China Is Not Our Enemy
So I coordinate our CODEPINK’s China is our enemy campaign, and the campaign was created in response to this rise in recent years of anti-China sentiments and the actions that our government has been taking to accelerate the new Cold War offensive against Beijing, and that includes spending billions of dollars militarizing Asia Pacific region, utilizing military economic coercion to push US interests outright labeling China an enemy, demonizing essentially anything China does, and all of which has led to a rise in Asian American hate around the country.
So the campaign seeks to do two things. The first is to educate the public how their minds are being shaped for war. And we do this by teaching our audience about China, dismantling the lies being told by the media, by politicians, and then also informing on all the tax dollars being spent preparing for war with China. And the second thing that we try to do is redirect all that energy into a push for peace. And that’s why we emphasize the need for friendship and cooperation with China for working together on climate justice, nuclear disarmament and other extremely important issues today.
SCHEERPOST, 10 Jan 25, Robert Scheer interviews Megan Russell, a writer, academic and CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. in the past 50 or so years, you know, China has accomplished an incredible amount of progress, something they don’t talk about enough, in my opinion, is how China managed to eradicate extreme poverty. And that’s not just a minimum income level. It also means access to food, to clothes, health care, clean housing, free education, you know, means infrastructure, means functioning systems and and through the past half a century, you know, through market reforms, rural collectivization and other poverty alleviation programs, China was ultimately successful in its in its mission. And by 2021, I believe the last 100 million people were taken out of extreme poverty, which was nearly 900 million people total. And many UN officials call it the greatest anti-poverty achievement in history, which it is. That’s 1.4 billion people without extreme poverty. That’s about the entire continent of Africa or the US and Europe combined.
…………………………………………….This turn toward China, and this new narrative that China is some sort of existential threat to us, even though China has never threatened war or even invaded or intervened in a nation for 50 years, which is a sharp contrast to US history, which is very heavily involved in overseas conflicts. But, you know, China’s been focused on its internal growth and accomplishing its own goals. And non interventionism, of course, is one of its foundational policy pillars.
The American saber-rattling against China has been increasing almost as fast as China’s own development in the past few years. China’s economic prosperity and international influence is undeniable yet American politicians continue to treat their rise as a threat to their global hegemony. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence is Megan Russell, a writer, academic and CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.
Scheer is quick to point out the intergenerational dynamic between his own work on China as a fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s and Russell’s recent experience living in China and studying in Shanghai. Both witnessed and experienced the American perspective of China and how it has continued to undermine it. Scheer and Russell focus on her latest article, which calls out New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for his portrayal of China and how his deficient op-ed mirrors the broader perception of China in the United States. While many may think that China is an authoritarian country with people living under the heel of Xi Jinping, the actual material conditions of its population are often left out.
“Something [people] don’t talk about enough, in my opinion, is how China managed to eradicate extreme poverty. And that’s not just a minimum income level, it also means access to food, to clothes, healthcare, clean housing, free education. It means infrastructure, means functioning systems,” Russell says.
People also point to working conditions and the outsourcing of American jobs to China as a means of attacking them. To this, Russell explains, “All China has done is use the system in place to develop and try to provide opportunities to its incredibly vast population, while still maintaining its proto-socialist policies. It’s us that has exported the production of all our goods to make a few more dollars.”
In the end, the US stands to lose, not only in a trade war, but also in the climate aspect, since China has also made great strides towards combatting the climate crisis. Russell cites their plan of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 and tells Scheer, “China has really undergone this internal green energy revolution, doing far more than any other country to combat climate change.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Megan Russell
…………………………………………………………………………………..Megan Russell
Yeah, you know, a lot of times the first thing people ask me when they hear that I lived in China was that was “Was it scary?” Did I feel threatened and watched? Someone actually just asked me that yesterday, and it’s very real to them, though it always sounds a little silly to me, because I actually felt very safe in China more than I felt in most other countries, I would say, maybe all of them. And that’s, you know, my honest answer. You know, crime rates are very low in China. I never had any safety issues. I lived there a year. I traveled extensively by myself to many provinces on all sides of the country. I never felt unsafe. I never worried about pickpockets. I never worried about being robbed. I never felt the discomfort of being a woman alone. You know, everyone has a different experience, but this was my experience,
……………………………………………………………………………………………………… the success of China is, you know, very triggering to this idea of Western exceptionalism. You know that any form of socialism could actually improve the lives of the people, could actually obtain any measure of success. And this exceptional exceptionalism is based on ideals, right on this imagined perfection of free markets and democracy, yes, but also on colonial racist doctrines. And that’s really, you know, at the root of it, a lot of this negativity as well. Unfortunately, though, it’s, you know, often disguised or dressed up like something else. It’s at the root of it, a dehumanization of China and Chinese people that they are worth less, that they aren’t deserving of of jobs or opportunities or of success. And I think this manifests itself very easily into a global system that is, you know, inherently based on a division of humanity that we have been forced to accept as normal and and that doesn’t just go for China, of course, but the entire Global South……………………………………………………………………………..
Robert Scheer…………………………………………………………………… you know, we need to manufacture consent for militarization, for war, because it’s far easier with public support, and it helps maintain internal stability here as well. And this is why you’ve seen, you know, this steady rise of anti-China messaging and and fear mongering. You know, just last fall, the House passed a bill to fund $1.6 billion to anti-China propaganda around the world. You know, that’s $1.6 billion of going to information warfare. Because, you know, in order to pursue this agenda, you need to convince the rest of the world that, or at least the United States, that China is a threat and and many people aren’t, you know, convinced enough. And also, along with that, you know, there was a whole China week where they passed 25 anti China bills, including the propaganda Bill, you know, all with the end goal of countering the influence of the Communist Party of China………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/10/china-is-not-our-enemy/
U.S. politicians want transparency about the radiation risks of the fire afflicted Santa Susana nuclear site.
Public Risks from the Woolsey Fire and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory: A Letter to DTSC https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/11/20/18819268.php, by Bradley Allen Nov 20th, 2018
Radioactive nightmare: A community’s fight for survival amid soaring cancer rates
PIKETON, Ohio — Pike County, Ohio, is facing a severe health crisis that’s attracted national attention. The region has some of the highest cancer and premature death rates in the U.S. This alarming trend is linked to decades of uranium enrichment and ongoing demolition at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
A study by Joseph J. Mangano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project, sheds light on the impact of radioactive contamination on Pike County. Released last summer, the study shows significant increases in cancer, infant mortality, and premature deaths in areas downwind of the plant.
From 2021 to 2023, Pike County’s premature death rate for those under 74 years old was 107% higher than the national average, up from 85% between 2017 and 2020. Over 750 premature deaths occurred in this period in a county with a population of just over 27,000.
Cancer rates in Pike and six neighboring counties—Adams, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto, and Vinton—were 17.5% above the national average from 2015 to 2019. Infant mortality rates in the region were 31.9% higher than the U.S. average from 1999 to 2020, and middle-aged adults saw mortality rates more than double the national average.
In 2019, concerns about radioactive contamination peaked when Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon was permanently closed after radioactive isotopes, including enriched uranium and neptunium-237, were found inside. The school district later sold the building to a Christian ministry, which plans to reopen it as a STEM academy, raising safety concerns.
The Portsmouth plant, operational from 1954 to 2001, enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors, releasing radioactive particles into the environment. Despite ceasing uranium enrichment in 2001, the plant remains active with demolition and decommissioning projects, raising concerns about further contamination.
The Guardian spoke with local activist Gina Doyle. Gina heads the group, Don’t Dump On Us. When asked about the study, Doyle said that in both of Dr. Mangano’s reports, the rate of cancer deaths and other related illnesses has a direct link to the Portsmouth plant. “The contamination is growing, too. It is in everything and everywhere in the surrounding communities. Past instances at the Portsmouth plant show not only human error but deaths of workers. DDOU has a compiled list of cancer victims from the community that grows every single day. I add to that list names of cancer victims; the stories are heartbreaking and infuriating.
The push for nuclear in our country is growing and that will most definitely cause more sickness and deaths. Transparency has been called for by activists and we still don’t know the whole truth because all of the information is kept hush-hush by the DOE. We do know that other agencies like the OEPA, DOH, and NRC who are supposed to be working to protect our communities have also turned their backs. Questions are never answered; we are kept in the dark by our government. Why? In my opinion, because of money and power. It is time to put people first and stop the lies and covering up the truth. The truth is they are killing innocent people and children. Remediation without any chance of bringing it back to background is not possible. We are forever contaminated. Forever the community will be affected.”
Families in Pike County and neighboring areas have experienced high rates of rare cancers and aggressive diseases, believed to be linked to exposure to radioactive materials from the plant. The closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School and the deaths of students and staff have become a grim symbol of the crisis.
Emily Stone, another resident, told the Guardian “that when you have world-renowned, out-of-state epidemiologists and scientists who are all saying there is a major problem in Piketon, then that should be taken with the utmost priority and urgency. It is not normal for so many people in one area to be sick and die from some of the rarest cancers and illnesses to exist. For the cause of all of those sicknesses to have a direct link to radioactive materials is truly unreal. When will someone care that an entire community, and its surrounding counties, are all being harmed by this one place and do something to stop it? How many more kids and adults have to die before enough is enough?”
Despite the health risks, the Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed new projects at the Portsmouth site, causing further concern among residents. Advocates are calling for independent investigations and comprehensive public health monitoring for affected communities to prevent further harm.
The fight for accountability and action to address the region’s toxic legacy continues for Pike County residents.
Independent testing of radiation levels in air- Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site.
WOOLSEY FIRE: ARE YOU BREATHING TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE AIR? http://lancasterweeklyreview.com/woolsey-fire-radiation-toxic-testing by fdr | Nov 14, 2018 Preliminary Independent Radiation Test Results from US Nuclear Corporation from The Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site
After various complaints and talking with numerous concerned parents The Lancaster Weekly Review has ordered a commission in a preliminary study in order to finally answer some of the community’s concerns regarding potential toxic materials released from the Woolsey Fire as well as radiation from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The Field Lab was the site of a nuclear meltdown in 1959 with many locals and doctors condemning subpar cleanup efforts that point to high cancer rates which are 60% higher for those people living within a 2 mile radius of the SSFL. A lingering effect of the various toxins within the Field Labs vicinity.
It appears that the recent Woolsey Fire which has devastated swathes of Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties, originated at the Santa Susa Field Lab and Testing Site with varied reports to the damage to the facility as well as the contamination area of the nuclear meltdown. The Southern California Edison Chatsworth Substation which is on the SSFL site shut down 2 minutes prior to start of the Woolsey Fire.
An independent study of air testing was conducted by US Nuclear Corporation of Canoga Park on Tuesday, November 13, five days after the Woolsey fire began. The owner, Mr. Bob Goldstein, was more than happy to help with the study and dispatched David Alban and Detwan Robinson to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory on Tuesday, November 13th at 3PM. They took two types of measurements for radiation with the US Nuclear Fast-Cam Air Monitor and another with a filter air tape. Twenty minute samples were taken at high flow rate of 40cfm at the Lab Entrance, which is up wind from the Lab. Another 20 minute sample was taken on the down wind side, which is North of the Lab. Given the proximity of the company’s headquarters to the Woolsey Fire US Nuclear Corporation’s team also took indoor samples at their office in Canoga Park.
It appears that many of the preliminary tests are picking up increased levels of Radon. Mr. Goldstein of US Nuclear Corporation commented, “Ordinary background radiation from minerals in the soil (and also from the solar wind and from cosmic rays) gives a dose rate of 0.015mR/hr (milliRem per hour) in the San Fernando Valley. But at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory background levels were found to be elevated to 0.040mR/hr. which is 0.025mR/hr higher than expected.”
Mr. Goldstein also stated, “The radioactivity collected on the filters decayed down to undetectable levels within 3 hours, leading us to conclude that this radioactive material is from Radon gas which decays after a short half life.” Overall, the tests that were conducted found that the area’s Radon levels are about 3 times higher than the surrounding San Fernando Valley.
Additional independent testing of other contaminants and toxins will take place in the coming days and will be published as soon as testing has taken place.
Trump’s war on wind power: Plans to stop windmill construction nationwide
In a recent conference held at his Florida resort, US President-elect
Donald Trump announced his intention to halt the construction of wind
turbines across the country. “We are going to have a policy where no
windmills will be built,” Trump declared, reiterating his long-standing
opposition to this form of renewable energy.
Review Energy 8th Jan 2025
https://www.review-energy.com/otras-fuentes/trump-s-war-on-wind-power-plans-to-stop-windmill-construction-nationwide
LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn
The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US
history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn). In a
preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected
losses of between $135bn-$150bn as the blazes rip through an area that is
home to some of the most expensive property in the US.
The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as
Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses of more than $8bn.
Fire authorities say more than 5,300 structures have been destroyed by the
Palisades blaze, while more than 5,000 structures have been destroyed by
the Eaton Fire.
BBC 9th Jan 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07g73p4805o
What a second Trump administration may mean for the Saudi nuclear program
By Nour Eid | Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 6th Jan 2025
Donald Trump’s return to the White House could mean the end of the
nonproliferation regime: As the Iranian-Israeli confrontation intensifies,
and the threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout looms, the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia could see in a second Trump administration an opportunity to finally
get the nuclear cooperation the Saudis have been yearning for.
The Saudis argue that it is their right, under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to enrich uranium for domestic energy purposes. They
refuse to be subjected to double standards, given that India and Japan
received “blanket consents” to seek enrichment or reprocessing
capabilities under their respective 123 agreements.
Adding insult to injury, in Saudi eyes: Its main rival, Iran, was allowed to enrich uranium
under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as
the Iran nuclear deal. The Saudis aim to benefit from the same privileges
by developing an indigenous nuclear program………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/2025/01/what-a-second-trump-administration-may-mean-for-the-saudi-nuclear-program/
Deep Fission to supply Endeavour data centers with 2GW of nuclear energy from “mile-deep” SMR
The first reactors are expected to come online in 2029
DCD, January 07, 2025 By Zachary Skidmore
Deep Fission, a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developer, has partnered with Endeavour Energy, a US sustainable infrastructure developer, to develop and deploy its technology at scale.
As per the agreement, the partners have committed to co-developing 2GW of nuclear energy to supply Endeavour’s global portfolio of data centers which operate under the Endeavour Edged brand. The first reactors are expected to be operational by 2029.
The Deep Fission Borehole Reactor 1 (DFBR-1) is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that produces 15MWt (thermal) and 5MWe (electric) and has an estimated fuel cycle of between ten to 20 years…………………………………
Deep Fission plans to release white papers throughout the regulatory approval process for discussion direction on key issues surrounding the SMR………………………………..
Based in Berkley, California, Deep Fission was founded in 2023. In August last year, it announced a $4 million pre-seed funding round to accelerate efforts in hiring, regulatory approval, and the commercialization of its SMR.
Edged, Endeavour’s data center arm, will be the primary beneficiary of the power produced by DFBR-1.
The company, which was formed in 2021, has data centers across the US and the Iberian peninsula, with facilities in operation or development in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and across the US, including Missouri, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Illinois.
The company specializes in data centers built for high-density artificial intelligence, which utilize a waterless cooling system…………………….. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/deep-fission-to-supply-endeavour-data-centers-with-2gw-of-nuclear-energy-from-mile-deep-smr/
Genocide: The New Normal
The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless.
By Chris Hedges ScheerPost January 7, 2025, https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/07/chris-hedges-genocide-the-new-normal/
Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”
Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive. Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. And those that express dissent will be frog-marched into Zionist black holes where their voices are silenced and their careers jeopardized or destroyed. Donald Trump and the Republicans have an open disdain for democracy, but so do the Democrats and Joe Biden.
The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. This is a record for a single year. The State Department has informed Congress that it intends to approve another $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel. This will provide Israel with more GPS guidance systems for bombs, more artillery shells, more missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and more bombs, including 2,800 unguided MK-84 bombs, which Israel has a habit of dropping on densely packed tent encampments in Gaza. The pressure wave from the 2,000-pound MK-84 pulverizes buildings and exterminates life within a 400-yard radius. The blast, which ruptures lungs, rips apart limbs and bursts sinus cavities up to hundreds of yards away, leaves behind a 50-foot-wide and 36-foot-deep crater. Israel appears to have used this bomb to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, in Beirut on September 27, 2024.
The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless. We will not even pay lip service to it. This will be a Hobbesian world where nations that have the most advanced industrial weapons make the rules. Those who are poor and vulnerable will kneel in subjugation. The genocide in Gaza is the template for the future. And those in the Global South know it.
The “wretched of the earth” who lack sophisticated weapons, who do not have modern armies, artillery units, missiles, navies, armored units and warplanes, will strike back with crude tools. They will match individual acts of terror against massive campaigns of state terror.
Are we surprised we are hated? Terror begets terror. We saw this in New Orleans where a man who was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) killed 14 people when he drove his pickup truck into a crowd on New Year’s Day. We will see more of it. But let’s be clear. We started it. The moral void of the suicide bomber is birthed from our moral void.
Israel’s frustration at the dogged resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon increases the bloodlust. Members of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sent a letter to Minister of Defense Israel Katz, calling on the government to intensify the siege of Gaza.
“Effective control of the territory and the population is the only means towards cleansing enemy lines from the strip, and naturally towards decisive victory, rather than treading [water] in a war of attrition, where the side that is most worn is Israel,” they write. “Therefore we end up inserting our soldiers again and again into neighborhoods and alleys that were already conquered by them many times.”
Israel, the letter reads, must carry out “remote elimination of all energy sources, that is fuel, solar panels and any relevant means (pipes, cables, generators etc.)” It should ensure the “elimination of all food sources including warehouses, water and all relevant means (water pumps etc.)” and it must facilitate the “remote elimination of anyone who moves in the area and does not exit with a white flag during the days of the effective siege.”
The letter concludes that “after these actions and the days of siege upon those who remain, [the] IDF must enter gradually and conduct a full cleansing of the enemy nests…. This should be done in the northern Gaza Strip, and similarly in any other territory: encirclement, evacuation of the population to a humanitarian zone, and effective siege until surrender or full elimination of the enemy. This is how every army acts, and so must the IDF act.”
In short, exterminate the brutes.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old U.S. military veteran who plowed his pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans killing 14 people and injuring 35 others, spoke to us in the language we use to speak to the Arab world. Indiscriminate death. The targeting of innocents. The callous indifference to life. The thirst for revenge. The demonization of others. The belief that fate or God or western civilization has decreed that we have a right to impose our vision of the world with violence. Jabbar, who posted videos online in which he professed his support for Islamic State, is our murderous doppelgänger. He will not be the last.
“When a society is dispossessed, when the injustices thrust upon it appear insoluble, when the ‘enemy’ is all-powerful, when one’s own people are bestialised as insects, cockroaches, ‘two-legged beasts,’ then the mind moves beyond reason,” Robert Fisk writes in The Great War for Civilization. “It becomes fascinated in two senses: with the idea of an afterlife and with the possibility that this belief will somehow provide a weapon of more than nuclear potential. When the United States was turning Beirut into a NATO base in 1983, and using its firepower against Muslim guerrillas in the mountains to the east, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek were promising that God would rid Lebanon of the American presence. I wrote at the time — not entirely with my tongue in my cheek — that this was likely to be a titanic battle: U.S. technology versus God. Who would win? Then on 23 October 1983 a lone suicide bomber drove a truckload of explosives into the U.S. Marine compound at Beirut airport and killed 241 American servicemen in six seconds…I later interviewed one of the few surviving marines to have seen the bomber. ‘All I can remember,’ he told me, ‘is that the guy was smiling.’
These acts of terrorism, or in the case of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen armed resistance, are used to justify endless mass killing. This Via Dolorosa leads to a global death spiral, especially as the climate crisis reconfigures the planet and international bodies, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, become hollow appendages.
We are sowing the Middle East with dragon’s teeth and, as in the ancient Greek myth, these teeth are rising from the soil as enraged warriors determined to destroy us.
Jimmy Carter hailed as ‘action’ hero for stopping nuclear meltdown at 28
Jimmy Carter hailed as ‘action’ hero for stopping nuclear meltdown at 28 https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/jimmy-carter-is-action-hero-for-stopping-nuclear-disaster/
By Hannah Sparks, December 16, 2021 Who needs action movies when there are real-life superheroes like Jimmy Carter among us?
A viral Twitter thread is reminding the world that the 39th US President James Earl Carter Jr., now 97, actually rescued Ottawa, Ontario, from nuclear destruction as a 28-year-old way back on Dec. 12, 1952.
“Do you remember the world’s very first nuclear meltdown? That time the US President, an expert in nuclear physics, heroically lowered himself into the reactor and saved Ottawa, Canada’s capital?” asked Canadian physicist University of Ottawa professor Jeff Lundeen in his now-viral thread, originally posted Tuesday but officially trending two days later.
Sounds like schlocky action movie, but it actually happened!”
Lundeen’s revelatory tweet to his modest 1,078 followers now boasts nearly 50,000 likes, more than 20,000 retweets and hundreds of cheerfully shocked comments. He included data from the Ottawa Historical Society and a snippet of a 2011 report documenting Carter’s heroics, and he followed up with several other media sources that recount the historic tale.
As the story goes, the Plains, Ga., native planned his entire life to join the Navy — and did so when he received his appointment to the Naval Academy in 1942. After graduating with distinction, Carter spent two years completing his service ship duty before signing on to the Submarine Force. Following a series of relocations and promotions, the young lieutenant would request to join Captain Hyman G. Rickover’s nuclear sub program, where they were developing the world’s first atomic subs.
Rickover then sent Carter to work for the US Atomic Energy Commission, where he served on temporary duty with the Naval Reactors Branch. Meanwhile, a few months later, an accidental power surge at Chalk River Laboratories in Ottawa caused fuel rods within a nuclear research reactor to rupture and melt — risking a full nuclear meltdown.
It was the first such incident of its kind, and Carter’s team of 23 men was ordered to clean it up.
I
n a scene straight out of modern-day blockbusters, the operation would require the brave men to descend into the core by rope and pulley so they could deconstruct the reactor bolt by bolt. The lab had set up a duplicate reactor as a training field for Carter’s team, who would get only one shot at the real thing. Each man would have to descend into the core and complete their high-flying tasks in 90-second spurts, as exposure to toxic radiation within the reactor posed a high risk to their long-term health.
Their plan went off without a hitch. The core was shut down and then rebuilt. From there, Carter went on to become the engineering officer for the USS Seawolf, one of the first submarines to operate on atomic power. By 1961, he retired from the Navy and Reserves, and, in 1963, ran for his first political office.
For those who admire the single-term Democratic president, Lundeen’s tweet was just another reminder of Carter’s selfless service — and good jokes.
One top Twitter response included a quote from the president, who visited Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power plant in 1979, during their disastrous partial meltdown.
When asked by media if he thought it too dangerous to visit the radioactive site, he reportedly quipped, “No, if it was too dangerous they would have sent the vice president.”
Lepreau nuclear plant’s costs will continue to balloon: critic.
But NB Power insists the station should supply safe, reliable electricity for years to come
Telegraph-Journal, John Chilibeck • Local Journalism Initiative reporter, Jan 08, 2025
Last year’s costly, prolonged shutdown at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station near Saint John is just a piece of debilitatingly expensive repairs to come, warns an industry critic.
The outage that lasted between April 6 and Dec. 11 could end up costing New Brunswick ratepayers hundreds of millions.
But Gordon Edwards argues far bigger costs could be coming down the line in the years ahead to the workhorse in NB Power’s fleet of generators that supplies more than one-third of the province’s electricity.
Edwards is the president and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and a long-time anti-nuclear activist who testified in 2023 before a New Brunswick legislative committee.
He told Brunswick News in a recent interview that many of the hopes behind the massive $2.5-billion refurbishment of the plant in 2012 turned out to be a fantasy. Now 41 years old, the plant is showing its age, he said.
There are things in the Lepreau reactor that were simply not done that should have been done at the time of the refurbishment. – Gordon Edwards
“The promise was held out that by spending all this money on refurbishment that essentially we’d have a brand new reactor,” Edwards said from his home in Montreal.
“And that’s obviously not true. When you replace a part of a complicated piece of machinery, like an automobile for that matter, often times it causes something else to go wrong because it’s worn but has not been replaced. And there are things in the Lepreau reactor that were simply not done that should have been done at the time of the refurbishment.”
According to a report by New Brunswick’s auditor general in 2014, Lepreau’s refurbishment took 37 months longer and cost $1 billion more than anticipated.
The latest shutdown started on April 6. It was supposed to be a 100-day planned maintenance outage to ensure the ongoing reliability and safety of the station’s operations. However, when workers started to fire up the plant again, they discovered a big problem on the non-nuclear side of the station where none of the maintenance work had been done.
Before the plant could get back up and running, the problem had to be fixed: six damaged stator bars inside the main generator. NB Power described the repair process as complex, requiring careful disassembly, reassembly, and extensive testing to meet strict safety and operational standards.
In the end, it took 149 extra days to get the job done and the plant back online.
No official figures have been released on the extra cost to customers, but earlier in the summer an NB Power official at rate hearings in Fredericton said the repairs would be more than $70 million and the cost of buying power or burning more fossil fuel at other stations to pick up the slack would be on average $900,000 a day.
This raises the possibility that the shutdown cost as much as $294 million.
“NB Power continues to assess the financial impact of the extended outage and is actively exploring options to mitigate costs for customers, including potential recovery through corporate insurance policies,” the public utility stated in a press release on Dec. 12.
Edwards predicts more problems will arise because the refurbishment, now more than a decade old, mostly addressed the plant’s nuclear side, not the conventional one.
“The fact that you have the core of the reactor back up to top operating condition, puts more of a strain on these other components that have not been replaced,” he said. “Among the components that weren’t replaced are the steam generators, which are critical.”
Edwards said the private consortium Bruce Power in Ontario took a different course, replacing steam generators at the first two units at the Bruce nuclear plants on the eastern shore of Lake Huron when they were refurbished in 2012.
“That was a prudent thing to do, but NB Power did not replace them at Lepreau. I predict that will be a source of problems going forward,” said the critic, an octogenarian who has a PhD in mathematics from Queen’s University.
……………………………………………………………………Edwards said another major issue at the plant is the prolonged use of the same hard water, which has different physical properties than regular water. He said the 200,000 litres that circulate in tubes is highly radioactive and should have been replaced long ago.
“To keep the costs from ballooning completely out of proportion, NB Power hasn’t replaced the hard water,” he said. “The cost of hard water is expensive. As much as one-fifth of the cost of a nuclear plant is simply the hard water.”
He and other anti-nuke activists, such as the Sierra Club of Canada, have for years called for the hard water’s replacement, arguing the radioactivity can leak during accidental spills, causing a threat to plant workers and the wider environment.
But NB Power says for the time being, such a drastic step is unnecessary.
“We continue to monitor industry-wide processes and improvements as it relates to the reactor moderator heavy water,” Couture said. “It has not been determined at this time that a replacement of the moderator heavy water is required.” https://tj.news/new-brunswick/lepreau-nuclear-plants-costs-will-continue-to-balloon-critic#:~:text=No%20official%20figures%20have%20been,slack%20would%20be%20on%20average
Ohio Community Faces Cancer Crisis from Radioactive Contamination
PIKETON, OH – A growing health crisis in Pike County, Ohio, has brought national attention to a region plagued by some of the highest cancer rates and premature death rates in the country. Decades of uranium enrichment and ongoing demolition at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant are now being linked to the troubling health trends impacting this community and six surrounding counties.
A recent study by Joseph J. Mangano, epidemiologist and executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, paints a stark picture of the consequences of radioactive contamination in Pike County. Released last summer, the study highlights significant increases in cancer, infant mortality, and premature death rates in communities located downwind of the former uranium enrichment plant.
Cancer Rates and Premature Deaths
The numbers are alarming. Between 2021 and 2023, Pike County’s premature death rate for individuals under 74 years old was 107% higher than the national average, a sharp rise from 85% above the national average between 2017 and 2020. Over 750 premature deaths occurred during this period in a county with a population of just over 27,000.
Cancer rates in Pike County and six neighboring counties—Adams, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto, and Vinton—were 17.5% above the national average between 2015 and 2019. Infant mortality rates in the region were also 31.9% higher than the U.S. average between 1999 and 2020, and middle-aged adults saw mortality rates more than double the national average.
A School at the Center of Controversy
In 2019, concerns about radioactive contamination reached a tipping point when Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon was permanently closed after radioactive isotopes, including enriched uranium and neptunium-237, were discovered inside the building. The school, located just a few miles from the Portsmouth plant, became a symbol of the community’s struggle with the health impacts of the site. Over the years, several students and staff members at Zahn’s succumbed to rare cancers, further heightening concerns.
Recently, the school district sold the building to a Christian ministry, which plans to reopen it as a STEM academy. While the sale marks a new chapter for the facility, it has reignited fears about whether the site is truly safe, given the radioactive materials previously found within its walls.
Radioactive Contamination and Ongoing Demolition
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operational from 1954 to 2001, enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors, releasing radioactive particles such as Americium-241, Plutonium-238, and Uranium-235 into the environment. These isotopes, which remain hazardous for thousands of years, have contaminated the air, water, and soil in the surrounding area.
Although uranium enrichment operations ceased in 2001, the plant remains active with demolition and decommissioning projects. Experts have raised concerns that open-air demolition of contaminated buildings is releasing additional radioactive particles into the environment. Critics argue that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) air monitoring, which detects only “background” levels of radiation, fails to capture the full extent of the contamination.
Community Devastation
The impact on the community has been profound. Families across Pike County and neighboring areas have experienced unusually high rates of rare cancers and aggressive diseases, particularly among children and young adults. Many residents believe these illnesses are tied to decades of exposure to radioactive materials released by the plant.
The closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School and the deaths of students and staff members have become a grim reminder of the broader crisis affecting the region. Parents and advocates continue to demand answers about the plant’s role in the contamination and the steps being taken to ensure the safety of current and future generations.
A Call for Accountability
Despite mounting evidence of health risks, the DOE has proposed new projects at the Portsmouth site, including uranium purification and experimental reactors. These plans have fueled further concerns among residents, who argue that additional activities could exacerbate the environmental and health challenges they already face.
Advocates and researchers are calling for independent investigations into the health impacts of the Portsmouth plant and comprehensive public health monitoring for affected communities. Many argue that stricter oversight is urgently needed to prevent further harm.
A Community Demanding Justice
The study by Mangano highlights the devastating and long-lasting effects of radioactive contamination in Pike County. The ongoing health crisis, coupled with incidents like the closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School, underscores the urgent need for accountability and meaningful action to address the region’s toxic legacy. For residents of Pike County and surrounding areas, the fight for answers—and justice—continues.
Japanese crime boss admits to conspiring to sell nuclear material to Iran
Takeshi Ebisawa faces a maximum punishment of life in prison after pleading guilty to six counts in a Manhattan court.
A Japanese crime boss has pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell nuclear material from Myanmar to Iran along with drug trafficking and weapons offences, authorities in the United States have said.
Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, a member of the yakuza, entered a guilty plea to six counts in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
He is set to be sentenced on April 9.
According to prosecutors, Ebisawa in 2020 told an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and a DEA source that he had acquitted a large quantity of thorium and uranium that he wished to sell.
In response to Ebisawa’s repeated inquiries, the undercover agent agreed to help Ebisawa broker the sale of the nuclear materials to an associate who was posing as an Iranian general, prosecutors said.
Ebisawa then offered to supply the undercover associate with plutonium that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for making nuclear weapons, according to prosecutors.
A powdery yellow substance that Ebisawa’s co-conspirators showed to undercover agents was later determined in a laboratory analysis to contain detectable quantities of uranium, thorium and plutonium, the Justice Department said.
Ebisawa also conspired to broker the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles and heavy-duty weaponry to arm multiple ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, and to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine as partial payment for the arms, according to prosecutors.
US officials said they conducted Ebisawa’s arrest and prosecution in cooperation with law enforcement partners in Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.
“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
Ebisawa, who was previously charged in 2022 with international drug trafficking and firearms offences, faces possible life imprisonment for the most serious of the charges.
An overlooked Supreme Court case could decide the future of nuclear power
Miles Mogulescu, 6 Dec 24, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/01/05/a-double-edged-sword-of-damocles/
Although barely mentioned in the mainstream media, in granting cert to Interim Storage Partners, LLC v. Texas, a case about the storage of spent radioactive fuel from nuclear power plants, the U.S. Supreme Court may have taken on potentially the most consequential case of its new term.
SCOTUS will decide whether or not to uphold a Fifth Circuit decision that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not have the legal power to license a private corporation to construct an off-site storage facility to hold deadly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
Depending on the legal rationale for SCOTUS’ decision, it could further enhance the power of courts to overturn decisions of regulatory agencies.
The case could determine whether artificial intelligence companies like Microsoft and Google can build a new generation of nuclear power plants to service the voracious hunger of artificial intelligence for electricity. Depending on its rationale, it could also impact the ability of regulatory agencies to function efficiently without being second guessed by courts.
The issues in the case have brought together an unlikely coalition of environmentalists, Texas Republicans, New Mexico Democrats, and the oil and gas industry against an equally unlikely grouping of the Biden administration, the nuclear power industry, and AI tech companies like Microsoft and Google.
The Legal Substance Issues
The environmental and legal issues in the case have a long history. The nuclear power industry has accumulated nearly 100,000 metric tons of radioactive waste that need to be deposited in a place that could be safe for millions of years. Most of the waste is now stored in temporary facilities adjacent to the power plants that create them, but such sites are running out of space and may not be safe long-term. During the 1980s Congress passed and amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act providing for a permanent waste site and then designating Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the sole site. But plans for the site were abandoned due to environmental and political opposition, leaving no permanent site for disposable nuclear waste.
In response, for the first time the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began to grant licenses for “interim” storage facilities which were off-site (and often hundreds of miles away) from the power plants which generated the waste, claiming authority under the Atomic Energy Act. One such license was for an off-site storage facility in the Permian Basin, Texas. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and a private oil and gas company sued, claiming that the federal government lacked the statutory authority to issue a license for interim off-site storage.
The conservative Fifth Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs, opining “Texas is correct. The Atomic Energy Act does not confer on the commission the broad authority it claims to issue licenses for private parties to store spent nuclear fuel away-from-the-reactor. And the Nuclear Waste Policy Act establishes a comprehensive statutory scheme for dealing with nuclear waste generated from commercial nuclear power generation, thereby foreclosing the commission’s claim of authority.”
The Fifth Circuit vacated the license. The U.S. Supreme Court just granted cert and will hear the case this term. Its decision will likely be highly consequential, both for environmental and AI development reasons, and for legal reasons.
Environmentally, the building of new nuclear power plants has been stalled for decades, both because of cost and because of environmental catastrophes like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima and anti-nuclear films like Mike Nichols’ Silkwood starring Meryl Streep.
The Role of High-Tech Companies in Expanding Nuclear for AI
But largely under the radar, the voracious demand for electricity to power AI is leading top high-tech companies like Microsoft and Google to reinvigorate nuclear energy. Goldman Sachs analysts say it takes nearly 10 times the energy to power a ChatGPT than a Google search—data center power center demand will grow by 160% in the next five years. Morgan Stanley projects global data center emissions to accumulate 2.5 billion metric tons carbon-dioxide equivalent by then.
Microsoft has contracted for the currently mothballed Three Mile Island plant to reopen and access its entire output for Microsoft’s data centers. The operator is seeking hundreds of millions in tax breaks from the federal government under President Joe Bidens’s Inflation Reduction Act, which it says are necessary to make the reopening economically feasible. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said in the past that federal subsidies could cut the cost of bringing a new plant online by as much as half.
In March an Amazon affiliate purchased a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania for $650 million.
It will be highly consequential if SCOTUS simply upholds the Fifth Circuit’s result, which would greatly slow high tech’s attempts to kick start nuclear power without time to reexamine the environmental dangers.
Google has already announced that it will support building seven small nuclear-power reactors in the U.S., to help power its growing appetite for electricity for AI and jump-start a U.S. nuclear revival.
The tech companies claim that reviving nuclear power will decrease CO2 emissions and help with global climate change. But they ignore the long-standing warnings of environmentalists of the potentially catastrophic dangers of nuclear power.
If SCOTUS upholds the Fifth Circuit decision outlawing the licensing of off-site nuclear waste dumps, it could considerably slow the renewed push for nuclear power, particularly by high-tech companies. That might give more time to evaluate the potential dangers of widespread renewal of nuclear power.
But depending on the legal rationale for SCOTUS’ decision, it could further enhance the power of courts to overturn decisions of regulatory agencies.
The Fifth Circuit used several rationales to block the license of temporary off-site nuclear waste facilities. The first, and least concerning, is its statutory holding that the Atomic Energy Act is “unambiguous” and “nowhere authorizes issuance of a materials license to possess spent nuclear fuel for any reason, let alone for the sole purpose of storing such material in a standalone facility.” If SCOTUS upholds the Fifth Circuit purely on statutory interpretation grounds, it would create few problematic precedents for regulatory agencies in general.
The Major Questions Doctrine
But the Fifth Circuit unnecessarily went further, holding that “even if the statutes were ambiguous, the [government’s] interpretation would not be entitled to deference by the courts” pursuant to the Chevron Doctrine, under which for previous decades, until recently rejected by the Roberts Court, judges deferred to the expertise of regulatory agencies when reasonably interpreting ambiguous statutes.
The Fifth Circuit cited SCOTUS’ precedent-setting 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, in which, for the first time, a conservative majority of SCOTUS justices relied on the “major questions” doctrine to overturn a major Environmental Protection Agency rule. Under the newly invented “major questions” doctrine, SCOTUS ruled that courts should not defer to agencies on matters of “vast economic or political significance” unless the U.S. Congress has explicitly given the agencies the authority to act in those situations.
Citing West Virginia v. EPA, the Fifth Circuit held that “[D]isposal of nuclear energy is an issue of vast ‘economic and political significance.’ What to do with the nation’s ever-growing accumulation of nuclear waste is a major questions that—as the history of the Yucca Mountain repository shows—has been hotly contested for over half a century.”
It’s questionable whether the Fifth Circuit needed to reach the issues concerning the major questions doctrine in order to block the waste depository. It had already decided that the statutes were “unambiguous” and therefore it was not necessary to decide what would happen if they were “ambiguous,” which is the only situation in which the major questions doctrine might arguably apply. If SCOTUS wants to affirm the Fifth Circuit’s result, it can simply agree that the statutes were unambiguous and treat the parts of the decision involving the major questions doctrine as mere dicta. That would set no additional precedent for when courts can question the expertise of regulatory agencies.
What Party Has the Right to Sue?
There’s also a procedural issue in the case, that depending on SCOTUS’ rationale, could set precedent allowing a wider range of entities to legally challenge regulatory agency decisions. Under the Hobbs Act, a “party aggrieved” by an agency’s final order may seek judicial review in a federal appeals court.
The NRC argued, however, that the plaintiffs were not parties aggrieved by the NRC’s licensing order because they were not parties to the underlying administrative proceeding. The Fifth Circuit cited its own precedent asserting that the Hobbs Act contains an “ultra vires” exception to the party aggrieved requirement when the petitioner attacks the agency action as exceeding its authority and therefore the plaintiffs had a right to sue.
In granting cert SCOTUS agreed to rule on two questions. First is the substance issue on whether the government exceeded its authority in granting the off-site nuclear storage license. The second is the procedural issue of whether an allegation of ultra vires can override statutory limitations on jurisdiction, as the Fifth Circuit held. If SCOTUS rules that the Fifth Circuit was wrong to grant jurisdiction to the plaintiffs, the likely result would be that the licenses for off-site nuclear waste facilities would go forward and expand.
It will be highly consequential if SCOTUS simply upholds the Fifth Circuit’s result, which would greatly slow high tech’s attempts to kick start nuclear power without time to reexamine the environmental dangers. At the same time, if SCOTUS also rules that the plaintiffs had an ultra vires right to sue, it could further cripple the ability of regulatory agencies to act to protect the public interest under broad grants of power.
Miles Mogulescu is an entertainment attorney/business affairs executive, producer, political activist and writer.
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