Computer errors that almost started nuclear wars
The argument from cyberspace for eliminating nuclear weapons NOVEMBER 9, 2018 “…….Computer errors that almost started nuclear wars
Unclassified reports reveal that problems within the computers of nuclear command and control date back to at least the 1970s, when a deficient computer chip signalled that 200 Soviet missiles were headed towards the U.S. Computer problems have persisted: In 2010, a loose circuit card caused a U.S. launch control centre to lose contact with 50 nuclear missiles. In both cases, the accident might have been mistaken for a deliberate attack. Failing to recognize the mistake could have resulted in the U.S. launching nuclear weapons.
These cases were presumably the result of unintentional errors, not deliberate actions. But hacking and other forms of targeted cyberattacks greatly increase the risk of accidental nuclear launch or other devastating actions. Overconfidence on the part of the officials overseeing the nuclear arsenal is therefore negligent and dangerous.
A more recent compounding factor is the ongoing, roughly trillion-dollar upgrade of the U.S. nuclear arsenal started by the Obama administration. This so-called modernization effort included upgrades to the nuclear command and control system. The Trump administration continues to make this a priority.
Modernization increases the possibility that changes to the nuclear command and control system will introduce new or reveal hitherto unknown vulnerabilities into the system. The evidence from the GAO report and other publicly available documents indicates that the officials in charge will be emphasizing speed, convenience, or cost over cybersecurity.
In its conclusion, the GAO report explained that the DOD “has taken several major steps to improve weapon systems cybersecurity.” But the DOD “faces barriers that may limit its ability to achieve desired improvements,” such as constraints on information sharing and workforce shortages. That is not reassuring.
There is a more basic problem that we have emphasized above: the risks associated with cyberattacks can be ameliorated but not fully eliminated. When this intrinsic risk is integrated with the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons, the only way to avoid a catastrophic accident at some point in time is to embrace efforts to abolish the weapons themselves.
- — Postdoctoral research fellow, University of British Columbia
- — Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia
- This article first appeared on The Conversation– https://stuff.co.za/the-argument-from-cyberspace-for-eliminating-nuclear-weapons/
U.S. sailors in nuclear reactor part of USS Ronald Reagan allegedly used drug LSD
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US Navy investigates sailors working in nuclear department of USS Ronald Reagan for taking LSD, Telegraph 7 NOVEMBER 2018 The US Navy has confirmed it is investigating 15 sailors working mainly in the nuclear reactor department of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan for allegations of LSD abuse.Lt. Joe Keiley, spokesman for the Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, said that two sailors are already heading to court-martial accused of using, possessing and distributing the hallucinogenic drug, while three are waiting to see whether they will be charged as well.
Another 10 sailors were administratively disciplined. Of the 15, 14 worked in the nuclear department. News of the LSD ring was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in February, but Lt Keiley confirmed that the initial investigation had resulted in charges. When the allegations were first reported, the Seventh Fleet – beset by a series of problems – issued a statement saying that “the Navy has zero tolerance for drug abuse and takes all allegations involving misconduct of our sailors, Navy civilians and family members very seriously.”…….. The Seventh Fleet has been plagued by problems over the past year. In 2017, two ships – the USS John S. McCain and the USS Fitzgerald – were involved in separate collisions with commercial vessels, killing 17 sailors. In August 2017 Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of all US naval forces in the eastern Pacific, was fired as the result of a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” the Navy said.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/07/us-navy-investigates-sailors-working-nuclear-department-uss/ |
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Incident at Hanford nuclear plant – employees told to ‘take cover’
Hanford nuclear plant employees told to ‘take cover’ over incident, Rt.com : 26 Oct, 2018 Employees at the Hanford Vit Plant – one of the US’ largest nuclear waste processing facilities – have been told to “take cover.” The alert was issued as a precaution, the company operating the facility said.
The employees at the waste treatment plant were allegedly told to “go to the closest Take Cover facility” and avoid “eating or drinking until further notice,” according to the text message published by the people on social media.
The warning to the employees was issued because steam was coming out from one of the tunnels at the waste treatment plant construction site, Bechtel, the company in charge of the construction works said, adding that it was made out of “precaution.”
TWEET: Jade Redinger@JadeKAPPKVEW
“There is no indication of a release of hazardous material,” a Bechtel statement said. However, the workers were still said to stay in cover until further notice………https://www.rt.com/usa/442365-hanford-nuclear-plant-employees-cover/
Nuclear waste drums ruptured due to a heat reaction
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Fluor says heat reaction ruptured waste drums, Post Register, By NATHAN BROWN nbrown@postregister.com Oct 25, 2018 The rupture of four radioactive waste drums at a U.S. Department of Energy site in April occurred when “a reactive metal with radionuclides” heated up after being exposed to the air for the first time in almost 40 years.
Fluor Idaho, DOE’s cleanup contractor at the desert site west of Idaho Falls, announced the results of its months long investigation on Thursday. “This heating up of the reactive metal started a secondary reaction that caused a rapid rise in pressure inside each drum, resulting in the ejection of their lids,” a Fluor news release said…..https://www.postregister.com/news/local/fluor-says-heat-reaction-ruptured-waste-drums/article_e52132b9-33b0-5f61-8668-ae3f3dd4ce38.html |
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Leak shuts down nuclear reactor in Petten Society
October 26, 2018
The High Flux nuclear reactor in Petten in the province of Noord Holland was shut down on Thursday because radioactively contaminated water had leaked into the crawl space of the building, owners Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group NGR said in a statement…….https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/10/leak-shuts-down-nuclear-reactor-in-petten/
Slow explanation about Pantex nuclear station lockdown
| The Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas was just locked down … it took a while for them to explain why https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/the-pantex-nuclear-weapons-facility-in-texas-was-just-locked-down-it-took-a-while-for-them-to-explain-why/news-story/a9d78aee41461ba3e1e10a723f962712 Jamie Seidel, News Corp Australia Network, October 24, 2018 NOTHING invokes such fear as the threat of a nuclear accident. So when a leading US manufacturer of nuclear weapons declares an ‘operations emergency’, the world sits up and pays attention. Problem is, they’re not telling us anything.
All we were told is what is contained in a simple tweet:
Mollified much? Not when it comes to the amount of explosive radioactive material held at the plant, near Carson County, Texas. Pantex is where the US nuclear arsenal is both constructed and disassembled. New devices are built. Old devices are broken down for safe disposal. Naturally, it’s a high security site. And safety precautions are well established. Local media reported “an unexpected event at the plant”. But not what that unexpected event was. “At this time, there appears to be no offsite impact and no need for the public to take any action.” Those are calming words. To a point. “The Pantex onsite response effort is being conducted by the Emergency Response Organization, a highly-trained group of employees with detailed knowledge of plant operations and emergency response procedures. These employees represent plant functions such as security, logistics, safety, medical response, radiological assessment, firefighting, operations and public information.” That’s not so calming. Security? Medical response? Radiological assessment? The local sheriff closed local roads close to the eastern edge of the extensive facility. Then, out of nowhere, it was all over. Perhaps.
Only later was an official explanation given. A ‘routine’ inspection had sparked a bomb scare. Security guard dogs had ‘sniffed out’ something suspicious.
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Fukushima and ‘The Devil’s Scenario’ – the bullet that Japan dodged
60,000 tons of dangerous radioactive waste sits on Great Lakes shores Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press Oct. 19, 2018 “……… Fukushima and ‘The Devil’s Scenario’
On March 11, 2011, following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing, 50-foot tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan lost cooling capabilities for four of its six reactors. The cores became damaged and radiation was released into the atmosphere, making it the world’s second-worst nuclear power industry accident after Chernobyl.
But it’s what happened — or almost happened — at the plant’s Unit 4 spent-fuel pool that gives nuclear watchdogs nightmares.
A hydrogen explosion four days into the disaster left the building housing the Unit 4 spent-fuel pool in ruins. The pool was seven stories up in a crumbling, inaccessible building.
It “was so radioactive, you couldn’t put people up there,” von Hippel said. “For about a month after Fukushima, people didn’t know how much water was in the pool. They were shooting water up there haphazardly with a hose, trying to drop it by helicopter.”
Two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission secretly conducted a worst-case scenario study of the ongoing disaster. The biggest fear that emerged: that a self-sustaining fire would start in the Unit 4 spent fuel pool, spreading to the nearby, damaged reactors. That, they found, would release radiation requiring evacuations as far away as 150 miles, to the outskirts of Tokyo and its more than 13.4 million residents.
“That was the devil’s scenario that was on my mind,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said during a special commission’s 2014 investigation of the accident.
“Common sense dictated that, if that came to pass, then it was the end of Tokyo.”
The worst-case-scenario report was not released for nearly a year. “The content was so shocking that we decided to treat it as if it didn’t exist,” the Japan Times quoted a senior Japanese government official as saying in January 2012.
What kept the spent fuel rods covered with water in Unit 4 was a miraculous twist of fate: The explosion had jarred open a gate that typically separated the Unit 4 spent fuel pool from an adjacent reactor pool.
“Leakage through the gate seals was essential for keeping the fuel in the Unit 4 pool covered with water,” a 2016 report on the Fukushima accident by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded.
“Had there been no water in the reactor well, there could well have been severe damage to the stored fuel and substantial releases of radioactive material to the environment.”
It’s a startling “very near-miss,” said Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Given wind directions that are common in Japan, they could have been looking at removing the population of Tokyo for decades, or centuries,” he said. “You’re talking tens of millions of people that would have to relocate. That’s the bullet that Japan dodged.”……..https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/10/19/nuclear-waste-great-lakes/1417767002/
How workers inadvertently contributed to Westinghouse nuclear factory’s radiation leak
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Workers who trudged through nuke plant contributed to June uranium leak, report says, The Island Packet, BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com, October 11, 2018
Workers at the Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory for years walked across a plastic liner that was supposed to keep toxic uranium acid from leaking out of the Lower Richland plant. All that foot traffic eventually weakened the liner, which covered the plant’s concrete floor. And this summer, Westinghouse discovered that a uranium solution had seeped through the liner, eaten a hole in the plant’s floor and trickled into the earth. Westinghouse wasn’t conducting detailed inspections to find problems in a section of the plant where toxic acid is mixed for production of nuclear fuel rods, the federal inspection report shows. That acidic solution deteriorated concrete after it seeped onto the plant’s floor for a “prolonged” period of time, the report said. The report said several safety systems, designed to contain leaks, failed. As a result, “hydrofluoric acid solution was spilled’’ on June 16 from a process tank through the floor. “They were not doing their maintenance inspections correctly or adequately,’’ Tom Vukovinsky, a senior fuel facility inspector with the NRC, said of Westinghouse. The NRC’s findings add to a series of questions raised this year about how Westinghouse has operated the 550,000-square-foot factory. Since discovering the uranium solution had leaked through the plant’s floor this summer, residents of the the Lower Richland community near the factory also have learned about other leaks, previously unknown. The NRC acknowledged recently it did not know for years about leaks in 2008 and 2011, which has caused concern among nearby residents. ………https://www.islandpacket.com/news/state/south-carolina/article219825805.html |
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Was it close to a nuclear emergency, when Hurricane Florence hit USA East coast?
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Was Three a Near-Fukushima Event on the Atlantic During Hurricane Florence? ObRag, Ocean Beach California by on OCTOBER 10, 2018 Nuclear Shutdown News for September 2018 Black Rain PressNuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working for a nuclear free future. Here is our September 2018 report.
A Near-Fukushima on the Atlantic? On September 17 the Raleigh News & Observer reported, “Floods limit access to Duke’s Brunswick nuclear plant: crews us partopotties, cots.” Did the Atlantic coast have a near-Fukushima event when during September Hurricane Florence made landfall? Utility Duke Energy’s Brunswick two nuclear reactors are located 30 miles south of Wilmington, NC, where the former Category 4 hurricane made landfall as a tropical storm in mid September. It was reported that “workers are sleeping on cots and using portable toilets because the water is currently shut off and the toilets can’t flush”, and that there was “limited access to the plant, and some workers have been able to leave the site and check up on their homes nearby. After the storm passed some drove to a Walmart in Southport to stock up on provisions.” Brunswick’s twin reactors started up in the 1940s, and are now approaching their designed operating life, 40 years. They are called boiling water reactors, the same model as the three Fukushima reactors that melted down in 2011, and were built by the same company, General Electric. US nuclear plants are required to shut down if hurricane force winds, 73 miles per hour or higher, are moving in. Fortunately the winds weren’t quite that strong when Florence hit the East Coast. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported, “Flooding of roads and downed trees prevented fresh crews from relieving the nearly 300 Duke Energy ‘storm riders’ who had been on site for days. And the blocked roads made it impossible to reach the 10 mile emergency evacuation zone if a higher level emergency is declared” Food had to be brought in by helicopters…….https://obrag.org/2018/10/was-three-a-near-fukushima-event-on-the-atlantic-during-hurricane-florence/ |
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World Nuclear Association don’t recognise 9 of the 12 major nuclear accidents
CHALK RIVER (Ontario), Dec. 2, 1952: The first major commercial reactor disaster occurred at this Canadian reactor on the Ottawa River when it caused a loss-of-coolant, a hydrogen explosion and a meltdown, releasing 100,000 curies of radioactivity to the air. In comparison, the official government position is that Three Mile Island released about 15 curies, although radiation monitors failed or went off-scale.
ROCKY FLATS (Colorado), Sept. 11, 1957: This Cold War factory produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons 16 miles from Denver. It caused 30 to 44 pounds of breathable plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 to catch fire in what would come to be known as the second largest industrial fire in US history. Filters used to trap the plutonium were destroyed and it escaped through chimneys, contaminating parts of Denver. Nothing was done to warn or protect downwind residents.
WINDSCALE/SELLAFIELD (Britain), Oct. 7, 1957: The worst of many fires burned through one reactor igniting three tons of uranium and dispersed radionuclides over parts of England and northern Europe. The site was hastily renamed Sellafield. Another large radiation leak occurs in 1981and leukemia rates soared to triple the national average.
KYSHTYM/CHELYABINSK-65 (Russia), Sept. 29, 1957: A tank holding 70 to 80 metric tons of highly radioactive liquid waste exploded, contaminating an estimated 250,000 people, and permanently depopulating 30 towns which were leveled and removed from Russian maps. Covered up by Moscow (and the CIA) until 1989, Russia finally revealed that 20 million curies of long-lived isotopes like cesium were released, and the release was later declared a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The long covered-up explosion contaminated up to 10,000 square miles making it the third- or 4th-most serious radiation accident ever recorded.
SANTA SUSANA (Simi Valley, Calif.), July 12, 1959: The meltdown of the Sodium Reactor Experiment just outside Los Angeles caused “the third largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power,” according to Arjun Makhajani, President of the Institute for Energy & Environmental Research. Released radioactive materials were never authoritatively measured because “the monitors went clear off the scale,” according to an employee. The accident was kept secret for 20 years.
CHURCH ROCK (New Mexico), July 16, 1979: Ninety-three million gallons of liquid uranium mine wastes and 1,000 tons of solid wastes spilled onto the Navajo Nation and into Little Puerco River, and nuclear officials called it “the worst incident of radiation contamination in the history of the United States.” The Little Puerco feeds the Little Colorado River, which drains to the Colorado River, which feeds Lake Mead—a source of drinking water for Los Angeles.
TOMSK-7 (Russia), April 7, 1993: In “the worst radiation disaster since Chernobyl,” Russian and foreign experts said a tank of radioactive waste exploded at the Tomsk nuclear weapons complex and that wind blew its plume of radiation toward the Yenisei River and 11 Siberian villages, none of which were evacuated.
MONJU (Japan), Dec. 8, 1995: This sodium-cooled “breeder reactor” caused a fire and a large leak of sodium coolant into the Pacific. Liquid sodium coolant catches fire on contact with air and explodes on contact with water. Costly efforts to engineer commercial models have failed. Japan’s Monju experiment was halted in 2018 after over 24 years of false starts, accidents and cover-ups.
TOKAI-MURA (Japan), Sept. 30, 1999: A uranium “criticality” which is an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction caused a “neutron burst” that killed three workers and dispersed neutron radiation throughout the densely populated urban area surrounding the factory.
Not to be slighted, deliberate contamination has also been enormous: Five metric tons of plutonium was dispersed over the earth by nuclear bomb testing, and other nuclear weapons processes; Over 210 billion gallons of radioactive liquids were poured into the ground at the Hanford reactor complex in Washington State; and 16 billion gallons of liquid waste holding 70,000 curies of radioactivity were injected directly into Idaho’s Snake River Aquifer at the Idaho National Lab.
Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory – more leaks discovered
More leaks discovered at troubled SC nuclear fuel factory; feds investigating, The State.com BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com August 31, 2018 HOPKINS
Water leak in Japan’s unfinished Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant
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Unfinished nuclear fuel plant had water leak NHK, 28 Aug 18The operator of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant under construction in northern Japan says it found a water leak earlier this month at one of its facilities.
Japan Nuclear Fuel says an employee spotted the leak in the pipes of a storage pool at the plant in Rokkasho Village, Aomori Prefecture. The operator found that the pipes were corroded in 20 places and one of them had a hole. They are located outdoors and used for inspections. The operator believes that rainwater seeped through gaps in insulation materials wrapped around the pipes………https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180829_02/ |
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Despite Putin’s boasts, loss at sea, and test failures in ‘invulnerable’ nuclear-powered missile
Putin lost his supposedly ‘invulnerable’ nuclear-powered missile at sea — now he has to go find it https://www.businessinsider.co.za/russia-to-search-for-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile-lost-at-sea-2018-8, Ryan Pickrell , Business Insider US Aug 26, 2018
A failed test leaves Russia’s ultimate doomsday weapon lost in the Barents Sea
Russia Seems to Have Lost the Ultimate Doomsday Weapon: A Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-seems-have-lost-ultimate-doomsday-weapon-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile-29632
Here’s what we know.
– Citing an unnamed U.S. intelligence official, CNBC reports that that Russian military lost one of the four cruise missiles used during tests conducted over the Barents Sea between last November and February, all of which ended in failure.
– While it’s currently unclear which launch resulted in the lost missile, U.S. Air Force nuclear-sniffing WC-135 ‘Constant Phoenix’ aircraft were active in the Barents Sea and Baltic Sea from March to August of this year, with a Russian fighter intercepting one of the aircraft over the Baltic Sea on August 8.
– This missile, one of many doomsday devices touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government during Moscow’s last showcase of new military capabilities, is purportedly capable of loitering as an unmanned second-strike platform that can remain in the air for an extended period of time over a virtually unlimited range.
Frankly, a nuclear-powered cruise missile is a 1950s dream that goes against all logic in a world with hundreds of ICBMs tipped with multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles, all of which can kill a city.
This article by Brad Howard originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter .
Russia has lost a nuclear-powered missile at sea
Russia is preparing to search for a nuclear-powered missile that was lost at sea months ago after a failed test, CNBC 221 Aug 18
- Moscow is preparing to recover a nuclear-powered missile lost at sea, according to sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged earlier this year that the new missile had unlimited range.
- The missile was tested four times between November and February, each resulting in a crash, according to sources who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.
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