Nuclear power scheme given £5.5bn of funding
Neve Gordon-Farleigh & PA, BBC News, Suffolk 30 Aug 24, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp358ywx7e7o—
Up to £5.5bn of government money has been unlocked as part of a new nuclear power station subsidy scheme.
The money will be used for “development expenditure” including enabling works at Sizewell C in Suffolk, before a final investment decision is made.
The government has already spent £2.5bn on the project and while a final investment decision is yet to be made, the government says it is “committed” to carrying out the project.
However, campaign group Stop Sizewell C, said the money would dig further into a financial “black hole”.
While building permission for the project has been granted for the 3.2 gigawatt site, it could take 12 years to construct if funding is secured.
Land between Aldeburgh and Southwold has been earmarked for the site……………………………………………
‘White elephant’
The new Labour government vowed to back this project and other nuclear developments earlier this year.
However, the scheme’s opponents Stop Sizewell C claimed the project will be “slow” to build, harm nearby habitats and damage the tourism economy along the Suffolk Coast.
A spokesperson from the group, said the money was an “extraordinary statement”.
“Sizewell C has already chewed through £2.5 billion, and now we learn that there is the potential for a staggering £5.5 billion more of our taxpayers’ money to be thrown at this white elephant.
“Labour complained about a black hole in the country’s finances yet now they are proposing to dig still further.”
SNP activists whoop as leader John Swinney tells party conference an independent Scotland will give up nuclear deterrent and rejoin the EU
SNP activists cheered today as John Swinney told party conference an independent Scotland will give up the nuclear deterrent and rejoin the EU.
The First Minister tried to be upbeat in his keynote speech in Edinburgh – despite the separatists suffering a meltdown at the general election…………………………….
………….there was rapturous applause as Mr Swinney delivered a series of jibes at UK policies.
‘Labour’s Foreign Secretary thinks Labour should be as proud of creating the UK’s weapons of mass destruction as they are of creating the NHS,’ he said.
‘The SNP wants to see the end of nuclear weapons. With independence, Trident will be removed from Scotland once and for all. …………………………………………………………………….. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13802185/SNP-leader-John-Swinney-conference-independent-Scotland-nuclear-deterrent-EU-Brexit-election.html
Russia says it will change nuclear doctrine because of Western role in Ukraine
Reuters, By Mark Trevelyan, September 1, 2024
- Summary
- Minister says work is at “advanced stage”
- Hawks want Putin to lower threshold for nuclear use
- Moscow says West using Ukraine as proxy to harm Russia
- West, Kyiv say this is nonsense
LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.
The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.
Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.
Putin said in June that the nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change, depending on world events. Ryabkov’s comments on Sunday were the clearest statement yet that changes would indeed be made.
“The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to make corrections,” state news agency TASS cited Ryabkov as saying.
He said the decision is “connected with the escalation course of our Western adversaries” in connection with the Ukraine conflict.
Moscow accuses the West of using Ukraine as a proxy to wage war against it, with the aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and breaking it apart.
The United States and its allies deny that, saying they are helping Ukraine defend itself against a colonial-style war of aggression by Russia.
‘RED LINES’
Putin said on day one of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that anyone who tried to hinder or threaten it would suffer “consequences that you have never faced in your history”.
Since then, he has issued a series of further statements that the West regards as nuclear threats, and announced the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
That has not deterred the U.S. and its allies from stepping up military aid to Ukraine in ways that were unthinkable when the war started, including by supplying tanks, long-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets…………………………………………
Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country. Putin said in March that Moscow was ready for the eventuality of a nuclear war “from a military-technical point of view”.
He said, however, that he saw no rush towards nuclear confrontation and that Russia had never faced a need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-will-change-nuclear-doctrine-due-wests-actions-ukraine-official-says-2024-09-01/
France still faces problems in starting up long-delayed super-expensive Flamanville nuclear reactor
https://www.ft.com/content/31bb42d9-603c-4456-a8d3-9dcaa19c7759, Sarah White in Paris, 2 Sept 24
New unit could be connected to grid by end of year but optimism over further expansion faces political hurdles
France is starting up its first newly built nuclear reactor in a quarter of a century, 12 years behind schedule and after multiple setbacks as the industry looks to a revival with plans for more new plants.
EDF, the French state-owned operator of Europe’s biggest fleet of nuclear power stations, said late on Monday that the first chain reactions — or so-called divergence operations — at the Flamanville 3 reactor on France’s Normandy coast were due to get under way overnight.
If these are successful the reactor will eventually be connected to the grid before the end of the year, once it has reached 25 per cent of its total 1.65 gigawatt capacity — enough to power a large city.
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https://www.ft.com/content/31bb42d9-603c-4456-a8d3-9dcaa19c7759
The reactor, France’s 57th and a prototype of models EDF wants to develop at home and overseas, had come to epitomise the reversals the nuclear industry was suffering globally in the wake of a downturn in orders over recent decades, which prompted skilled workers to leave the sector.
Flamanville ended up costing more than four times its initial budget at €13.2bn, and took longer to finish than similar models EDF built in China and Finland that were also hit by delays.
Components for the complex design had to be retooled, some after complaints from safety regulators. EDF was also criticised by the French government for how it struggled to co-ordinate the project that involved hundreds of suppliers.
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https://www.ft.com/content/31bb42d9-603c-4456-a8d3-9dcaa19c7759
“It’s a historic step in this project,” Régis Clement, co-head of EDF’s nuclear production division, said of the launch. “Our teams are on the starting blocks.”
EDF, which has contracts to build new reactors in Britain and is tendering to export its design elsewhere, said it had learned valuable lessons from Flamanville 3 that will allow it to whittle down construction times in future.
But it still faces a series of hurdles at home despite French President Emmanuel Macron launching a plan to build at least six new reactors.
The orders have yet to be formalised, and a political impasse in Paris may only delay the process further, after legislative elections this summer delivered a hung parliament.
EDF, which is spending money filling thousands of new positions to prepare for the orders, needs to agree on a funding plan for the projects, which could cost over €52bn.
Hopes of reaching a deal by the end of the year are fading, several people close to the company said. An initial ambition to deliver the new reactors by 2037 seems optimistic as a result, they added.
Other challenges include improving design updates for the future reactors while training a range of staff from engineers to welders will take time. EDF also faces competition overseas from other players, such as South Korean rivals, amid a worldwide revival of nuclear technology.
Though valued for its low carbon emissions, nuclear power has faced an atmosphere of distrust after the Chernobyl accident of 1986 and the Fukushima meltdown in Japan following a tsunami in 2011.
‘No,’ Kamala Harris Says to Withholding Arms From Israel
“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” said one analyst.
Common Dreams. Jake Johnson, Aug 30, 2024
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in a CNN interview that aired late Thursday that, if elected in November, she would not change the Biden administration’s policy of steadfast military support for Israel, rejecting widespread calls for an arms embargo to help bring about an end to the devastating assault on Gaza.
“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change,” said Harris, recounting the horrors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack. “Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”
Acknowledging that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” the vice president responded “no” when CNN‘s Dana Bash asked whether a Harris administration would implement a “change in policy in terms of arms” and withhold even “some” weapons shipments to Israel………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“Poll after poll after poll tells us that a majority of Americans and even more key Democratic constituencies want the US to stop giving arms to Israel that it’s using to kill and displace Palestinian families,” Lieberman added. “Not sending bombs to Israel is politically expedient and—quite obviously!—the morally correct thing to do for anyone reading the daily headlines of Israeli massacres being done with U.S. weapons.”
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in a CNN interview that aired late Thursday that, if elected in November, she would not change the Biden administration’s policy of steadfast military support for Israel, rejecting widespread calls for an arms embargo to help bring about an end to the devastating assault on Gaza.
“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change,” said Harris, recounting the horrors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack. “Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”
Acknowledging that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” the vice president responded “no” when CNN‘s Dana Bash asked whether a Harris administration would implement a “change in policy in terms of arms” and withhold even “some” weapons shipments to Israel.
Watch:
The CNN appearance marked Harris’ first major television interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, a change at the top of the party’s 2024 ticket that Palestinian rights advocates hoped would open the door to a fundamental shift away from the Biden administration’s Gaza policy—which has been to arm Israel to the teeth while tepidly pressuring the country’s far-right government to protect civilians and agree to a cease-fire deal.
“The vice president’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted as the lack of American consequences for Netanyahu’s horrific assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has emboldened Israel to now invade the West Bank,” Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, co-founders of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement Friday. “Vice President Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time by aligning with the American majority that opposes sending weapons to Israel’s assault on Gaza.”
Despite Bash’s characterization of calls for an arms embargo against Israel as a demand from the “progressive left,” survey data has shown that a majority of U.S. voters oppose sending weapons to Israel as it commits appalling war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel over 50,000 tons of weaponry.
“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” Middle East scholar Assal Rad said late Thursday, citing the results of a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.
A separate poll commissioned by the IMEU Policy Project suggested that voters in key U.S. battleground states would be more likely to vote for a Democratic nominee who pledged to withhold weapons from Israel.
The CNN interview aired as Israel continued its multi-day assault on the West Bank, a deadly military campaign that the head of the United Nations and others warned could become an extension of the nearly 11-month war on Gaza, during which Israel has killed more than 40,600 people, displaced 90% of the enclave’s population, and sparked famine across the territory.
On Thursday, Israel’s military killed five Palestinians in an airstrike on a vehicle convoy of the Washington, D.C.-based American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) agency. It is a violation of U.S. law to provide weaponry to a country obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid.
The attack on the ANERA convoy came a day after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Program vehicle, forcing the U.N. agency to suspend employee movement in Gaza.
Harris’ refusal to express openness to an arms embargo against a military that has repeatedly targeted aid and healthcare workers, journalists, and other civilians sparked immediate backlash from Palestinian rights advocates, including at least one member of Congress.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress, said Harris’ answer signaled that “war crimes and genocide will continue.”
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, called the Democratic nominee’s answer on Gaza “terrible” and “out of touch with voters, especially those in key battleground states who Harris needs to feel motivated to go to the polls.”
“Poll after poll after poll tells us that a majority of Americans and even more key Democratic constituencies want the US to stop giving arms to Israel that it’s using to kill and displace Palestinian families,” Lieberman added. “Not sending bombs to Israel is politically expedient and—quite obviously!—the morally correct thing to do for anyone reading the daily headlines of Israeli massacres being done with U.S. weapons.”
In an op-ed for Common Dreams on Friday, RootsAction national director Norman Solomon warned that “time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and genocide in Gaza.”
“Polling shows that a pivot toward moral decency would improve her chances of defeating Donald Trump,” Solomon wrote. “But during her CNN interview Thursday night, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/kamala-harris-arms-embargo
The US presidential candidates are not confronting the nuclear threat that haunts the world
Bulletin, By Robert Jay Lifton | August 29, 2024
The candidates in the coming election in the United States have said little, certainly nothing coherently, about nuclear weapons. Yet those weapons continue to haunt us, even as they move in and out of our conscious awareness.
We are reminded of this disconnect by the recent revelation of a shift in the American strategy of “nuclear deterrence” to give greater emphasis to China because of evidence of its rapid build-up of the weapons.1 That strategy change suggests China has been granted the dubious status of player in the game of bringing an end to humanity.
This “nuclear end,” as we came to call it in the antinuclear movement, was oddly treated in the recent Musk interview of Trump. Trump spoke vaguely of “nuclear warming,” though he has constantly dismissed the danger of climate change. Musk referred to the relatively rapid rebuilding of Nagasaki as a thriving city, failing to recognize that reconstruction was possible only because of the existence of an outside world to bring the necessary energy and know-how for such rebuilding. The use of contemporary nuclear weapons would allow for no such outside world. And the statement also ignores the residual pain and nuclear fear brought on by the atomic bombing of that city.2
And in her Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, Kamala Harris committed herself to a military that “always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”3 We do not know whether she had nuclear weapons in mind.
What are the nuclear truths that are still rarely taken into account?
Nuclear weapons represent a revolution in the human capacity for destructiveness. Whether it begins with battlefield use of relatively small nuclear weapons or with larger ones, a nuclear war is likely to bring about a “nuclear winter”—the blocking of the sun’s rays by soot and other debris blown into the stratosphere—bringing about the lowering of Earth’s temperature to an extent that agriculture and human life could no longer be sustained. There is also more recent research suggesting that even a “limited” nuclear war could bring about worldwide starvation, affecting hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.
From this standpoint, Robert Oppenheimer’s brilliant success in guiding his fellow scientists at Los Alamos to the creation of nuclear weapons was his also tragedy. He could never decide whether to go along with the society’s rendering him a hero or to insist on his guilt, as he did when he told President Harry Truman, “I have blood on my hands.”
The larger US society has the same conflict. It is unable to decide whether the weapons are crucial to keeping the peace and even keeping the world going—the US addition to what I call nuclearism—or whether their very existence, not just their use but their stockpiling, is what threatens our future. The latter idea is central to the treaty put forward by the United Nations banning the “use, possession, testing, and transfer of nuclear weapons under international law.”4 Recently 150 medical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and the British Medical Journal made a joint call for the elimination of nuclear weapons with an editorial statement: “The nuclear arms states must eliminate their nuclear arsenals before they eliminate us.”5
That reasonable advocacy of nuclear abolition could not of course abolish our capacity to rebuild the weapons. But such re-creation would be highly demanding, and abolition would make the world a much safer place even if the possibility of building new nuclear weapons existed………………………………………………………………………………..more https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/the-us-presidential-candidates-are-not-confronting-the-nuclear-threat-that-haunts-the-world/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter08292024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_LiftonNuclear_082024
UK government’s new scheme to subsidise Sizewell nuclear project with support up to £5.5 billion !
On 30 August 2024, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
published details of a new subsidy scheme – the Sizewell C Devex Scheme –
to enable continued support to the development of the proposed new nuclear
power plant Sizewell C (SZC) to the point of a Final Investment Decision
(FID) and thereby ultimately reach operation.
This follows the Competition
and Markets Authority’s consideration of DESNZ’s assessment of the Devex
Scheme’s compliance with the requirements under the Subsidy Control Act
2022 earlier this year. More specifically, this Devex Scheme will provide
the government with greater flexibility to cover development expenditure
costs up to and including FID, subject to appropriate Value for Money (VfM)
assessments and approvals at the relevant time.
The total value of support
allowed by the scheme is £5.5 billion. Further details of the Devex Scheme,
and of investments made under the scheme, will be reported on the relevant
page of the subsidies database.
DESNZ 30th Aug 2024
Opposing a USA-led international nuclear agreement that is bizarrely unfair to Australia
Australians can object to the agreement, by putting in a submission to a Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee.
Submissions are due by September 1st. So far, only 2 submissions have been published. They’re sort of “zipped” – so I can’t read them. You can bet your boots they are from the nuclear lobby
I’s a bit of an IT hurdle to actually get your submission in. That’s after you’ve even written it. Which is tough, too, as the general public in Australia knows nothing about it.
But anyway, here’s one little effort
TITLE: Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties concerning the:
Agreement among the Government of Australia, the Government of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Government
of the United States of America for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear Propulsion.
This submission urges that the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties recommends against
the Australian Government signing this Agreement as I believe that it is not in the best interests of the Australian people on a number of grounds, as outlined in this submission
Australia would be landed with high level nuclear waste – This Agreement
requires Australia to “be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and
disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste resulting from the
operation of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants transferred pursuant to this Article,
including radioactive waste generated through submarine operations, maintenance,
decommissioning, and disposal.” (ARTICLE IV Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants,
Related Equipment and Material, Section D).
The health risk to Australians brought in by the construction of nuclear facilities
and the management and storage of radioactive wastes. Buying second-hand
nuclear submarines make this waste danger another hazard, as we’d be buying
already existing toxic wastes.
Under this agreement it is possible for a nuclear weapon to be present on
Australian shores– this would it would be a clear breach of the highest order of the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) because as a signatory to
NPT Australia is not allowed to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.
The agreement does not guarantee that the USA will continue with the nuclear
submarine arrangements, but still ensures that Australia will cop the costs. This is
blatantly unfair.
It is extraordinarily unfair and bizarre that under Article IV E. “Australia shall
indemnify, the United States and the United Kingdom against any liability, loss,
costs, damage or injury (including third-party claims) arising out of, related to, or
resulting from Nuclear Risks connected with the design, manufacture, assembly,
transfer, or utilization of any Material or Equipment, including Naval Nuclear
Propulsion Plants and component parts and spare parts thereof transferred or to be
transferred pursuant to this Article.”
The ‘National Interest Analysis [2024] ATNIA 14 with attachment on consultation’,
acknowledges that “There has been no public consultation”, with paragraph 55
stating that “No public consultation has been undertaken, given the classified scope of consultations between the Parties on the Agreement, including matters relating to
national security and operational capability.”
The Treaty clearly outlines that Special Nuclear Material to be transferred under the
agreement, “shall contain highly enriched uranium and, only with respect to
irradiated fuel, may contain plutonium”, (ARTICLE VI Conditions and Guarantees,
SECTION I –SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL)
In conclusion – the whole agreement is unfair, poorly organised, and should not be
accepted by Australia, particularly in this situation where there has been no public
consultation – set up completely in the dark as far as the Australian people are
concerned.
Noel Wauchope
Democratic Party platform a catastrophe for world peace
https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/—Walt Zlotow, 26 Aug 24,
Last Monday the Democratic National Committee (DNC) adopted likely the worst foreign policy platform in US history.
It voted “ironclad” support for Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Nothing new here as America has long been supplying tens of billions in genocide weapons for Israel to ‘finish the job’. The Democratic platform’s promise of a “commitment to Israel’s qualitative military edge” ensures that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will die and likely no Palestinian will be left in Gaza unless the US ends its conveyor belt of genocide weapons.
The platform further boasts about the US bombing campaign against Yemen for tying up Red Sea shipping in support of Palestine. Alas, the platform mischaracterized the multibillion-dollar campaign as a success when it has utterly failed to reopen the Red Sea to worldwide shipping. And until America stops supplying Israel the genocide weapons, it never will.
Another false achievement the platform touts is America’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine which has backfired spectacularly, elevating the former while deeply degrading the latter.
One more imagined platform achievement for good measure: America’s massive multi billion dollar buildup in the Asia Pacific to defeat China, “America’s most consequential strategic competitor.”
The world will be damn fortunate if the 2024 Democratic Platform doesn’t serve as a blueprint for America blowing up the Middle East, blowing up Europe, blowing up the Asia Pacific.
A party platform on foreign affairs should build a sturdy foundation to promote world peace. The 2024 Democratic platform on foreign affairs ensures more instability, more spending of precious treasure on weapons of death, more war; possibly even nuclear winter. That represents a party platform servicing a gallows for peoplekind.
Harris’s concluding speech at DNC embraces agenda of global war
Harris declared, “As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” As for whom this force will be fighting, Harris left little doubt, going on to refer to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, the same countries that the Biden-Harris administration has targeted in a new document outlining American strategy for a future nuclear world war.
Patrick Martin, 23 August 2024
The four days of the Democratic National Convention culminated Thursday with the acceptance speech by Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president.
As a whole, the convention consisted of an endless series of inane speeches, hosannahs to Harris that completely falsified her right-wing career as a prosecutor, declarations from billionaires that Harris would be a “president of joy” and constant invocations of the “historic” character of elevating a (multi-millionaire) African American and Asian American woman to the presidency.
The Democrats sought to substitute entertainment for policy, with a series of Hollywood and pop music celebrities embracing Harris. However, the real content of the policies they propose came through in the candidate’s closing speech: an agenda of escalating global war.
Harris declared, “As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” As for whom this force will be fighting, Harris left little doubt, going on to refer to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, the same countries that the Biden-Harris administration has targeted in a new document outlining American strategy for a future nuclear world war.
As in any major address by an American capitalist politician, Harris’s acceptance speech was directed to two audiences. For Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, the real base of the Democratic Party, Harris pledged to continue the militaristic foreign policy of the Biden administration to defend the global interests of the American financial aristocracy.
She was a safe pair of hands, she proclaimed, unlike the unreliable and self-interested Trump—a theme sounded on the convention’s final day by a range of right-wing speakers, from former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta, to a string of Republicans who are now endorsing Harris, to a trio of military-intelligence officials now holding seats as Democrats in the House of Representatives.
While Harris’s brief reference to the suffering of the Palestinian population of Gaza was highlighted in media accounts—and will undoubtedly be hailed as a significant shift by the pseudo-left apologists for the Democratic Party—this came after she flatly reiterated an uncompromising pledge to provide unlimited US military aid to Israel: “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.”
In other words, more bombs and missiles to kill tens of thousands more in Gaza and potentially in the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and other countries in the region targeted by imperialism…………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/08/24/turk-a24.html
A new French fairy tale: “Cheap” nuclear electricity in France is not what it appears.
The French public are paying for their nuclear addiction — and will pay even more when the plants need decommissioning.
By Axel Mayer, 11 Sept 23, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/09/11/a-new-french-fairy-tale/—
“Bread and games”(Panem et circenses) were the enforcement strategies in the Roman Empire to maintain power. “Cheap petrol, cheap electricity and football” are popular campaign strategies under a democracy, says Axel Mayer, Vice-President of the Trinational Nuclear Protection Association (TRAS).
In France, the nuclear industry is in decline and the nuclear company EDF is heavily in debt. At the same time, President Macron is once again promising cheap nuclear power and wants to have new small nuclear power plants built. A small part of the French nuclear industry’s financial problems is to be solved with EU money.
In this context, the fairy tale of cheap French nuclear power is happily spread in France and also in Germany and the use of nuclear energy is praised as the miracle weapon in the losing war against nature and the environment. However, the price of electricity in France is only apparently cheap.
According to a report of the supreme audit court in France, the research and development, as well as the construction of the French nuclear power plants, cost a total of 188 billion euros. Since in France the “civilian” and the military use of nuclear power cannot be separated, the sum is probably much higher. Retrofitting France’s outdated reactors will cost over 55 billion euros. Liberation magazine reports retrofitting costs of nearly 100 billion euros by 2030.
People of France are paying for expensive nuclear power with their taxes
According to a report by the French Ministry of Economy, the semi-state-owned EDF had debts of about 41 billion euros at the end of 2019, an amount that is expected to be nearly 57 billion euros by 2028. To avoid domestic political problems, EDF is not allowed to raise the price of electricity for political reasons. EDF liabilities are driving up France’s national debt massively. The people of France (and especially their grandchildren) are paying for the seemingly cheap, but in reality expensive nuclear power with their taxes.
This cost does not include the dismantling of the nuclear power plants or any costs of a severe accident. A serious nuclear accident would have devastating consequences in France. A government study estimates the cost at 430 billion euros.
Demolition costs of over 100 billion euros
In France, EDF operates 56 outdated reactors that are now becoming old and decrepit almost simultaneously, but the company has built up almost no reserves for decommissioning. In Germany, the government is very optimistic about a 47 billion euros cost for decommissioning and final storage. The decommissioning of the large number of French nuclear power plants could cost well over 100 billion euros as costs rise, if no savings are made on safety. There is a distinct possibility that the nuclear industry could bankrupt the French state even without a nuclear accident that could happen at any time.
A “European Pressurized Water Reactor” (EPR) has been under construction on France’s Atlantic coast in Flamanville since 2007. The flagship project was originally scheduled for completion in 2012 at a fixed price of 3.2 billion euros. Since then, the start of operation has been postponed again and again, and the Court of Auditors now puts the cost at over 19 billion euros. Whether the EPR can go online in 2024 is questionable. The model reactor will never work economically.
In countries with a functioning market, no new nuclear power plants are building
Swiss nuclear lobbyist and Axpo CEO Christoph Brand puts the kibosh on dreams of cheap nuclear power from new, small nuclear plants. “The production costs for the electricity supplied by new nuclear power plants are currently about twice as high as those of larger wind and solar plants,” Brand said. “No matter how one assesses the risks of nuclear power, it is simply not economical to rely on new nuclear plants,” he said in the pro-nuclear NZZ on Oct. 21, 2021.
In countries with a functioning market, no new nuclear power plants are being built. When in doubt, it always helps to look at EDF’s share price, which has fallen massively over the long term, to assess the market chances of the nuclear renaissance announced by President Macron.
“Bread and games” with artificially low nuclear electricity prices can work in election campaigns. Low-cost, risk-free electricity is generated today with photovoltaics and wind energy. (AM/hcn)
Democrats Release Insanely Hawkish Middle East Policy Platform
“President Biden and Vice President Harris believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States,” the platform reads. “Their commitment to Israel’s security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad.”
The 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is the agreement by which the United States agrees to continue sending Israel $3.8 billion a year to spend on weapons.
Caitlin Johnstone, Aug 21, 2024
Celebrity progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris “is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza” at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night. There is literally no evidentiary basis anywhere for this assertion. She made it up.
Kamala Harris is not “working tirelessly” to do anything at this time besides become the next president. Her own staff are saying she is opposed to an arms embargo on Israel and won’t consider cutting or conditioning military aid, which is the only way the Israeli government can be effectively forced to stop sabotaging a peace deal so that the US-backed genocide can finally end. Saying you’ll continue pouring military explosives into a regime that is using those military explosives to conduct regular massacres of civilians is the exact opposite of working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire.
“This is false, it’s propaganda, and it’s making people misunderstand the issue,” Current Affairs’ Nathan Robinson said of AOC’s statement. “The Biden administration could have imposed a ceasefire anytime it wanted to. The only reason there isn’t one is that Biden has made sure Israel has no incentive to agree to one.”
As we deal with this crap, the DNC has approved a 2024 party platform whose section on the middle east is so surprisingly hawkish that it largely reads like it could have been written by some of Washington’s most war-horny Republicans. It repeatedly calls its support for Israel and the continuation of arms shipments thereto “ironclad”. It criticizes Trump as having been too soft on Iran, for god’s sake.
After boasting about the Biden administration’s bombing campaign against the “Iranian-linked Houthi forces” in Yemen, its “precision airstrikes on key Iranian-linked targets,” and its success in neutralizing Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel after Israel assassinated multiple Iranian military officials in Syria, the platform says that this “stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s fecklessness and weakness in the face of Iranian aggression during his presidency.”
Then they literally attack Trump for not going to war with Iran:
“In 2018, when Iranian-backed militias repeatedly attacked the U.S. consulate in Basra, Iraq Trump’s only response was to close our diplomatic facility. In June 2019, when Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance aircraft operating in international airspace above the Straits of Hormuz, Trump responded by tweet and then abruptly called off any actual retaliation, causing confusion and concern among his own national security team. In September 2019, when Iranian-backed groups threatened global energy markets by attacking Saudi oil infrastructure, Trump failed to respond against Iran or its proxies. In January 2020, when Iran, for the first and only time in its history, directly launched ballistic missiles against U.S. troops in western Iraq, Trump mocked the resulting Traumatic Brain Injuries suffered by dozens of American servicemembers as mere ‘headaches’ — and again, took no action.”
The “national security team” who suffered “confusion and concern” when Trump opted not to wade into a middle eastern war of unfathomable horror includes psychopathic war criminal John Bolton, who was reportedly “devastated” when Trump called off a deadly military assault on Iran in retaliation for its shooting down the aforementioned (unmanned) surveillance aircraft.
When you’re siding with John Bolton on whether to bomb Iran, you’re as insanely hawkish as it gets.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States,” the platform reads. “Their commitment to Israel’s security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad.”
The 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is the agreement by which the United States agrees to continue sending Israel $3.8 billion a year to spend on weapons.
This comes as Kamala Harris’ current and former staff members report that not only will the vice president refuse to cut or condition military support to Israel, she will also refuse to re-enter the Iran deal to ease tensions in the region. The Times of Israel cites congressman Brad Schneider saying he was told by the Harris campaign’s Jewish outreach chief that “the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee would oppose a return to the Iran nuclear deal.”
The Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was one of the only decent foreign policy moves made by the Obama administration, and killing it was one of the nastiest things Trump did as president — along with his other recklessly hawkish actions against Iran like implementing starvation sanctions and assassinating Soleimani. But rather than pledging to re-enter the Obama era of de-escalation and detente with Iran, the Democrats are attacking Trump for not fighting a war with Iran while pledging ironclad support for the nation that’s doing everything it can to get that war started.
So yeah, that’s the Democratic Party for you. Vote for them and you get a nicer-looking mask on the blood-spattered face of the US war machine. It’ll kill just as many middle eastern kids as the Republicans will, but it will kill them under the presidency of a woman of color with “she/her” in her Twitter bio.
The U.S. and China Can Lead the Way on Nuclear Threat Reduction
Policies of “no first use” are a model for nuclear states.
Foreign Policy, By Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a retired senior colonel in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. August 20, 2024,
Since the end of the Cold War, the role of nuclear weapons has only grown. Nuclear arsenals are being strengthened around the world, with many nuclear states continuing to modernize their arsenals. In June, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance was in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby. Robert C. O’Brien, a former national security advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, has urged him to conduct nuclear tests if he wins a new term, arguing that it would help the United States “maintain technical and numerical superiority to the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles.”
There are two bleak conclusions about nuclear diplomacy in this age. First, it will be impossible to ban such weapons anytime soon. Since its passage in 2017, no nuclear-armed states have signed the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, some of them instead contending that it will distract attention from other disarmament and nonproliferation initiatives.
It is also very hard, if not impossible, to convince these states to reduce their nuclear stockpiles amid ever-intensifying geopolitical and military competition. On the contrary, in February 2023, Russia announced that it was suspending its participation in the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START)—the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty limiting Russian and U.S. strategic nuclear forces.
In response, the United States has also suspended the sharing and publication of treaty data. In November, Russia went a step further and withdrew its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), citing “an imbalance” with the United States, which has failed to ratify the treaty since it opened for signature in 1996.
Amid such a situation, it is impossible for Beijing to stand by idly. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that the size of China’s nuclear arsenal has increased from 410 warheads in January 2023 to 500 in January 2024, and it is expected to continue to grow. For the first time, China may also now be deploying a small number of warheads on missiles during peacetime. According to the U.S. Defense Department, China is likely to increase its nuclear warheads to 1,500 by 2035.
Given this reality, perhaps the most promising near-term way to guard against nuclear risks is not by limiting the number of nuclear weapons but by controlling the policies that govern their use. In this regard, a pledge by nuclear-armed states of “no first use” of nuclear weapons looks to be the most realistic approach in reducing the escalation of nuclear threats.
In theory, no first use refers to a policy by which a nuclear-armed power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in warfare, except in the case of doing so as a second strike in retaliation to an attack by an enemy power using weapon of mass destruction.
Of the five nuclear states that have signed onto the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—only China has ever declared a no-first-use policy. On Oct. 16, 1964, when China successfully detonated its first atomic bomb, the country immediately declared that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and unconditionally committed itself not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states or in nuclear-weapon-free zones…………………………………………..
All nuclear powers could afford to adopt a formal no-first-use policy—taking the moral high ground without reducing their capabilities for retaliation.
Though it has never adopted a no-first-use policy itself, the United States’ nuclear posture is actually more similar to China’s than it seems. In its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, the Biden administration declared that it would only consider the use of nuclear weapons “in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” But it is hard to imagine which interests are so vital that they might require Washington to use nuclear weapons as a first measure to defend them.
To be sure, it is important for the United States to assure its allies that it will follow through on its deterrent promises. It is equally hard to imagine who would venture to launch a nuclear strike on a U.S. ally, knowing the dire potential consequences.
The United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent, meanwhile, is operationally independent. But in terms of its nuclear policy, the British government has made it clear that “we would consider using our nuclear weapons only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of our NATO allies.” France, meanwhile adheres to a principle of “strict sufficiency.”
The real challenge, then, is getting Russia to commit to a no-first-use policy. The Soviet Union adopted a formal policy of no first use in 1982. But after its dissolution, the Russian Federation reversed this approach in 1993, likely to mitigate the comparative weakness of the Russian Armed Forces in the post-Soviet era………………………………………………….
A dual-track approach may be the best bet for the adoption of a formal no-first-use policy.
In Europe, NATO can start with a unilateral no-first-use pledge against Russia as a gesture of goodwill. Even if such an offer isn’t immediately reciprocated by Russia, it might begin to thaw tensions.
As a second—and crucial—step, NATO could pledge to halt any further expansion of its alliance in exchange for Moscow adopting a no-first-use policy This would be a difficult pill for the alliance to swallow. But after Sweden’s and Finland’s entry earlier this year, there are only three aspiring countries on the waiting list: the barely significant Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Georgia and Ukraine, which have deeply problematic ongoing conflicts with Russia that NATO is sensitive about.
The path forward would likely be smoother if it went through Asia. Both Russia and China have already agreed to no first use against each other. China and the United States could reach a similar agreement, thus de-escalating potential conflicts involving U.S. allies—such as the Philippines and Japan—as well as the dangers that could be provoked through accidental collisions in the sea or air. A U.S.-led example might then make it easier to bring the Europeans on board.
This may seem far-fetched in the current geopolitical climate, but there is precedent for it. When India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices in May 1998, they incurred swift condemnation from the U.N. Security Council, which called for both countries to sign both the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In a rare show of solidarity, China and the United States made a joint declaration in June 1998 agreeing to de-target their nuclear weapons against each other.
This was largely a symbolic and unverifiable step. But it was not only a defusing of tensions, but also good to see nuclear states at least partially honoring the vision of nuclear disarmament laid out in Article VI of the NPT. And this China-U.S. joint statement eventually led to another joint statement among the five nuclear-armed permanent Security Council states in May 2000, which affirmed that their nuclear weapons are not targeted at each other or at any other states.
No first use is a big step forward from nontargeting. It’s not out of bounds to imagine that, with enough diplomatic capital, a similar but more important pledge of no first use could be made today. In fact, in January 2022—only a month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—these five nuclear powers agreed in a joint statement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
What is more significant is that during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow last year, China and Russia reiterated this commitment, even amid Russia’s ongoing war.
If, indeed, a nuclear war cannot be won, then what is stopping these nuclear powers from taking a no-first-use pledge? Nuclear weapons didn’t help the United States in its wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—or the Russians in Ukraine. A commitment of no first use by the nuclear-armed states would give people hope that a nuclear-free world, however distant, is still possible one day.
This essay is published in cooperation with the Asian Peace Programme at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/20/nuclear-weapons-war-no-first-use-policy/—
Biden’s Convention Speech Made Absurd Claims About His Gaza Policy
August 21, 2024 By Norman Solomon, https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/21/bidens-convention-speech-made-absurd-claims-about-his-gaza-policy/
An observation from George Orwell — “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” — is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.
“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”
It was a journey into an alternative universe of political guile from a president who just six days earlier had approved sending $20 billion worth of more weapons to Israel. Yet the Biden delegates in the convention hall responded with a crescendo of roaring admiration.
Applause swelled as Biden continued: “We’re working around-the-clock, my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”
In Chicago’s United Center, the president basked in adulation while claiming to be a peacemaker despite a record of literally making possible the methodical massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Orwell would have understood. A political reflex has been in motion from top U.S. leaders, claiming to be peace seekers while aiding and abetting the slaughter. Normalizing deception about the past sets a pattern for perpetrating such deception in the future.
And so, working inside the paradigm that Orwell described, Biden exerts control over the present, strives to control narratives about the past, and seeks to make it all seem normal, prefiguring the future.
The eagerness of delegates to cheer for Biden’s mendaciously absurd narrative about his administration’s policies toward Gaza was in a broader context — the convention’s lovefest for the lame-duck president.
Hours before the convention opened, Peter Beinart released a short video essay anticipating the fervent adulation. “I just don’t think when you’re analyzing a presidency or a person, you sequester what’s happened in Gaza,” he said. “I mean, if you’re a liberal-minded person, you believe that genocide is just about the worst thing that a country can do, and it’s just about the worst thing that your country can do if your country is arming a genocide.”
Beinart continued: “And it’s really not that controversial anymore that this qualifies as a genocide. I read the academic writing on this. I don’t see any genuine scholars of human rights international law who are saying it’s not indeed there. . . . If you’re gonna say something about Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, you have to factor in what Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, has done, vis-a-vis Gaza. It’s central to his legacy. It’s central to his character. And if you don’t, then you’re saying that Palestinian lives just don’t matter, or at least they don’t matter this particular day, and I think that’s inhumane. I don’t think we can ever say that some group of people’s lives simply don’t matter because it’s inconvenient for us to talk about them at a particular moment.”
Underscoring the grotesque moral obtuseness from the convention stage was the joyful display of generations as the president praised and embraced his offspring. Joe Biden walked off stage holding the hand of his cute little grandson, a precious child no more precious than any one of the many thousands of children the president has helped Israel to kill.
California legislators break with Gov. Newsom over loan to keep state’s last nuclear plant running
greenwich time, By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press, Aug 15, 2024
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California Legislature signaled its intent on Thursday to cancel a $400 million loan payment to help finance a longer lifespan for the state’s last nuclear power plant, exposing a rift with Gov. Gavin Newsom who says that the power is critical to safeguarding energy supplies amid a warming climate.
The votes in the state Senate and Assembly on funding for the twin-domed Diablo Canyon plant represented an interim step as Newsom and legislative leaders, all Democrats, continue to negotiate a new budget. But it sets up a public friction point involving one of the governor’s signature proposals, which he has championed alongside the state’s rapid push toward solar, wind and other renewable sources.
The dispute unfolded in Sacramento as environmentalists and antinuclear activists warned that the estimated price tag for keeping the seaside reactors running beyond a planned closing by 2025 had ballooned to nearly $12 billion, roughly doubling earlier projections. That also has raised the prospect of higher fees for ratepayers……………………..
The votes in the Legislature mark the latest development in a decades-long fight over the operation and safety of the plant, which sits on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco…………………….
In 2016, PG&E, environmental groups and plant worker unions reached an agreement to close Diablo Canyon by 2025. But the Legislature voided the deal in 2022 at the urging of Newsom, who said the power is needed to ward off blackouts as a changing climate stresses the energy system. That agreement for a longer run included a $1.4 billion forgivable state loan for PG&E, to be paid in several installments.
California energy regulators voted in December to extend the plant’s operating run for five years, to 2030.
The legislators’ concerns were laid out in an exchange of letters with the Newsom administration, at a time when the state is trying to close an estimated $45 billion deficit. Among other concerns, they questioned if, and when, the state would be repaid by PG&E, and whether taxpayers could be out hundreds of millions of dollars if the proposed extension for Diablo Canyon falls through.
…………………………………………..The questions raised by environmentalists about the potential for soaring costs stemmed from a review of state regulatory filings submitted by PG&E, they said. Initial estimates of about $5 billion to extend the life of the plant later rose to over $8 billion, then nearly $12 billion, they said.
“It’s really quite shocking,” said attorney John Geesman, a former California Energy Commission member who represents the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, an advocacy group that opposes federal license renewals in California. The alliance told the state Public Utilities Commission in May that the cost would represent “by far the largest financial commitment to a single energy project the commission has ever been asked to endorse.”……….. https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/correction-california-s-last-nuclear-plant-story-19658633.php?fbclid=IwY2xjawEuMDlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVvxRKXYzA1jZri4TZdyt4rL1rA9cxRHZHKTVFATkmwDmExIrs3feHydxA_aem_8Q7on7q9UlKUH6RZYqNx5w
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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