UK FS: global coalition against Russia, China; “recreating USSR”; Ukraine new Afghanistan, Chechnya — Anti-bellum
One doesn’t get more provocative than this, especially the reference to Chechnya. From only the second female foreign secretary of the UK. (Margaret Beckett, who served barely a year, preceding her in that category.) UK foreign secretary compares Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine with Afghan war Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned Russia that invading […]
UK FS: global coalition against Russia, China; “recreating USSR”; Ukraine new Afghanistan, Chechnya — Anti-bellum
What the heck is going on with Ukraine?
Emma Elsworthy, Crikey Worm 20 Jan 22 Worm editor
”’………………..So what the heck is going on? Well, Ukraine is stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the European Union on one side and Russia on the other — Russian is widely spoken there, and they have strong ties as a former soviet republic. But Russia has long demanded Ukraine resist the West and stay more Russian, as BBC explains, saying in no uncertain terms that Ukraine must not join NATO. Cast your mind back to 2014, as Vox explained, and you may recall Russia taking Crimea after Ukraine booted their pro-Moscow president. Ever since, things have been really tense, but Russia recently upped the ante by putting 100,000 troops on their border. So what do Russia want? Mostly for NATO to stop moving into the East and for it to return to its pre-1997 borders, which means it’d have to bail from stations in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. https://edm.privatemedia.com.au/webmail/272522/1224982414/a7e05398a18da97e419b70c061dc77e2eba2537433139c09a89d2cb6dc8e8b3d
Ukraine crisis is a terrifying impasse
No (Nuclear) War Over Ukraine, Please, Viewpoint by Jonathan Power, 19 Jan 21,
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — War over Ukraine? It mustn’t be. Some of us believed that at the end of the Cold War in 1991 American and Soviet nuclear rockets would be left to rust and rot in their silos. Indeed, we actually saw Ukraine, where the Soviets made most of their rockets and based many, (who says that Ukraine doesn’t have an umbilical relationship with Russia?), deciding to give up its nuclear armoury—for which the world should give more praise than it does.
Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did quite a lot for nuclear disarmament. At a summit in Iceland, Reagan and Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, panicked most of their advisors and western commentators when they nearly agreed to total nuclear disarmament. …………………..
the US has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which would help stymie the further spread of nuclear arms to other countries. For new nuclear powers, if you can’t test you don’t know if you have a workable bomb.
The next stage in the disarmament process should be getting rid of short-range tactical nuclear-tipped missiles based in Europe. Moscow is insisting that the first step must be the US removing all its tactical weapons from Europe, which is fair given their proximity to Moscow. It would be as if Russia had rocket bases in Mexico. As for cutting the number of intercontinental rockets, the last big cut was made in the time of Obama and President Dimitri Medvedev. Biden did renew the agreement, but no disarmament talks are presently planned.
All this adds up to very little nuclear disarmament. The US Senate is an immovable brake on Biden, as it was earlier on President Barack Obama. For his part, Donald Trump wanted to upgrade the US armoury of nuclear missiles…………
how is it, 30 years after the end of the Cold War, that either side can justify nuclear weapons? Is Russia an enemy or is it not? Successive American presidents have said it no longer is. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have all said it is not. The Russians say the same thing about the US and Europe. Putin still calls them “our friends”. But surely non-enemies don’t have nuclear weapons pointed at each other…….
So what is it all about? Why are we allowing events around the issue of the independence of Ukraine to slip out of our control to where the warriors call the shots? Loose talk in Moscow about bringing a nuclear-armed Russian submarine up close to the US coast does not help. Neither does the present deployment of similar US submarines in the Black Sea…………………………
Biden is checkmated by the intransigent forces around him. Maybe it is the same with Putin. Therefore, the world is checkmated. What a terrifying impasse this Ukraine crisis is.https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/opinion/5019-no-nuclear-war-over-ukraine-please
A mutual suicide pact: Australia’s undeclared nuclear weapons strategy
A mutual suicide pact: Australia’s undeclared nuclear weapons strategy, Pearls and Irritations, By Michael McKinleyJan 20, 2022 As the world’s nuclear arsenals build even more killing power, the need for Australia to abandon this perilous defence arrangement only increases.
The conventional wisdom has it that in the matter of nuclear weapons Australia is an exemplary international citizen. According to the Standard Version, it diligently supports the various nuclear arms control and disarmament regimes, and adheres to the position which regards nuclear weapons as instruments of nuclear deterrence and thus of the stable relations between major powers. Nuclear war-fighting is eschewed. Virtue is asserted. Res ipsa loquitor. The problem is that both claims are not only false, but embedded within what passes for defence policy with increasing willed ignorance, deceit and dishonesty.
At issue is the Australia’s unqualified general support for the various postures the US adopts and the particular role which it provides through the joint Australia-US facilities at Pine Gap and Northwest Cape. Their status as integral components in US global nuclear strategy – and thus nuclear targets in the event of major, peer-to-peer-war challenges the concept of government by consent of the governed.
The arrangements and agreements between Canberra and Washington have never been made public; indeed, successive governments have been industrious in their attempts to close off anything resembling national dialogue or debate on them.
This, of course, is a traditional and dishonourable tradition. Its origins are to be found in the official dishonesty surrounding Australia granting the British government the right to conduct a series of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga, Emu Plains and the Montebello Islands from 1952 to 1963.
Unabated, it has coarsened the legal and ethical fabric of the nation’s security and foreign policy ever since to the point where the obvious has to be restated because, essentially, it no longer gives cause for shame, outrage, or anger.
Consider just six issues on which policymakers and mainstream national security commentators and scholars have been mute.
Diplomacy, it seems, has been substituted for by bellicose statements by high-level military and civilian personnel which exhibit, little more than its relegation to an irrelevance beyond its cosmetic utility.
Second, there is proliferation by stealth. The US initiative to modernise its nuclear arsenal by installing the burst-height compensating super-fuze has extraordinary implications. It effectively triples the killing power of its ballistic missiles and, as described by three of America’s most respected weapons analysts (Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie and Theodore Postol) in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the situation is one in which the US has developed “the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.”
Third, the advent of weapons with warheads described as “variable yield,” “low yield,” “clean” (sic), or “mini nukes” has encouraged declarations at the highest levels in the US that, under certain circumstances, nuclear weapons have “tactical” utility. And they are a matter of pride: as the head of US Strategic Command told a congressional committee in 2020, these innovations made him “proud to be an American.”
Fourth, this embrace of tactical nuclear weapons cannot be separated from the explicit intention to envisage nuclear weapons as inescapably enmeshed in the overarching concept of deterrence. Put another way, for Admiral Richard, and those of a like mind, there is no meaningful distinction to be made between conventional and nuclear deterrence: they comprise a single entity, the former being dependent on the latter for its intellectual and strategic credibility.
By extension the fifth comes into focus: the US to continuing to reserve to itself the right to a nuclear first strike. In 2020, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Tod Wolters, commander of US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, went so far as to enthuse over it with this endorsement: “I’m a fan of flexible first use policy.”
Sixth and finally, there is nuclear deterrence itself. The term is employed in polite conversation as though it was simply a technical description; in reality, however, it is an obscenity and this becomes obvious when its explicit principle is confronted.
In simple terms it is a mutual suicide pact to the preserve the status quo of the time. Richard Tanter on this site has accurately described Australia’s position within the alliance and under the nuclear umbrella as one which it expects the US to commit genocide in the name of the country’s defence.
An important point is missed here: this understanding or expectation has never been put to the Australian people. ……………… https://johnmenadue.com/a-mutual-suicide-pact-australias-undeclared-nuclear-weapons-strategy/
EU plans may boost Asian nuclear ambitions but progress likely to stutter, say analysts
EU plans may boost Asian nuclear ambitions but progress likely to stutter, say analysts, Geographical and technical hurdles coupled with a gas glut in Asia mean nuclear power is unlikely to gain a toehold in the region, despite its inclusion in Europe’s “gold standard” green investment rulebook. Eco Business Liang LeiJan. 17, 2022 Southeast Asia could see more funding in nuclear power, following the European Union’s (EU) proposal to include the energy source in their green finance guide, according to analysts.
More Asian countries may also consider including nuclear energy in sustainable investment frameworks, analysts told Eco-Business, but doubt that these developments will significantly help to hit net-zero
2050 targets, citing cost, technological hurdles and competition with other fuels.
The EU released a draft of its green finance taxonomy on 31 December, which defines what projects can be classed as green to pique the interest of investors…….. (subscribers only) https://www.eco-business.com/news/eu-plans-may-boost-asian-nuclear-ambitions-but-progress-likely-to-stutter-say-analysts/
Iran nuclear talks deadlock risks dangerous vacuum
Iran nuclear talks deadlock risks dangerous vacuum, Analysis: As clock runs down on Vienna talks, key obstacles remain to be cleared by Tehran and the west. Guardian, Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, Mon 17 Jan 2022 The countdown to the end of the six-month-long talks in Vienna on the future of the Iran nuclear deal has begun. No deadline has been formally set, but if there is no progress in less than two weeks the process will come to an end leaving a dangerous vacuum.
The White House has already been rolling the pitch preparing its political lines for a breakdown by saying the US withdrawal from the agreement by Donald Trump in 2018 has proved to be a disaster. If there is no agreement, the Biden team intend Trump will take the blame…………
Those close to the talks say they think there can be an agreement, but that from a western perspective it will possibly be so limited in scope it is will be seen as temporary. If so, as Enrique Mora, the chief EU negotiator has said, it will not be for lack of trying……….
Full-scale talks will resume on Monday, with both the UK and Germany represented by new chief negotiators, Stephanie Al-Qaq and Tjorven Bellmann respectively. Detail on progress is being kept to a minimum………………….
A second issue surrounds the guarantees Iran is seeking that the US will not repeat Trump’s withdrawal from the deal in May 2018. The US cannot offer a legally binding treaty since the Senate would never agree to one. Price said: “There is no such thing as a guarantee in diplomacy and international affairs. We can speak for this administration, but this administration has been very clear that we are prepared to return to full compliance with the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and to stay in full compliance with the JCPOA as long as Iran does the same.”
A UN security council resolution might be a bare minimum of comfort for Iran, but is hardly binding on the parties. Tehran wants binding commitments that if the US quits the deal, the EU will do more to defy secondary US sanctions by injecting real cash into the abortive trading mechanism Instex set up by the EU to bypass US sanctions.
A third issue is verification. What are the metrics by which Iran can verify that sanctions have been lifted in reality and not just on paper, and consequently that it must stop enriching uranium at levels of purity not allowed under the agreement? There has been loose talk that the US believes the lifting of sanctions could be verified in 48 hours, but Iran wants a longer process with benchmarks.
The final issue is how to handle both the technical knowledge, including advanced centrifuges and large amounts of enriched uranium that Iran has acquired during the period it has ended its commitments to the JCPOA. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/iran-nuclear-talks-deadlock-risks-dangerous-vacuum
Redesigning nuclear arms control for new realities
Redesigning nuclear arms control for new realities, European Leadership Network, 18 Jan 22.
“When we first launched the report in early December, Russian forces were massing on the borders of Ukraine. As I write this, just weeks later, a full-blown crisis has developed between nuclear Russia and nuclear NATO. This report has only gained in relevance since its release, as we need nuclear arms control more than ever.
Senior Russians have compared this to the Cuban Missile Crisis and have spoken, as has the NATO Secretary General, of the possibility of large-scale conflict in Europe. These are real dangers, but there are also real opportunities to re-start nuclear arms control. This crisis lends momentum to the long haul rebuilding of US, British, French and NATO muscle memory for nuclear risk reduction. Under the skilful steering of Nevine Scheper and Oliver Thraenert of the Centre for Security Studies in Zurich, I and my fellow authors have offered a long-term, clear-eyed look at what it is going to take for the transatlantic community to do nuclear arms control effectively. This summary couldn’t be more timely.”
Adam Thomson, Director of the ELN
Nuclear arms control has lost its place in the current security landscape. A revival of arms control, which is urgently needed, will not be possible by going back to old approaches. Instead, arms control needs to adapt to new circumstances. Western experts have devoted a great deal of attention to possible further steps on the reductions pathway, such as a follow-on agreement to the New START Treaty or a new agreement on non-strategic nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. In the meantime, far too little attention has been given to the new deterrence landscape or the political strategy that must be put in place to arrive at a point where new arms control approaches fit that landscape. …………………………………………. https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/redesigning-nuclear-arms-control-for-new-realities/
Luxembourg’s Energy Minister denounces France’s actions on promoting nuclear to Europe
Climate: “We are ten years old. In ten years, no new nuclear reactor
will be ready”. Luxembourg’s energy minister denounces France’s “double
game” and the lack of European democracy regarding the Commission’s project
to classify energies according to their contribution to the objectives of
“climate neutrality”. In an interview with Mediapart, Claude Turmes points
to “a major political error”.
Mediapart 15th Jan 2022
The detail in the European Commission’s draft for ”sustainable nuclear energy” makes nuclear energy unfeasible – even the nuke lobby hates it!
“The taxonomy reporting is annual, so there’s something impossible to match there, which means a major greenwashing risk”
The European Parliament, however, has a lower voting threshold and will be able to block the proposal by simple majority (i.e. at least 353 MEPs in Plenary).
‘Misunderstanding’ could block nuclear from claiming green EU label, industry warns https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/misunderstanding-could-block-nuclear-from-claiming-green-eu-label-industry-warns/ By Kira Taylor | EURACTIV.com Ambiguities and misunderstandings contained in a draft EU proposal could block nuclear power plants from claiming a green investment label under the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy, the industry has warned. The European Commission is currently in the process of putting together a rulebook, known as the sustainable finance taxonomy, to define which investments can be labelled as climate-friendly in the EU.
As part of this, nuclear energy has tentatively been categorised as a “transitional” technology making a “substantial contribution to climate change mitigation” under draft EU plans circulated by the European Commission on 31 December.
To qualify for the transitional label, new nuclear plants must be built before 2045 and show detailed plans to have a disposal facility in place by 2050 for high-level radioactive waste.
However, issues with the draft criteria mean no nuclear power plant would currently be able to claim the coveted green label, the nuclear industry body Foratom told EURACTIV.
This is because of a requirement that power plants must fully apply “the best-available technology and accident-tolerant fuel” to qualify. That fuel is still in the research phase and is currently not available or licenced, Foratom says.
“As it currently stands, no nuclear entity is covered by the taxonomy because of this,” said Jessica Johnson, communications director at Foratom. “If the text does not change, then we do have problems, particularly in relation to accident tolerant fuels – they don’t exist on the market today,” she told EURACTIV.
Criteria based on a currently unavailable fuel “is obviously not acceptable,” Johnson said, adding however that this could simply be a “misunderstanding” by the European Commission.
Nuclear industry leaders expressed their concerns in a letter sent to the EU executive. “Given that Accident-Tolerant Fuels are still at the research phase we believe this requirement should be removed and instead limited to existing legislation and best available technologies.”
Ambiguous wording
Alongside this, the industry has flagged concerns about the draft’s wording regarding the types of nuclear power plants that could qualify.
According to Foratom, criteria for the operation and maintenance of nuclear plants is ambiguous as the proposal only seems to cover new build projects or those undergoing a lifetime extension, potentially excluding the normal operation and maintenance of existing plants.
“We think it’s just an oversight and more an issue of wording. But it is important that it’s clearly stated that the technical screening criteria cover operation and maintenance of existing power plants,” she said.
Foratom has also questioned a requirement for final repositories of high-level radioactive nuclear waste. Companies will only be able to claim the green EU investment label if they can show “a plan with detailed steps” to have them “in operation by 2050,” according to the draft.
While Foratom agrees that such repositories must be available, Johnson said the current wording could mean a plant built in the 2040s would need a final repository in place by 2050, despite not requiring it for decades.
“We don’t see a need to have a final repository lying idle for 20 to 30 years. It doesn’t make much sense to us,” she explained.
Also it shouldn’t be restricted just to final repositories. We shouldn’t be hampering innovation in other solutions because there is other innovation and research ongoing in terms of other solutions for high level waste and spent fuel,” she added.
Opposition
Environmental groups also have concerns about this part of the leaked draft – only for the opposite reason.
“If the nuclear plant is reported as taxonomy aligned from year one, but [its plan for disposing of high-level waste] fails by, say 2045, then that means the nuclear plant was not taxonomy aligned at all from year one,” explained Sebastien Godinot from WWF, the global conservation NGO.
“The taxonomy reporting is annual, so there’s something impossible to match there, which means a major greenwashing risk,” Godinot warned.
Some EU member states have vowed to oppose the inclusion of nuclear in the EU’s green finance taxonomy. “If the EU taxonomy includes nuclear energy, we are ready to challenge that in court,” Austria warned in November. The country has since repeated that threat.
Luxembourg, Denmark and Spain have also voiced their opposition to the proposal. But they currently have little support from other EU countries, which are either pro-nuclear or keeping silent on the matter.
Anti-nuclear countries are unlikely to have a sufficient majority to veto the Commission’s draft proposal, known as a “delegated act”. To block a delegated act, they would need at least 72% of EU member states in the EU Council (i.e. 20) representing at least 65% of the EU population.
The European Parliament, however, has a lower voting threshold and will be able to block the proposal by simple majority (i.e. at least 353 MEPs in Plenary).
This makes the Parliament more of a threat to the nuclear industry, even though Foratom is still confident about the outcome. “We don’t think that they would get the number of votes needed to achieve that simple majority. Nevertheless, we are keeping a very close eye on that,” Johnson told EURACTIV.
German conservative lawmaker Peter Liese also believes the Parliament won’t block the proposal. “If I had to make a bet, I’d still bet that the European Parliament wouldn’t end up blocking the delegated act, but I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it anymore,” he told the Suddeutsche Zeitung.
Some EU lawmakers will be hoping they can garner enough support to stop the Commission’s proposal. They include German Green MEP Michael Bloss, who launched a petition to try and increase citizen pressure on the European Commission.
“With this proposal, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is destroying the credibility of the European eco-label for financial investments. Including nuclear power and gas is an unprecedented labelling fraud, because nuclear power and gas are not sustainable energy sources,” Bloss told EURACTIV.
“There is now a lack of clarity for citizens who want to invest their money in sustainable, in the sense of green transformation. Where it says sustainable on it, it must also be sustainable in it, otherwise the entire regulatory framework loses its credibility,” he added.
The European Commission has given EU countries until 21 January to provide feedback on its plans and is expected to publish its proposal shortly after this month the deadline for experts to give feedback on divisive plans to allow some natural gas and nuclear energy projects to be labelled as sustainable investments.
Russia concerned that NATO wants to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use.
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Russia finds worrisome NATO’s wish to lower nuclear threshold — diplomat https://tass.com/defense/1387211Alexander Grushko also pointed to the complete degradation of the arms control system
BRUSSELS, January 12. /TASS/. Russia is seriously worried by NATO’s wish to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told a news conference following a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council on Wednesday.
“In conducting their military policies, the United States and its allies have been trying to gain superiority in all media: on land, in the air and at sea. Now there are also outer space and cyberspace. As well as all possible theaters of combat operations. Conceptually, operationally and technically the threshold of nuclear weapons use is being lowered. We see that the scenarios of various exercises incorporate the nuclear component, which causes our most serious concern,” Grushko said.
He pointed to the complete degradation of the arms control system.
It all began when the United States pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Then it prevented NATO countries from ratifying the agreement on the adaptation of the conventional forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which might serve as a corner stone of European security. Then the US administration dropped the INF treaty (on the elimination of intermediate and shorter-range missiles). And last year the Open Skies Treaty was seriously undermined,” Grushko concluded.
The Russia-NATO Council’s meeting was a second round of consultations by Russia and the West on Russia’s proposals for European security. The first stage – talks between Russia and the United States – took place in Geneva on January 10. A third will follow on the OSCE platform in Vienna on January 13.
In 2022, nuclear power’s future looks grimmer than ever.
As new renewable energy capacity continues to boom, nuclear power generation declined in 2021 and the industry’s future is grimmer than it has ever been. The post In 2022, nuclear power’s future looks grimmer than ever appeared first on RenewEconomy.
In 2022, nuclear power’s future looks grimmer than ever — RenewEconomy Renew Economy, Jim Green 11 Jan 22,
The decline was marginal (<1 per cent): a net loss of two power reactors (six start-ups and eight 8 permanent closures) and a net loss of 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity.
The marginal decline makes for a striking contrast with renewables. The International Energy Agency calculates that new renewable capacity added in 2021 amounted to nearly 290 GW – that’s more than four times Australia’s total electricity generating capacity.
Nuclear power’s contribution to global electricity supply has fallen from a peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 to 10.1 percent in 2020. Renewables reached an estimated 29 per cent share of global electricity generation in 2020, a record share.
The ageing of the world’s reactor fleet is a huge problem for the nuclear industry, as is the ageing of its workforce — the silver tsunami. The average age of the world’s reactor fleet continues to rise and by mid-2021 reached 30.9 years. The mean age of the 23 reactors shut down between 2016 and 2020 was 42.6 years.
Primarily because of the ageing of the reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates up to 139 GW of lost nuclear capacity from 2018-2030 due to permanent reactor shutdowns, and a further loss of up to 186 GW from 2030-2050.
So the industry needs about 10 new power reactors (or 10 GW) each year just to maintain its 30-year pattern of stagnation. And there were indeed 10 reactor construction starts in 2021, six of them in China.
But the average annual number of construction starts since 2014 has been just 5.1. Thus, slow decline of nuclear power is the most likely outcome. An extension of the 30-year pattern of stagnation is possible, if and only if China does the heavy lifting. China has averaged just 2.5 reactor construction starts per year since 2011.
Phasing out nuclear power
The number of countries phasing out nuclear power steadily grows and now includes:
Nuclear power generation declined in 2021 and the industry’s future is grimmer than it has ever been.
The decline was marginal (<1 per cent): a net loss of two power reactors (six start-ups and eight 8 permanent closures) and a net loss of 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity.
The marginal decline makes for a striking contrast with renewables. The International Energy Agency calculates that new renewable capacity added in 2021 amounted to nearly 290 GW – that’s more than four times Australia’s total electricity generating capacity.
Nuclear power’s contribution to global electricity supply has fallen from a peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 to 10.1 percent in 2020. Renewables reached an estimated 29 per cent share of global electricity generation in 2020, a record share.
The ageing of the world’s reactor fleet is a huge problem for the nuclear industry, as is the ageing of its workforce — the silver tsunami. The average age of the world’s reactor fleet continues to rise and by mid-2021 reached 30.9 years. The mean age of the 23 reactors shut down between 2016 and 2020 was 42.6 years.
Primarily because of the ageing of the reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates up to 139 GW of lost nuclear capacity from 2018-2030 due to permanent reactor shutdowns, and a further loss of up to 186 GW from 2030-2050
So the industry needs about 10 new power reactors (or 10 GW) each year just to maintain its 30-year pattern of stagnation. And there were indeed 10 reactor construction starts in 2021, six of them in China.
But the average annual number of construction starts since 2014 has been just 5.1. Thus, slow decline of nuclear power is the most likely outcome. An extension of the 30-year pattern of stagnation is possible, if and only if China does the heavy lifting. China has averaged just 2.5 reactor construction starts per year since 2011.
Phasing out nuclear power
The number of countries phasing out nuclear power steadily grows and now includes:
Germany: Fourteen reactors have shut down since the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the final three reactors will close this year.
Belgium: The country’s seven ageing reactors will all be closed by the end of 2025.
Taiwan: Final reactor closure scheduled for 2025. Four reactors were shut down from 2018 to 2021 and only two remain operational.
Spain: Nuclear power capacity is expected to decline from 7.1 GW in 2020 to 3 GW in 2030 with the final reactor closure in 2035.
Switzerland: The government accepted the results of a 2017 referendum which supported a ban on new reactors and thus a gradual phase-out is underway. The Mühleberg reactor was shut down in 2019 and most or all of the remaining four ageing reactors are likely to be shut down over the next decade.
South Korea: Long-term (2060) phase-out policy with concrete actions already taken including the shut-down of the Kori-1 and Wolsong-1 reactors in 2017 and 2019 respectively, and suspension or cancellation of plans for six further reactors. The current plan is to reduce the number of reactors from a peak of 26 in 2024 to 17 in 2034.
Too cheap to meter or too expensive to matter?
Despite the abundance of evidence that nuclear power is hopelessly uncompetitive compared to renewables, the nuclear industry and some of its supporters continue to claim otherwise.
Those economic claims are typically based on implausible cost projections for non-existent ‘Generation IV’ reactor concepts. Moreover, the nuclear lobby’s claims about the cost of renewables are just as ridiculous.
Claims about ‘cheap’ nuclear power certainly don’t consider real-world nuclear construction projects. Every power reactor construction project in Western Europe and the US over the past decade has been a disaster.
The V.C. Summer project in South Carolina (two AP1000 reactors) was abandoned after the expenditure of at least A$12.5 billion leading Westinghouse to file for bankruptcy in 2017. Criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the project are ongoing, and bailout programs to prolong operation of ageing reactors are also mired in corruption.
The only remaining reactor construction project in the US is the Vogtle project in Georgia (two AP1000 reactors). The current cost estimate of A$37.6-41.8 billion is twice the estimate when construction began. Costs continue to increase and the project only survives because of multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts. The project is six years behind schedule.
In 2006, Westinghouse said it could build an AP1000 reactor for as little as A$2.0 billion, 10 times lower than the current estimate for Vogtle.
The Watts Bar 2 reactor in Tennessee began operation in 2016, 43 years after construction began. That is the only power reactor start-up in the US over the past quarter-century. The previous start-up was Watts Bar 1, completed in 1996 after a 23-year construction period.
In 2021, TVA abandoned the unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant in Alabama, 47 years after construction began and following the expenditure of an estimated A$8.1 billion.
There have been no other power reactor construction projects in the US over the past 25 years other than those listed above. Numerous other reactor projects were abandoned before construction began, some following the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Western Europe
The only current reactor construction project in France is one EPR reactor under construction at Flamanville. The current cost estimate of A$30.1 billion — yes, over A$30 billion — is 5.8 times greater than the original estimate. The Flamanville reactor is 10 years behind schedule.
The only reactor construction project in the UK comprises two EPR reactors under construction at Hinkley Point. In the late 2000s, the estimated construction cost for one EPR reactor in the UK was A$3.8 billion. The current cost estimate for two EPR reactors at Hinkley Point is A$41.6-43.5 billion, over five times greater than the initial estimate of A$3.8 billion per reactor.
In 2007, EDF boasted that Britons would be using electricity from an EPR reactor at Hinkley Point to cook their Christmas turkeys in 2017, but construction didn’t even begin until 2018.
One EPR reactor (Olkiluoto-3) is under construction in Finland. The current cost estimate of about A$17.4 billion is 3.7 times greater than the original estimate. Olkiluoto-3 is 13 years behind schedule.
Nuclear power is growing in a few countries, but only barely. China is said to be the industry’s shining light but nuclear growth has been modest over the past decade and it is paltry compared to renewables (2 GW of nuclear power capacity added in 2020 compared to 135 GW of renewables).
There were only three power reactor construction starts in Russia in the decade from 2011 to 2020, and only four in India……………………………… https://reneweconomy.com.au/in-2022-nuclear-powers-future-is-grimmer-than-ever/
Nuclear war is a genuine threat, so why have non-proliferation efforts stalled?
Nuclear war is a genuine threat, so why have non-proliferation efforts stalled? Arab News, 10 Jan 22,
- The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons committed states to reduce their arsenals with the goal of eliminating them
- The P5 group of nations released a joint statement on Jan. 3 affirming “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”
NEW YORK CITY: Although the world is understandably preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and regional conflicts, it would be wrong to assume that the threat of nuclear war had vanished. In fact, the probability of nuclear annihilation remains perilously high.
At the beginning of the year, the pandemic claimed yet another casualty — the 10th Review Conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which had been scheduled to take place on Jan. 4.
The postponement of the meeting until August went largely unreported at the time because, it would appear, the perceived threat posed by nuclear weapons had lost its urgency in recent decades.
However, the development came as tensions escalated between Western countries and Russia over Ukraine as well as between the US and China over Taiwan.
The non-proliferation treaty, or NPT, which forms the foundation of the non-proliferation regime, was signed in 1968 and came into force in 1970. It is the single most important instrument that the 191 states-parties have to prevent further proliferation and lead the world toward total disarmament.
The bargain that underpins the NPT is very simple: The nuclear states under the treaty commit to reduce their nuclear arsenals with the ultimate goal of eliminating them, and the non-nuclear states adhere to their commitments enshrined in the treaty to not acquire nuclear weapons.
Not everyone has adhered to this. India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea are not signatories, while Iran, although an NPT signatory, is nevertheless enriching uranium and is locked in a battle with the West over its nuclear program.
It is the second time the 10th RevCon has been rescheduled due to the pandemic. The 2020 conference, which would have coincided with the NPT’s 50th anniversary, was also delayed, scuttling hopes of getting the non-proliferation regime back on track and breathing new life into the arms control and disarmament process.
The three pillars of the NPT — non-proliferation, disarmament, and the peaceful use of nuclear technologies — have seen varying degrees of success.
While the non-nuclear states kept their end of the bargain and adhered to the treaty, bar a couple of exceptions, the nuclear states have been less faithful. They have not fulfilled their obligations, as stipulated by article six of the NPT, to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This has led to tensions and placed a strain on the whole non-proliferation regime.
Looking for an alternative, the non-nuclear states pushed for a process in the UN General Assembly, which culminated in the adoption of a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on July 7, 2017, coming into force on Jan. 22, 2021.
However, the conference’s postponement could not have come at a worse time, as anxiety over the fraying of the architecture of arms control is mounting.
Experts believe the risk of nuclear war is greater than ever. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight — the closest the timepiece has been to symbolic doom in its more than 70 years of its existence.
A speech by former US Senator Sam Nunn, an authority on nuclear weapons, on the 50th anniversary of the NPT in 2020 described the danger in stark terms…………….
The Stockholm International Peace Institute has estimated that the world’s nuclear states collectively possessed approximately 13,080 nuclear weapons as of January 2021. That figure represented a small decrease on the 13,400 estimate of 2020.
However, this has been offset by the increase in the number of nuclear weapons deployed with operational forces, from 3,720 in 2020 to 3,825 in 2021. Of these, around 2,000 were “kept in a state of high operational alert,” the institute said in its 2021 report.
All of this has occurred in the absence of a credible arms control process because of growing tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine, and America and China over Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Indo-Pacific.
Although they were disappointed by the conference postponement, the non-nuclear states were heartened on Jan. 3 when the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK, a group of powers known as the P5, put out a joint statement claiming they “consider the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities.
However, this has been offset by the increase in the number of nuclear weapons deployed with operational forces, from 3,720 in 2020 to 3,825 in 2021. Of these, around 2,000 were “kept in a state of high operational alert,” the institute said in its 2021 report.
All of this has occurred in the absence of a credible arms control process because of growing tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine, and America and China over Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Indo-Pacific.
Although they were disappointed by the conference postponement, the non-nuclear states were heartened on Jan. 3 when the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK, a group of powers known as the P5, put out a joint statement claiming they “consider the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities……………….
From the standpoint of Arab countries, there was also an important element missing from the joint statement, which failed to mention the 1995 NPT resolution introduced by the US, the UK, and Russia agreeing in support of the principle of a Middle East region free from all weapons of mass destruction.
It had been hoped that the 10th RevCon would provide an opportunity to acknowledge the progress made in this regard. The first Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction took place at the UN headquarters in New York in 2019, chaired by Jordan, and again in 2021, chaired by Kuwait.
Israel, the only state in the Middle East thought to possess nuclear weapons, did not attend any of the sessions, nor did the US, despite being one of the main sponsors of the 1995 resolution.
Supporters of arms control therefore have little choice but to wait until August to see whether the P5 will back up their words with action and deliver a “meaningful outcome” that will preserve the integrity of the NPT. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2001751/world
US-Russia Talks May Be the Last Chance
It’s crunch time in Russia-U.S. relations. High-level talks starting Monday will determine the shape of world security for decades to come, observes Tony Kevin. Consortium News, By Tony Kevin, Pearls and Irritations 10 Jan 22,
On Monday, vital Russia-U.S. talks will start in Geneva. Russia’s delegation will be headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the U.S. by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
These are ‘precursor’ negotiations – ‘talks about talks’, in the old strategic arms limitation treaties (SALT) terminology. Russia is driving the pace. The U.S. is in reactive mode, trying unsuccessfully to slow things down, to trim Russia’s sails. So far they are not succeeding.
Russia’s best-case scenario for Monday is this: Successful precursor talks will be followed soon after by substantive, detailed foreign minister level negotiations, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with participation of top military brass from both sides.
Russia is seeking detailed U.S.-Russia agreements on mutual security guarantees in Europe.
Unusually, Russian drafts of these agreements were handed over by Russia to the U.S. and at the same time made public on Dec. 17. Russia will want to achieve these solemn written mutual commitments, as well-summarized by Patrick Lawrence in Consortium News on Dec. 28:
- NATO will cease all efforts to expand eastward, notably into Ukraine and Georgia.
- NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missile batteries in nations bordering Russia.
- An end to NATO military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
- The effective restoration of the treaty covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons. The U.S. abandoned the INF pact in August 2019.
- An ongoing East-West security dialogue
These desired agreements would be backed up by early NATO-Russia negotiations in Brussels to achieve corresponding agreements at that level. Finally, the two presidents would formally seal the deal.
Russia’s worst-case scenario: that if the U.S. fails to negotiate towards this complete package – if the U.S. tries in its usual way to equivocate, delay, or cherry-pick Russia’s proposed deal – Russia will terminate the talks.
Coldest War
Russia-U.S. and Russia-NATO relations would then enter the deepest of deep freezes since the worst years of Cold War One. Russia would focus its economic and diplomatic resources entirely on relations with the East and South – backstopped by the Belt and Road Initiative of its reliable friend China. Russia would effectively stop trying to dialogue with U.S. and NATO Europe and call the U.S. bluff on enhanced sanctions.
On the now highly militarized Russia-NATO frontier, armies, navies and tactical intermediate range missile forces (sufficient to destroy most of Europe and European Russia) would confront each other. Risks of East-West war by provocation or accident would be far greater than in the years 1989-2014, before the sharp deterioration in East-West relations brought about by the U.S.-backed, 2014 Ukraine coup.
Time Running Out
These present talks instigated by Russia are thus really the Last Chance Saloon: the last opportunity maybe for decades to pursue relaxation of East-West tensions – ‘détente’, in the old, nearly forgotten word of late Cold War One. Russia has had enough of years of creeping security deterioration and has drawn its red lines………
Russia has seen how under successive U.S. presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden, a strategically destructive pattern of U.S. and NATO behavior had emerged since 1999, when President Bill Clinton welshed on the 1989-91 agreements between Reagan and George H.W. Bush with Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe following the reunification of Germany. ‘Though there was no formal written treaty as such, subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were well founded in numerous written contemporaneous memcons and telcons (formal written records of conversations) at the highest levels.
As the West offered soothing words and prevarications, NATO expanded, first with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1999. There were further large expansions in 2004 and 2009, bringing NATO right up against Russia’s Western frontiers. Provocatively, NATO then listed Ukraine and Georgia as candidates for NATO membership……………………………….
Putin is now holding the strongest negotiating cards. My betting — indeed my hope — is that Russia will achieve its demanded mutual security guarantees in Europe in the coming weeks.
International security – Australia’s security — will be greatly strengthened if he succeeds.
Much could still go wrong. There are troublemakers in the Western bloc whose careers depend on maintaining East-West tensions at just below the level of war. They will try hard to subvert and derail Russia’s goals.
In Australia, as in the U.S., there is almost complete public ignorance of this subject matter. Be prepared for massive disinformation in the coming weeks from the partly Pentagon and State Department funded think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and from mainstream media, hysterically whipping-up alleged threats of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. This propaganda offensive, turning Russia’s defensive posture into aggression, is already under way, especially in the U.S.
Australia sadly no longer has the intellectual resources for an informed and balanced public discussion of these momentous developments. Ignorance and groundless fears of Russia prevail. Dissenting voices such as mine have been marginalized and almost silenced.
One might hope there is more reality-based knowledge in the national security community. But if there is, they are not telling the public. I fear that there too, ignorance and prejudice have taken hold. We are perilously leaving the strategic thinking on Russia to our Big Brother in Washington.
.Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations. https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/09/us-russia-talks-may-be-last-chance/
Austria ready to take legal action against inclusion of nuclear power in Europe’s ”green taxonomy”
Austria is ready to contest if Europe grants the green label to nuclear and gas. Under pressure from certain European states, the latest version of its “green” label to attract private capital includes gas and nuclear.
Austria, which has banned the atom in its constitution, is negotiating to remove it from this classification and reserves the right “to take legal action” if it does not, confirms diplomat Wolfgang Wagner.
Ouest France 7th Jan 2022
Argentina pressures UK over deployment of nuclear weapons in Malvinas conflict
Argentina pressures UK over deployment of nuclear weapons in Malvinas conflict https://batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentina-demands-answers-over-uk-deployment-of-nuclear-weapons-in-malvinas-conflict.phtml
Report reveals British warships carried at least 31 nuclear weapons to South Atlantic following invasion of disputed island in 1982.
Argentina’s government has called on the United Kingdom to provide detailed information about the alleged movement and use of nuclear weapons during the 1982 South Atlantic conflict, after a report revealed that as many as 31 depth charges were sent to sea near the disputed Malvinas (Falkland) Islands during the war.
Last week, the Declassified UK website reported that a number of British warships deployed to the South Atlantic following Argentina’s invasion of the disputed islands were armed with dozens of nuclear depth charges.
According to the report, aircraft carriers HMS Hermes, HMS Invincible and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, Regent, carried 31 nuclear weapons in total to the region’s seas, though no ship encroached upon the “total exclusion zone” around the islands imposed by the UK government at the time.
The article, written by veteran defence and security journalist and author Richard Norton-Taylor, said that new files released to the National Archives revealed that the presence of nuclear weapons had “caused panic among officials in London” who were concerned by the potential damage the “nuclear depth bombs” could cause if they were “lost or damaged.”
‘Measures’
Responding to the revelations, Argentina’s Foreign Ministry warned this week that if it did not receive answers from the British authorities, it would take “measures” and “raise this situation before the competent international bodies.”
Despite the UK’s reluctance to provide detailed information on the matter, our country has on several occasions expressed its concern before different international fora about the possibility, confirmed in 2003, that the UK had introduced nuclear weapons into the South Atlantic,” said a statement from the Palacio de San Martín.
Raising the possibility that Britain may have breached the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco (which established a nuclear free zone in Latin America and its seas), the Foreign Ministry said that it is essential to “ensure that there are no nuclear weapons anywhere in the South Atlantic, either in sunken ships, on the seabed or under any other form or circumstance.
Argentina and the UK maintain a sovereignty dispute over the islands, over which they fought a war in 1982 that ended 74 days later with the surrender of Argentina, then ruled by a military dictatorship. During the war, 648 Argentines and 255 British died.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
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
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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