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US Has 500 Troops in Taiwan in Major Challenge to China

The number of US troops in Taiwan was disclosed by a retired US Navy rear admiral in a recent congressional hearing

by Dave DeCamp May 26, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/05/26/us-has-500-troops-in-taiwan-in-major-challenge-to-china/

A retired US Navy admiral recently revealed that the US has 500 troops in Taiwan, a major challenge to Beijing’s red lines related to the island.

Ret. Adm. Mark Montgomery made the disclosure at a House hearing on May 15, where he was arguing that the US should send more military personnel to Taiwan.

“We absolutely have to grow the joint training team in Taiwan. That’s a US team there that’s about 500 people now, it needs to be 1,000,” said Montgomery, who now works for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), an extremely hawkish think tank.

“If we’re going to give them billions of dollars in assistance, sell them tens of billions of dollars worth of US gear, it makes sense that we’d be over there training and working,” he added.

So far, the Pentagon has not confirmed the number, but due to the sensitivity of the matter, the US military typically offers few details about its operations in Taiwan.

After Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the US would still deploy a handful of military trainers to Taiwan. The small US presence was always an open secret but wasn’t officially confirmed until 2021, when then-President Tsai Ing-wen became the first Taiwanese leader to acknowledge US troops were on the island since 1979.

At the time of Tsai’s acknowledgment, only a few dozen US troops were believed to be on the island for training purposes. In 2023, media reports said the US was increasing its military presence to about 200 soldiers.

Last year, Taiwan confirmed that some of the US military trainers were deployed to Kinmen, a group of islands that are controlled by Taiwan but located just off the coast of mainland China.

The US has significantly increased military support for Taiwan in recent years despite constant warnings from China that the island is the “first red line” in US-China relations that must not be crossed.

May 29, 2025 Posted by | Taiwan, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why the US Won’t Be Able to Help Build Taiwan’s Nuclear Future

Washington itself hasn’t solved the problems that fed into Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out: waste storage and high costs.

By Benjamin Yang and M.V. Ramana, May 26, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/why-the-us-wont-be-able-to-help-build-taiwans-nuclear-future/

When the 40-year operating license of Taiwan’s last remaining commercial nuclear reactor expired on May 17, the country realized its nuclear phase-out policy after decades of politicized debates. 

If anything, though, the imminent decommissioning of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant’s second reactor has only fueled another round of heated discussions on the potential role of nuclear power in Taiwan’s energy future.

On May 13, the Legislative Yuan – Taiwan’s national legislature, where opposition parties currently hold a majority – passed amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act, allowing nuclear power plant operators to apply for a 20-year license renewal beyond the original 40-year cap and easing restrictions on their restarts. In the meantime, it also passed a proposal from the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) for a referendum on restarting the Maanshan plant, which is now set to take place in August. 

Such renewed interest in nuclear energy is a result of a few compounding factors: power shortage concerns amid grid-induced blackouts over the past few years and growing power demands from the semiconductor and AI industries; rising electricity prices that pro-nuclear groups have framed as a result of phasing out nuclear; stalled momentum in renewable energy development; and national security threats of a naval blockade from China. 

At the same time, there are several reasons why nuclear power may not really address these questions, most notably the high costs and long construction times of building nuclear plants. Meanwhile, proponents of the nuclear phase-out point to the risks of accidents associated with nuclear reactors and the lack of a demonstrated solution to managing radioactive wastes of different kinds produced by the nuclear fuel chain.

Amid this domestic debate in Taiwan over nuclear power, Director Raymond Greene of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy, added a new twist. In a recent interview, he announced that the United States stands ready to introduce “existing and new technologies such as SMRs (small modular reactors) and to help Taiwan address its nuclear waste storage challenges.” Can U.S. support on SMRs and nuclear waste storage help with the challenges that led Taiwan to phase out nuclear power?

The problem with nuclear waste is two-fold: a shortage of short-term storage capacity at some sites, and the complete absence of a long-term option. Currently, Taiwan has over 21,500 spent fuel rods from almost five decades of operation; all but 112 of these are stored on-site, either in their respective reactor cores or spent fuel pools. Only a portion from the Chinshan Nuclear Power Plant has been moved to a dry storage facility. In July 2021, Taiwan Power Company, the state-owned utility that owns and operates all of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, had to take unit 1 of the Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant offline five months before the expiry of its operating license due to the lack of used fuel storage capacity. These are just the problems with short-term storage. In the long term, there is just no plan: the government has yet to create regulations governing the disposal of high-level waste. 

With local government concerns over wastewater runoff pollution hampering progress on constructing dry storage facilities and a final disposal repository nowhere in sight, creating more nuclear waste through extensions, restarts, or even building new SMRs will only aggravate this unsolved issue. 

The United States has no long-term plan for its nuclear waste, either. Yucca Mountain, the site selected back in 1987 under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, proved to be technically problematic, because it had an oxidizing environment and, despite being advertised as a very dry site, proved to allow seepage of lots of water. No alternative site has been seriously considered since Yucca Mountain was picked, although high level committees like the Blue Ribbon Commission set up by President Barack Obama have recommended setting up a process to find a new site. In short, the United States has no successful experience to point to if it intends to help Taiwan with its nuclear waste. 

The story is similar with SMRs, the other part of the offer from Greene. Despite much media attention and hype, the United States has so far not constructed a single small modular reactor. In terms of planning, the most advanced SMR project was proposed by the Utah Associated Municipal Power System. Announced in 2015, the UAMPS project was initially expected to start operations “around 2023” at an “overnight cost” of $3 billion. The estimated costs of the project subsequently rose to $6.1 billion, and finally $9.3 billion in 2023. That last figure was for a mere 462 megawatts of electricity capacity. Later that year, the project was canceled because of a lack of demand. 

When viewed in terms of the cost per unit of power capacity (i.e., dollars per megawatt), the cost of the UAMPS project was higher than even the most expensive nuclear power plant built in the United States, the Vogle project in Georgia, which cost $36.8 billion. This is to be expected. Small modular nuclear reactors, which produce less than 300 megawatts of power as compared to the roughly 1,000 megawatts for the typical reactors that have been constructed in recent decades, are more expensive per unit of power capacity due to diseconomies of scale. 

The underlying reason is that the cost of constructing or operating a nuclear reactor is not directly proportional to the amount of power it is designed to generate. SMRs, therefore, start off with an economic disadvantage and will further undermine the financial viability of nuclear plants. 

In the United States, nuclear plants are the most expensive way to supply electricity and building SMRs will make nuclear power even less competitive, especially in comparison to solar and wind energy, with or without electricity storage. No wonder renewables constitute the vast majority of new electricity installations in the United States. Also growing rapidly are energy storage technology, geothermal technologies, and grid resilience innovations such as virtual power plants. If the U.S. is serious about addressing Taiwan’s energy situation, maybe these are the technologies it should be offering.

In the end, the decommissioning of Taiwan’s final nuclear reactor marks a critical crossroads in its energy transition. Every choice Taiwan makes at this juncture would need to tackle the multitude of challenges that come with balancing rising demands, economic development, national security, climate action, and public safety. With the storage solutions for existing nuclear waste yet to appear and the costliness of constructing SMRs both in terms of time and capital, nuclear is unable to serve as a safe, cost-effective, and timely climate solution – even with U.S. support. 

May 28, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Govt Eyes Reuse of Fukushima Soil at PM’s Office

  Tokyo, May 23 (Jiji Press) https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2025052300665

–The Japanese government is considering reusing soil removed from the ground during radiation decontamination work after the 2011 nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture in the grounds of the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, informed sources have said.
   The government hopes to promote public understanding over the reuse of the soil from the decontamination work in the northeastern Japan prefecture, home to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
   The move came after planned pilot projects for using the soil in Tokyo and its northern neighbor, Saitama Prefecture, have stalled due to opposition from local residents.
   The government plans to compile a basic policy on the recycling and final disposal of the soil shortly, including its use at the prime minister’s office. It also plans to draw up a specific road map by around this summer.
   Some 14 million cubic meters of the soil from the decontamination work is currently stored at interim facilities in the Fukushima towns of Okuma and Futaba, where the TEPCO plant is located.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

Reactor closure marks Taiwan’s nuclear exit

Monday, 19 May 2025, WNN

Unit 2 of the Maanshan nuclear power plant – Taiwan’s last operating reactor – has been disconnected from the grid and will be decommissioned following the expiry of its 40-year operating licence, in accordance with Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out policy. ………………………..

Phase-out policy
 

Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected to government in January 2016 with a policy of creating a “nuclear-free” Taiwan by 2025. Under this policy, Taiwan’s six operable power reactors would be decommissioned as their 40-year operating licences expire. Shortly after taking office, the DPP government passed an amendment to the Electricity Act, passing its phase-out policy into law. The government aims for an energy mix of 20% from renewable sources, 50% from liquefied natural gas and 30% from coal……………………………..

Unit 1 of Taiwan’s oldest plant, Chinshan, was taken offline in December 2018, followed by Chinshan 2 in July 2019………………….https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/reactor-closure-marks-taiwans-nuclear-exit

May 23, 2025 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

India’s genocidal project is building a military base.

Survival, 21 May 25

Uncontacted people on Indian island face genocide in the name of “mega-development”

The Shompen are one of the most isolated peoples on Earth. They live on Great Nicobar Island in India, and most of them are uncontacted, refusing all interactions with outsiders.

Numbering around 300 people, they are now at risk of being totally wiped out by a “mega-development” plan to transform their small island home into the “Hong Kong of India.”

If the project goes ahead, huge swathes of their unique rainforest will be destroyed – to be replaced by a mega-port; a new city; an international airport; a power station; a defense base; an industrial park; and up to 650,000 settlers – a population increase of nearly 8,000%.

An island unlike any other

For centuries, most Shompen have refused all contact with outsiders, and this has kept them safe from the terrible effects of contact experienced by most other Indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Living in the rainforest of Great Nicobar Island in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Shompen have guarded and maintained a unique landscape for thousands of years. The Shompen are nomadic hunter-gatherers, living in small groups, whose territories are identified by the rivers that criss-cross the rainforest…………………….

Their home, Great Nicobar Island, is small but has extremely high levels of biodiversity. Around 95% of the island is covered in rainforest and it’s home to 11 species of mammals, 32 species of birds, 7 species of reptiles and 4 species of amphibians, all found only here. It’s a place where monitor lizards and crocodiles share the rainforest with macaques and tree shrews, where giant turtles swim among the coral reefs with dugongs and dolphins. 

The right to remain uncontacted 

While a few Shompen have contact with their Nicobarese Indigenous neighbors, settlers and government officials, most remain in the rainforest and reject contact with outsiders. This does not mean that the Shompen are unaware of the outside world but, for the most part, they choose to be left alone. As with the Sentinelese people in the nearby Andaman Islands, outsiders forcing their way into Shompen territory is illegal and could be deadly for them. That’s why in March 2025, American influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov was arrested for trying to contact the Sentinelese, and could face jail. 

The few Shompen who do leave the rainforest tend to do so to collect and exchange things with outsiders before returning to the island’s interior and sharing them among other Shompen families. Like other uncontacted peoples around the world, the Shompen are incredibly vulnerable to diseases to which they have no immunity and Shompen who return have been known to quarantine in special houses outside their communities. A government report stated: 

Our attempt to reach the main camp…about 50 metres away from the ‘out-houses’ was resisted by throwing spears (we escaped narrowly) as the Shompens of this region strongly believe that outsiders carry diseases.

Andaman and Nicobar Administration

The report then acknowledged then that these uncontacted Shompen were certainly “healthier than those who have contacts with others”.  Most contact for the Shompen at the moment occurs as it should for all Indigenous communities – on their own terms.

Mega development = mega disaster

But the Indian government is now planning to transform the Shompen’s small island into the ‘Hong Kong of India’, which will totally change their lives forever. Its ‘Great Nicobar Project’ will have a devastating impact on the lives of the Shompen and the neighbouring Nicobarese. As neither peoples have given their consent to the scheme, it violates both Indian and international law. 

The mega-project will take up around a third of the island – half of it within the official Tribal Reserve. Equally disastrous is the massive population explosion planned for Great Nicobar. The total population of the island is currently around 8,000, but the government plans to settle up to 650,000 people there under the scheme, a population the size of Las Vegas. 

Shompen communities, along with their hunting and foraging grounds, will be devastated by the project. Their sacred river system will also be ruined. This will in turn destroy their pandanus trees, one of their most important sources of food. With their rivers devastated, the Shompen’s ability to survive and entire way of life will face collapse.

As well as causing unprecedented social and environmental devastation for the Shompen, these plans also drastically increase their exposure to outside diseases to which could wipe them out.

The Indian government is well aware of such risks and their official Impact Assessment for the project states: “Any disturbance or alteration in the natural environmental setup where they live, may cause serious threat to their existence” and “once infections spread among the tribal [Shompen]…the whole community may face extinction.” However, in an attempt to mitigate the risks, the government is proposing sinister sounding “geo-fencing cum surveillance towers” to monitor the Shompen.

In February 2024, 39 international genocide experts wrote to the Indian President, describing the mega-project as a “death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide”. They called for the scheme to be immediately abandoned. 

It’s impossible to imagine that the Shompen will be able to survive this overwhelming and catastrophic transformation of their island………………….https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/shompen



The authorities plan to create a mega-port; a city; an international airport; a power station; a defence base; an industrial park; and tourism zones, spread over more than 244 square km of land, including 130 square km of rainforest. The government claims that it will ‘offset’ the loss of rainforest through planting new trees in the scrublands of North India. Such offsetting projects are false solutions and Survival is actively campaigning against the growing threat they pose to Indigenous peoples around the world.

To the Shompen, every tree, plant, leaf and flower is sacred and has a spirit of their own. It’s hard to imagine what cutting down millions of trees will mean to a people who do not even allow the cutting of leaves on their territory.

May 22, 2025 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

China and Russia plan to build nuclear power station on moon

 China and Russia plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2035 to
power a permanent lunar base. The International Lunar Research Station
(ILRS) will rely on the power plant for its scientific research. The IRLS
involves over a dozen international partners and is seen as a rival program
to NASA’s Artemis Program.

 Deutsche Welle 16th May 2025, https://www.dw.com/en/china-and-russia-plan-to-build-nuclear-power-station-on-moon/a-72565465

May 19, 2025 Posted by | China, Russia, space travel | Leave a comment

Too Cruel to Even Imagine—Nuclear War in Densely Populated Areas

in South Asia, by Bharat Dogra 12/05/2025, https://countercurrents.org/2025/05/too-cruel-to-even-imagine-nuclear-war-in-densely-populated-areas/

Nuclear war should never happen as it is the most destructive thing imaginable. While nuclear weapon war anywhere is so destructive that this cannot be accepted, it is at its most cruel in more densely populated areas. No one can question this reality, but despite this we have the most dreadful and frightening situation of escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, two nuclear weapon countries which possess a total of about 340 nuclear weapons, according to recent estimates, and are also included among the most densely populated countries of the world, in terms of people living per one square km.

While the average world population density for the entire world is 60, it is 331 for Pakistan and 483 for India. In several cities and the most densely populated city districts of these countries, the population density can be easily over 5,000, going up to around 55,000 in the most densely populated city district (Karachi Central). While war even with conventional weapons can be very highly destructive in such conditions, in the context of nuclear weapons, even smaller and tactical ones, this is too cruel even to be imagined. Yet the possibility cannot be brushed aside and must be considered as a real life possibility, a relatively low possibility but nevertheless real possibility, whenever the two countries are involved in escalating conflict situations.

     Eric Schlosser, a well-known writer on nuclear weapons, has spoken at length to top officials and commanders at various stages of planning and control of nuclear weapons. In addition he has close contacts with peace movements struggling for a world free from nuclear weapons. He has written that these very different persons share a very strong and sincere desire to avoid actual use of nuclear weapons.

     The reason why both these sections share this strong belief is that both groups are well-informed about what actual use of nuclear weapons means. This makes them tremble about the implications.

     In the specific context of India and Pakistan, the two nuclear weapon countries of South Asia, Schlosser has written, “The latest studies suggest that a relatively small nuclear exchange (relative to the total number of nuclear weapons that exist in world) would have long-term effects across the globe. A war between India and Pakistan, involving a hundred atomic bombs like the kind dropped in Hiroshima, could send five million tons of dust into the atmosphere, shrink the ozone layer by as much as fifty per cent, drop worldwide temperatures to their lowest point in a thousand years, create worldwide famines and cause more than a billion casualties.”

Thus it is clear that apart from killing millions of people immediately, war with nuclear weapons can lead to unprecedented environmental catastrophe which can kill an even larger number of people while also destroying other life-forms like never before. If the nuclear weapon exchange is between two countries alone, people particularly of neighbouring countries will also suffer very serious consequences without being involved in any dispute at all.

     Some strategists have argued that there can be a less catastrophic role for nuclear weapons in the form of tactical nuclear weapons. As not just peace movements but several independent experts have pointed out, this is a highly flawed and mistaken view. A nuclear war started with tactical weapons can easily spill into a full-blown nuclear war if the opposing side also has nuclear weapons. Secondly, use of even tactical nuclear weapons can be very destructive, even for the using country!

    Pakistan in particular has been keen to develop tactical nuclear weapons in recent times as it feels that this can be one way of checking and defeating an invasion by a country with superior conventional war capability and bigger economic resources. However saner scientific voices in Pakistan have warned that if Pakistan uses tactical weapons against an invading army on its land, its own military and civilian losses can be very high due to the highly destructive impacts of these weapons.

     In the much earlier days of the cold war the NATO had stocked a lot of tactical nuclear weapons in West Germany to check a possible Soviet invasion. A war game Carte Blanche was played out to see the possible impacts in case of a Soviet invasion. It was realized only then that German civilian deaths from the use of tactical nuclear weapons on its own land can be higher than total German civilian deaths in the Second World War! Such is the destructive power of these weapons.

  Moreover when tactical nuclear weapons have to be prepared for use then control has to be more dispersed and scattered. This increases the possibility that persons with fanatic or fundamentalist leanings can also gain access to this control. Hence the possibilities of terrorists gaining access to such control also increase at least to some extent. The Pakistani authorities including armed forces have time and again faced evidence-based criticism for supporting terror-groups and this combination of terror groups and nuclear weapons can prove very dangerous in a national as well as international context. From time to time attacks by such terror groups, some of whom also break free from the control of the authorities to a lesser or greater extent, have led to crisis situations nationally and internationally.

     It is not at all justified to be under the false impression that tactical weapons provide some form of safer nuclear weapons. Let no one create such a false impression as such a delusion can be extremely catastrophic for millions and millions of people.

   Let us face the reality. All evidence points to the fact that nuclear weapons should never be used. In fact even accidental use of nuclear weapons or accidents relating to nuclear weapons can be very destructive. Hence ultimately the only safe option if we care for life on earth is to give up all nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction once and for all at the level of the entire world. The more you study and explore this issue, no matter which side  you belong to, the only honest conclusion can be that tomorrow if not today we have to do away with nuclear weapons if we want to save life on earth; so why not make a beginning today itself.

     The discussion here has been in the context of South Asia, but of course the consequences of an exchange of nuclear weapons between the USA and Russia or between the USA and China will be even more destructive, much more devastating for the world as these countries have more weapons and their destructive capacity is higher. As a part of world, South Asia will also suffer very harmful impacts from this. Hence the only safe future for us and for our children is on the path which is entirely free from nuclear weapons and entirely free of all weapons of mass destruction.

    As for the immediate issue at hand, the maximum efforts need to be made to prevent further escalation of ongoing India-Pakistan conflict and also to end this conflict as early as possible.

May 14, 2025 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Close the US military bases in Asia!

The US acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.


Jeffrey D. Sachs, Swiss Standpoint, Sun, 04 May 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/499470-Close-the-US-military-bases-in-Asia

(2 May 2025) President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the US military bases in Asia are too costly for the US to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea,1 Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and return the US servicemen to the US.

Donald Trump implies that the US is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the US to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than US troops.

The US acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.

You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.

Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-1895, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.

Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.

The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the US threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the US troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, US General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.

South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the US, which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.

In fact, the US military bases in East Asia are really for the US projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the US claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a US provocation or some kind of misunderstanding.

Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in US-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia. Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.

Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening US security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The US on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.

The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, “Gambling with Armageddon” for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.

Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the US federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of US GDP. Closing the US overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.

Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the US is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the US and the host countries.

The US should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.2

May 12, 2025 Posted by | ASIA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Challenge to Japan’s Nuclear Restart

The story of Japan’s nuclear village should serve as a
cautionary tale for other places engaged in debates on nuclear energy.

Nuclear power is a key plank in Japan’s national energy vision, but 14 years after the Fukushima meltdown, the restart process hasn’t overcome the central problem.

By Zhuoran Li, May 03, 2025

The restart of nuclear power plants is based on the Sixth Basic Energy
Plan, approved by the Cabinet in October 2021. Given that the trauma of the
2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster remains vivid in the public consciousness,
the government has adopted a cautious, step-by-step approach. The
reactivation of reactors must first be approved by the Nuclear Regulation
Authority under the new regulatory standards. Subsequently, the restart can
proceed only with the consent of local governments and residents.

The government hopes that its safety-first approach will reassure local
communities and alleviate their concerns about nuclear energy. In addition,
efforts are underway to develop and construct next-generation innovative
reactors. These include plans to replace decommissioned nuclear plants with
advanced models, contingent on securing local support.

While maintaining the effective 60-year operational limit, the government is also promoting a policy that excludes certain shutdown periods from being counted toward
that limit. The story of Japan’s nuclear village should serve as a
cautionary tale for other places engaged in debates on nuclear energy. For
example, Taiwan faces many of the same trade-offs as Japan. On one hand,
Taiwan is an energy importer with a vulnerable supply. On the other hand,
it is prone to earthquakes. As a result, nuclear energy has become a
central political debate.

The Diplomat 3rd May 2025,
https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/the-challenge-to-japans-nuclear-restart/

May 6, 2025 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

How bloody conflict 4,000 miles away could spark nuclear Armageddon killing billions

The “Army of the Righteous” terror group has been accused of slaughtering 22 Indian tourists holidaying in the Baisaran valley – which is pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of conflict

12:23, 02 May 2025, Ryan Fahey News Reporter, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/how-bloody-conflict-4000-miles-35158973

While the West is focused on how close Vladimir Putin is to pushing the red button, the real threat of Armageddon could be brewing in South Asia.

In April, suspected Islamist Pakistani militants shot dead 22 Indian tourists holidaying in the Baisaran valley, which is now pushing India and Pakistan – both nuclear-armed countries – to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. The gunmen are said to have prowled through the group of tourists, picking off any individual unable to recite Islamic verses. It’s being viewed by Indians as the worst massacre since the 2008 Mumbai bombings.

India’s security services are also being blamed for failing to realise the looming threat as the public outcry for retribution continues to grow. Indian national identity and foreign policy expert Dr Manali Kumar said the relations between the two countries are at a critically low point and “just short of war”. However, any overt acts of war would see a swift response from Pakistan, which would likely push the two sides into an escalating conflict that would be impossible to reverse once started.

India has an active army of 1.2million, with an additional 250,000 individuals split between the navy and air force, while Pakistan has less than 700,000 – but experts believe the two sides are far more evenly matched than it would seem.

Defence experts say that Pakistan could still “inflict significant damage and cause massive casualties”, according to the MailOnline.

Where the most concerning comparison comes is when looking at the nuclear arsenals of each country. Both Pakistan and India are understood to have around 170 warheads heads each, according to the Arms Control Association. While India has agreed to a “no first use” nuclear pact”, Pakistan does not adhere to the same moral restriction.

And if the apocalypse did happen in South Asia, 125 million people would be dead in a matter of days, researchers warned back in 2019.

India has accused Pakistani nationals – said to be members of the same “Army of the Righteous” terror group responsible for Mumbai – of carrying out the April 22 killing spree. Pakistan has denied involvement, and has already warned it would respond to any military aggression on the basis of “baseless and concocted allegations”.

The reason India has conflated the Pakistani government with the terror group is that they are said to have links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) agency.

In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2019, researchers said that there would be “tens of millions” of immediate victims if a nuke was launched in South Asia. It would have devastating environmental impacts, causing famines that could affect billions of people across the world.

“The direct effects of this nuclear exchange would be horrible; the authors estimate that 50 to 125 million people would die, depending on whether the weapons used had yields of 15, 50, or 100 kilotons,” the article read.

“The ramifications for Indian and Pakistani society would be major and long-lasting, with many major cities largely destroyed and uninhabitable.

“Smoke and radioactive particles would ‘spread globally within weeks… cooling the global surface, reducing precipitation and threatening mass starvation.”

May 5, 2025 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

India and Pakistan: Nations on brink of ‘nuclear war’

news.com.au 2 May 25

Two tough-talking leaders. Two nations struggling with internal turmoil. Both armed with nuclear weapons.

It’s quickly adding up to be a zero-sum crisis.

India and Pakistan are again on the brink of war after a terrorist attack in the troubled state of Kashmir killed 26 tourists — mostly Hindu Indians — and triggered a deadly blame game between the disgruntled neighbours.

“India will identify and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism. Terrorism will not go unpunished.”

These words, proclaimed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were spoken in English.

As such, it was a message intended for a global audience.

For its part, Pakistan was dismissive.

“In the absence of any credible investigation and verifiable evidence, attempts to link the Pahalgam attack with Pakistan are frivolous, devoid of rationality and defeat logic,” reads a statement from the Office of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Beneath the bluster, the plight of Kashmir is already being forgotten.

The Hindu-ruled (but mostly Muslim) Principality of Kashmir was given the choice of becoming a semi-independent state of either Pakistan or India by the retreating British Empire in 1947.

It chose India in the face of tribal incursions from Pakistan.


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Two tough-talking leaders. Two nations struggling with internal turmoil. Both armed with nuclear weapons.

It’s quickly adding up to be a zero-sum crisis.

India and Pakistan are again on the brink of war after a terrorist attack in the troubled state of Kashmir killed 26 tourists — mostly Hindu Indians — and triggered a deadly blame game between the disgruntled neighbours.

“India will identify and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism. Terrorism will not go unpunished.”

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These words, proclaimed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were spoken in English.

As such, it was a message intended for a global audience.

For its part, Pakistan was dismissive.

“In the absence of any credible investigation and verifiable evidence, attempts to link the Pahalgam attack with Pakistan are frivolous, devoid of rationality and defeat logic,” reads a statement from the Office of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Beneath the bluster, the plight of Kashmir is already being forgotten.

The Hindu-ruled (but mostly Muslim) Principality of Kashmir was given the choice of becoming a semi-independent state of either Pakistan or India by the retreating British Empire in 1947.

It chose India in the face of tribal incursions from Pakistan.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said that their ‘spirit will not be broken’ by terrorism.. Picture: Sachin KUMAR / AFP

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said that their ‘spirit will not be broken’ by terrorism.. Picture: Sachin KUMAR / AFP

But Prime Minister Modi has, in recent years, suspended the region’s special freedoms and allowed his Hindu nationalist supporters to impose their ways on the culturally distinct populace.

“India’s hard-line policies under Modi and the imposition of direct central rule on Kashmir have fuelled deep alienation in the Muslim-majority region,” argues Yale University lecturer Sushant Singh.

That backlash, he adds, has triggered much broader tensions that has been simmering beneath the surface for decades.

“With Modi’s rhetoric leaving little room for compromise, Pakistan’s military leadership under pressure to respond forcefully to any Indian strike, and China’s growing involvement in the region, events in Kashmir risk triggering uncontrollable escalation,” he said.

Kashmir Conundrum

“At the heart of the Kashmir crisis is a combustible mix of religious nationalism, authoritarian governance, and unresolved political grievances,” explains Mr Singh.

Mr Modi stripped Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, of its constitutional privileges in 2019.

Local elections have been suspended. Curfews, media controls and political arrests have become commonplace.

“The reality on the ground remains one of pervasive fear and violence,” adds Mr Singh.

“Kashmir has endured recurring militant attacks, including the killing in Pahalgam, and the continued imposition of draconian laws and heavy security deployments.”

Responsibility for the Pahalgam attack has been claimed by a group calling itself The Resistance Front (TRF), which analysts believe to be an offshoot of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.

The TRF has accused Indian Hindus of a co-ordinated campaign to establish settlements in Kashmir and overwhelm its indigenous population.

PM Modi has seized on the TRF’s Pakistani ties to label the incident as a cross-border attack backed by Islamabad.

He’s expelled Pakistani diplomats. He’s closed the border. He’s ordered the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty.

ashmir is inseparable from his broader political strategy, in which he projects strength as a Hindu nationalist strongman, promises violent retribution against enemies, and seeks to rally domestic support through exploiting moments of national security crisis,” Mr Singh states.

Pakistan’s Power Plays

Islamabad has condemned suspension of the Indus water agreement as an “act of war”.

It has also closed its airspace to Indian flights and suspended all bilateral treaties, including a 1972 peace treaty that laid out a path towards a normalised relationship between the two nations.

But Pakistan is in the grip of a severe internal crisis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/india-and-pakistan-nations-on-brink-of-nuclear-war/news-story/2f6d318483fdad71eebf466349123137

May 4, 2025 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

India and Pakistan: The nuclear standoff that we really should all be worried about

As tensions between the two countries escalate following a
terrorist attack in Kashmir, Ashis Ray looks at how a conflict could
involve China and America in a war over sovereignty and security.

 Independent 30th April 2025 https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-pakistan-kashmir-attack-terrorism-nuclear-b2741719.html

May 4, 2025 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

As US military prepares for war on China, Silicon Valley tech oligarchs are profiting

Hegseth is a far-right theocratic extremist. He published a book in 2020 called “American Crusade”, in which he proudly declared that the US right is in a “holy war” against the international left, China, and Islam.

Hegseth revealed that the US military is making “real war plans” for China, over Taiwan.

The US military is preparing for war on China. It has missile systems in the Philippines aimed at major Chinese cities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the USA is turning “Japan into a war-fighting headquarters”. Silicon Valley Big Tech oligarchs are making hugely profitable investments.

By Ben Norton, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/04/28/us-military-war-china-silicon-valley/

Evidence grows showing that the US military is setting the stage for war on China.

A leaked memo obtained by the Washington Post reveals that the US Department of Defense has made preparing for war with China into its top priority, giving it precedence over all other issues.

The Pentagon is concentrating its resources in the Asia-Pacific region as it anticipates fighting China in an attempt to exert US control over Taiwan.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a fundamentalist self-declared “crusader” who called for overthrowing the Chinese government, took a trip in March to Japan and the Philippines, where he repeatedly threatened Beijing and boasted of US “war-fighting” preparations and “real war plans”.

In 2024, the US military installed its Typhon missile system in the northern Philippines. This has a range of 1,240 miles (roughly 2,000 kilometers), and can hit most major cities on the Chinese mainland.

The United States has access to at least nine military bases in the Philippines.

The Wall Street Journal reported that this “new U.S. missile system deployed in the Philippines puts key Chinese military and commercial hubs within striking distance”.

The newspaper added that it “is the first time since the Cold War that the U.S. military has deployed a land-based launching system with such a long range outside its borders”.

This blatant US provocation has caused outrage in Beijing, which sees the Pentagon’s move as a significant escalation of Washington’s new cold war on China.

Cold War Two

Cold War Two has more and more parallels to Cold War One.

Students in US schools are often taught that the Soviet Union’s deployment of nuclear weapons to Cuba in the 1962 missile crisis was an act of “aggression”. Their classes usually omit the fact the United States first put nuclear weapons in NATO member Turkey in 1959, provoking Moscow.

Today, Washington is provoking Beijing in many domains.

Donald Trump launched a unilateral, aggressive trade war on China in 2018, during his first term.

Trump’s Democratic successor, Joe Biden, not only continued this trade war but expanded it further, adding more tariffs and export restrictions in an attempt to strangle China’s high-tech sector.

Now in his second term, Trump has waged a nuclear trade war on China, threatening tariffs of 245%.

This new cold war has become a lucrative enterprise for some US oligarchs.

Silicon Valley oligarchs hope to profit from US war on China

Big Tech capitalists in Silicon Valley have poured money into new weapons systems, hoping to profit off of war on China.

The Wall Street Journal published an article in 2024 titled “Tech Bros Are Betting They Can Help Win a War With China”. It featured an interview with right-wing billionaire Palmer Luckey, a former Facebook executive who founded the arms manufacturer Anduril Industries.

Anduril has established itself as a significant Pentagon contractor, with its work developing advanced autonomous weapons.

The Wall Street Journal wrote (emphasis added):

These weapons, Luckey argues, are needed for a potential conflict with China, which the Pentagon two years ago announced is the greatest danger to U.S. security. The U.S. military, Luckey and others say, needs large numbers of cheaper and more intelligent systems that can be effective over long stretches of ocean and against a manufacturing and technological power like China.

Anduril is so focused on a conflict with Beijing, Luckey says, that many teams inside the company are building only weapons that can be completed by 2027—the year Chinese President Xi Jinping has said his country should be prepared to invade Taiwan. The fictional sword for which Anduril is named [from the Lord of the Rings] is also called the “Flame of the West.”

“We keep our eyes on the prize, which is great-power conflict in the Pacific,” Luckey said.

The newspaper highlighted how the US military-industrial complex has become increasingly privatized.

There has been a rapid influx of venture capital funds into weapons corporations in recent years. The Wall Street Journal reported (emphasis added):

Anduril is part of one of the largest shifts to take place in the defense sector since World War II: the flow of venture-capital funding into defense-technology companies.

For decades, the U.S. government funded defense companies, like Lockheed Martin, to develop new weapons, ranging from stealth aircraft to spy satellites. But as the private-sector money available for research and development has outstripped federal-government spending, particularly in areas like AI, a new cohort of defense startups is using private capital to develop technology for the Pentagon.

The amount of private capital flowing into the venture-backed defense-tech industry has ballooned, with investors spending at least 70% more on the sector each of the past three years than any prior year. From 2021 through mid-June 2024, venture capitalists invested a total of $130 billion in defense-tech startups, according to data firm PitchBook. The Pentagon spends about $90 billion on R&D annually.

A major investor in Anduril is Founders Fund, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.

Thiel is a far-right billionaire oligarch who has strongly supported Donald Trump and has funded Republican politicians. He even previously employed US Vice President JD Vance, and bankrolled his successful 2022 Senate campaign.

A former FBI informant, Thiel co-founded another major Pentagon contractor, Palantir, which the CIA helped to fund.

Thiel is also an extreme anti-China hawk. He openly defends monopolies, arguing “competition is for losers”, and wants to ban Chinese competitors to US Big Tech monopolies.

Like Thiel, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey is staunchly pro-Trump. He is from the same community of far-right Silicon Valley oligarchs.

The Financial Times reported that Thiel’s Palantir, Luckey’s Anduril, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX sought to create a “consortium” — or, rather, a cartel — to jointly bid for US government contractors.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wages “holy war” on China, from Japan and the Philippines

Trump has surrounded himself with a team of war hawks, including neoconservative Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth personally signed the Pentagon document obtained by the Washington Post that showed that the number one priority of the US military is preparing for war with China over Taiwan.

In this memo, which is officially known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance”, the Pentagon wrote, “China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan — while simultaneously defending the U.S. homeland is the Department’s sole pacing scenario”.

The Washington Post revealed that several parts of this document were copied word-for-word from a vehemently anti-China report published by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Washington, DC-based think tank that is funded by large corporations and conservative billionaires.

The oligarch-backed Heritage Foundation organized the notorious Project 2025, which crafted a detailed policy program for the Trump administration to implement.

Hegseth is a far-right theocratic extremist. He published a book in 2020 called “American Crusade”, in which he proudly declared that the US right is in a “holy war” against the international left, China, and Islam.

“Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years”, Hegseth pledged in the book. He wrote, “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.

In March 2025, Hegseth traveled to Asia to pressure US allies to join Washington in its new cold war on China. The Wall Street Journal summarized his trip with the headline “Hegseth Tells Asian Allies: We’re With You Against China”.

When he spoke in Japan, Hegseth vowed to “strengthen our bilateral bonds and deepen our operational cooperation” against Beijing.

The US defense secretary stated that the Pentagon is turning “Japan into a war-fighting headquarters”.

Japan previously colonized China. The Japanese empire, which later allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, killed tens of millions of people in China and other parts of Asia in the 1930s and ’40s.

“America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese”, Hegseth asserted, fearmongering about “the severe nature of the threat”.

“Those who long for peace must prepare for war”, the US defense secretary said. “We must be prepared. We look forward to working closely together as we improve our war-fighting capabilities, our lethality, and our readiness”.

Hegseth articulated “three pillars” of the Trump administration’s Pentagon strategy: “Reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and restoring deterrence”.

The US defense secretary made similarly aggressive comments in the Philippines, blasting what he called “communist China’s aggression in the region”.

Hegseth revealed that the US military is making “real war plans” for China, over Taiwan.

At a press conference in the Philippines, Hegseth spoke of Admiral Samuel Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command. He said (emphasis added):

It’s not my job to determine where the Seventh Fleet goes. I defer to Admiral Paparo and his war plans. Real war plans. Admiral Paparo understands the situation, understands the geographic significance, understands the urgency, and is prepared to work with those in the region to ensure we are leaning forward in our posture. Not waiting for events to develop, not retrograding to places further from the front, but deploying capabilities forward, posturing and creating dynamics and strategic dilemmas for the Communist Chinese, that help them reconsider whether or not violence or action is something they want to undertake.

During the first cold war, the US hosted a military base on Taiwan, where it stored nuclear weapons.

In the second Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, top US military officials wanted to attack the Chinese mainland with nuclear bombs, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower preferred conventional weapons.

May 1, 2025 Posted by | China, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Danger of an India-Pakistan war and Canada’s Reactors 

Normand Lester, Journal de Montréal, 27 avril 2025, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2025/04/27/danger-de-guerre-indo-pakistanaise-et-nos-candu

An individual with dual Canadian and Pakistani citizenship has just been arrested in the USA for attempting to acquire technology for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and smuggle it through Canada.
The case comes to light as tension mounts between India and Pakistan following the massacre of 26 Indian tourists in the disputed region of Kashmir. New Delhi accuses Pakistan of being responsible. The latter denies being behind the attack. India has annexed Muslim-majority Kashmir, which is claimed by Pakistan. China is a major ally of Pakistan, while India has close defense ties with the United States.

Clashes between the two armies increased, raising fears of a large-scale military conflict. Peace has never really been restored since 1947, when the British Indian Empire was violently partitioned into two independent states: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. The war of religious partition is thought to have claimed between one and two million lives, and led to the massive displacement of between 12 and 20 million people.

A-bomb: thanks to Canada
India and Pakistan have already fought two major wars, in 1965 and 1971, before acquiring nuclear weapons… with the help of Canada. Any war between them could therefore turn into a nuclear exchange.
Since then, India and Pakistan have experienced a major border skirmish in 1999, which left at least 1,000 people dead.

After donating one nuclear reactor to India in 1956, Ottawa heavily subsidized the purchase of another by India in 1963. As part of this purchase, Canada trained 271 Indian scientists, engineers and technicians, who went on to develop New Delhi’s atomic bomb.

In 1971, Canada built a 137-megawatt CANDU nuclear reactor in Karachi, Pakistan. The contract also included a heavy water production facility. Three years later, in 1974, India detonated its first nuclear device, dubbed the “Smiling Buddha”, using plutonium from the reactor donated by Ottawa in 1956.

According to experts, Canadian reactors are ideal for producing weapons-grade plutonium, and Ottawa hasn’t even asked India to comply with the safeguards required by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Canada sneaks away
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger then roundly criticized Canada, telling the media that the Indian nuclear explosion had been carried out using material diverted from a Canadian reactor lacking the appropriate safeguards.

With its guilt exposed, Canada quietly withdrew from the Indian CANDU project. It also stopped supplying uranium to Karachi, and withdrew from the Pakistani project. This did not prevent it from carrying out its first nuclear test in 1998.
If India and Pakistan ever wage nuclear war on each other, Canada will have to assume – in part – the moral responsibility.

May 1, 2025 Posted by | Canada, India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Robotic arm struggles to take fuel sample from Fukushima plant

By KEITARO FUKUCHI/ Staff Writer, April 28, 2025, https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15704793

A narrow, attic-like space lies directly below the No. 5 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, showing the difficult route a robotic arm must take to collect samples of melted fuel debris in a sister reactor. 

The robotic arm is 22 meters long, weighs 4.6 tons and has 18 articulatable joints.

It has been developed to retrieve samples from the No. 2 reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant—which was crippled when the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear disaster at the facility.

To this day, an estimated 880 tons of melted fuel debris remain in the No. 1 through No. 3 reactors, and recovering this material is considered the most challenging phase in the long decommissioning process.

After more than six years of development using taxpayer money and undergoing numerous setbacks, the robotic arm may go on its first real debris retrieval mission later this fiscal year—or face being scrapped.

“The latest attempt may prove a failure since numerous trials have produced no successful outcomes so far,” said a nuclear industry insider. “The robot arm might be left to gather dust without ever being used.”

News reporters were given a tour in January of the crippled power plant’s No. 5 reactor, which is the same model and reportedly has the same dimensions as the No. 2 reactor, to see the route the arm must take if it is to succeed.

THE MISSION

To reach the debris, the arm will have to be navigated—by remote control—through the same narrow route at the No. 2 reactor that the reporters traversed at its twin.

The first step will be to carefully insert the arm, which is 40 centimeters tall, through an opening with an inner diameter of just 55 cm.

Once inside the 1.5-meter-tall space directly under the reactor, the approximately 4-meter-long tip of the arm will be slowly rotated and lowered to reach the fuel debris at the bottom of the containment vessel.

“Adjusting the joints’ angles is particularly difficult,” said a TEPCO public relations representative. “Even a single error can cause the device to hit its surroundings.”

TRIAL AND ERROR

The robotic arm has been under development since fall 2018 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and a British company from the nuclear power industry. As much as 7.8 billion yen ($53.1 million) in taxpayers’ money has been invested in the arm and related projects.

However, the project has faced numerous setbacks.

The government and TEPCO initially planned to debut the arm in a debris retrieval test in 2021, but the device was unable to move with the necessary precision, causing delays.

When the first retrieval test was finally undertaken in November 2024, a simpler device with a solid track record in past applications was used instead. The same device was used in the second retrieval test earlier this month—while revisions on the robotic arm continued.

Because the arm’s weight is supported at its base, the device tends to bend and move unsteadily when extended.

“They are working hard to carry out this difficult procedure under particularly challenging conditions,” said Hajimu Yamana, president of the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp. (NDF), which serves as an adviser on the decommissioning work.

As the arm’s development dragged on for more than half a decade, new problems arose in and after August 2024.

Disconnection of motor cables that had deteriorated over time was detected, as was a failure in the arm’s obstacle removal mechanism.

In December that year, the robotic arm came into contact with a model of the containment vessel during a test. However, it later safely passed through the opening without encountering any obstructions after its operators fine-tuned the insertion point.

“New issues arise each time a test is conducted,” lamented Yusuke Nakagawa, a TEPCO group manager involved in the project. “We just have to address them one by one again and again.”

TEPCO began dismantling part of the robotic arm in February to examine the deteriorated cable. The inspection is expected to take three to four months, and the arm will likely undergo additional operational tests after that.

THE FUTURE

For now, TEPCO plans to put the robotic arm to practical use at the site in the latter half of fiscal 2025.

“The final decision (on whether to actually use the arm on site) will be made after taking into account the results of the envisioned operational tests,” said Akira Ono, president of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Co.

The future of the robotic arm is still unclear given that its official introduction has already been delayed four times.

Officials involved are expressing a growing sense of alarm.

Toyoshi Fuketa, an ex-chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, calls for reviewing the current plan.

“Never changing a plan once it has been decided upon, even if it does not work properly, is a bad habit of Japan,” he noted. “People should have the courage to back down at times (by giving up on the robotic arm).”

April 30, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

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