Illinois nuclear power stations’future hangs in the balance, awaiting decision on taxpayer subsidies.
Fate of Illinois nuclear plants in balance after PJM auction fail and stalled subsidy plan. Utility Dive June 7, 2021 By Scott Voorhis
Dive Brief:
- Exelon Corp. reports that three of its nuclear plants in Illinois failed to clear the PJM Interconnection’s capacity auction last week.
- Exelon, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealed that its Bryon, Dresden and Quad Cities nuclear plants in Illinois all failed to sell their power at the PJM auction, losing out to other power plants and energy resources. Bryon and Dresden are currently slated to be retired this fall, with Quad Cities remaining open thanks to previously awarded subsidies from the state of Illinois.
The fate of Illinois’ nuclear power sector, meanwhile, remains in the balance, as an impasse drags on in the state legislature over an energy bill that would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the sector………….. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/fate-of-illinois-nuclear-plants-in-balance-after-pjm-auction-fail-and-stall/601324/
‘Koeberg Nuclear Plant is like an old car that simply can’t be kept on the road’
Cape Talk, 7 June 2021, by Barbara Friedman Refilwe Moloto speaks to Hilton Trollip, a research fellow in energy at UCT’s Global Risk Governance Programme.
- Koeberg GM suspended but energy expert says the nuclear power station is past its sell-by date
- Researcher Hilton Trollip is skeptical about refurbishing Koeberg
- All coal-firing and nuclear plants need to end and move over to renewable sources, says Trollip
On Friday the general manager of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station was replaced by Eskom’s Chief Nuclear Officer. Velaphi Ntuli has been suspended for operational reasons.
RELATED: Eskom suspends Koeberg Power Station GM for ‘performance-related issues’
One of those being that one of Eskom’s biggest generating units with a capacity of 900MW, Koeberg Unit 1 has been on an outage since January 2021.
Just how concerned should we be as we head into winter, and at the same time, try to revive our economy?
We don’t know what’s happening inside Koeberg because we have no information on that, but what we do know is that Eskom is sitting with a power station fleet that is 30, 40, and 50 years old.
Hilton Trollip, Research Fellow – Global Risk Governance Programme UCT
Koeberg was built in 1985 and reaches the end of its design life in 2024, he notes.
It’s like a 20 or 30-year-old car. There comes a stage when it simply can’t be kept on the road, or to keep it on the road is too expensive or you are going to have regular breakdowns.
…………….Should the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station be given a longer lease on life?
There are plans to refurbish it, but I am skeptical about the wisdom of that. I am an engineer and everybody knows, things wear out, including power stations. Hilton Trollip, Research Fellow – Global Risk Governance Programme UCT
He says the government as a whole has not taken on board the fact that this energy era has to come to an end and be replaced with renawables……….. https://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/418543/koeberg-nuclear-plant-is-like-an-old-car-that-simply-can-t-be-kept-on-the-road
Old nuclear grinding to a halt in Britain
nuClear news, No 1333 5 June 21 In February it was reported that Centrica had suspended the sale of its nuclear business. Centrica owns a 20% interest in the UK’s 8.25 GW of operational nuclear power generation fleet. In 2018 it announced it was looking for a buyer for the stake. The Company continues to look at options, but the divestment process has now been paused mainly because of the graphite cracking issue at Hunterston and Hinkley and pipe corrosion at Dungeness.
The company’s nuclear output for 2020 was down 10% year on year to 9.134 TWh, while the achieved price was up 4% to £51.30/MWh. Centrica’s nuclear segment made an operating loss of £17 million, down from a £17 million operating profit in 2019. A £525 million impairment charge on power assets included £481 million relating to nuclear, “largely as a result of a reduction in price forecasts and availability issues at the Hunterston B, Dungeness B and Hinkley Point B power stations.” (1)
Dungeness
EDF Energy is reported to be exploring a range of scenarios for Dungeness B, including bringing forward its decommissioning date of 2028. The Company may decide to start defuelling the reactors seven years early unless a number of “significant and ongoing technical challenges” are overcome.
On 27 August 2018 Dungeness B shut down Reactor 22 for its planned statutory outage. On 23 September 2018 Reactor 21 was also shut down for the planned double reactor outage. Both reactors have been shut since while a multi-million-pound maintenance programme was carried out. This work was due to be completed last year but that timeline changed to August 2021 following a series of delays.
Now EDF say the ongoing challenges and risks “make the future both difficult and uncertain”. As a result, the energy company is now exploring a range of options – including shutting the station down later this year, seven years ahead of schedule. A statement from EDF reads:
“Dungeness B power station last generated electricity in September 2018 and is currently forecast to return to service in August 2021. The station has a number of unique, significant and ongoing technical challenges that continue to make the future both difficult and uncertain. Many of these issues can be explained by the fact that Dungeness was designed in the 1960s as a prototype and suffered from very challenging construction and commissioning delays. We expect to have the technical information required to make a decision in the next few months, as it is important we bring clarity to the more than 800 people that work at the station, and who support it from other locations, as well as to government and all those with a stake in the station’s future.”
EDF Energy said it has spent more than £100 million on the plant during its current outage. (2)
EDF’s latest announcement was that Reactor 21 might restart on June 6, 2022 instead of Aug. 2 this year and Reactor 22 reactor might restart on May 27, 2022 instead of July 23 this year. (3) Dungeness B was the first AGR to be ordered in 1965. It was expected to begin operation in 1970/1, but didn’t produce commercial electricity until 1989. It is thought to have exceeded its budget by 400%. (4)
Hunterston
In April the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) gave EDF permission for reactors 3 and 4 at the Hunterston to return to service for a limited period of operation after scrutiny of EDF’s safety case. Operation is permitted for up to a total of 16.7 terawatt days for reactor 3 and 16.52 terawatt days for reactor 4 – approximately six month’s of operation for each. This will be the final period of operation before the reactors are shut-down and the spent fuel removed. (5)
Reactor 3 has already re-started but Reactor 4 is not expected to be back on-line until 9th June. The end date for Hunterston B will be 7 January 2022 at the latest.
Hinkley Point B
On 17th March Hinkley Point B’s two reactors were granted permission by ONR to restart. Reactor 4 and Reactor 3 were taken offline on 21 February and 8 June 2020, respectively, for a series of planned inspections of the graphite core. The company plans to run Hinkley’s two reactors for six months, pause for further inspections and, subject to ONR approval, generate power for a second six-month period. Last November EDF announced that Hinkley Point B would operate no later than July 2022 before moving into the defuelling phase. EDF has spent £3 million over the past year upgrading the plant while detailed assessments have been completed on the graphite in the nuclear reactors. (6)
Sizewell B
EDF Energy extended the outage at Sizewell B by three months to carry out ‘additional work’. The reactor went offline for planned refuelling and maintenance work on April 16, initially scheduled to end on May 29. This has been updated to 30th August following additional work required on some components identified during the shutdown. (7) This is because some steel components are wearing out more quickly than expected, forcing EDF to carry out lengthy unscheduled repairs. (8)
Plant Life Extensions
A look at the age structure of existing nuclear power plants shows the importance of analysing risks of life-time extension and long-term operation. Some of the world’s oldest plants are located in Europe. Of the 141 reactors in Europe, only one reactor came into operation in the last decade, and more than 80 percent of the reactors have been running for more than 30 years. Nuclear power plants were originally designed to operate for 30 to 40 years. Thus, the operating life-time of many plants are approaching this limit, or has already exceeded it. The ageing of nuclear power plants leads to a significantly increased risk of severe accidents and radioactive releases.
A new study has analysed the risks of life-time extensions of ageing nuclear power plants. At present, life-time extensions in Europe do not have to be comprehensively relicensed according
to the state of the art in science and technology. Time limited licenses can be extended by decision of the competent authorities. However, such decisions do not meet the requirements of Nuclear Power Plant licensing procedures in regard to public participation. More often than not environmental impact assessments with public participation are not carried out. However, the situation has changed with the ruling of the European Court of Justice of 29th of July 2019 on the life-time extension of the Doel NPP (Belgium) and the new guidance under the ESPOO Convention. Accordingly, environmental impact assessments with transboundary public participation are now required for life-time extensions.
However, there are still no binding assessment standards for life-time extensions. It is still up to each regulatory authority to decide what and how to assess. In particular, the authorities are not obliged to carry out a comprehensive licensing procedure in which all safety issues are comprehensively examined according to the current state of knowledge. (9) https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/nuClearNewsNo133.pdf
Progressive Democrats slam Joe Biden’s about-face on nuclear weapons spending
Left slams Biden’s nuclear weapons budget Politico, By BRYAN BENDER 06/03/2021
ABOUT-FACE? Biden ran on a platform opposing new nuclear weapons, but his first defense budget goes all in on the Trump-era expansion, including maintaining plans for two new weapons. And leading Democrats and arms control groups are angry at what they see as a betrayal, Lara, Connor and your Morning D correspondent report for Pros.
A number of progressive Democrats, including those who have proposed legislation to curtail several nuclear projects, sounded emboldened. “We must instead spend money on threats that Americans are actually facing like pandemics and climate change, instead of on new destabilizing weapons when we can extend the lifespan of the ones we already have for much cheaper,” progressive Rep. Ro Khanna said in a statement.
Rep. John Garamendi, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO he also “strongly” believes “the United States needs to alter its modernization strategy from one that’s predicated on dominance to one that is based on deterrence.”
The strongest backlash came from disarmament advocates, who said they were expecting Biden to live up to his word. “President Biden ran on a campaign to reverse the budget and outrageous policies put forward by the Trump administration,” the Council for a Livable World said in a statement. “However, this budget expands nearly every nuclear program put forward by that administration. This is not acceptable.”
As “a long-time supporter of arms control and nuclear threat reduction,” the group said, Biden “can — and should — do better.”
Biden told the group during the campaign that “our current arsenal of weapons … is sufficient to meet our deterrence and alliance requirements.” The Democratic Party platform in 2020 also bluntly stated that “the Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.” https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-defense/2021/06/03/left-slams-bidens-nuclear-weapons-budget-795711
Japanese government is weakening its support for nuclear power.
Japan has softened its commitment to nuclear power in a draft economic
growth strategy to be finalized later this month after facing opposition
from several Cabinet ministers, government sources said Thursday.
The government has dropped the key phrase that it “will continue to seek to
make the most out of nuclear power” after protests from Environment
Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and administrative reform minister Taro Kono, who
are proponents of renewable energy in order to achieve a carbon neutral
society, according to the sources.
The draft is being compiled at a time when Tokyo is seeking to take a leading role in combating global warming
under Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The continued commitment to nuclear
energy was sought by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The draft
now says, “While reducing reliance (on nuclear power) as much as
possible, (the government will seek to) steadily proceed with the
restarting of reactors in the country while placing utmost priority on
safety.”
Japan Times 3rd June 2021
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/06/03/national/nuclear-power-commitment/
Nuclear energy gets record increase in USA’s Dept of Energy’s budget request,
World Nuclear News , 2 June 21 – The DOE’s budget request totals USD46.2 billion and includes a “record” USD1.85 billion for the Office of Nuclear Energy, which is an increase of over 23% from the enacted budget for FY21. This includes over USD370 million – up 48% from the USD250 million enacted in FY21 – for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Programme, a cost-shared programme which aims to build two demonstration advanced reactors within the next six years. It also includes USD145 million for the Versatile Test Reactor Project, which aims to provide fast neutron testing capability to aid US development of advanced nuclear reactor technology. This is more than triple the USD45 million enacted for the project in FY21.
Lakes Against Nuclear Dump (LAND) call to Boris Johnson for a moratorium on the push for ”Delivery of a Geological Disposal Facility”
Lakes Against Nuclear Dump (LAND) have sent a letter to Boris Johnson
urging him to issue a Moratorium on the push for “Delivery of a
Geological Disposal Facility” – Cumbria is in the frame once again with
the salt water infused complex geology under the Irish Sea being touted as
a “possible” site.
Radiation Free Lakeland 4th June 2021
Titanic Microbes and Request for Moratorium on “Delivery” of Deep Nuclear Waste Dump
President Biden’s budget backs new nuclear weapons, contradicting his policy while campaigning
Biden goes ‘full steam ahead’ on Trump’s nuclear expansion despite campaign rhetoric
The decision to retain a low-yield warhead that was outfitted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles in 2019, and to initiate research into a new sea-launched cruise missile, has sparked an outcry. Politico, By LARA SELIGMAN, BRYAN BENDER and CONNOR O’BRIEN, 06/02/2021
President Joe Biden ran on a platform opposing new nuclear weapons, but his first defense budget backs two controversial new projects put in motion by President Donald Trump and also doubles down on the wholesale upgrade of all three legs of the arsenal.
The decision to retain a low-yield warhead that was outfitted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles in 2019, and to initiate research into a new sea-launched cruise missile, has sparked an outcry from arms control advocates and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which is vowing a fight to reverse the momentum.
“The signal this budget is sending is full steam ahead: ‘We like what Trump was doing and we want to do more of it,’’ said Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, a leading disarmament group. “It is not the message Biden was sending as a candidate. What we have here is Biden essentially buying into the Trump nuclear plan, in some cases going beyond that.”
Emma Claire Foley, a researcher at Global Zero, a disarmament group, said the latest budget “essentially preserves the priorities of the Trump administration,” despite the new administration’s rhetoric about pursuing a more responsible nuclear posture.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden told the Council for a Livable World, an arms control group, that the current arsenal is “sufficient” and the United States does not need new nuclear weapons. In July 2019, Biden also called Trump’s move to introduce new capabilities a “bad idea.”
The Democratic Party platform in 2020 also bluntly stated that “the Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.”
The Democratic Party platform in 2020 also bluntly stated that “the Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.”
That includes modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad: the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which is the replacement for the fleet of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles; the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines; and the new B-21 stealth bomber.
The budget also proposes $609 million for the Long Range Standoff Missile, which is designed to be outfitted on bomber planes. That’s $250 million more than what was projected by the Trump administration for fiscal 2022.
Most controversially, the Pentagon’s request maintains the W76-2 low-yield warhead that is now outfitted on submarines and sets aside $5.2 million for a new sea-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Another $10 million is being requested for the warhead in the budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department………….. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/02/biden-trump-nuclear-weapons-491631
Biden previously called Submarine-Launched Nuclear Cruise Missile a ”bad idea”, but now it’s in the Budget.
U.S. Navy Funds New Submarine-Launched Nuclear Cruise Missile Biden Called ‘A Bad Idea’ .Forbes, David Hambling, 2 June 21, I’m a South London-based technology journalist, consultant and author Budget documents reveal the U.S. Navy is developing a new nuclear-armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, known as SLCM-N. President Biden described the missile as “a bad idea” when campaigning in 2019. Though an
obvious candidate for cancelation, the SLCM-N program is going ahead.
…………………Putting nuclear cruise missile on Virginia-class would be a quick and easy way of ramping up strategic capability. Currently, the only nuclear-armed subs are the fourteen Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, so SLCM-N on Virginia-class would more than double that at a stroke.
But there are downsides.
“Putting nuclear-armed missiles back on the conventional surface or attack submarine fleets of the Navy is a real cause for concern,” says Monica Montgomery, a research analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Doing so would erode the higher-priority conventional missions of the Navy by reducing the number of conventional missiles each boat could carry and increase the possibility of conflict escalation through miscalculation by blurring the line between conventional and nuclear cruise missiles on these vessels.”
“Putting nuclear-armed missiles back on the conventional surface or attack submarine fleets of the Navy is a real cause for concern,” says Monica Montgomery, a research analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Doing so would erode the higher-priority conventional missions of the Navy by reducing the number of conventional missiles each boat could carry and increase the possibility of conflict escalation through miscalculation by blurring the line between conventional and nuclear cruise missiles on these vessels.”
“Reversing the Trump administration’s plan to pursue a nuclear SLCM should be an easy choice,” Reif says.
Reif describes the SLCM-N as “a costly hedge on a hedge” – an extra backup for an already extensive and growing nuclear arsenal – making it a pointless extravagance.
Reif also notes that the nuclear capability will come at the expense of urgently needed conventional weapons.
“Arming such vessels with nuclear cruise missiles would also reduce the number of conventional missiles each boat could carry, at a time when Pentagon leaders argue that strengthening conventional deterrence is their top priority in the Asia-Pacific,” says Reif.
Biden himself noted that fielding low-yield weapons as alternatives to more powerful ballistic missiles would make the U.S. “more inclined to use them” and increase the risk of a nuclear war.
The SLCM-N project is starting small, just $15.2 million in this year’s budget compared to the billions for other nuclear programs. But if the analysts are right, the U.S. Navy is buying trouble rather than new capability. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2021/06/02/us-navy-funds-new-submarine-launched-nuclear-cruise-missile-biden-called-a-bad-idea/?sh=405441c022b2
5 Republicans and 1 Democrat – the U.S. Senate nuclear caucus – Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Coalition – bribed by nuclear weapons companies to pour $1.7trillion into new and ‘modernised’ nukes
Meet the Senate nuke caucus, busting the budget and making the world less safe, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/05/26/meet-the-senate-nuke-caucus-busting-the-budget-and-making-the-world-less-safe/ These lawmakers represent states with a direct interest in pouring billions into modernizing and building new weapons. Marcy Winograd and Medea Benjamin, MAY 26, 2021
Democrats might control the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government right now, but a small Republican-dominated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Coalition exercises outsized influence in a frightening campaign for nuclear rearmament.
The coalition, comprising six senators from states that house, develop, or test underground land-based nuclear weapons, is pushing a wasteful and dangerous $1.7 trillion, decades-long plan to produce new nuclear weapons, some with warheads 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
While the 1980s witnessed the nuclear freeze and a mass movement to demand nuclear disarmament between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the 1990s gave birth to the missile caucus, the Congressional engine careening the U.S. into a renewed nuclear arms race.
All but one of the members of this caucus is a Republican from a deep red state — including North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota — that didn’t vote for Joe Biden. Members of the Senate ICBM Coalition are Co-Chairs John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.); John Barrasso (R-Wyo.); Steve Daines (R-Mont); Mike Lee (R-Utah); and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
The lone Democrat, Tester, a third-generation farmer and former elementary school music teacher, wields a critical gavel as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, a committee that will write the appropriations bill for military expenditures. Tester told the D.C.-based Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance this year that he was committed to keeping new nuclear weapons production “on track.”
If the ICBM Coalition and the weapons lobby have their way, the United States will brandish a new nuclear arsenal in order to, in their view, replace aging and outdated nuclear weapons ill-suited to meet the challenges of a renewed Cold War. Critics charge that the development and production of new nuclear weapons violates the spirit and letter of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), signed by the United States and Soviet Union in 1968.
In addition to violating a treaty joined by 191 nations, U.S. production of new nuclear weapons is likely to escalate the arms race, sabotage future arms control negotiations with Russia or China and encourage non-nuclear nations to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
Although it was the Trump administration that in 2020 awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion sole-source contract to build new land-based nuclear missiles called Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), it is the Biden administration that is slated to include, as part of its record high $753 billion military budget, $30 billion or more for the GBSD. This would be a down payment on the estimated $264 billion cost to replace all 400 underground Minuteman III missiles in North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and Colorado, from 2029 through 2075.
The GBSD is part of a euphemistically labeled “nuclear modernization” program proposing, in addition to new ICBMs, new ballistic missile submarines outfitted with low-yield, five-kiloton tactical nuclear weapons, as opposed to larger 100-kiloton “strategic” nuclear weapons meant for a global nuclear showdown.
The Trump administration’s 2018 nuclear posture review reasoned these “more usable” tactical nuclear weapons would keep the Russians and Chinese in check. Critics argue that these smaller, shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear war, making these weapons more likely to be employed under the misguided assumption that a nuclear war can be limited.
The push for rearmament, including a new nuclear cruise missile, a modified gravity bomb with two-stage radiation implosion and long-range strike bomber, comes amid concern the Biden administration’s heated anti-China rhetoric could plunge us into a nuclear war.
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg recently released classified documents that revealed U.S. military leaders penned plans in 1958 to execute a first nuclear strike against China in a dispute over Taiwan’s sovereignty. According to the documents, Pentagon officials were willing to risk a million deaths in the event the Soviet Union fired back with nuclear weapons. In releasing the classified material and purposefully risking prosecution, Ellsberg told the New York Times, “I do not believe the participants were more stupid or thoughtless than those in between or in the current cabinet.”
With Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Republicans and Tester cheerleading for the GBSD, a missile caucus lobbyist might think the American people would prefer to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new ICBMs and nearly two-trillion dollars on the entire nuclear escalation package than investing in Medicare for All or clean water in Flint, Michigan. A 2020 University of Maryland poll revealed, however, that 61 percent of Americans–including both Democratic and Republican majorities–support phasing out the United States’s 400 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Knowing this, why would Biden and Democratic politicians carry out the mission of the small Republican-dominated missile caucus and its chums in the profitable weapons industry? Northrop Grumman, with a net worth of $50 billion, promises nuclear rearmament will create 10,000 jobs, but compare that number to the 3-million employed under FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps that planted 3-billion trees.
The answer to why the missile caucus is so influential is: money. And lots of it.
ICBM weapons contractors contributed more than $15 million from 2012-2020 to members of the Senate and House Armed Services and Appropriations committees and subcommittees, according to the Arms Control Association. Steven Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, notes these contractors even buy influence among members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), last year donating $376,650 to Democrat Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Chair of the House Armed Services Committee; $148,135 to Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) and $63,086 to Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), all of whom belong to the CPC.
While Biden may fear appearing “soft” on defense if he retreats from relaunching our nuclear program, progressives are preparing for a fierce debate. GBSD opponents include an impressive diplomatic team: William Perry, former Secretary of Defense; Daniel Ellsberg, author, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner; and William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy.
Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex,recommends nixing the ICBMs entirely. “Because of their extreme vulnerability to attack, ICBMs are kept on high alert status, leaving the president a matter of minutes to decide whether to launch them on warning of an impending attack,” he says.
There is no law of gravity that compels the current president or Congress to continue funding this drive for nuclear rearmament.
Ain’t it lovely to see USA Democrats and Republicans in full agreement – on spending $squillions in unnecessary nuclear weapons, of course.
Biden nuclear nominee would continue Trump-era plutonium pit production plans, Defense News, By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee nuclear warhead development, Jill Hruby, said Thursday the U.S. should continue plans to ramp up production of plutonium cores, a key component in nuclear weapons, by using two sites.
Federal officials, under President Donald Trump, set a deadline of 2030 for increased production of the plutonium cores or pits, with work split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina ― which is 25 percent into a refit.
At stake are jobs and billions of federal dollars to upgrade buildings or construct new factories, and it’s been an open question whether Biden would review those plans.
Hruby, who would lead the National Nuclear Security Administration, said at her Senate confirmation hearing that expanding pit production is the “biggest issue” facing the agency. While Los Alamos is on track to produce 30 pits per year by 2026, plans to produce 50 pits per year at Savannah River have slipped, pushing the 80-pit target to “somewhere between 2030 and 2035,” she said.
As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., described it, nuclear modernization efforts ― which include five warhead programs and facility recapitalizations ― are fueling NNSA’s highest workload since the 1980s. The organization is a semiautonomous agency of the Energy Department.
Senate Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Angus King, I-Maine, prompted Hruby to affirm that the 80-pit goal is part of nuclear maintenance and modernization vital for deterrence and peace.
“The number of pits that are projected to be needed are a minimum of 80 pits per year. That’s a significant capability at Los Alamos. If we were to do it all there, it would require much more infrastructure investment,” Hruby said, adding that the expansion at Savannah River “allows us to have a cost-effective program, use the talents across the NNSA complex.”
The panel’s top Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe, whose support for an NNSA budget increase in 2019 fueled one of several clashes with then-Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, recounted Thursday that he’d personally intervened with then-President Trump. In a sign Hruby’s nomination is in good shape, Inhofe said he agrees with her priorities around weapons programs, infrastructure and the workforce ― and he elicited her agreement to keep him informed of her progress.
However, one lawmaker was critical of the rising costs of nuclear weapons. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pointed to a “staggering” 29 percent increase in NNSA’s newly projected costs for sustaining and modernizing warheads over the next 25 years to $505 billion. Calling this “out of control,” Warren worried that overruns would crowd out the Energy Department’s important nonproliferation budget…….. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/05/27/biden-nuclear-nominee-would-continue-trump-era-plutonium-pit-production-plans/
How the war industry captures government (extract from A People’s Guide to the War Industry )
A People’s Guide to the War Industry -2: Profits & Deception Consortium News, May 26, 2021 Christian Sorensen ”…………….Capitalists running the war industry utilize a five-step strategy to capture government:
- Pull retiring military officers into war corporations
- Stack the deck by placing ex-industry officials in the Pentagon’s leadership
- Finance congressional campaigns
- Lobby creatively and expansively
- Fund think tanks & corporate media
War corporations recruit retired high-ranking military officers. War corporations use these eager retirees to open doors, influence policy, and increase sales. Generals and admirals retire from the U.S. Armed Forces and then join war corporations where they set to work converting their knowledge (about the acquisition process, senior military and civilian leaders, long-term military policy, and how the Pentagon works) and connections into profit.
Corporate jobs for these retired officers include manager, vice president, lobbyist, consultant, and director. Only a small number of 3- and 4-star officers declines this systemic corruption. War corporations have plenty to pull from, as there are more generals and admirals in uniform today in 2021 than there were at the end of World War II. Mere issuance of a bulletin announcing the hiring of a former high-ranking general or admiral often leads to a boost in stock price.
U.S. military officers benefit professionally and financially from implementing MIC aggression. There is no downside for high-ranking officers who support nonstop war. They’ll soon retire with full benefits, and likely go work for a war corporation. Officers who make it to the highest military ranks are very good at conforming to the system.
These officers support nonstop wars of choice and broad military deployments, and defer to pro-war pretexts and jargon coming from industry think tanks and pressure groups. They judge military activity in terms of numbers (dollars spent, weapons purchased, bases active, troops deployed) instead of clear soldierly goals.
Many officers are unable or unwilling to distinguish between the needs of a war corporation and the needs of a professional uniformed military. These U.S. military officers don’t see war corporations; they see a total force in which military and industry work together. An officer who dissents in a forceful manner risks their career. As the MIC crafts pretexts to justify its own existence and expansion, officers who go against the system from the inside are isolated, shed, or spit out.
Reality is difficult to stomach: There is an absolute dearth of class consciousness and moral courage within the Pentagon. The upper ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces are rife with a caliber of officer predisposed to seek out profit and reward upon retirement.
Executives move smoothly from corporations to the Pentagon, particularly the sundry civilian offices (secretary, deputy secretary, and assistant deputy secretary). These men and women who run the Pentagon have been raised in an environment of profiteering; they are steeped in corporate thought; their allegiance is to corporate success. They bring with them their industry contacts and an exploitative ideology. They turn to corporate products when presented with a military problem. They benefit professionally and financially.
Industry executives, the most rapacious of the capitalist class, enter “public service” and influence programs and policies. This invariably boosts the profits of former industry employers, who, thenceforth, capture and direct more of the U.S. military establishment. (Such actions, profit invested to make more profit, is money functioning as capital.)
Giant corporations finance the campaigns of people running for congressional office. Those people, once in office, help out the corporations. Washington is so corrupt that they’ve basically legalized this process — they’ve legalized bribery. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that limits on election spending are unconstitutional; in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court distorted the First Amendment’s free speech clause, allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on political contributions; and in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014), the Supreme Court got rid of limits on the total number of political contributions one can give over a two-year period.
We are told that the Supreme Court defends liberty and provides a check against the executive and legislative branches, however, the function of the Court, as its rulings demonstrate, is to abet corporate authority and financial interest in line with what the Executive and Legislative branches pursue.
The war industry targets both houses of Congress, particularly elected officials on relevant committees (Armed Services, Appropriations, Intelligence, Foreign Relations). The war industry finances many political action committees, or PACs. These are tax-exempt organizations that aggregate donations to fund political campaigns or influence federal elections. Super PACs (a.k.a. independent expenditure-only committees) allow unlimited contributions. Funding congressional campaigns directly impacts the way U.S. elected officials vote.
Politicians and their war industry bosses are proficient at claiming the “defense” industry creates jobs. Take caution when a war corporation throws the word “jobs” around. Many of these jobs are part-time, temporary, or menial (e.g. painter, welder, roustabout), parsed out to an increasingly desperate workforce. Some are construction jobs that vanish in a year or so. Working-class jobs in the war industry are often in difficult conditions.
Industry jobs that pay very well typically require advanced degrees, which the majority of the population does not have. Furthermore, some jobs are non-U.S. jobs (e.g. microchips manufactured overseas). Other jobs are induced (e.g. the mom making less-than-minimum wage on a ridesharing app driving an industry executive from work to a pub, or the waiter at a St. Louis restaurant where a missile engineer dines). Industry inflates job tallies. The goal is to confine the congressional side of the MIC, which cites the inflated jobs numbers and goes along for the ride.
The claim that the “defense” industry brings jobs is a stale public relations ploy. It hides the truth: Spending on healthcare, education, or clean energy creates more jobs than spending on the military.
The war industry can inflate job numbers because there is no accountability coming from Washington: Capitol Hill is largely content letting Corporate America police itself. Readers are likely familiar with cases where corporations get to inspect their own product (e.g. the airline industry, the pork industry) instead of external government inspectors doing the job.
Corporations policing corporations is rampant in the war industry, like when the advertising agency GSD&M measures the effectiveness of its own efforts at recruiting working class youth into the military. Sometimes one corporation polices part of industry, like when Calibre Systems conducts “cost and economic analysis of major weapons system programs and associated acquisition/financial management policies and procedures.” ……… https://consortiumnews.com/2021/05/26/a-peoples-guide-to-the-war-industry-2-profits-deception/
For USA, health care is too costly, while weapons makers wildly profitable -as $634 Billion to go to nuclear arms
The US Will Spend on Nuclear Weapons in the Next Decade, https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/military-spending-nuclear-weapons-department-of-defense
BY JULIA ROCK, 26 May 21, According to a new Congressional Budget Office report, we’re set to spend well over a half a trillion dollars over the next decade on nuclear weapons. Yet we’re somehow told that Medicare for All is too expensive.
As Capitol Hill lawmakers continue to insist that initiatives like Medicare for All are too expensive, a new congressional report shows that the United States government is on a path to spend more than a half-trillion dollars on nuclear weapons in just the next decade. The report emerges at the same time a separate analysis shows that a handful of top executives at defense contractors are being wildly enriched by a Pentagon spending spree.
The first report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the federal government is on track to spend $634 billion over the next decade to maintain its nuclear forces. Almost two-thirds of those costs are for the Department of Defense, mostly to maintain ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. About one-third is for the Department of Energy.
For comparison that is:
- 1.5 times the cost of all of the $1,400 stimulus checks that were sent to people through the American Rescue Plan earlier this year.
- Nearly fourteen times the $47 billion that Congress has spent so far this year helping Americans who are behind on rent.
- Over one-third of the cost of cancelling the $1.7 trillion in student debt held by Americans, most of which is never going to be repaid.
- More than seven times the estimated $81 billion of outstanding medical debt in America, as of 2018.
The new CBO estimate represents a 28 percent increase over the last ten-year estimate that the CBO made on US nuclear forces two years ago.
The figures were released just a few weeks after a new analysis from the Center for International Policy, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, found that “In 2020 alone, the CEOs of the [Pentagon’s] top five contractors received a total of $105.4 million in compensation.”
When accounting for all top corporate officials, these firms paid out more than a quarter billion dollars of total executive compensation in 2020 — and paid out more than $1 billion over the last four years.
About half of the Pentagon’s budget goes directly to corporations such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, according to the report.
So far, the deficit scolds who wanted to narrow eligibility for stimulus checks, student debt cancellation, or rent relief haven’t complained about the spending.
Three U.S. Democrat Senators introduce Bill to prop up nuclear industry
U.S. senators set to introduce nuclear power credit in energy tax reform bill, Reuters 26 May 21, Three Democratic U.S. senators were set to introduce a measure on Wednesday to boost existing nuclear plants to a wide energy tax reform bill, after the Biden administration pushed for such a measure to help [?] curb carbon emissions…….. (subscribers only) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-senators-set-introduce-nuclear-power-credit-energy-tax-reform-bill-2021-05-2
USA’s $634Billion nuclear weapons budget
CBO: US nuclear arsenal to cost $634B over 10 years, https://thehill.com/policy/defense/555142-cbo-us-nuclear-arsenal-to-cost-634b-over-10-yearsBY REBECCA KHEEL – 05/24/21 Updating and maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years is projected to cost $634 billion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a report published Monday.
The cost estimate for the nuclear forces from 2021-2030 represents a 28 percent increase compared to the last CBO 10-year cost estimate two years ago.
About half of the $140 billion increase comes from the fact that the new estimate now includes 2029 and 2030 when nuclear modernization is expected to be further along and “more expensive,” CBO said.
Of the CBO’s $634 billion estimates, about $551 billion is what would be needed to fulfill the Defense and Energy departments’ current nuclear plans. The remaining $83 billion is what CBO projects could be cost overruns based on how much costs have grown for similar programs in the past, according to the report.
Of the $551 billion, about $188 billion is projected to go toward modernizing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, the report said.
The United States is in the midst of plans to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad that the Government Accountability Office has projected could cost $1.7 trillion over 30 years. The triad refers to delivering nuclear weapons by sea, air and land.
“Over the coming years, the Congress will need to make decisions about what nuclear forces the United States should field in the future and thus about the extent to which the nation will continue to modernize its nuclear forces,” the CBO report said.
The report could also inform the Biden administration’s expected review of U.S. nuclear policy and programs, with CBO noting “the Biden Administration is widely expected to undertake a nuclear posture review to determine the nuclear policies and forces it will pursue.”
The new CBO estimate is likely to fuel calls from some Democrats to curb the costly nuclear modernization plans, which were largely started during the Obama administration. In particular, some Democrats have frequently targeted plans to replace aging intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), arguing it would be more cost-efficient to extend the life of the current arsenal.
Earlier Monday, a group of Democrats in the Senate and House, led by Sen Ed Markey (Mass.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), introduced a bill to cut $73 billion from the nuclear budget.
The bill, dubbed the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act, would do that by barring the development of new ICBMs, air-launched cruise missiles and submarine-launched cruise missiles. It would also cap the number of Columbia-class submarines the Pentagon can buy at eight, cut the existing ICBM fleet from more than 400 to 150 and reduce deployed strategic warheads from about 1,500 to 1,000.
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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