US opens applications for $900 million for small nuclear reactors (article includes a note of caution)
By Timothy Gardner, October 17, 2024
WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. on Wednesday opened applications for up to $900 million in funding to support the initial domestic deployment of small modular reactor nuclear technology…………………………
no U.S. commercial SMR has been built yet. Critics say they will be more expensive to run than larger reactors because they will struggle to achieve economies of scale. Like the large reactors, they will also produce long-lasting radioactive waste for which there is no final depository in the U.S.
HOW WILL THE MONEY BE DISTRIBUTED?
The funds come from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the Energy Department anticipates offering it in two tiers.
Up to $800 million will go to milestone-based awards for support of first mover teams of utility, reactor vendor, constructor, end users and others.
………………..Up to $100 will spur additional SMR deployments by addressing gaps that have hindered the domestic nuclear industry in areas such as design, licensing, supplier development, and site preparation, the department said. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-opens-applications-900-million-small-nuclear-reactors-2024-10-16/
North Somerset MP objects to salt marsh at Kingston Seymour
North Somerset Times 16th Oct 2024
NORTH Somerset’s MP, Sadik Al-Hassan, objects to the creation of a salt marsh in the corner of his constituency, claiming his constituents are being “shut out of the conversation.”
The proposed salt marsh at Kingston Seymour, which sits on the boundary with the neighbouring Wells and Mendip Hills constituency, is one of four sites earmarked on the Severn Estuary by EDF as environmental mitigation measures for its construction of Hinkley Point C. The other sites include Littleton, Arlingham and Rodley………………………………………….. https://www.northsomersettimes.co.uk/news/24657962.north-somerset-mp-objects-salt-marsh-kingston-seymour/
Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza
Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 16, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/another-phony-biden-pr-stunt-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=150283330&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Biden administration is performing another PR stunt about getting humanitarian aid into Gaza as election day approaches.
The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid—a deadline which you will notice conveniently falls after US election day on November 5.
Rather than releasing this information itself, the Biden administration published it in its customary manner by laundering it through Axios as a letter that was “obtained” by the outlet and its Israeli intelligence insider Barak Ravid, thereby framing this as a news story and not a White House press release.
Not only does the 30-day deadline fall after election day, it also falls after Israel’s planned attack on Iran in response to Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Israel. Anonymous officials have told The Washington Post that Israel will be launching this attack before the election in the US.
This narrative the Biden administration is trying to insert into public consciousness is already falling apart. The Washington Post’s John Hudson reports via Twitter:
“Biden’s spokesmen at the White House and State Department declined to say the U.S. will restrict arms sales to Israel if it continues to block aid, raising doubts for some about the seriousness of the U.S. warning.”
Hudson also cited the analysis of former senior Biden administration official Jeremy Konyndyk, now the president of Refugees International, regarding this development:
“After the past year, Netanyahu will be understandably skeptical that Biden will put real teeth behind this sort of warning. He has blown through every guardrail the U.S. has tried to erect, and has done so with total impunity so far.”
If this was a real thing with real teeth and not an incredibly cynical eleventh-hour election ploy, it would have happened a full year ago. As with all words the US government releases about Israel, it can be safely ignored without missing out on anything of value. The Biden administration’s actions speak for themselves, and have done so for a year.
Ignore their words. Watch their actions. If you just look at the material actions of the US government and Israel and mentally mute all their mountains of verbiage about it, you simply see a big country pouring weapons into a little country who uses them to attack its neighbors.
If you tune out all the words expressing “concern” for the people of Gaza, about how Israel must do more to get humanitarian aid to civilians and try to kill fewer people, about how sad and tragic and unfortunate this whole thing is but it’s oh so very important that Israel has the ability to “defend itself”, and plus Hamas and Hezbollah are hiding behind the civilians and blah blah blah blah — if you tune all that out and just look at the raw data of what’s happening, you just see a state raining hellfire on civilian populations packed full of children and using siege warfare to starve hundreds of thousands of people.
Ignore their words and watch their actions. That’s how you sort out fact from fiction in an information environment that’s saturated in propaganda and manipulation — not just with Israel, but with everything. Watch where the war machinery is going, where the money is going, and where the resources are going, and ignore all the words about why it makes perfect sense for this to be happening. Do this and you’ll have an infinitely better understanding of what’s going on in the world than you could ever hope to glean from watching CNN or Fox News.
This is a great way to see through the manipulations in your personal life as well. If you’re in a relationship with someone who keeps letting you down in various ways and always has sensible-sounding reasons for doing so, but when you look at where the resources and/or relaxation and/or pleasure are going in your relationship you see it’s mostly going toward your partner, that tells you what’s really going on there. It tells you you’re in an unequal and exploitative relationship, regardless of what words they use to explain why they keep getting their way at your expense.
Manipulators understand that you can trade words for real material benefits. Say the right words in the right way and you can get people to agree to let you commit mass atrocities. You can get them to give you control over their material circumstances. You can get them to consent to wildly unfair economic and political systems. You can persuade them to let you destroy the biosphere they depend on for survival. You can get them to give you power, money, sex, egoic gratification — whatever it is you’re after — just by saying the right words in the right way.
And that’s basically our entire problem as a species right now. That’s why the world looks the way it looks. A few clever manipulators have figured out how to use mass-scale psychological manipulation to get us to trade away real material benefits for empty narrative fluff. That’s the only reason this genocidal, ecocidal, exploitative, bat shit insane political status quo has been permitted to exist by people who vastly outnumber the few who benefit from it.
This will keep happening until humanity becomes a conscious species. To become a conscious human is to awaken from the trance of the believed narratives in your skull and begin perceiving life as it truly is.
The difference between our mental stories about how life is happening and how it really is could not be more different — which is why manipulators are able to extract so much benefit from manipulating our mental stories about how life is happening. Manipulators will always have the ability to do this until we make the necessary adaptation as a species from believing mental narratives to perceiving life as it truly is.
Every species eventually hits an adaptation-or-extinction juncture as its conditioning runs into changing material realities on this planet. We’re at ours right now, and unlike other species who have gone extinct before us, our own behavior is responsible for the changing material realities we are running up against. Since our behavior at mass scale is being driven by mass-scale psychological manipulation via the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed, in order to see a change in the way humans behave on this planet, we’re going to have to see a mass-scale shift in our species’ relationship with mental narrative.
It is possible for an individual to stop imbuing their mental chatter with the power of belief and start seeing life as it is, and if it is possible to do this individually it is possible to do it collectively as well. We all have this potentiality sleeping within us. It will either awaken and carry us beyond the adaptation-or-extinction juncture we now face, or we will go the way of the dinosaur.
That’s where we’re at right now. We have the freedom to go either way.
Kamala Harris’ foreign policy agenda music to war party, anathema to swing state voters
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 13 Oct 24
It’s standard procedure for presidential candidates to promote bellicose US foreign policy in their campaigns. When the weapons makers, career generals, Congressional Hawks and pro war pundits pounce on candidates promoting peace over war, the warning is clear: don’t mess with US unipolar dominance.
But Kamala Harris has taken that to another level with her positions that are furthering the Israeli genocide in Gaza, destruction of Ukraine, looming war with Iran, and endless war provocations in the Far East with China.
She calls the $17.9 billion in US weapons obliterating Palestinian moms and kids “defense” and vows to continue it in a Harris administration. That alone disqualifies her to serve as president. That is not an endorsement of Trump, who’s even more ravenous for Israel to “to finish the job (genocide) in Gaza”
Harris remains in complete denial that US provocations made the Russian invasion of Ukraine inevitable. She’s committed to providing Ukraine with war weapons, already exceeding $150 billion, that have largely destroyed Ukraine as a functioning state. She calls negotiations to end the war “surrender”, something she will never do.
Harris’ claim that Iran is “America’s greatest adversary” is preposterous. She’s cool with Israel bombing folks in Tehran, but when Iran bombed back in protest, Harris got on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss US help in Israel’s planned reprisals. That is not stateswomanship . That is criminal warmongering.
Harris is also on board endless US provocations against China in the Far East that could provoke war with the third largest nuclear power. Why? Harris says “The US must “win the competition for the 21st century with China.” A competition that ends in war is not winning. It is self destruction.
Harris may be pleasing the US war party, but not voters in swing states. They are not supporting endless US wars sucking up US treasure needed for the Homeland. They favor Trump’s approach to ending them (however unrealistic) over Harris’ bellicose stance by a margin of 58% to 42%. That alone could cost Harris the electoral votes she needs for victory November 5. Her foreign policy is not just wrong…it is stupid.
On domestic issues Kamala checks all the right boxes. On foreign policy issues she my be leading America and the world to ruin.
As Milton bears down on Floridians, Joe and Bibi bear down on Iranians.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 9 Oct 24
We know President Biden didn’t spend his whole schedule Wednesday fretting about hurricane relief for the soon to be inundated Florida. That’s because he spent a half hour discussing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the upcoming Israeli-US attack on Iran.
That’s right, the imminent attack will be with full knowledge and support of the US, putting us at war with Iran if they choose to include US targets in the Middle East along with their retaliatory attack on Israel. And retaliate they have vowed to do.
President Biden has supported all 3 Israeli bombing campaigns, first on Gaza, then Lebanon and now Iran in the year since the Hamas attack on Israel. He’s completely complicit with Netanyahu’s ghoulish carnage by giving Israel an astonishing $17.9 billion in military aid. Biden has squandered another $4.8 billion on a failed bombing campaign against Yemen Houthis and building up its military presence in the region in anticipation of regional war.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is close to realizing his short term dream of ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians. While still underway, he’s pivoted to drawing the US into war with Iran which is the only way he can achieve his long term dream of destroying his only competitor for Middle East dominance.
We don’t know how many billions in damage will be inflicted by Milton on Florida. Wouldn’t it have been nice if that $22.7 billion Biden has squandered on genocide in Gaza, massive destruction in Lebanon and likely soon regional war with Iran, had been squirreled away to alleviate the devastation being visited upon Florida this week.
Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Power Vote: Many Questions, But Just One On The Ballot
Radio Free Europe 5th Oct 2024
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakh voters will head to the polls on October 6 to decide whether to approve the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan — the world’s largest producer of uranium.
And the question on the ballot will be just that: “Do you agree to the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan?”
But the debate surrounding nuclear energy is far more complex, taking in the heavy legacy of Soviet-era nuclear tests, long-standing nuclear-phobia, and unanswered questions around the companies — and countries — that would build the plant if voters endorse it.
Ahead of the first referendum in Central Asia on nuclear power, RFE/RL takes a closer look at that conversation.
What The Government Says
In many countries, national referendums can divide governing coalitions and spark cabinet resignations, but there is no sign of anything like that in Kazakhstan — the political elite is firmly behind the plan to build a nuclear power plant.
That extends from the government to the legislature, where all six parties support the idea, and where at least one lawmaker who initially opposed the plan now says he changed his mind.
The government’s main argument is that only nuclear power has the capacity to provide near-zero carbon energy on the scale required to cover a power deficit that grows year-on-year, especially in the southern half of the country.
Why Not Renewables?
While wind and solar’s overall share of the fossil-fuel-heavy national energy mix has grown to around 6 percent in recent years, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliev argues that renewables’ dependence on “natural and climatic conditions” make them too “unpredictable” on a large scale.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev first floated the idea of using nuclear power in 2019.
Like other officials, he has assured Kazakhs that a future nuclear plant will be built with the latest technology to ensure the highest safety standards.
As the world’s largest uranium producer, he says it is time for Kazakhstan to move up the nuclear-fuel cycle.
Why Hold A Referendum?
That is a good question, given that any sort of popular vote carries a protest risk, and Kazakhstan’s authoritarian regime has only recently held parliamentary elections (March 2023) and a presidential election (November 2022).
But the country’s leadership knows that the issue is contentious — not least because the nation’s introduction to nuclear power began with the Soviet Union’s first nuclear bomb test in 1949, with hundreds more taking a terrible human and environmental toll in the northeastern Semei region……………………………………….
Is There A ‘No’ Campaign?
To the extent that Kazakhstan allows such things, there is.
But nuclear naysayers have been repeatedly blocked from holding demonstrations against the plan in various cities, and most recently found that a hotel in the largest city, Almaty — where they had earlier agreed to hold an event — was suddenly unwilling to host them.
At least five Kazakh activists opposed to nuclear power have been placed in pretrial detention on charges of plotting mass unrest early this month, while others have faced administrative punishment. https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-nuclear-power-referendum/33146657.html
Donald Trump encourages Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites
During a rally in North Carolina, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took the opposite approach to Joe Biden, encouraging Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.
“They ask him (Joe Biden) what do you think about Iran? Would you hit Iran? And he goes as long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff – that’s the thing you want to hit,” Mr Trump said.
“I think he’s got that one wrong – isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?”
Hey Australia, Ontario is no model for energy and climate policy
Energy and climate strategy should prioritize options with lowest economic, environmental, technological and safety risks. Ontario’s does the opposite.
by Mark Winfield October 4, 2024, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2024/ontario-energy/
Over the past few weeks, word has begun to reach Ontario of a series of stories in the Australian media in which the province is being held up as a model for climate and energy policy Down Under.
It seems that Peter Dutton, the leader of the federal opposition Liberal (the conservative party in Australian politics), has been promoting Ontario’s nuclear heavy energy plans as a pathway for Australia.
For those in the province familiar with the ongoing saga of its energy and electricity policies, the reactions to the notion of Ontario being an example of energy and electricity policymaking have ranged from “bizarre” to “you couldn’t make this up.”
Poor maintenance and operating practices led to the near-overnight shutdown of the province’s seven oldest reactors in 1997, leading to a dramatic rise in the role of coal-fired generation and its associated emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and smog precursors. The refurbishment of the “laid-up” reactors themselves went badly. Two ended in write-offs, and the others ran billions over budget and years behind schedule, accounting for a large portion of the near doubling of electricity rates in the province between the mid-2000s and 2020.
Towards a $100-billion nuclear binge?
Only two other provinces followed Ontario’s lead on nuclear. Quebec built two reactors and New Brunswick one, each of them completed in the 1970s or the early 1980s. The Gentilly-1 facility in Quebec was barely ever operational and closed in 1977. The Gentilly-2 facility was shut down in 2012, and assessed as uneconomic, particularly in light of Ontario’s experiences in attempting to refurbish its own. The construction and then refurbishment of the Point Lepreau facility has repeatedly pushed New Brunswick Power to the brink of bankruptcy.
The current government of Ontario, led by Conservative Premier Doug Ford, has seemed determined to ignore the nuclear experiences of these provinces, and its own history of failed nuclear megaprojects. The government’s July 2023 energy plan includes the refurbishment of six reactors at the Bruce nuclear power facility (owned by OPG), and four reactors at the OPG’s Darlington facility. It subsequently added the refurbishment of four more reactors at OPG’s Pickering B facility, an option that had previously been assessed as unnecessary and uneconomic. The plant had originally been scheduled to close in 2018. There are also proposals for four new reactors totaling 4,800 MW in capacity at Bruce and four new 300MW reactors at Darlington. (The current capacity is 6,550 MW at Bruce, and 3,512 MW at Darlington.)
The total costs of these plans are unknown at this point, but an overall estimate in excess of $100 billion would not be unrealistic:
- $13 billion for the refurbishment at Darlington;
- approximately $20 billion for the refurbishment at Bruce;
- $15 billion for Pickering B (based on Darlington costs and plant age for both this case and Bruce);
- about $50 billion for the new build at Bruce, based on previous new build proposals;
- and the Darlington new build (unknown, but likely $10 billion or more).
Even this 100$-billion figure would assume that things go according to plan, which rarely happens with nuclear construction and refurbishment projects.
The government’s ambitious nuclear plans have not been subject to any form of external review or regulatory oversight in terms of costs, economic and environmental rationality, or the availability of lower-cost and lower-risk pathways for meeting the province’s electricity needs. Rather, the system now runs entirely on the basis of ministerial directives that agencies in the sector, including the putative regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, are mandated to implement.
The province’s politically driven policy environment is very advantageous to nuclear proponents. When previous nuclear expansion proposals had been subject to meaningful public review, the plans collapsed in the face of soaring cost estimates and unrealistic demand projections. This was the case in the early 1980s with the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning – aka the Porter commission, at the turn of the 1990s with the Ontario Hydro demand and supply plan environmental assessment, and in the late 2000s, with the Ontario Power Authority’s integrated power system plan review.
A halt to renewable energy
There is a second dimension to Ontario’s electricity plans that also should not be overlooked. Upon arriving in office the Ford government promptly terminated all efforts at renewable energy development, including having completed wind turbine projects quite literally ripped out of the ground at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It then scrapped the province’s energy efficiency strategy for being too effective at reducing demand. Repeated offers of low-cost electricity from the hydropower-rich neighbouring province of Quebec were ignored. The results of studies by the province’s own electricity system operator on energy efficiency potential and the possible contributions of distributed generation, like building and facility-level solar photovoltaics (PV) and storage, have been largely disregarded.
These choices have left the province with no apparent option but to rely on natural gas-fired generation to replace nuclear facilities that are being refurbished or retired. With existing facilities dramatically ramping up their output, and new facilities being added, GHG and other emissions from gas-fired generation have more than tripled since 2017, and are projected to continue to increase dramatically over the next years. On its current trajectory, gas-fired generation will constitute a quarter of the province’s electricity supply, the same portion provided by coal-fired plants before their phase-out, completed in 2013. The province has recently announced a re-engagement around renewable energy, but the seriousness of this interest has been subject to considerable doubt.
Given all of this, it would be difficult to see Ontario as a model for Australia or any other jurisdiction to follow in designing its energy and climate strategy. The province has no meaningful energy planning and review process. Its current nuclear and gas-focussed pathway seems destined to embed high energy costs and high emissions for decades to come. And it will leave a growing legacy of radioactive wastes that will require management of timescales hundreds of millennia.
A rational and transparent process would prioritize the options with the lowest economic, environmental, technological and safety risks. Higher-risk options, like new nuclear, should only be considered where it can be demonstrated that the lower-risk options have been fully optimized and developed in the planning process. Ontario’s current path goes in the opposite direction. To follow its example would be a serious mistake.
‘Environmental impact’ of Hinkley Point C debate due
2nd October, By Seth Dellow https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/24624674.environmental-impact-hinkley-point-c-debate-due/
A PARLIAMENTARY debate has been secured by Bridgwater’s MP Ashley Fox to address the ‘environmental impact’ of the proposed salt marshes at Pawlett Hams and other sites.
The Westminster Hall Debate will take place in Parliament on Wednesday, October 9 at 11am. It will enable concerns to be raised about the impact of Hinkley Point C’s water intake system. The securing of the debate follows ongoing concerns about the recently scrapped proposal to create a 800-acre salt marsh at Pawlett Hams, as part of mitigation efforts for marine life in the Severn Estuary.
Hinkley Point C requires effective environmental measures to protect fish from being harmed by its water intake pipes, which are located 2km offshore. Originally, a range of mitigation efforts were agreed upon, including the installation of an Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD). However, after years of study, EDF Energy deemed the AFD impractical due to safety concerns.
Therefore, as an alternative, the creation of a salt marsh was proposed, with Pawlett Hams identified as a potential site. But this plan has since been halted following strong local opposition.
Ashley Fox will use the debate to recognise the efforts of residents in advocating for the protection of Pawlett Hams, question why the AFD was recommended without precedent, and to urge the Environment Agency to commit to maintaining vital flood defences along the River Parrett. Mr Fox will also caution against environmental measures that may cause unintended damage to local ecology.
The debate will compel a government minister to respond to these concerns and can be watched live on October 9 online at Parliament TV.
Ashley Fox said: “I supported the campaign to protect Pawlett Hams when I was running to be the local MP. I am pleased to have this opportunity to highlight the effective advocacy of the action group at the highest level.”
US government provides $1.52 billion loan to resurrect Michigan nuclear plant
US closes $1.52 billion loan to resurrect Michigan nuclear plant, By Timothy Gardner October 1, 2024
WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. on Monday said it closed a $1.52 billion loan to resurrect Holtec’s Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, and a senior Biden administration official said it could take two years to reopen the plant, which is longer than the company predicted.
President Joe Biden’s administration has called for a tripling of U.S. nuclear power capacity as U.S. power demand surges and worries about climate change mount.
The push could include the potential reopening of some commercial reactors that have been shut for decommissioning, including one at Three Mile Island, site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. Restarting shut nuclear plants is a complicated and expensive process never before accomplished in the country.
“Palisades is a climate comeback story,” Ali Zaidi, the White House climate adviser, told reporters in a call, adding that nuclear power supports high-paying union jobs
The $1.52 billion in financing from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, was accompanied by funding for nonprofit electric cooperatives to purchase power from Palisades. Deputy U.S. Energy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small announced more than $1.3 billion in public funding to power cooperatives Wolverine and Hoosier Energy.
Nuclear reactors generate virtually emissions-free power, which is valued as electricity demand soars for the first time in decades on growth in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and cryptocurrencies. Nuclear critics, however, point out that the U.S. has not agreed on a permanent place to bury radioactive nuclear waste.
Palisades still needs licensing from regulators and the senior U.S. official said that means it could take “a couple of years to turn back on”. Holtec has estimated a comeback in the fourth quarter next year…………….
O’Brien has said Holtec does not expect delays or additional costs. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-closes-152-billion-loan-resurrect-michigan-nuclear-plant-2024-09-30/
Question for the candidates: Will the United States sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?
By Alicia Sanders-Zakre | September 20, 2024 Alicia Sanders-Zakre is the Policy and Research Coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. https://thebulletin.org/2024/09/will-the-united-states-sign-and-ratify-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFoiE5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXWHz4dPKx6qA6gXNV_3JCT1LqSA4SpW4InKnv6GP0M0A5RzBvtaJMfokw_aem_nT8dnPTOYgkrNFm4kOHKTA
Before the 2016 US presidential election, Princeton physicist Zia Mian wrote an essay asking then-candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the Bulletin whether they would be ready to start talks to ban nuclear weapons. Eight years and two presidents later, both the Trump and Biden administrations have rebuffed the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and chosen instead to persist with current US policies to maintain and upgrade nuclear weapons—despite a legal obligation to disarm, public support for the TPNW, and the existential threat to humanity of adherence to the debated theory of nuclear deterrence.
The TPNW is the first international treaty banning all nuclear weapons activities, including nuclear use and threat of use, testing, stationing, and development. The treaty’s Article 4 provides a verifiable pathway for nuclear-armed states to join and disarm. And Articles 6 and 7 create the first international regime to provide assistance and remediation to people and environments harmed by nuclear weapons use and testing; an effort led by countries that have been bombarded by Soviet and British nuclear detonations. This treaty currently has 93 signatory states and 70 states parties from every region of the world.
The United States—like other nuclear-armed countries—has chosen to undermine and dismiss this good faith effort by nearly half the world’s governments, including US allies, to rid the world of nuclear weapons. In 2020, the Trump administration even urged states to withdraw their instruments of ratification. Meanwhile, the United States has failed to implement the obligation it undertook more than half a century ago under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to pursue nuclear disarmament and instead spent $51.5 billion in 2023 alone to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. The continued investment of nuclear powers in maintaining and rebuilding their nuclear arsenals, while paying mere lip service to disarmament, is a source of contention within the NPT and undermines the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Foreign policy goals aside, US presidential candidates should adhere to democratic principles and align their policies with public opinion and support for the treaty among local governments to join the TPNW: According to a 2022 study, 65 percent of the US population supports joining the TPNW. Cities and towns across the country—from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles to Yellow Springs, Ohio—have adopted local resolutions calling on their government to join, alongside five US states. Members of the US Congress, as well as local and state politicians, have also called on the United States to join the ban treaty.
Support for the TPNW is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the risks that nuclear weapons pose as long as they exist—and an understanding of the naiveté of relying on the rationality of statemen like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, or former US president Donald Trump to decide the fate of humanity.
Scholars have shown that the reason humanity has escaped nuclear annihilation since the dawn of the nuclear age may have more to do with sheer luck than with any successful strategy.
No one will want to be around when luck runs out.
We know all too well what that would look like and the incapacity of humanitarian organizations to respond. A new report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons documents in gut-wrenching detail the harm that nuclear weapons have done to children and the threat they continue to pose to them, including those bombed by the United States in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of those children survived and now give testimony to—and remind leaders of—the urgent need to abolish these weapons. This report adds to the robust body of literature on the devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons.
Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the United States and the world have continued to face the threat of accidental or intentional nuclear annihilation, a threat that has continued to grow in recent years. It is time to chart a new course and to eliminate nuclear weapons, which is the only fail-safe way to eliminate the threat of their use.
Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump should be asked: If elected President, will you sign and submit to the Senate for ratification the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?
Australian Defence Minister Marles, with all pretension, flogging a dead seahorse
By Paul Keating, Sep 28, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/marles-with-all-pretention-flogging-a-dead-seahorse/
Richard Marles and his mate, the US defence secretary, are beginning to wilt under the weight of sustained comment in Australia critical of the AUKUS arrangement.
Marles, unable to sustain a cogent argument himself, has his US friend propping him up in London to throw a 10,000-mile punch at me – and as usual, failing to materially respond to legitimate and particular criticisms made of the AUKUS arrangement.
The US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, claims AUKUS would not compromise Australia’s ability to decide its own sovereign defence issues, a claim made earlier by Richard Marles and the prime minister.
But this would only be true until the prime minister and Marles got their phone call from the president, seeking to mobilise Australian military assets – wherein, both would click their heels in alacrity and agreement. The rest of us would read about it in some self-serving media statement afterwards. As my colleague, Gareth Evans, recently put it, “it defies credibility that Washington will ever go ahead with the sale of Virginias to us in the absence of an understanding that they will join the US in any fight in which it chooses to engage anywhere in our region, particularly over Taiwan”.
In London, Marles claimed that the logic behind AUKUS matched my policy as prime minister, in committing to the Collins class submarine program. This is completely untrue.
The Collins class submarine, at 3,400 tonnes, was designed specifically for the defence of Australia – in the shallow waters off the Australian continental shelf.
The US Virginia class boats at 10,000 tonnes, are attack submarines designed to stay and stand on far away station, in this case, principally to wait and sink Chinese nuclear weapon submarines as they exit the Chinese coast.
At 10,000 tonnes, the Virginias are too large for the shallow waters of the Australian coast – their facility is not in the defence of Australia, rather, it is to use their distance and stand-off capability to sink Chinese submarines. They are attack-class boats.
When Marles wilfully says “AUKUS matches the Collins class logic” during the Keating government years, he knows that statement to be utterly untrue. Factually untrue. The Collins is and was a “defensive” submarine – designed to keep an enemy off the Australian coast. It was never designed to operate as far away as China or to sit and lie in wait for submarine conquests.
And as Evans also recently made clear, eight Virginia class boats delivered in the 2040s-50s would only ever see two submarines at sea at any one time. Yet Marles argues that just two boats of this kind in the vast oceans surrounding us, materially alters our defensive capability and the military judgment of an enemy. This is argument unbecoming of any defence minister.
As I said at the National Press Club two years ago, two submarines aimed at China would be akin to throwing toothpicks at a mountain. That remains the position.
The fact is, the Albanese Government, through this program and the ambitious basing of American military forces on Australian soil, is doing nothing other than abrogating Australia’s sovereign right to command its own continent and its military forces.
Marles says “there has been demonstrable support for AUKUS within the Labor Party”. This may be true at some factionally, highly-managed national conference — like the last one — but it is utterly untrue of the Labor Party’s membership at large – which he knows.
The membership abhors AUKUS and everything that smacks of national sublimation. It does not expect these policies from a Labor Government.
Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Presidential Elections
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/09/29/nuclear-weapons-and-the-u-s-presidential-elections/
Whoever becomes the next US president, we’ll need to redouble our efforts for nuclear abolition, writes Jackie Cabasso
Nuclear weapons policy is not an issue in the presidential election. In fact, U.S. foreign policy, with the exception of some controversy over ongoing U.S. arms provisions to Israel, is barely an issue. Even though nuclear weapons are in the media more than they have been for many years—due mainly to the Russian government’s nuclear threats, and to some extent, North Korea’s, there is basically no public discussion or political debate about nuclear weapons in the United States.
The political situation in the U.S. is more volatile and uncertain than at any time in my life. Predicting who is going to be elected president in November is impossible. In the short weeks since President Biden withdrew from the campaign and threw his support behind his vice president Kamala Harris, there has been an extraordinary outpouring of enthusiasm for her campaign, especially among young people and people of color, and a massive surge of financial support from a wide range of constituencies. But at this point, the outcome of the presidential election is too close to call.
What I can say is that U.S. national security policy has been remarkably consistent in the post-World War II and post-Cold War eras. “Deterrence” – the threatened use of nuclear weapons – has been reaffirmed as the “cornerstone” of U.S. national security policy by every president, Republican or Democrat, since 1945, when President Harry Truman, a Democrat, oversaw the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If Kamala Harris is elected in 2024, we can expect more of the same. As confirmed in an August 20, 2024, New York Times story that attracted some notice, an initiative is quietly underway by the Biden administration to beef up the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As reported by the Times, in March, President Biden approved a highly classified “Nuclear Employment Guidance” plan that seeks to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. This comes as the Pentagon believes China’s nuclear arsenal will rival the size and diversity of the U.S.’ and Russia’s over the next decade.
This plan was hinted at by Vipin Narang, a top Department of Defense nuclear policy official, who recently stated that, while current modernization plans — estimated to cost at least $350 billion over the next two decades — are “necessary,” they “may well be insufficient” to meet current and future threats. According to Narang, in the face of growing threats from Russia, China and North Korea, “We have begun exploring options to increase future launcher capacity or additional deployed warheads on the land, sea and air legs that could offer national leadership increased flexibility, if desired, and executed.”
According to the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Jill Hruby, the U.S. is launching a new nuclear arms race to catch up with and outsmart Russia and China. “We now have seven systems that should be developed and put into production by the mid-2030s. This program is not only a major modernization of all three components of the nuclear triad, but also adds new deterrence capabilities that do not currently exist,” she said.
Donald Trump’s likely nuclear policy is spelled out in a manifesto by Project 2025, a coalition of far-right groups led by the Heritage Foundation. Its 900-page book, “Mandate for Leadership,” is a blueprint for the most dramatic takeover and transformation of U.S. democracy in history and is widely seen as the playbook for a possible second Trump administration.
Trump himself, and a number of Republican members of Congress, have attempted to distance themselves from Project 2025, in some cases, claiming they haven’t even heard of it. This is not plausible. Speaking at a 2022 Heritage Foundation event, Donald Trump declared, “[T]his is a great group. And they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America and that’s coming.”
Project 2025 proposes that a second Trump administration prioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs, accelerate the development and production of all nuclear weapons programs, increase funding for the development and production of new and modernized nuclear warheads, and prepare to test new nuclear weapons.
Separately, Robert O’Brien, an ex-adviser to former President Trump, has written that in order to counter China and Russia’s continued investments in their nuclear arsenals, the U.S. should resume nuclear testing.
While she did not mention nuclear weapons in her presidential nomination acceptance speech, Kamala Harris chillingly pledged, “As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” A Harris administration would undoubtedly be far more progressive on domestic issues, but whoever wins the U.S. presidency, our redoubled efforts to press for nuclear abolition will remain an urgent necessity.
1 This Month
26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
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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