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USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission affirms that a little ionising radiation may be bad for health

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Affirms that a Little Radiation may be Bad for Health https://srswatch.org/nuclear-regulatory-commission-affirms-that-a-little-radiation-may-be-bad-for-health/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nuclear-regulatory-commission-affirms-that-a-little-radiation-may-be-bad-for-health SRS Watch 21 August 21 Amazingly, the NRC denies industry friendly petitions that claim “a little radiation is good for you.”

“Petition for Rulemaking; Denial: Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection Against Radiation”Nuclear Regulatory Commission, August 17, 2021


“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is denying three petitions for rulemaking (PRMs), submitted by Dr. Carol S. Marcus, Mr. Mark L. Miller, Certified Health Physicist, and Dr. Mohan Doss, et al. (collectively, the petitioners) in correspondence dated February 9, 2015, February 13, 2015, and February 24, 2015, respectively.

The petitioners request that the NRC amend its regulations based on what they assert is new science and evidence that contradicts the linear no-threshold (LNT) dose-effect model that serves as the basis for the NRC’s radiation protection regulations. The NRC docketed these petitions on February 20, 2015, February 27, 2015, and March 16, 2015, and assigned them Docket Numbers PRM-20-28, PRM-20-29, and PRM-20-30, respectively.

The NRC is denying the three petitions because they fail to present an adequate basis supporting the request to discontinue use of the LNT model. The NRC has determined that the LNT model continues to provide a sound regulatory basis for minimizing the risk of unnecessary radiation exposure to both members of the public and radiation workers. Therefore, the NRC will maintain the current dose limit requirements contained in its regulations.”NRC webpage:  https://www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2015-0057-0671

August 23, 2021 Posted by | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

The American world-wide empire of military bases

American military bases overseas are now scattered across 81 countries, colonies, or territories on every continent except Antarctica. And while their total numbers may be down, their reach has only continued to expand.

As long as this count of 750 military bases in 81 places remains a reality, so, too, will U.S. wars. As succinctly put by David Vine in his latest book, The United States of War, ““Bases frequently beget wars, which can beget more bases, which can beget more wars, and so on.”  ………..

New Bases, New Wars

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, thanks in part to a growing push for a Cold War-style “containment” of China, new bases are being constructed in the Pacific.

The All-American Base World August 19, 2021  As long as this current count of 750 military bases in 81 places remains a reality, so, too, will U.S. wars, writes Patterson Deppen. Consortium News   By Patterson Deppen 
TomDispatch.com  ”…………..  Having closed down hundreds of military bases and combat outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon will now shift to an “advise-and-assist” role in Iraq. Meanwhile, its top leadership is now busy “pivoting” to Asia in pursuit of new geostrategic objectives primarily centered around “containing” China. As a result, in the Greater Middle East and significant parts of Africa, the U.S. will be trying to keep a far lower profile, while remaining militarily engaged through training programs and private contractors…………

 I’ve just finished compiling a list of American military bases around the world, the most comprehensive possible at this moment from publicly available information. It should help make greater sense of what could prove to be a significant period of transition for the U.S. military.

Despite a modest overall decline in such bases, rest assured that the hundreds that remain will play a vital role in the continuation of some version of Washington’s forever wars and could also help facilitate a new Cold War with China.

According to my current count, our country still has more than 750 significant military bases implanted around the globe. And here’s the simple reality: unless they are, in the end, dismantled, America’s imperial role on this planet won’t end either, spelling disaster for this country in the years to come. 

Tallying Up the ‘Bases of Empire’  

I was tasked with compiling what we’ve (hopefully) called the “2021 U.S. Overseas Base Closure List” after reaching out to Leah Bolger, president of World BEYOND War. As part of a group known as the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition (OBRACC) committed to shutting down such bases, Bolger put me in contact with its co-founder David Vine, the author of the classic book on the subject, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.  

Bolger, Vine and I then decided to put together just such a new list as a tool for focusing on future U.S. base closures around the world. In addition to providing the most comprehensive accounting of such overseas bases, our research also further confirms that the presence of even one in a country can contribute significantly to anti-American protests, environmental destruction, and ever greater costs for the American taxpayer.

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August 23, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The nuclearization of space

“Where will those funds come from?  Maybe from the budget that helps deal with our current climate crisis here on Mother Earth.”

Not mentioned by Aviation Week & Space Technology was an accident the year earlier—involving a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, SNAP-9A, not a reactor but a device utilizing heat from the breakdown of plutonium to produce electricity. The satellite on which it was to provide power failed to attain orbit and crashed back into the atmosphere, the plutonium in SNAP-9A dispersing and spreading widely on Earth.

Dr. John Gofman, an M.D. and Ph.D. involved in the isolation of plutonium during the Manhattan Project and long a professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, connected the SNAP-9A accident with a spike in lung cancer on Earth.

despite claiming for decades that nuclear power was needed for space probes, NASA used three solar photovoltaic panels on its Juno space probe, which in 2016 reached Jupiter. Juno is still up there, orbiting and studying the solar system’s largest planet, at which sunlight is a hundredth of what it is on Earth.

Fast track to Mars could come at terrible price

The nuclearization of space — Beyond Nuclear International The nuclearization of space   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2021/08/22/the-nuclearization-of-space/
Defense Department signals growing interest By Karl Grossman 22 Aug 21,

“BACK TO THE FUTURE NASA’S NEW NUCLEAR VISION” was the headline emblazoned on the cover of the May 3-16, 2021 edition of the leading U.S. aerospace trade publication, Aviation Week & Space Technology.
“More than sixty years after the U.S. began serious studies into nuclear propulsion for space travel, NASA is taking the first steps on a new path to develop nuclear-powered engines for crewed missions to Mars by the end of the next decade,” it began.
“Nuclear enabled space vehicles would allow NASA to keep the round-trip crewed Mars mission duration to about two years, versus more than three years with the best chemical rockets and even longer with solar electric propulsion,” the extensive five-page piece declared.

Also, it said, “other factors strengthening the case for nuclear power include growing interest from the Defense Department in using the technology to extend operational capability in space.”

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August 23, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

US nuclear policy reflects a hypocritical Cold War mindset

US nuclear policy reflects hypocrisy, Cold War mindset

By Jiang Tianjiao | China Daily | 2021-08-21 09:29  US arms control experts, including former secretary of defense William Perry, recently wrote to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, asking him to support the “no first use of nuclear weapons” policy the Joe Biden administration is likely to propose. But despite the good intentions of people like Perry, it is difficult to change the stubborn conservative thinking and offensive nuclear strategy of most US politicians.

After the end of the Cold War, the US nuclear arms control policy has undergone periodic fluctuations, but on the whole, it is still dominated by conservative forces not averse to fighting a nuclear war. In the 1990s, with the collapse of the bipolar world order, the Bill Clinton administration tried to promote arms control, but the conservative forces, using the possibility of some countries possessing weapons of mass destructions as a pretext, helped build an overwhelming public opinion against it………….

In its latest “Nuclear Posture Review Report”, the US not only called for a comprehensive upgrading of the nuclear arsenal, but also said that in case it faces a “major non-nuclear strategic attack”, it will actively respond with nuclear weapons.

Although the Democratic Party has always supported arms control, “first use of nuclear weapons” has become the politically correct strategic stance for the Biden administration for three key reasons.

First, the “first use of nuclear weapons” policy has become part of the strategic culture of the US. During the Cold War, the US prepared for a possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union and accordingly engaged in capacity-building. But even three decades after the end of the Cold War, the US is still preparing to fight and win a nuclear war. As such, it cannot give up the “first use” policy.

Second, the “first use of nuclear weapons” policy is the keystone of the US’ deterrence strategy and the basis of its global alliance system. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the US has provided its global allies with a nuclear umbrella. If it abandons its “first use” policy, it can no longer provide the nuclear umbrella for its allies, which would increase the possibility of nuclear proliferation among its allies such as Japan and the Republic of Korea and could eventually lead to the collapse of the US alliance system.

Third, the “first use of nuclear weapons” policy is what gives the US asymmetric advantages in any

strategic competition and conflict with another country. The US is also worried that rival countries could acquire asymmetric means, thanks to the rapid development of the new military technology, to launch sudden attacks against it………       The author is an assistant director of the Center for BRICS Studies, Fudan Development Institute. http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202108/21/WS61205711a310efa1bd66a3c9.html

August 23, 2021 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Top Westinghouse Nuclear Executive Charged with Conspiracy, Fraud

Top Westinghouse Nuclear Executive Charged with Conspiracy, Fraud in 16-Count Federal Indictment, Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s OfficeDistrict of South Carolina.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021.   Columbia, South Carolina — Acting United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina M. Rhett DeHart announced today that a Federal Grand Jury has charged former Westinghouse Electric Company Senior Vice President Jeffrey A. Benjamin for his role in failing to truthfully report information regarding construction of new nuclear units at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant.

Benjamin, who served as Senior Vice President for New Plants and Major Projects and directly supervised all new nuclear projects worldwide for Westinghouse during the V.C. Summer project, is charged in a federal indictment with sixteen felony counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record.  

The charges Benjamin faces carry a maximum of twenty years imprisonment and a $5,000,000 fine. 

The indictment alleges that Benjamin was personally involved in communications between Westinghouse and its owners, SCANA and Santee Cooper, regarding the status of the V.C. Summer project.  

The indictment further alleges that, throughout 2016 and into 2017, when Westinghouse had direct control over the construction and schedule of the project, Benjamin received information that the V.C. Summer units were materially behind schedule and over budget.  Nevertheless, at various times from September 2016 through March 2017, the indictment alleges that Benjamin assured the owners that the units would be completed on schedule and took active steps to conceal from the owners damaging information about the project schedule.  During this time period, the owners paid Westinghouse over $600,000,000 to construct the two V.C. Summer units, both of which were ultimately abandoned.

“Our commitment to investigate and prosecute the V.C. Summer nuclear debacle has never wavered,” said Acting U.S. Attorney DeHart.  “While the indictment – and the allegations contained within – speak for itself, it is further proof of our commitment to seek justice for South Carolina ratepayers and all others affected by the V.C. Summer project failure.”

“This indictment with its attendant allegations and charges is another step toward justice for all those responsible for the V.C. Summer nuclear plant fiasco,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Susan Ferensic.  “The FBI has devoted substantial resources to investigating this matter and will continue to work with the United States Attorney’s Office, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, and the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office to find facts and prove criminal conduct.”

Benjamin is the fourth individual to be charged in the ongoing federal investigation, stemming from the exhaustive and multi-year joint investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Former SCANA Chief Executive Officer Kevin Marsh, former SCANA Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne, and former Westinghouse Vice President Carl Churchman have all pleaded guilty to federal felony charges for their roles in the matter.

August 23, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Time to stop the bailout of America’s insanely expensive nuclear industry

The “problem” is obvious: the cost of operating and maintaining old nukes is skyrocketing. So is the cost of building new ones. The last two under construction in the US – in Georgia – have already doubled in cost (approaching $30 billion) and are still not open. If they ever do open (God help us!!!) the electricity they’d produce would be far more expensive than the wind turbines and solar panels that will surround them.


Stop the Insane Nuke Bailout, By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 21 August 21

uried deep in Joe Biden’s various infrastructure deals is a bailout every bit as insane as the original decision to stay in Afghanistan – up to $50 billion in handouts to keep old nuke reactors operating … at least until they blow up.

The cost of our arrogant lunacy in Afghanistan was thousands of lives and maybe $2 trillion.

The cost of the inevitable explosion at one or more of these crumbling jalopy nukes could be millions of lives and trillions in both destroyed property and an irradiated ecosphere.

Throughout the globe, the Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, batteries, and efficiency are skyrocketing in production while their prices plummet. But Biden’s proposed bailout would take a huge amount of capital away from clean, job producing renewables and put it into expensive, dangerous, obsolete reactors.

Richard Nixon in 1974 – amidst the Arab oil embargo – promised there’d be a thousand “Peaceful Atom” nukes in the US by the year 2000. In that year there were 104. Today there are 93, with the number still dropping – but not fast enough.

Every day these fast-deteriorating reactors become more likely to explode. Under the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, their owners are exempted from liability if their negligence lets a reactor carpet the American landscape with deadly radiation.

Because they’re not on the hook for the apocalypse they might cause, reactor owners have no particular incentive to expensively maintain these nukes as they sink into decrepitude. And thus the taxpayer and the individual citizen (YOU!) must absorb the cost of the meltdowns/explosions we all know are coming.

The rationale for the bailout is that aging atomic reactors – even ones long since amortized – cannot compete with the onslaught of renewables, batteries and efficiency. Allegedly, in our “free market capitalist” country, we all must compete. But when major corporate assets like nuke reactors can’t, apparently they must be bailed out.

The “problem” is obvious: the cost of operating and maintaining old nukes is skyrocketing. So is the cost of building new ones. The last two under construction in the US – in Georgia – have already doubled in cost (approaching $30 billion) and are still not open. If they ever do open (God help us!!!) the electricity they’d produce would be far more expensive than the wind turbines and solar panels that will surround them.

Indeed, from 2009 to 2019, the price for solar photovoltaic electricity dropped by 89%. For on-shore wind, it went down by 70%……….

The lengths to which the corporate dinosaurs will go to preserve these old reactors is astounding. The owners of two extremely decrepit and dangerous nukes on Lake Erie helped funnel a $61 million bribe to the Speaker of the Ohio House in exchange for a $1 billion ratepayer bailout (since repealed). Disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo helped shut two extremely dangerous old nukes at Indian Point, near Manhattan, but forced through $7.6 billion in handouts for four falling-apart upstate reactors, at least one of which the owner wanted to shut. Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois and other states are in various stages of bailout madness.

But now Biden wants to take the disease federal. The reactors he wants to save for $50 billion cannot compete with new wind or solar. They may temporarily sustain an aging, fast-retiring workforce. But they’ll create no new training or safe longterm employment for a rising Solartopian generation………….. https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/71091-rsn-stop-the-insane-nuke-bailout

August 23, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

NRC respond’s to New Mexico’s legal bid to stop Holtec’s planned nuclear waste dump

NRC: Court lacks authority in New Mexico lawsuit against nuclear waste site, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus 20 Aug 21.   A proposal to build a temporary nuclear waste storage site near Carlsbad and Hobbs drew a lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the agency tasked with permitting the facility, from the State of New Mexico which sought to block the project.

In a Monday filing, the NRC asked the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico to dismiss the State’s lawsuit due to lack of jurisdiction.

The State alleged in the suit that the NRC acted illegally in issuing an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Holtec project that found the site would have minimal environmental impact and recommended a permit be granted.

Citing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas argued federal law stipulated a permanent repository be available before an interim storage site, like Holtec’s, could be permitted.

But the NRC argued that in the State’s suit, Balderas ignored the NRC’s authority to issue licenses for nuclear facilities as designated in the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), that allows challenges to licenses applications be raised in the U.S Court of Appeals which New Mexico failed to do.

The NRC argued U.S. District Court was the wrong venue for New Mexico to appeal the decision under the AEA and that the case should be before the U.S. Court of Appeals………..

State leaders cited the alleged risk the project, proposed by Holtec International, would pose to the environment and public safety should it be allowed to operate, along with concerns that it could become permanent as no such repository existed and potential incidents when transporting the waste into New Mexico.

Holtec first applied for a license from the NRC in 2017 to build the facility that would ultimately store up to 100,000 spent nuclear fuel rods on the surface at a location near the Eddy-Lea county line while a permanent repository was developed.

Such a repository does not yet exist, so the Holtec site would see the high-level nuclear waste brought into the remote area in southeast New Mexico via rail from nuclear power plants and facilities across the country to be held temporarily at the site known as consolidated interim storage facility (CISF).

A similar project was also amidst an NRC licensing process in Andrews, Texas, near the New Mexico-Texas state line for another company Interim Storage partners which so far received favorable reviews from the agency with a final decision expected later this year.

Upon announcing the lawsuit against the NRC to block Holtec’s project Balderas sought an injunction to block the licensing process.

He said the project would bring an unnecessary risk to the local communities near the site and along its transportation routes, along with economic drivers like oil and gas extraction and agriculture in the region.

“I am taking legal action because I want to mitigate dangers to our environment and to other energy sectors,” Balderas said. “It is fundamentally unfair for our residents to bear the risks of open ended uncertainty        https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2021/08/20/nrc-court-lacks-authority-new-mexico-lawsuit-against-nuclear-waste-site/8185804002/

August 23, 2021 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The military-industrial complex had a successful Afghanistan war – better still than Vietnam. The next will be better, and by remote warfare.

For the military-industrial complex it (Vietnam) was a successful war. And they learned lessons from it.

For them the war ended too early. Profits fell.

In the words of George Orwell in the book 1984, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

Moreover, it is meant to be far away and beyond the attention of the citizenry.

The military-industrial complex keeps learning and profiting. Now it’s remote warfare instead of boots on the ground.

Successes in Afghanistan and Vietnam,   Crispin Hull, http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2021/08/20/afghan-and-vietnam-successes/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=crispin-hull-column-16-nov-2019_99

  When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this is “not Saigon”, everyone rightly scoffed. It was a mirror image right down to near identical photos of US helicopters evacuating the embassy in Kabul just as in Saigon 46 years earlier – another delusional re-run of a failed US foreign policy. When will they ever learn?

But there is another way of looking at this. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were highly successful missions. If just depends on whose eyes you are looking through.

The big mistake is to imagine that the US mission in these countries was to ensure peace, liberty, democracy and prosperity for their people.

Some US entities learned a lot from Vietnam and applied it in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

This might sound a little off the planet, but we must go back to 1961 to get a clearer picture and quote Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address:

“Until the latest of our world conflicts [World War II], the United States had no armaments industry. [Now] we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions . . . .

“Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. 

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Alas, those in the “councils of government” did not heed the warning. To the contrary, they fell under the spell of the military-industrial complex. Subsequent Presidents, up to but not including Trump, have done its bidding and enriched the management and shareholders of the weapons makers and the vast array of suppliers of equipment, food, clothes and shelter to the military.

Those Presidents were all supporters of big military spending. Meanwhile, the corporations with labyrinthal efficiency set up their manufacturing and supply chains in as many congressional districts as they could. They plied their influence in the Washington beltway. None in the councils of government dared defy them.

The military-industrial complex and those elected in both parties and those in the bureaucracy symbiotically egged each other on to ramp up the US military presence in Vietnam.

The US spent $US1 trillion in today’s money in Vietnam. A great deal of that went in profits to US corporations. Only 17 per cent went to nation-building in Vietnam, and much of that went to US contractors.

For the military-industrial complex it was a successful war. And they learned lessons from it.

For them the war ended too early. Profits fell.

The main lessons for them were that Vietnam was a television war. The cameras went everywhere. It also required conscription. Those two things undermine public apathy. And public apathy is essential for the prosecution of a profitable war.

TV and conscription made for, in Eisenhower’s words, “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry”. So, for the military-industrial complex, the Vietnam war was a dismally short war.

In the words of George Orwell in the book 1984, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

Moreover, it is meant to be far away and beyond the attention of the citizenry.

Next time round, journalists would be embedded with (and controlled by) the military. There would be no conscription. There would be proud mothers and daughters, not angry ones. And the rest of the population would be oblivious, apathetic, inattentive and unknowledgeable.

The military-industrial complex had a very successful 20-year war in Afghanistan, greatly profiting from the $2 trillion the US spent there, and a similarly successful stint in Iraq.

The money did not go to the Vietnamese, the Iraqis or Afghans. It went to the likes of Lockheed and Halliburton.

The only President since Eisenhower to see and seek to stamp out the influence of the military-industrial complex was Trump.

Like Eisenhower, Trump did not come from the political establishment. He saw the wars as a waste of money and vowed to end them. When Obama tried to do the same in 2009, the military-industrial complex conned him into a “surge” of 17,000 more US troops.

Trump ended the Afghan war. It was about the only good thing he did in his presidency. It was never going to go smoothly. The military-industrial complex even conned President Joe Biden into believing that all the money it had wasted on training an Afghan army and police force would enable them to hold off the Taliban for a reasonable time for an evacuation. But there was nothing there. 

At these times we shake our head and look at the “cost” and wonder how it took so long to get out. We should look at it the other way. Who profited from the wars and why did the US (and Australia) take such a short time to go in?

The military-industrial complex keeps learning and profiting. Now it’s remote warfare instead of boots on the ground.

The citizenry must get alert to this. It should demand that the US stop its arms exports and prosecution of continuous war. And Australia’s citizenry do likewise.

August 21, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

The final costly burden of Ontaria’s nuclear decommissioning will fall to the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021

So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.

Ontario’s Unfunded Nuclear Decommissioning Liability Is In The $18-$27 Billion CAD Range   eTransport News, 12  Aug 21,  Late last year I worked up the likely amount of public money that would have to be thrown at the nuclear industry in order to successfully and safely decommission the 100 operational reactors and the now shut down ones. Unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry had been very optimistic in its estimates of decommissioning costs and timeframes, when the global empirical averages were trending to a billion USD and 100 years per reactor.

Recently I was asked by an Ontario journalist what I thought the likely situation in Ontario would be, and whether the decommissioning trusts were equally underfunded. I was unsurprised to find that Canada is in the same boat as the US, with highly optimistic schedule and cost projections which belie Canadian empirical experience with the CANDU reactor, and that the fund had nowhere near the money necessary for the job. Let’s run the numbers.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is the chunk of the provincial utility that was carved apart in the late 1990s by the Mike Harris Conservatives to handle generation alone. It operates 18 aging CANDU reactors across three sites: Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington.

OPG has a nuclear decommissioning fund of about $5 billion CAD or US$4 billion right now. If the experience of other countries on the actual cost of a billion USD per reactor and an actual timeline of decommissioning of a century holds true, and I see no reason why it doesn’t, that means that there is currently a $17.5 billion CAD gap in Ontario, in addition to the existing $19.3 billion CAD in debt still being serviced from their construction. When the government of the era split up the utility, it moved all of the debt off of the components and into general debt. One of the many appropriate and sensible things that the McGuinty Administration did in the 2000s, in addition to shutting down coal generation entirely, was to move the debt back into the utility and set about servicing it from utility bills.

Most of the reactors at Bruce Nuclear are aging out, with several over 40 years old and the remainder approaching 40. Darlington’s are around 30, so they have a bit of runway. Pickering’s reactors are going to be shut down in 2024 and 2025 and start decommissioning in 2028. While refurbishment could bridge Ontario’s for another 20 years in many cases, that’s expensive and typically won’t pass any economic viability assessment compared to alternatives.

The likelihood is that all reactors in Ontario will reach end of life by 2035, and be replaced by some combination of renewable energy and HVDC transmission from neighboring jurisdictions, with both Manitoba and Quebec having excellent, low-carbon hydroelectric to spare……………….

Nuclear decommissioning funding comes from reactors operating revenue. In the US, it’s 0.01 to 0.02 cents per kWh as a set aside. I wasn’t able to find the required set aside for Ontario’s fleet, but obviously they aren’t setting aside sufficient funds now, or have absurdly optimistic fund growth expectations. They only have a decade to set aside more money from operating reactors, and have only set aside $5 billion CAD after 50 years, so the most generous assumption is that they will set aside perhaps $7 billion CAD in the OPG fund by end of life of the reactors, and have a liability for decommissioning of $15.5 to $27 billion CAD. For the next step, let’s assume $20 billion CAD for the sake of round numbers.

Given the likelihood of all of Ontario’s reactors being off of the grid by 2035, with major decommissioning occurring every few years until then, the kWh generated by Ontario’s nuclear fleet from now through 2060 will be in the range of about 1000 TWh assuming there are no lengthy outages at any of the plants, which to be clear is an awful lot of low carbon electricity.

However, $20 billion is a big number too. It turns into about 19 cents per kWh if you only count electricity generated from today through end of life for the reactors. It’s obviously a lot lower if you calculated from beginning of the lifetime of the reactors. However you count it though, that’s only the unfunded Ontario liability, and it’s on top of subsidized security costs Canada and Ontario and municipalities bear, and it’s on top of the outstanding $19.3 billion in debt that has only been receiving servicing on the interest since the McGuinty government brought it back into the utility. It’s likely that the majority of that debt will be outstanding in 2035 still, as it has gone from $20 billion to $19.3 billion in the last 11 years, so expecting it to be gone by 2035 is not realistic.

So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.

Nuclear, the gift that keeps on giving.  https://etransportnews.com/2021/08/06/ontarios-unfunded-nuclear-decommissioning-liability-is-in-the-18-27-billion-cad-range/

August 21, 2021 Posted by | Canada, decommission reactor | Leave a comment

Canada’s nuclear reactors may not be fit for service

Canada’s nuclear reactors may not be fit for service,  Rabble ca,  Joyce Nelson, 11 Aug 21,  On July 13, Bruce Power announced that two reactors at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario had violated its operating license.

It had “higher than anticipated readings” of hydrogen-equivalent concentration (Heq) in pressure tubes in two units. Pressure tubes must not exceed the allowable limit of 120 parts per million of Heq. Each pressure tube in a reactor contains 12 bundles of uranium, which are the basis for the nuclear reaction, but the pressure tubes also contain the coolant that keeps the fuel from overheating and triggering a meltdown. Pressure tubes with high levels of Heq can develop cracks and fractures, thereby compromising a reactor’s safety.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

“In response to Bruce Power’s contraventions, on July 13, the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] ordered the company, along with fellow CANDU [Canada Deuterium Uranium] operators Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and New Brunswick Power, to review the fitness for service of their pressure tubes and report back no later than the end of July.”

Aging reactors

Many of Canada’s aging CANDU reactors are older than their design-life for pressure tubes, which originally was designated as 210,000 effective full power hours (EFPH), or about 30 years.

When Hydro Quebec’s Gentilly-2 CANDU reactor reached that limit, it closed the plant.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

“Thierry Vandal, chief executive at the time, testified before Quebec’s national assembly that he considered 210,000 EFPH ‘the extreme limit’ beyond which his management team dared not go. ‘I would no more operate Gentilly-2 beyond 210,000 hours than I would climb onto an airplane that does not have its permits and that does not meet the standards,’ he said, according to a translated transcript.”

Under industry pressure, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission subsequently raised the limit to 247,000 EFPH in 2014, and then to 295,000 EFPH in 2018.
In 2018, the CNSC extended OPG’s license for its Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for 10 years. Rather than require that OPG replace aging pressure tubes, the regulator mandated more frequent inspections.
When asked how often pressure tubes are checked, retired nuclear scientist and radioactive chemistry expert Dr. Frank Greening answered by email:

“Pressure tubes are checked for their hydrogen/deuterium concentrations about every two years, but it’s a little more complex than that. Each CANDU unit contains about 400 tubes and each tube is about six meters in length. This means it’s next to impossible to check every tube at every location, so only about 10 tubes are checked at a time. In addition, corrosion and [hydrogen/deuterium] pickup are expected to be most significant at the hot, outlet end of each tube, so samples are usually restricted to this location.”

As a result of such limited inspections, the industry relies on mathematical models to predict how long the untested tubes can safely remain in service. But this modeling is not necessarily accurate, as evidenced by the July 13 “higher than anticipated readings” at Kincardine.

Indeed, in March 2021, The Globe reported:

“Documents obtained under the federal Access to Information Act by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, and provided to The Globe, show that since 2017, CNSC staffers had grown increasingly concerned about unreliable data arising from OPG’s inspections of pressure tubes…The whole method by which operators assessed fitness for service of pressure tubes had been called into question.”

Another Fukushima?…………………. 

Canada’s nuclear reactors may not be fit for service

August 21, 2021 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Covid Defense Act – new Bill to prioritise U.S. health, vaccine spending over weapons spending !


New Bill Proposes Cutting Pentagon Spending to Fund Vaccines for Poor Nations,  Common Dreams “We can’t bomb our way out of a global pandemic,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, the sponsor of the legislation, “Shifting funds from weaponry and military contractors to producing Covid vaccines will save hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of lives around the world.”  

JAKE JOHNSON, August 20, 2021   Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin introduced legislation this week that would cut billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s massive budget and invest those funds in global coronavirus vaccination efforts, which are badly lagging as rich countries continue to hoard doses and rush ahead with booster shots.

The Covid Defense Act proposes transferring $9.6 billion in U.S. military spending to Covax—a global vaccination initiative led by the World Health Organization—to assist with the procurement of doses for the people of low-income nations. Thus far, just 1.3% of people in poor countries have received at least one vaccine dose.

In a press release, Pocan’s office said that the funding—which represents just 1.3% of the $740.5 billion in U.S. military spending approved for 2021—”could lead to an additional 1.8 billion Covid vaccine doses for lower-income countries in 2021 and early 2022.” If passed, Pocan’s office said, the new legislation could provide vaccine access to another 30% of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations……….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/20/new-bill-proposes-cutting-pentagon-spending-fund-vaccines-poor-nations

August 21, 2021 Posted by | health, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pentagon Poised To Unveil, Demonstrate Classified Space Weapon

Pentagon Poised To Unveil, Demonstrate Classified Space Weapon

The push to declassify an existing space weapon is being spearheaded by Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Breaking Defense, Theresa Hitchens, 20 Aug 21

Directed energy anti-satellite weapons for the future. (Lockheed Martin)

WASHINGTON: For months, top officials at the Defense Department have been working toward declassifying the existence of a secret space weapon program and providing a real-world demonstration of its capabilities, Breaking Defense has learned.

The effort — which sources say is being championed by Gen. John Hyten, the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff — is close enough to completion that there was a belief the anti-satellite technology might have been revealed at this year’s National Space Symposium, which kicks off next week.ampioned 

However, the crisis in Afghanistan appears to have put that on hold for now. Pulling the trigger on declassifying such a sensitive technology requires concurrence of the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, and a thumbs up from President Joe Biden, sources explain; with all arms of the national security apparatus pointed towards Kabul, that is almost certainly not going to happen next week. And until POTUS says yes, nothing is for certain, of course.

The system in question long has been cloaked in the blackest of black secrecy veils — developed as a so-called Special Access Program known only to a very few, very senior US government leaders. While exactly what capability could be unveiled is unclear, insiders say the reveal is likely to include a real-world demonstration of an active defense capability to degrade or destroy a target satellite and/or spacecraft.

At least, that is what has been on the table since last year — when officials in the Trump administration viewed revealing the technology as a capstone to the creation of Space Command and Space Force. The plan apparently had been to announce it at the 2020 Space Symposium, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the arrival of the Biden administration also led to a reevaluation of moving forward with the reveal.

Expert speculation on what could be used for the demonstration ranges from a terrestrially-based mobile laser used for blinding adversary reconnaissance sats to on-board, proximity triggered radio-frequency jammers on certain military satellites, to a high-powered microwave system that can zap electronics carried on maneuverable bodyguard satellites. However, experts and former officials interviewed by Breaking Defense say it probably does not involve a ground-based kinetic interceptor, a capability the US already demonstrated in the 2008 Burnt Frost satellite shoot-down.

Requests for comment to the offices of Hyten, Haines, and SPACECOM were not returned by deadline.


Many military space leaders believe that Space Force and Space Command must publicly demonstrate to Moscow and Beijing not just an ability to take out any space-based counterspace systems they may be developing or deploying, but also to attack the satellites they, like the US, rely upon for communications, positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

Notably, the second-in-command of the Space Force recently foreshadowed movement in the long-running debate about declassification of all things related to national security space — a multifaceted and complex debate which has pitted advocates against upholders of the traditional culture of secrecy within DoD and the Intelligence Community.

“It is absolutely a true problem,” Gen. DT Thompson, deputy Space Force commander, responded to a question about over-classification during a July 28 Mitchell Institute event. “I wish we owned our own destiny in that regard, but we don’t — it’s part of a broader activity and we just have to work through that. What I will say is, I think we’re on the verge of a couple of significant steps.”

The Transparency Dilemma

In fact, Thompson’s comments represented only one of several comments, quietly dropped in speeches or interviews, from top military space officials pushing for declassification of high-end systems, following several years of a steadily intensifying drumbeat on the issue. A who’s-who list of top officers, DoD civilian leaders, and key members of Congress have for years been arguing that over-classification is harming the ability to convey the growing threat of foreign counterspace to lawmakers, the public and allied/partner nations — as well as the ability to cooperate with industry and foreign partners to mitigate those threats…………………

The central dilemma isn’t hard to understand, but the devil is in the details of solving it…………………… more https://breakingdefense.com/2021/08/pentagon-posed-to-unveil-classified-space-weapon/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=151302334&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_WjJRXNH7oSN8eQo0iMMC52dIbrytHkcSOFjM1_zECxrz5zqaTLiWTN0lmaYIYa35tfuqxon2uOPfvbhS1zFeBwuIlrg&utm_content=151302334&utm_source=hs_email

August 21, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Big winners from the Afghan war -the weapons-making corporations.

Progressive Critics Say Investors in US Weapon-Makers Only Clear Winners of Afghan War
“The military-industrial complex got exactly what it wanted out of this war.”    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/17/progressive-critics-say-investors-us-weapon-makers-only-clear-winners-afghan-war

As the hawks who have been lying about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan for two decades continue to peddle fantasies in the midst of a Taliban takeover and American evacuation of Kabul, progressive critics on Tuesday reminded the world who has benefited from the “endless war.”

“Entrenching U.S. forces in Afghanistan was the military-industrial complex’s business plan for 20+ years,” declared the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Public Citizen.

“Hawks and defense contractors co-opted the needs of the Afghan people in order to line their own pockets,” the group added. “Never has it been more important to end war profiteering.”

In a Tuesday morning tweet, Public Citizen highlighted returns on defense stocks over the past 20 years—as calculated in a “jaw-dropping” analysis by The Intercept—and asserted that “the military-industrial complex got exactly what it wanted out of this war.”

The Intercept‘s Jon Schwarz examined returns on stocks of the five biggest defense contractors: Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics

defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58% during the Afghanistan War.

.

Schwarz found that a $10,000 investment in stock evenly split across those five companies on the day in 2001 that then-President Georg W. Bush signed the authorization preceding the U.S. invasion would be worth $97,295 this week, not adjusted for inflation, taxes, or fees.

According to The Intercept:

This is a far greater return than was available in the overall stock market over the same period. $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund on September 18, 2001, would now be worth $61,613.

That is, defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58% during the Afghanistan War.

“These numbers suggest that it is incorrect to conclude that the Taliban’s immediate takeover of Afghanistan upon the U.S.’s departure means that the Afghanistan War was a failure,” Schwarz added. “On the contrary, from the perspective of some of the most powerful people in the U.S., it may have been an extraordinary success. Notably, the boards of directors of all five defense contractors include retired top-level military officers.”

“War profiteering isn’t new,” journalist Dina Sayedahmed said in response to the reporting, “but seeing the numbers on it is staggering.”

Progressive political commentator and podcast host Krystal Ball used Schwarz’s findings to counter a key argument that’s been widely used to justify nearly 20 years of war.

“This is what it was really all about people,” she tweeted of the defense contractors’ returns. “Anyone who believes we were in Afghanistan to help women and girls is a liar or a fool.”

Jack Mirkinson wrote Monday for Discourse Blog that “it is unquestionably heartbreaking to think about what the Taliban might inflict on women and girls, but let us dispense with this fantasy that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan to support women, or to build democracy, or to strengthen Afghan institutions, or any of the other lines that are deployed whenever someone has the temerity to suggest that endless war and occupation is a harmful thing.”

“We did not go into Afghanistan to support its people, and we did not stay in Afghanistan to support its people,” he added. “It is astonishing, given what we know about the monsters that the U.S. has propped up time and time again around the world, that the myth persists that we do anything out of our love for human rights. We went in and we stayed in for the same reason: the American empire is a force that must remain in perpetual motion.”

As Common Dreams reported Monday, while the Taliban has retaken control, anti-war advocates have argued diplomacy is the only path to long-term peace, with Project South’s Azadeh Shahshahani emphasizing that “the only ones who benefited from the U.S. war on Afghanistan were war-profiteering politicians and corporations while countless lives were destroyed.”

Responding to Shahshahani’s tweet about who has benefited from two decades of bloodshed, Zack Kopplin of the Government Accountability Project wrote, “Adding war-profiteering generals to the mix too.”

August 19, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Another former Westinghouse top executive faces criminal charges over failed South Carolina multi $billion nuclear power project

4th person charged in South Carolina nuclear project failure,  https://apnews.com/article/business-south-carolina-5389136fd3675a311d1a83d68542d0f9 COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A fourth business executive faces criminal charges stemming from a federal investigation into a failed multibillion-dollar project to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina, authorities announced Wednesday.

Jeffrey A. Benjamin was a former senior vice president for Westinghouse Electric Co., the lead contractor to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer plant. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. parent company SCANA Corp. and state-owned utility company Santee Cooper spent nearly $10 billion on the project before halting construction in 2017 following Westinghouse’s bankruptcy.

He now faces multiple felony counts of fraud, according to an indictment.

Benjamin, who supervised all nuclear projects for Westinghouse, received information throughout 2016 and 2017 that the two V.C. Summer reactors were behind schedule and over budget, prosecutors said.

But he repeatedly told SCANA and Santee Cooper that the project was on schedule, hiding the construction’s true timeline from the utility companies, the indictment alleges.

He was fired from Westinghouse in March 2017, shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy.

The collapse of the V.C. Summer project spawned multiple lawsuits, some by ratepayers who said company executives knew the project was doomed and misled consumers and regulators as they petitioned for a series of rate hikes. The failure cost ratepayers and investors billions and left nearly 6,000 people jobless.

Benjamin could face up to twenty years in prison and a $5,000,000 fine if convicted.

Three top-level executives have already pleaded guilty in the multi-year federal fraud investigation, and all are awaiting sentencing as they cooperate with investigators.

Former SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne agreed last summer to tell investigators everything he knows about the lies and deception SCANA and its subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas used to keep regulators approving rate increases and maintain support from investors.

Kevin Marsh, SCANA’s former CEO, signed a plea deal on felony fraud charges in November.

And Carl Churchman, another Westinghouse official, pleaded guilty in June to lying to federal authorities.

August 19, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

America’s nuclear waste non-policy – a treacherous betrayal of future citizens

In “Deep Time: The End of an Engagement” (Issues, Spring 2021), Başak Saraç-Lesavre describes in succinct and painful detail the flawed US policy for managing nuclear waste. She weaves through a series of missteps, false starts, and dead-ends that have stymied steady progress and helped toengender our present state—which she describes as “deadlocked.”

Her description and critique are not meant to showcase political blunders, but to caution that the present stasis is, in effect, a potentially treacherous policy decision. The acceptance of essentially doing nothing and consigning the waste to a decentralized or centralized storage configuration is in fact a decision and a de facto policy.

To make the situation worse, this status quo was not reached mindfully, but is the result of mangled planning, political reboots, and the present lack of a viable end-state option. Although there may be some merit to accepting a truly interim phase of storing nuclear waste prior to an enduring disposal solution, the interim plan must be tied to a final solution.

As decreed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and reinforced by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, centralized interim storage was to be the bridge to somewhere. But the bridge is now looking like the destination,and it would be naive not to view it as another disincentive to an already anemic will to live up to the initial intent.

 Issues (accessed) 17th Aug 2021

Nuclear Waste Storage

August 19, 2021 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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