putin was worried about. He was worried about NATO expansion and, in particular, the emergence of a hostile military alliance backed by Washington-groomed Nazis occupying territory on his western flank. Was that unreasonable of him? Should he have embraced these US-backed Russophobes and allowed them to place their missiles on his border? Would that have been the prudent thing to do?
So, what can we deduce from Putin’s list of demands?
First, we can deduce that he is not trying to reconstruct the Soviet empire as the MSM relentlessly insists. The list focuses exclusively on security-related demands, nothing else.
Second, it proves that the war could have easily been avoided had Zelensky simply maintained the status quo and formally announced that Ukraine would remain neutral. In fact, Zelensky actually agreed to neutrality in negotiations with Moscow in March, but Washington prevented the Ukrainian president from going through with the deal which means that the Biden administration is largely responsible for the ongoing conflict. (RT published an article today stating clearly that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine in March but the deal was intentionally scuttled by the US and UK. Washington wanted a war.)
Third, it shows that Putin is a reasonable leader whose demands should have been eagerly accepted. Was it unreasonable of Putin to ask that “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and… military alliances.. in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security”? Was it unreasonable for him the ask that “The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories”?
Where exactly are the “unreasonable demands” that Putin supposedly made?
There aren’t any. Putin made no demands that the US wouldn’t have made if ‘the shoe was on the other foot.’
Forth, it proves that the war is not a struggle for Ukrainian liberation or democracy. That’s hogwash. It is a war that is aimed at “weakening” Russia and eventually removing Putin from power. Those are the overriding goals. What that means is that Ukrainian soldiers are not dying for their country, they are dying for an elitist dream to expand NATO, crush Russia, encircle China, and extend US hegemony for another century. Ukraine is merely the battlefield on which the Great Power struggle is being fought.
There are number points we are trying to make in this article:
Who started the war? Answer– Ukraine started the war
Was the Russian invasion a violation of international law? Answer– No, the Russian invasion should be approved under United Nations Article 51
Could the war have been avoided if Ukraine declared neutrality and met Putin’s reasonable demands? Answer– Yes, the war could have been avoided
The last point deals with the Minsk Treaty and how the dishonesty of western leaders is going to effect the final settlement in Ukraine. I am convinced that neither Washington nor the NATO allies have any idea of how severely international relations have been decimated by the Minsk betrayal. In a world where legally binding agreements can be breezily discarded in the name of political expediency, the only way to settle disputes is through brute force. Did anyone in Germany, France or Washington think about this before they acted? (But, first, some background on Minsk.)
The aim of the Minsk agreement was to end the fighting between the Ukrainian army and ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine. It was the responsibility of the four participants in the treaty– Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine– to ensure that both sides followed the terms of the deal. But in December, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with a German magazine, that there was never any intention of implementing the deal, instead, the plan was to use the time to make Ukraine stronger in order to prepare for a war with Russia. So, clearly, from the very beginning, the United States intended to provoke a war with Russia.
On September 5, 2014, Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia all signed Minsk, but the treaty failed and the fighting resumed. On February 12, 2015, Minsk 2 was signed, but that failed, as well. Please, watch this short segment on You Tube by Amit Sengupta who gives a brief rundown of Minsk and its implications: (I transcribed the piece myself and any mistakes are mine.) …………………. [Transcription on original]
There’s no way to overstate the importance of the Minsk betrayal or the impact it’s going to have on the final settlement in Ukraine. When trust is lost, nations can only ensure their security through brute force. What that means is that Russia must expand its perimeter as far as is necessary to ensure that it will remain beyond the enemy’s range of fire. (Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev have already indicated that they plan to do just that.) Second, the new perimeter must be permanently fortified with combat troops and lethal weaponry that are kept on hairtrigger alert. When treaties become vehicles for political opportunism, then nations must accept a permanent state of war. This is the world that Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and the US created by opting to use ‘the cornerstone of international relations’ (Treaties) to advance their own narrow warmongering objectives.
We just wonder if anyone in Washington realizes whet the fu** they’ve done?
Russia Loses World’s Largest Nuclear Submarine, NewsWeek, BY BRENDAN COLE ON 2/6/23
The Russian Navy has confirmed it has decommissioned its nuclear-powered strategic submarine Dmitry Donskoy, which formed part of Moscow’s formidable Cold War weapon system.
There had been speculation for months about the fate of the submarine, which had been launched in 1980 and whose NATO reporting name was Typhoon.
In 2021, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported that the vessel would stay in service until 2026.
It was the first of six Akula-class Northern Fleet submarines laid down at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on the White Sea which were commissioned in the 1980s.
At 574 feet long, Dmitry Donskoy‘s status as the world’s largest submarine was overtaken by the 608-feet-long Belgorod nuclear submarine, which was commissioned in July 2022. Dmitry Donskoy had a displacement of around 53,000 tons and was modernized and re-equipped in 2002 with the “Bulava” missile.
While it was reported in July 2022 that the vessel had been terminated, no official confirmation was expected until the end of the year. The vessel’s last reported activity was in the sea trials of SSN Krasnoyarsk in September 2022.
On Monday, Vladimir Maltsev, head of the Russian Movement for Navy Support, told TASS that the vessel had been “decommissioned” and would “await utilization at a naval base in Severodvinsk together with two other units of this project.”
The class was the backbone of the Soviet Union’s second-strike nuclear deterrent, with 20 massive R-39 “Rif” SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missile) having up to 200 warheads in total. The Drive described it as the “most deadly single weapon system” Russia had designed in the Cold War. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
This commentary is by Ann Darling of Easthampton, Massachusetts, a climate activist and retired social worker. She lived for 35 years in the Brattleboro area, but after getting her son through high school, she left to be farther away from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. She is a member of the Citizens Awareness Network.
In a recent commentary, Tom Evslin outlines what he sees as hopeful approaches to addressing our energy needs and addressing climate change.
While I agree there are many things in development that appear promising, I don’t agree that nuclear power should be part of “the answer.”
The climate chaos we are already experiencing is just the beginning. We have already wasted a lot of time. The litmus test of what makes a good energy source to address climate change has at least four criteria.
In addition to using less energy, we need to focus on energy sources that are:
1) quickly built and brought to scale.
2) low-carbon, with minimal environmental impact, including non-carbon pollutants.
3) relatively inexpensive so we can make the biggest impact within our limited resources .
4) safe.
In addition, these need to be deployed in an environmentally just way, but that’s another commentary.
No matter the energy source, we always should consider its entire fuel chain or life-span cycle, from extraction to power generation to waste, not just its impact at the point of power generation. This is an incredibly important mind shift we all need to make.
There is no energy source that does not create problems somewhere in its fuel-chain life span. The issue is, how much and what kind? Can the earth heal from these harmful impacts, and how can people help that happen?
Solar, wind, geothermal, storage, etc., paired with efficiency and conservation come close to meeting these four tests. Yes, there are problems, like the pollution caused by lithium mining and how to safely recycle the components of solar panels. So the question with them is how we can use our intelligence and resources to mitigate these harms and make them affordable and easy to access.
On the other hand, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion do not come close to meeting these tests. Fission is what runs our current nuclear reactor fleet and the still-on-the-design-table small modular reactors. Harnessing nuclear fusion, which powers our sun, has been in the spotlight lately because of a recent advance in development, but it is still decades away from being useful as a power source, if it ever will be.
Nuclear fission reactors are far from carbon-free, contrary to what nuclear industry marketing would have us believe. Once we consider the process of getting the uranium out of the ground, milling and refining it, using it, and then dealing with the waste, nuclear is a net carbon emitter. Plus, the mining, milling and refining expose communities to highly toxic materials that cause cancer and other diseases. There is always risk of nuclear catastrophe (as in Fukushima).
Places where lower-level radioactive waste from reactors goes are leaking sacrifice-zones that despoil entire regions (think Hanford, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; or Barnwell, South Carolina).
And last but not least, there is no safe place for the deadly high-level waste (“spent” fuel) to go. Plus, reactors take a really long time to build, and small modular reactors are completely untested. Nuclear is the most expensive way to generate electricity there is, and it can exist only with huge subsidies and tax credits from the government. That’s your tax dollars underwriting private industry. (And then there’s the link to nuclear weapons; the civilian nuclear power industry creates the materials that make nuclear weapons.)
Fusion? I’m sorry, but no. According to Dr. Ian Fairlie, a UK expert on radioactivity in the environment, “Fusion reactors would … be subject to most of the major problems associated with fission reactors, including large-scale cooling demands, high construction and operational costs and lengthy construction times — stretching to decades. The structure, damaged by neutron bombardment, would need to be replaced regularly, resulting in large amounts of radioactive wastes for which there is no current solution.”
We simply do not have the time to fiddle around with something that will take decades and that is quite likely not to work and/or will create huge and dangerous problems for life on earth.
Let’s be practical in the face of climate-induced threats to life on earth. We have limited resources. Every dollar that goes into perpetuating nuclear power in any form is in essence being stolen from bringing less expensive, safer, less carbon-intensive, and more quickly built energy sources to bear on the climate emergency we have created.
Nuclear power never was and is not now an answer to anything our ailing planet needs.
In December, the U.S.-based National Association of Marine Laboratories also announced its opposition to TEPCO’s plans, publishing a position paper that says “there is a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data supporting Japan’s assertion of safety” while “there is an abundance of data demonstrating serious concerns about releasing radioactively contaminated water.”
Pacific Island nations have for decades been grappling with the environmental and health consequences of Cold War-era nuclear testing in the region by the likes of the U.S. and France. Now, they worry about another kind of nuclear danger from neighbors much closer to home.
As concerns over energy security and the desire to transition away from fossil fuels pushes several Asian nations to reconsider once-scrapped nuclear power programs, there is increasing anxiety over how the waste from those facilities—depending on the methods of disposal—might impact the lives of Pacific Islanders.
Notably, in the region, Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos said in his first address to Congress in mid-2022 that he was open to adding nuclear energy to the country’s energy mix, the Indonesian government said in December it plans to build a nuclear power plant by 2039, and weeks later Japan announced that it plans to ramp up the use of nuclear energy.
Nuclear plants have long been touted as a reliable source of carbon-free energy, though many plants across the world had been shuttered in past decades over worries about the safety of nuclear waste disposal. In this new era of nuclear revival, similar uncertainties abound.
In Japan, one plant that isn’t even operational has become the frontline for the fight between activists seeking safety assurances for waste disposal and operators who are running out of space in on-site tanks to store the wastewater accumulating from keeping damaged reactors cool. Currently, Japan plans to release wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean later this year.
“It’s just horrendous to think what it might mean,” says Henry Puna, the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), a regional intergovernmental organization that has more than a dozen member countries, including, for example, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu. “The people of the Pacific are people of the ocean. The ocean is very much central to our lives, to our culture, to our livelihoods. Anything that prejudices the health of the ocean is a matter of serious concern.”
When a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami hit off the coast of Japan in 2011, it caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Since then, water is being used to cool the damaged reactors and prevent further catastrophe. Now, more than 1.3 million metric tons of radionuclide-contaminated water has been collected on site, and it continues to accumulate, as rain and groundwater seep in. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the plant, says that the storage tanks take up too much space and hinder decommissioning the plant. Japan initially said that it would begin releasing the water into the ocean in the spring of 2023. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told the media in January that the release target date is now around spring or summer, which appears to be a postponement, according to the Associated Press, due to construction delays on a pipeline and the apparent need to gain greater public support.
The plan has faced widespread opposition. Japanese fishermen, international environmentalists, and other governments in the region, including China, South Korea, and Taiwan, have all expressed concern. Some of the strongest pushback has come from Pacific Island countries, including from lawmakers, former leaders, regional fisheries management groups, and other organizations. Among those voices is the PIF, which is advocating for more time to deal with questions and concerns. Earlier this year, the PIF appointed a panel of independent global nuclear experts to help inform its members in their consultations with Japan and TEPCO. The experts have stressed that more data are needed to determine the safety of the water for disposal.
“We think that there is not enough scientific evidence to prove that the release is safe, environmentally, healthwise, and also for our economy in the Pacific,” says Puna, who is also the former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands. Until more information is shared and evaluated, he asks that Japan “please defer the discharge of the water.”
……………………………. there appears to be a major disconnect between TEPCO and others, including the PIF panel of experts—who say that they’re concerned with the adequacy, accuracy, and reliability of the data backing up the decision to release the water.
Robert H. Richmond, a research professor and the director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who is one of the panel experts, tells TIME that “the critical, foundational data upon which a sound decision could be made was either absent or, when we started getting more data,” he says, “extremely concerning.” He also casts doubt on if the IAEA is in the best position to assess the risks. “They’re an agency that has a mandate to promote the use of nuclear energy,” says Richmond, “and our mandate is to look after the people, the ocean, and the people who depend on the ocean. And our unanimous conclusion … is that this is a bad idea that is not defended properly at this point, and that there are alternatives that Japan should really be looking at.”
“One of the biggest surprises to me was the fact that the data was so sparse,” says Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, scientist-in-residence and adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who is also on the PIF panel of experts. “There were prolonged gaps in data collection, which suggests that the matter may not have been given the level of attention and importance it deserved.” He adds that only a fraction of the tanks had been sampled, and only a handful of some 60 isotopes were typically measured in the samples—fewer than he would expect for this kind of assessment. (TEPCO says that the analysis done on a sample of tanks so far is just to assess the water’s condition in storage but that, after the purification process, further measurements will be taken on all the treated water before discharge to ensure that only that which meets sufficient standards of safety is released into the ocean).
Some still fear the safety of the treated water, and the far-reaching implications if it’s dumped into the ocean. Puna points out, for example, that the waters of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean produce much of the world’s tuna. If the tuna were to be impacted, it would cause major problems for Pacific nations, for which fisheries are a significant source of income, as well as for consumers globally.
In December, the U.S.-based National Association of Marine Laboratories also announced its opposition to TEPCO’s plans, publishing a position paper that says “there is a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data supporting Japan’s assertion of safety” while “there is an abundance of data demonstrating serious concerns about releasing radioactively contaminated water.”
……………………………………. A scarring past and a new path forward
Other nuclear plants across the globe have released treated wastewater containing tritium. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA’s director general, said in 2021 that Japan’s plan is “in line with practice globally, even though the large amount of water at the Fukushima plant makes it a unique and complex case.”
But Pacific Island nations have particular reason to be anxious. There is a noxious legacy of nuclear testing in the region, and other countries have historically treated the Pacific as a dumping ground for their waste. The U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1957—and disposed of atomic waste in Runit Dome, where it’s still stored. That testing led not only to forced relocations, but also to increased rates of cancers. Today there is concern that the dome is leaking and that rising sea levels might impact its structural integrity. France also conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia.
…………………….. Rather than let dumping wastewater into the ocean become the norm, at this juncture for nuclear energy, some say it’s an opportunity to explore different ways of doing things. The panel of PIF experts has proposed several alternative solutions, including treating the water and storing it in more secure tanks to allow the tritium time to decay, or using the treated water to make concrete for use in projects that won’t have high contact with humans.
“This is not the first nuclear disaster and by no means is it going to be the last,” says Richmond. “This is an opportunity for Japan,” he says, “to do the right thing and to invest time, effort, and money into determining and coming up with new ways of handling radioactive waste and setting a new trajectory.”
The blue line at the bottom is nuclear, and not particularly sharp eyes will note that it’s trending to flat. The red line at the top is wind, water, and solar cumulative additions to annual TWh of electricity flowing into China’s grid, and not particularly sharp eyes will note it’s curving upwards.
The natural experiment of renewables vs nuclear continues in China, and it continues to unfold in renewables’ favor.
I’ve been publishing assessments of the poor performance of nuclear compared to wind and solar in China for years (2014, 2019, 2021, 2022). My premise nine years ago was a first principles assertion with limited empirical results that wind and solar would radically outstrip nuclear in China. Why? Modularity reducing long-tailed risks, as Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, global expert and go to person for megaprojects, puts it in his new book How Big Things Get Done, where he includes my assessment of the natural experiment.
Subsequent assessments found that was true. Every year, the combination of wind and solar, and usually both individually, outstripped new nuclear generation, both in raw nameplate capacity and in additional TWh of annual generation. But as Professor Mark Z. Jacobson likes to remind us, it’s not WS, it’s WWS, that is wind, water, and solar. And so, today I spent a bit of time looking at hydroelectric generation capacity additions around the world since 2000, which turned out to be almost entirely in China. Of the 132.5 GW of new big hydroelectric projects connected to the grid in the world since 2000, 113 GW were in China. Unsurprising to anyone paying the slightest attention, but still, big numbers.
But what does that mean when added to wind and solar and compared to nuclear, leveraging the 2010 to 2022 data set I already had?…………………………………….
there is an interesting question about all forms of electrical generation, which is what capacity factors they are operating at. China’s wind and solar were historically curtailed by transmission connection challenges, which have been being resolved every year. Last year’s bumper crop of offshore wind, of course, were connected with HVDC to the grid without challenges.
What about hydro? It has different challenges for capacity factors, typically having a spring spate with often far too much water to use for generation, and a fall lull where generation is low. In the case of China, the best data I have at present is from the International Hydropower Association (IHA) which lists 1,355 TWh of electrical generation from 370,160 MW of capacity in 2020. That’s a 42% capacity factor, which I used for the generation.
I was somewhat surprised by this, and would be interested in better data, should anyone have some at hand. What it does mean is that while nuclear added a total of about 243 TWh of net new electrical generation from 2010 through 2022, hydro only added about 229 TWh of new generation. It was an interesting result which I’ll spend a little time assessing in a bit. Of course, wind energy added about 711 TWh of new generation annually over that period and solar added about 474 TWh. Both outstripped nuclear and hydro.
For purposes of wind, solar, and nuclear, I’d been simply presenting the new TWh of generation added each year. But in adding water to the data set, it seemed reasonable to make it cumulative.
In the graph above , the blue line at the bottom is nuclear, and not particularly sharp eyes will note that it’s trending to flat. The red line at the top is wind, water, and solar cumulative additions to annual TWh of electricity flowing into China’s grid, and not particularly sharp eyes will note it’s curving upwards.
Poking at the disparity between additions of actual TWh by renewable generation source a bit more, there are a few things to note.
The first, of course, is that wind and solar siting is much simpler than major hydroelectric siting. They just need flattish areas with good wind and sun, and wind likes ridge lines where flat bits can be made. Big hydro needs a big river with a reasonably significant drop along its length and at least one place where it’s carved a big valley. Meandering rivers like the Mississippi need not apply, although they are much better for inland shipping. The combination means that it’s typically easier to get materials and workers for wind and solar farms to the sites, easier to move construction vehicles around them and the like.
And hydroelectric reservoirs have another reality: you can’t live or work where they are. Unlike solar farms which can simply be built around existing buildings or roads, or wind farms where turbines can be built in the non-productive corners of farm fields, hydroelectric reservoirs displace everybody and everything where they exist. …………………………………
Still, China has managed to construct and attach 16 of them [hydro-electric dams] to the grid since 2000. I was aware of the Three Gorges Dam, of course, but was unaware that it was a small portion of the hydroelectric China had constructed. And while each project’s cost and schedule results vs plans are unavailable, China did succeed in building them.
ANTI-nuclear campaigners have estimated 11 billion fish off the West Somerset coastline could be killed during the operating life of the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
The Stop Hinkley group said the slaughter would arise if EDF was allowed to ‘wriggle out’ of planning conditions which required acoustic fish deterrents (AFDs) to be fitted to water intake heads.
EDF has to date refused to fit the AFDs and is consulting the Environment Agency (EA) with a view to trying to have the condition dropped.
Stop Hinkley spokeswoman Katy Attwater said the 11 billion figure was calculated over the 60-year lifespan of Hinkley C.
She said affected common fish species would include river lamprey, twaite shad, sprat, herring and the common goby, while rarer species which would be killed included salmon, cod, anchovy, John dory, crucian carp, silver bream, and sea lamprey.
Ms Attwater said the fish migrated from the Bristol Channel to nine main rivers, the Ely, Taff, Rhymney, Ebbw, Usk, Wye, Severn, Avon, and Parrett.
She said particularly hard hit would be the elver migration from the Atlantic, with eels being sucked into the Hinkley intakes and only comparatively few making it to the Somerset Levels and other rivers, which would be their homes for the next 20 years before their return journey past the intake heads to travel back to their Sargasso Sea breeding grounds.
Ms Attwater said EDF’s request three years ago to not have to install the AFDs was rejected by the Environment Agency, a public inquiry, and DEFRA Secretary George Eustice.
“Yet, EDF are still trying to wriggle out of it and waste all the time, money, and effort spent by the EA, the Severn Estuary interest groups, and DEFRA to defend one of the most important breeding grounds for British fish,” she said.
The estuary is a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation(SAC) and has been given an internationally important Ramsar site designation………………………………………….
Biden and Blinken must not let the spy balloon controversy stand in the way of talks on nuclear crisis management and arms control.
Foreign Policy By Sahil Shah, a Senior Fellow and Program Manager at the Council on Strategic Risks’ Janne Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons. 6 Feb23
Shortly before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was slated to depart for Beijing on the Biden administration’s first cabinet-level visit, the trip was postponed. The last-minute schedule change came after a Chinese surveillance balloon was confirmed to be floating above sensitive U.S. military sites, including potentially an active nuclear missile silo field in Montana. Over the weekend, the balloon was shot down by a U.S. F-22 fighter jet once the expected debris no longer posed a threat to civilians.
The incident is reminiscent of those that occurred during the Cold War involving the United States and the Soviet Union—and it comes at a time when many are debating whether Washington and Beijing are now headed toward a similar relationship. Blinken’s now-postponed visit was an attempt to follow up on the Biden-Xi meeting at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last year. Encouragingly, the summit provided the best recent opportunity for diplomacy between the United States and China—one that could provide some answers on how the two countries can best avoid a “new Cold War” and reduce the risks of unnecessary conflict and inadvertent escalation.
As was true during the Cold War, spy balloons are not the only things looming over the fraught relationship between the United States and China—nuclear weapons are, too. In addition to ever-increasing tensions over Taiwan, it is no secret that China’s ambition for a diversified nuclear arsenal and wider military modernization is accelerating, with Beijing expanding strategic and conventional forces to back up its “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
Since university researchers made it public two years ago that China is developing extensive missile silo fields and Beijing shocked U.S. intelligence services by testing a hypersonic fractional orbital bombardment system just weeks later, there has been a growing conversation on how Washington can adequately deter Beijing. However, there is another side that cannot be ignored: The United States and China must return to talks at the earliest available opportunity to discuss their shared responsibility to reduce the risk of nuclear war through crisis management and arms control.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday the first transfer of assets, confiscated as part of anti-Russia sanctions, to Ukraine to pay for the country’s reconstruction.
The measure affects $5.4 million expropriated from Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev on charges of sanctions evasion, according to the top official.
“With my authorization today, forfeited funds will next be transferred to the State Department to support the people of Ukraine,” Garland said, adding that the funds were confiscated following an indictment against Malofeyev, issued last April.
Earlier this week, a federal court in New York allowed prosecutors to confiscate $5.4 million belonging to Malofeyev, paving the way for the funds to be used to help rebuild Ukraine.
In June, millions were seized from a US bank account belonging to Malofeyev, against whom the US Treasury Department announced sanctions in April “for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly” the Russian government.
The businessman, who owns Russian Orthodox Christian channel Tsargrad TV, has been on the US sanctions list since 2014. Malofeyev previously claimed that he had no holdings in the West since then.
In December, US President Joe Biden signed legislation allowing the Department of Justice to transfer some forfeited assets to the State Department to aid Ukraine. US law restricts how the government can use such assets.
Foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell sees no good alternative to reviving the nuclear deal even as the Biden administration shifts focus
KYIV, Ukraine—The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, is refusing to give up on efforts to rescue the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, even as Tehran cracks down on protesters at home and helps Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Poland eyes boost for nuclear energy in EU power market reform, Nasdaq February 06, 2023 — by Kate Abnett for Reuters
Poland has urged the European Union to use upcoming reforms to Europe’s electricity market to do more to support investments in nuclear energy, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The European Union is set to propose a power market upgrade next month, to attempt to avoid a repeat of last year when cuts to Russian gas supply sent European power prices soaring, since gas plants often set overall electricity prices in the current EU system.
“We must ensure a positive regulatory environment for investing in all zero- and low emission technologies. This is especially important for nuclear power projects,” Poland said in a paper shared with EU policymakers, adding that nuclear projects typically require high upfront investments.
The call from Warsaw comes as countries are squaring off over the role for nuclear energy in other EU policies. Negotiations this week on new EU renewable energy targets were cancelled amid a disagreement over whether to expand the targets to include hydrogen produced with nuclear power. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/poland-eyes-boost-for-nuclear-energy-in-eu-power-market-reform
It is up to the government in Kiev to decide how to use new rockets being delivered for the US-supplied HIMARS launchers, the Pentagon said on Friday. The statement is a confirmation that the latest batch of munitions the American taxpayers are funding will include Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB).
The Boeing-manufactured munitions consist of a rocket motor mated with an airplane bomb, with an estimated range of up to 150 kilometers. While Friday’s announcement listed “additional ammunition” for the HIMARS and “precision-guided rockets,” Brigadier-General Patrick Ryder told reporters that this indeed included the GLSDB, confirming the information leaked to Reuters earlier this week.
Ryder also confirmed that the US won’t stand in the way of Ukrainians using the missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
“When it comes to Ukrainian plans on operations, clearly that is their decision. They are in the lead for those,” he said on Friday. “So, I’m not going to talk about or speculate about potential future operations, but again, all along, we’ve been working with them to provide them with capabilities that will enable them to be effective on the battlefield.”
The GLDSB are produced by Boeing in cooperation with Sweden’s Saab AB, and combine the GBU-39 small-diameter bomb with the M26 rocket motor. It was unclear how many of the munitions the Pentagon intended to send, or whether they would come from the US military stockpile or need to be freshly produced.
Reuters claimed to have seen a Boeing document saying the first deliveries could be “as early as spring 2023.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg cited unnamed officials who said the timeline could be as long as nine months, depending on when the US Air Force issues the contract. Bloomberg also reported the GLSDB order would account for $200 million of the $1.75 billion in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, referring to contracts for weapons and ammunition not coming out of the Pentagon stockpile.
Whenever the missiles actually arrive, Russia has already hinted at how it will respond. On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin tasked the military with “eliminating any possibility” of Ukrainian artillery strikes on Russian territory. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on Thursday that Moscow will “push back” the Ukrainian troops to a range at which they will not be a threat.
“The longer range the weapons supplied to the Kiev regime have, the further the troops will need to be moved,” Lavrov said.
Ukraine has used the US-supplied HIMARS launchers against both military targets and civilians in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye. Kiev has repeatedly asked for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets, which have a range of some 300 kilometers.
Moscow has repeatedly warned Washington that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine risks crossing Russia’s “red lines” and involving the US and NATO in the conflict directly. The US and its allies insist they are not parties to the hostilities, but continue to arm Kiev. By the Pentagon’s own admission, the US has committed $32 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
