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Congress will hold a hearing about the Sentinel missile’s exploding budget, but is it too little, too late?

Bulletin. By Chloe Shrager | June 14, 2024

The Pentagon’s new multibillion-dollar intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program has come under fire as a continual offender of overspending, but there has been little reaction on the issue from Congress. The most recent cost overrun for the Sentinel ICBM (previously known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent or GBSD) put the program’s budget an unprecedented 37 percent higher than previous estimates and extended its operational schedule by at least two years. As a result, the Pentagon is critically reviewing the program to determine if it will continue or be canceled.

Critics have called the land-based missile modernization project “wasteful and dangerous.” But much to the dismay of Sentinel’s many naysayers, the costly program is expected to be recertified.

While experts and activists have long called for a thorough reevaluation of the program, most of Congress has been silent on the issue. It is only last month that the chairs of a congressional working group on nuclear arms called for an oversight hearing on the controversial program. The hearing, set for July 24, seeks to “raise the alarm about our unsustainable, reckless nuclear posture,” working group co-chair Don Beyer, a Democrat of Virginia, said of the current US nuclear policy.

The upcoming hearing will be the first—and maybe only—opportunity for lawmakers to critically reevaluate US spending on modernization of its ICBM force. But it will come after the program is poised to be recertified by the Defense Secretary on July 10. This raises the question of whether Congress truly has any oversight on the US nuclear modernization program, or if the hearing is merely a performance.

Sentinel’s history of budget breaches. The Sentinel program is meant to completely replace the 400 deployed Minuteman III missiles that constitute the land-based leg of the US nuclear triad, producing 400 new ICBMs and refurbishing the 450 launch silos capable of holding them. The program also includes the acquisition of more than 250 additional ICBMs and the modernization of over 600 command and control facilities. Of the 659 total ICBMs that Sentinel will produce, 400 will be actively deployed in silos and 50 will be kept “warm,” leaving 209 extras for testing and other purposes. However, the US Air Force has yet to publicly justify why it needs these 259 warm and extra missiles not included in the current generation of Minuteman III missiles or how they increase national security

The Sentinel was chosen in large part for its supposed cost-effectiveness, but its price has skyrocketed since initial cost analyses: It nearly doubled in size from its original projections of $62.3 billion back in 2015 to over $130 billion today. That total is almost as much as what is planned to be spent on Medicaid health services for low income families over the next 10 years. A new report from government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense projects the price tag might reach $315 billion by 2075.

The most recent cost overrun happened when the production cost per unit jumped from $118 million to $162 million, a 37-percent increase that set off alarms in the Pentagon…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The July 24 hearing is a first step in the direction of more public accountability in government spending for nuclear weapons programs. But, unless representatives advocate for a full and candid review of Sentinel, the hearing will merely blow hot air at a decision already made. When announcing the oversight meeting on June 4, Garamendi remembered that “historically, nations have collapsed by overspending on outdated defense strategies, and I fear the United States is repeating these mistakes.” https://thebulletin.org/2024/06/congress-will-hold-a-hearing-about-the-sentinel-missiles-exploding-budget-but-is-it-too-little-too-late/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter06132024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_SentinelBudget_06142024

June 18, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Tensions with First Nations threaten to delay nuclear waste facility

MATTHEW MCCLEARN, 16 June 24  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-tensions-with-first-nations-threaten-to-delay-nuclear-waste-facility/#:~:text=Prof.%20Leiss%20said%20even%20if,this%20issue%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.

The eight-reactor Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, ranks among the world’s largest nuclear power plants. With four more in the early planning stages, it might become larger still. But for the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), behind its engineering grandeur lies a painful history – which it has described as one “of exclusion.”

Its people were not consulted before the plant’s construction during the 1970s and 80s, which resulted in quantities of radioactive waste stored within what they regard as their traditional territory. Nor did they see many of the economic benefits that flowed to neighbours.

These unresolved tensions threaten to derail – or at least significantly delay – efforts to find a permanent solution for Canada’s nuclear waste, which dates back to the 1970s. As of June, 2023, Canada had accumulated approximately 3.3 million used fuel bundles that were stored temporarily at operating or retired nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. But there’s nowhere to send them for permanent disposal – a potential stumbling block as the nuclear industry seeks public acceptance for a proposed major expansion.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), an industry-controlled organization to which the federal government delegated responsibility for nuclear waste management, wants to select a site this year for a proposed, $26-billion underground nuclear waste disposal facility, known as a deep geological repository. The two remaining candidates are the Municipality of South Bruce (about 45 kilometres southeast of Bruce station, and also within SON’s traditional territory) and a site more than 40 kilometres from Ignace, a town of 1,200 northwest of Thunder Bay.

One of the NWMO’s guiding principles is that the repository’s host “must be informed and willing to accept the project.” Ignace’s council will decide that through a resolution; it has agreed to notify the NWMO of its decision by July 30. (It hired a consultant, With Chela Inc., to engage with residents and maintains its decision will be based on public input.) In South Bruce, citizens will vote in a by-election in late October. Both signed hosting agreements with the NWMO this year, under which South Bruce would receive $418-million over nearly a century and a half; Ignace would get $170-million.

Yet all that might well prove a sideshow. The NWMO also seeks consent from Indigenous peoples: Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, in the case of Ignace. SON, which is composed of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation and Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation, will decide regarding the South Bruce site. NWMO spokesperson Fred Kuntz said the organization is negotiating hosting agreements with both First Nations.

Success is far from assured.

SON’s grievances with the nuclear industry date back to the 1960s, when Ontario Hydro (the predecessor of Ontario Power Generation) began constructing Canada’s first commercial nuclear power plant. For SON, the commissioning of the Douglas Point Nuclear Generating Station marked the beginning of “the nuclear industrialization” of its territory. Douglas Point was followed by the much-larger Bruce station, built immediately next door.

SON ruefully watched its neighbours benefit as tax revenues rolled into local municipalities, while its members were largely shut out. In 2013 SON secured an undertaking from Ontario Power Generation that the utility wouldn’t establish an intermediate-level waste repository (proposed for construction at Bruce station) on its territory without its consent.

That undertaking had far-reaching consequences. It led to a 2020 plebiscite in which SON’s membership overwhelmingly rejected that repository. And it set an important precedent: In 2016, the NWMO granted SON the same ability to veto the South Bruce repository. SON plans to hold a referendum of its members, once it has received all the information it seeks from the NWMO.

“I’d say we’re at least halfway halfway home to having our questions satisfied,” said Gregory Nadjiwon, chief of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, one of SON’s two member nations.

But reaching an agreement this year – or at all – could prove challenging. The NWMO has accepted responsibility for disposing of all Canadian spent fuel, whether from the Point Lepreau station in New Brunswick, or from long-defunct research reactors at Chalk River, or even wastes from reactors yet to be constructed. SON’s leadership, though, is focused on the wastes in its own territory.

“If the [repository] is going to be in the SON territory, why should we be accepting waste that comes from Pickering, Darlington, Chalk River or Point Lepreau?” Chief Nadjiwon said.

“I mean, that’s ludicrous.”

As part of any agreement with NWMO, SON’s leadership seeks resolution to its long-standing concerns, such as the fact that wastes have been stored in its territory for decades without compensation.

“When I go in my truck to a garage in Toronto, I’m charged a cost” to park it, he said. “It’s no different than when you park waste in an Indigenous territory or homeland. We expect an agreement for the cost of doing business.”

William Leiss, an emeritus professor at Queen’s University’s School of Policy Studies, worked as a paid consultant for the NWMO between 2002 and 2011. He wrote a book, Deep Disposal, about the site selection process; the book is scheduled for publication in September. Prof. Leiss said SON’s opposition is so firm that it’s hard to fathom why South Bruce is still in the running.

“Its negatives are so pronounced that one wonders if it is being kept alive solely as a negotiating card so that Ignace does not regard itself as the only viable option,” he wrote.

“It has all the markings of an elaborate charade.”

But Prof. Leiss said the Ignace site is a long shot, too.

The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation has roughly 1,000 members, 200 of which live on a reserve 20 kilometres from the Ignace area site. Its chief, Clayton Wetelainen, said the community has been negotiating a hosting agreement with the NWMO for roughly eight months.

The community has had far less interaction with the nuclear industry than SON has, so its historical baggage is perhaps lighter. Whereas the Ignace and South Bruce agreements would prevent future councils from backing out of the project, Wabigoon Lake’s leadership does not regard the agreement it’s negotiating as irrevocable – in part because there’s insufficient information available on many aspects of the project.

“The current vote that we’re talking about is just to go down to one site,” Chief Wetelainen said.

“This has to go through regulatory approvals, and our own approval, when we get more information about the detailed site.”

Some, he added, have misconstrued the vote as final and binding, “but that’s not the case.”

Prof. Leiss said even if Wabigoon Lake voted in favour of the project, other First Nations throughout the region might launch lawsuits to block the project. “There’s intense fighting among the First Nations in the Treaty 3 area over this issue,” he said.

Chief Wetelainen said his goal is to set a date in the fall for his 1,000 members to vote. Some community members began informing themselves about the project a decade ago, but others are only now beginning to ask the same questions. Getting all members up to speed is proving a challenge, he said – and as with SON, his community does not regard itself as bound by the NWMO’s timetable.

This position is admired by some of the repository’s non-Indigenous opponents. Bill Noll is vice-president of Protect Our Waterways, an opposition group in South Bruce. He said municipal officials have followed the NWMO’s timeline “blindly,” whereas SON is on its own schedule.

“They have a veto capability for the project, which is really an important dimension,” Mr. Noll said.

Prof. Leiss said Ontario is the only logical province for the repository – that’s where the bulk of Canada’s nuclear waste is already stored temporarily. But it’s home to 133 First Nations, whose often-overlapping traditional territories span nearly the entire province. It’s “entirely possible” that no First Nation will agree to accept a repository, he said.

But there’s another wrinkle: The NWMO’s willingness principle is not a legal requirement. OPG’s earlier proposed repository received regulatory approval of its environmental assessment without one. The NWMO’s promise to First Nations, he said, is “not worth the paper it’s written on.”

Prof. Leiss said the NWMO from the outset should have focused on First Nations, which he regards as the repository’s true hosts.

He wrote: “A sardonic take on this siting strategy might go something like this: entice a municipality with a dream of economic riches beyond its wildest imaginings, give it a phone book and tell it to place some calls to the nearest Indigenous communities, and then hope for the best.”

June 17, 2024 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

Unveiling Cosmic Secrets: Black Budget Tech and UFOs with Aerospace Expert Michael Schratt

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies have billions of dollars’ worth of secret projects they don’t want you to know about. These billions have funded a secret world of advanced science, technology, weapons, and various covert activities, which have always been shielded from congressional oversight and public scrutiny. Back in the 90s, Members of the House Armed Services Committee once said that 70 percent of the black budget could be declassified at no risk to national security. Our taxpayer dollars are funding these black budget programs, and we have a right to know what we’re paying for. So why the secrecy? What is being kept hidden from the public?

To investigate this further, we recently interviewed private pilot and military aerospace historian Michael Schratt, who’s studied top secret advanced technologies buried deep within the military-intelligence complex for over 25 years. He alleges to have first-hand experience with classified government black budget programs, with access to former US Air Force pilots, retired Naval personnel and former aerospace engineers with top-secret clearance. He’s one of the leading authority voices in investigating government programs involving the recovery and study of off-world technology, also known as UAP/UFO crash retrieval programs. He’s author of DARK FILES, which brings to life historically significant and credible UFO cases obtained from university archives, research centers, and private collections using carefully re-constructed illustrations of the events. Whether it’s advanced military aircraft or serious signs of extraterrestrial life, the implications are too profound to ignore. Michael is suggesting that publicly known technology and weapons programs might be fronts for black budget operations dealing with technologies way more advanced than the public is aware of.

Join us in this fascinating 38-min video interview, with many images and videos throughout to verify and illustrate the points being discussed.

  • 00:00:00 Introduction to the military-industrial complex and the black budget world 00:03:54 Interview begins 
  • 00:06:00 What drew Michael Schratt to studying advanced black budget technologies and UFO phenomena 
  • 00:07:22 If you could declassify one technology developed under a black budget program, what would it be and why? 
  • 00:10:20 Out of all the advanced technologies in use on Earth, how much has ET influence? 
  • 00:11:39 UFO/UAP crash retrieval programs 
  • 00:18:05 Top secret technologies 101 00:22:32 The infamous Tic Tac video: a UFO, reverse-engineered craft, experimental military tech, or all of the above
  • 00:26:32 The military bases that are purported to study ET tech and house advanced technologies 
  • 00:29:25 How can the most powerful technologies help humanity instead of harm? 
  • 00:30:37 How to balance disclosure with national security obligations 
  • 00:33:01 Michael’s thoughts on the UAP Disclosure Act 
  • 00:36:32 What keeps Michael inspired and hopeful  

June 17, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Uncle Sam cool with arming, training Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade in Ukraine.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 16 June 24

Back in 2018, the US banned military assistance to the Azov Brigade due to its neonazi and white supremacist ideology.

Azov was founded by Andriy Biletsky in 2014 to assist Kyiv’s destruction of Ukraine’s breakaway Donbas region, Biletsky also led related group Social National Assembly whose goal was “to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital…and to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man.” Ouch.

But with Ukraine near collapse from America’s proxy war against Russia, the Biden administration decided that Azov wasn’t that bad after all. Doesn’t matter that current head Denis Prokopenko has been associated with its neonazi idology since its founding, not that Azov still uses the Wolfsangel neonazi symbol

When the US initially banned Azov, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) praised the decision: “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the US from providing arms and training assistance to the neonazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.”

But that was before the US provoked an unnecessary war in Ukraine, spiraling it into a failed state. Desperate to achieve victory without shedding any US blood, the Biden administration, with not of peep of protest from Khanna, has suddenly turned neonazi Azov into the Sons of Liberty

June 17, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Proliferation warnings over enriched nuclear fuel for advanced reactors

BY JULIA ROBINSON, 13 JUNE 2024,  https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/proliferation-warnings-over-enriched-nuclear-fuel-for-advanced-reactors/4019621.article—

Governments and oth­ers promoting the use of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for nuclear power have not considered the po­tential terrorism risk that widespread adoption of this fuel creates, nuclear scientists have warned.

HALEU is a nuclear reactor fuel enriched with uranium-235 to between 5 and 20%. At 20% uranium-235 and above, the mix­ture is called highly-en­riched uranium (HEU) and it is internationally recognised that it can be employed in nuclear weapons.

Historically, HALEU use has been limited to research reactors, where it is used in small quantities, while commercial reactors typically use fuels with low enrichments, in the range of 3 to 5% uranium-235, which cannot sustain an explosive chain reaction.

However, new advanced reactors are being designed to run on HALEU – most favouring 19.75% uranium-235 HALEU – in the hope that these reactors will be smaller, more flexible and less expensive.

In the US, the Department of Energy (DOE) and US Department of Defense are providing funds for more than 10 reactor concepts, while the UK’s Civil Nuclear Roadmap, announced on 11 January, promised up to £300 million of investment specifically to develop HALEU fuel production.

However, in a policy forum in Science, experts in nuclear science and global security highlight that in many of the designs, the amount of HALEU needed is ‘hundreds to thousands of kilograms’, which may mean that a single reactor contains enough HALEU to make a nuclear weapon.

The authors said that estimates indicate that quantities ranging from several hundred kilograms to about a tonne of 19.75% HALEU could produce explosive yields similar to or greater than that of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

If this is the case, they said, commercial­ising HALEU fuels without ensuring that the material is ‘appropriately protected against diversion by national governments or theft by terrorists would pose a serious threat to security’.

‘The time has come to review policies governing the use of this material,’ the authors write. ‘We recommend that the US Congress direct the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration to com­mission a fresh review of HALEU prolif­eration and security risks by US weapons laboratory experts.’

They also suggested that, according to the informa­tion available, a reasonable balance of the risks and benefits could be struck if enrichment of uranium-235 was restricted to 12% or less.

June 16, 2024 Posted by | safety, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

California legislators break with Gov. Newsom over loan to keep state’s last nuclear plant running

BY  MICHAEL R. BLOOD, June 14, 2024

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California Legislature signaled its intent on Thursday to cancel a $400 million loan payment to help finance a longer lifespan for the state’s last nuclear power plant, exposing a rift with Gov. Gavin Newsom who says that the power is critical to safeguarding energy supplies amid a warming climate.

The votes in the state Senate and Assembly on funding for the twin-domed Diablo Canyon plant represented an interim step as Newsom and legislative leaders, all Democrats, continue to negotiate a new budget. But it sets up a public friction point involving one of the governor’s signature proposals, which he has championed alongside the state’s rapid push toward solar, wind and other renewable sources.

The dispute unfolded in Sacramento as environmentalists and antinuclear activists warned that the estimated price tag for keeping the seaside reactors running beyond a planned closing by 2025 had ballooned to nearly $12 billion, roughly doubling earlier projections. That also has raised the prospect of higher fees for ratepayers………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The legislators’ concerns were laid out in an exchange of letters with the Newsom administration, at a time when the state is trying to close an estimated $45 billion deficit. Among other concerns, they questioned if, and when, the state would be repaid by PG&E, and whether taxpayers could be out hundreds of millions of dollars if the proposed extension for Diablo Canyon falls through.

Construction at Diablo Canyon began in the 1960s. Critics say potential earthquakes from nearby faults not known to exist when the design was approved could damage equipment and release radiation. One fault was not discovered until 2008. PG&E has long said the plant is safe, an assessment the NRC has supported.

Last year, environmental groups called on federal regulators to immediately shut down one of two reactors at the site until tests can be conducted on critical machinery they believe could fail and cause a catastrophe. Weeks later, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took no action on the request and instead asked agency staff to review it………………..

The questions raised by environmentalists about the potential for soaring costs stemmed from a review of state regulatory filings submitted by PG&E, they said. Initial estimates of about $5 billion to extend the life of the plant later rose to over $8 billion, then nearly $12 billion, they said.

“It’s really quite shocking,” said attorney John Geesman, a former California Energy Commission member who represents the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, an advocacy group that opposes federal license renewals in California. The alliance told the state Public Utilities Commission in May that the cost would represent “by far the largest financial commitment to a single energy project the commission has ever been asked to endorse.”……….. https://apnews.com/article/diablo-canyon-nuclear-newsom-reactors-california-45f15ac6e3a39f4fe7bbd05a9fd30d8b

June 15, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Dennis Kucinich America Prepares for Global War and Restarts the Draft for 18-26 year olds

The U.S. has been in a continuous “State of Emergency” since September 11, 2001, which provides a president with over 100 powers he would not ordinarily have.

Greetings to Young Americans: You are Automatically Registered for the Draft Conscription without Representation? Where and WHY are we sending our Kids to War?

DENNIS KUCINICH, JUN 13, 2024

Our government is planning a big draft, conscripting millions of young Americans for an even bigger war!

I call to your attention a Democratic amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was slipped into the almost trillion-dollar Pentagon war spending bill, by voice vote, in the House Armed Services committee.

The Democratic Amendment to H.R. 8070, the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) reads

Section 531. Selective Service System:  Automatic Registration.  SEC. 3. (a)(1) “Except as otherwise provided in this title, every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, shall be automatically registered under this Act by the Director of the Selective Service System.” 

This amendment is in the NDAA legislation and there is no pending amendment to strip it from the bill.  So, when the NDAA passes, as early as this week, Congress will have taken steps to make automatic conscription the law of the land.

Why an automatic draft?  Members of Congress and the President have an obligation to explain to the American people to which foreign land will their sons, and perhaps their daughters, be sent to die?

The U.S. has been in a continuous “State of Emergency” since September 11, 2001, which provides a president with over 100 powers he would not ordinarily have.   Notwithstanding that the automatic draft provision will go into effect in a year,   a presidential order invoking emergency powers and/or an Act of Congress, could readily move millions from their civilian lives to the front lines of a war.

WHAT WE KNOW:

We know that America is fomenting wars around the world

We know that the military industrial complex controls our government

We know that we are on the precipice of a global war, provoking aggression rather than resolution with Russia, China and in the Middle East.  

The only winners in these wars are the war profiteers.

They’re now going to take our children to fight in unnecessary, destabilizing, dangerous, debt-creating wars.

Just today President Biden committed the U.S. to an additional decade of support for Ukraine’s war with Russia.

 There is no other conceivable reason to require more than 16 million American males to be automatically registered for the draft, other than to prepare for a large-scale war. 

The Selective Service System is the vehicle by which individuals are inducted into the armed forces.  This NDAA Automatic Registration amendment facilitates an efficient, large-scale draft.

The new law will automatically register all males between the ages of 18 and 26.  Selective Service will notify in writing every young American male that they have been registered and will prescribe regulations which can require the registrant to provide “date of birth, address, social security account number, phone number and email address….”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Congress must take up the question of war, long before the country institutes an automatic draft. An automatic draft is a preparation for war, dramatically altering the lives of young Americans.   They deserve an answer.  We all deserve an answer. America’s future is literally on the line.

Postscript:  For my part, as a former member of Congress who is seeking re-election to the House of Representatives in November – –  upon my return to Congress, I will  bring forth legislation which will abolish automatic registration for the draft.  I believe it is honorable, a sacred obligation, to serve in defense of one’s country.   But our leaders have a deeper obligation, a solemn duty to explain why. They have not done so.  https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/america-prepares-for-global-war-and?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1441588&post_id=145618374&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=17xtv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 15, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Active-Duty US Service Members Issue Appeal to Congress to Stop Funding Genocide

As Israel continues its genocide against the Palestinians, the number of US conscientious objectors is increasing.

By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, June 13, 2024


On June 4, a coalition of active-duty service members, veterans and G.I. rights groups launched a campaign called Appeal for Redress V2 to encourage military personnel to tell Congress to stop funding genocide in Gaza. Israel’s genocidal operation, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 85,000.

The campaign is sponsored by Veterans For Peace (VFP), the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, About Face: Veterans Against the War and the Center on Conscience & War. It is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress issued during the occupation of Iraq. During that campaign, almost 3,000 active-duty, Reserve and Guard personnel sent protected communications to their members of Congress urging an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Appeal for Redress V2 was formulated to help G.I.s directly tell their representatives that they oppose U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“We will not stand by silently while genocide unfolds,” Senior Airman Juan Bettancourt, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, stated at a June 4 press conference announcing the campaign. “We refuse to be complicit” in the “unspeakable carnage,” said Bettancourt, who is seeking separation from the U.S. military as a conscientious objector.

Kathleen Gilberd, executive director of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild and my coauthor for Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, told Truthout there has been an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objection (CO) and other types of honorable discharge from the military. “Many military personnel have serious objections to the U.S. support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Gilberd said…………………………………………………………………………

The Appeal for Redress

“We know many young people join the military out of necessity to get their needs met. But they are not obligated to contribute to genocide and unjust, unlawful wars that go against their conscience,” said Shiloh Emelein, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and operations director of About Face: Veterans Against the War, in the Appeal’s June 3 press release. “You do have rights, you do have options to object, and there’s a large community of post-9/11 veterans ready to welcome you.”………………………………………………………………………………………….

U.S. Provision of Weapons to Israel Violates Several U.S. Statutes

These active-duty service members oppose U.S. funding of Israel’s genocide both because it’s immoral and because U.S. government employees are violating several federal statutes when weapons are shipped to Israel…………………………………………..more https://truthout.org/articles/active-duty-us-service-members-issue-appeal-to-congress-to-stop-funding-genocide/

June 15, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

LANL plans to release highly radioactive tritium to prevent explosions. Will it just release danger in the air?


The venting may harm pregnant women and fetuses, advocates say.
SEARCHLIGHT NEW MEXICO, by Alicia Inez Guzmán 12 June 24

Last fall, the international community rose up in defense of the Pacific Ocean. Seafood and salt purveyors, public policy professors, scientists and environmentalists, all lambasted Japan’s release of radioactive wastewater from the disastrously damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea.

At the heart of the contention was tritium, an element that, by mass, is 150,000 times more radioactive than the plutonium used in the cores of nuclear weapons. Odorless and colorless, tritium — the radioactive form of hydrogen — combines with oxygen to form water. Just one teaspoon is enough to contaminate 100 billion gallons more water up to the U.S. drinking water standard, according to Arjun Makhijani, an expert on nuclear fusion and author of the monograph, “Exploring Tritium Dangers.”

What didn’t make international headlines — but was quietly taking place on the other side of the world — was Los Alamos National Laboratory’s own plans to vent the same radioactive substance into northern New Mexico’s mountain air. Japan’s releases would take place over three decades. LANL’s would include up to three times more tritium — and take place in a matter of days.

There is no hard timeline for the release, but if the plans are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, LANL is looking at a period with “sufficiently warm weather,” a spokesperson from the National Nuclear Security Administration wrote by email. That could mean as soon as this summer.

Those controversial plans date back to 2016, when LANL discovered that a potentially explosive amount of hydrogen and oxygen was building up in four containers of tritium waste stored in a decades-old nuclear dump called Area G. The safest and most technically viable solution, the lab decided — and the best way to protect workers — would be to release the pressure and, with it, thousands of curies of tritium into the air.

When advocates caught wind of the venting in March 2020, Covid was in its earliest and most unnerving phase. Pueblo leaders, advocates and environmentalists wrote impassioned letters to the lab and the EPA, demanding that they change or, at the very least, postpone the release until after the pandemic. At the same time, Tewa Women United, a nonprofit founded by Indigenous women from northern New Mexico, issued its first online petition, focusing on tritium’s ability to cross the placental barrier and possibly harm pregnant women and their fetuses. Only after a maelstrom of opposition did the lab pause its plans and begin briefing local tribes and other concerned members of the community. 

“We see this as a generational health issue,” said Kayleigh Warren, Tewa Women United’s food and seed sovereignty coordinator. “Just like all the issues of radioactive exposure are generational health issues.”

Last fall, the lab again sought the EPA’s consent. A second petition from Tewa Women United followed. Eight months later, the federal agency’s decision is still pending.

The NNSA, which oversees the health of America’s nuclear weapons stockpile from within the Department of Energy, declined Searchlight New Mexico’s requests for an interview.

The crux of the issue comes down to what is and isn’t known about the state of the containers’ contents. Computer modeling suggests they are pressurized and flammable, but the actual explosive risk has not been measured, the lab has conceded.

Critics have requested that the contents be sampled first to determine whether there is any explosive risk and whether venting is even needed. The EPA says that sampling would require going through the same red tape as venting. The lab, for its part, plans to sample and vent the contents in one fell swoop.

But why, critics wonder, are these containers in this state in the first place? Were they knowingly over packed and left for years to grow into ticking time bombs?

“I do not like the position we’re in,” James Kenney, cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department, told the Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee in 2020. The containers, he said, had been “neglected for so long by both DOE and the Environment Department” that NMED potentially faces a lose-lose situation: Vent the tritium drums and try to prevent the emissions from being released into the air or “run the risk of leaving those drums onsite knowing that they are pressurized and could rupture, meaning an uncontrolled amount of tritium would go out.”

Venting and vexing

State and federal documents paint a kind of chicken-and-egg dilemma. The containers can’t be moved until the pressure is vented. But the movement itself may cause more pressure to build up, requiring a second, third or even fourth venting……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Tritium 101 

Plutonium and uranium are familiar to most people, if by name only. But few know anything at all about tritium — a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is used to make watch dials and EXIT signs glow bright neon. Tritium’s other, lesser-known use is as a “boost gas,” which, when inserted into the hollow core of a plutonium pit, amplifies a nuclear weapon’s yield. Globally, hundreds of atmospheric weapons tests dispersed tritium into the atmosphere, steeping rain, sea, and groundwater with the element and, ultimately, lacing sediment worldwide.

Tritium is widely produced at nuclear reactors and is today tested, handled and routinely released at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Criticisms of this venting have always centered on two of the element’s key characteristics: First, it travels “tens to hundreds of miles,” according to lab documents. Second, when tritium is in the form of water, it becomes omnipresent and easy for bodies to absorb.

“Tritium is unique in this,” wrote Makhijani. “It makes water, the stuff of life, most of the mass of living beings, radioactive.”

Years of LANL reports depict tritium’s ubiquity in the lands and ecosystem within its bounds, a palimpsest of radioactive decay. This is measured in curies, a basic unit that counts the rate of decay second by second. 

The lab’s first environmental impact statement, published in 1979, estimated that it had buried close to 262,000 curies of tritium at Area G and released tens of thousands more into the air from various stacks over the decades. The lab had two major accidental releases of tritium around the same time — 22,000 curies in the summer of 1976 and nearly 31,000 curies in the fall of 1977.

Today, trees have taken it into their root systems on Area G’s southeast edge. Rodents scurrying in and out of waste shafts are riddled with the substance, owing to tritium vapors from years past. A barn owl ate those rodents and had 740 times more tritium concentration in its body than the U.S. drinking water standard, the common reference value for indicating tritium contamination. The lab’s honeybee colonies — kept to determine how radioactive contaminants are absorbed — produced tritiated honey up to 380 times more concentrated than the drinking water standard, reports show.

The EPA set the current standard for radioactive emissions at DOE facilities in 1989, but that didn’t stop the lab from releasing thousands of curies of tritium into the air shortly afterward. In 1991, the EPA issued a notice of non-compliance to the lab for not calculating how much of a radiation dose the public received. Another notice followed in 1992.

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety filed a lawsuit two years later alleging that the DOE hadn’t properly monitored radioactive emissions, as required by the Clean Air Act. At the time, a former lab safety officer, Luke Bartlein, observed what he described in an affidavit as a “pattern and practice of deception at LANL with respect to the radionuclide air monitoring system.” It was routine for lab staffers and management to vent glove boxes and other materials contaminated with tritium outside so that the contamination would deliberately “not register” on the stack monitors, he recounted, leading to false emissions reports.

The lab settled in 1997; a consent decree followed and would stay in effect until 2003. The lab says it has maintained low annual emissions ever since…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

In 1999, Makhijani and more than 100 scientists, activists and physicians across the country and worldwide signed a letter to the National Academy of Sciences. Their ask? To evaluate how radionuclides that cross the placental boundary, including tritium, impact the fetus, a request Makhijani renewed in 2022.

As he put it, tritium — the “most ubiquitous pollutant from both nuclear power and nuclear weapons” — has largely escaped regulatory and scientific scrutiny when it comes to matters of pregnancy.

Cindy Folkers, the radiation and health hazard specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a national advocacy organization, believes the reason is rooted in the radiation establishment’s fear of liability. “You get layers and layers and layers and layers of denial.”

The scant research that does exist comes from pregnant women who survived atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1986, the International Commission on Radiation Protection concluded that exposing a fetus to ionizing radiation, the kind that tritium emits, has a “damaging effect…upon the development of the embryonic and fetal brain.” The area most at risk of harm, it went on, is the forebrain, which controls complex and fundamental functions like thinking and processing information, eating, sleeping and reproduction.

Ionizing radiation damages the cell in two ways. On the one hand, it breaks apart the building blocks from which humans are made, causing rifts in DNA. On the other, it fundamentally changes the chemistry of the cell, breaking apart its water molecules and upsetting its metabolism.

That’s what makes it different from, say, an X-ray, Folkers said. “A machine can be shut off,” but “a radioactive particle that’s inside your body will continue irradiating you.” For a pregnant woman, this adds up to “cumulative biological damage,” the kind that cuts across generations.

“We’re dealing with a life cycle,” Folkers said. “And females are an integral part of that life cycle. Not only are they more damaged by radioactivity, and their risks are higher for cancer, but they are also carrying in them the future generations. So when you’re dealing with a female baby who’s developing in the womb, you are dealing with that child’s children at the very least.”

In other words, a mother is like a Russian nesting doll. She holds a fetus and that fetus, if a female, holds all future eggs. Exposure to her is exposure to future generations.  https://searchlightnm.org/lanl-plans-to-release-highly-radioactive-tritium-to-prevent-explosions-will-it-just-release-danger-in-the-air/?utm_source=Searchlight+New+Mexico&utm_campaign=08e25288bd-6%2F12%2F2024+-+LANL+Tritium+Release&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8e05fb0467-08e25288bd-395610620&mc_cid=08e25288bd&mc_eid=a70296a261

June 14, 2024 Posted by | radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Sodium cooled nuclear reactors are not necessarily safer

While no sodium-cooled reactors currently operate in the United States, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working with industry on a number of “advanced” reactor designs, including the Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR).  One of the SFR’s safety advantages, to quote the DOE, is that the design provides a “Long grace period for corrective action, if needed.” SRE’s meltdown transpired over a two-week period. Fermi Unit 1 had indications of inadequate core cooling in June that were repeated in August and dismissed until extensive damage occurred in October 1966. The “if needed” grace period is never long enough when warning sign after warning sign is dismissed or ignored.

DOE did acknowledge some “challenges” for the SFR: their higher speed and higher energy neutrons can embrittle and degrade nearby materials, liquid sodium coolant reactors with air and water and degrades concrete, and the opaqueness of the liquid sodium coolant complicates in-service inspections and maintenance.

Thank goodness for the “Long grace period for corrective actions, if needed.” That and the fact that SFRs only operate in cyberspace where the primary threat is carpal tunnel syndrome

safety-symbol-SmFlag-USANuclear Plant Accidents: Fermi Unit 1, Union of Concerned Scientists , director, Nuclear Safety Project | July 12, 2016, Disaster by Design

Jorge Agustin Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, also known as George Santayana, wrote that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Continue reading →

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power Is Hard. Billionaire Bill Gates Wants to Make It Easier

COMMENT. Sodium cooled nuclear reactors are not necessarily safer. Nuclear power: molten salt reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors make the radioactive waste problem WORSE

Work is starting in Wyoming coal country on a new type of reactor.
Its main backer, Bill Gates, says he’s in it for the emissions-free
electricity. Outside a small coal town in southwest Wyoming, a
multibillion-dollar effort to build the first in a new generation of
American nuclear power plants is underway. Workers began construction on
Tuesday on a novel type of nuclear reactor meant to be smaller and cheaper
than the hulking reactors of old and designed to produce electricity
without the carbon dioxide that is rapidly heating the planet.

The reactor being built by TerraPower, a start-up, won’t be finished until 2030 at the
earliest and faces daunting obstacles. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
hasn’t yet approved the design, and the company will have to overcome the
inevitable delays and cost overruns that have doomed countless nuclear
projects before.

What TerraPower does have, however, is an influential and
deep-pocketed founder. Bill Gates, currently ranked as the seventh-richest
person in the world, has poured more than $1 billion of his fortune into
TerraPower, an amount that he expects to increase.

At a recent conference in New York, David Crane, the Energy Department under secretary for
infrastructure, said that two years ago he “didn’t really see” a case
for next-generation reactors. But as demand for electricity surges because
of new data centers, factories and electric vehicles, Mr. Crane said he had
become “very bullish” on nuclear to provide carbon-free power around
the clock without needing much land. One problem with nuclear power,
though, is that it has become prohibitively expensive.

Traditional reactors are huge, complex, strictly regulated projects that are difficult to build
and finance. The only two American reactors built in the last 30 years,
Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, cost $35 billion, more than double initial
estimates, and arrived seven years behind schedule. TerraPower’s reactor,
by contrast, uses liquid sodium instead of water, allowing it to operate at
lower pressures. In theory, that reduces the need for thick shielding. In
an emergency, the plant can be cooled with air vents rather than
complicated pump systems. The reactor is just 345 megawatts, one-third the
size of Vogtle’s reactors, making for a smaller investment.

New York Times 11th June 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/11/climate/bill-gates-nuclear-wyoming.html

June 14, 2024 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Two small communities are competing to receive Canada’s inventory of nuclear waste. They can’t be sure what they’ll get

“They’re basically surrendering any kind of fundamental right of public dissent on the part of the mayor and town council,”

“We’re talking about binding future generations.”

The Globe and Mail, MATTHEW MCCLEARN,  JUNE 10, 2024

Two Ontario municipalities are vying to become hosts for an underground disposal facility for Canada’s nuclear waste. Both must formally announce in the coming months whether they’ll accept the facility – but they cannot know exactly what wastes they’d be agreeing to receive.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) designed its $26-billion facility, known as a deep geological repository, to receive spent fuel from Candu reactors located in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. This year, it plans to choose between the last two sites still in the running: the Municipality of South Bruce, Ont., located more than 120 kilometres north of London; or near Ignace, Ont., a town of 1,200 more than 200 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay.

But since the project was conceived, two of NWMO’s three members (Ontario Power Generation and New Brunswick Power) proposed to build new reactors that would burn different fuels and produce novel wastes. The organization guarantees reactor developers that it will dispose of these wastes, even though their nature might not be understood for decades. And in the past few months, both candidate municipalities signed agreements that spell out how the project could be modified to receive such wastes, while limiting their ability to refuse.

These provisions help reduce uncertainty for the nuclear industry. A roadmap produced last year by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a U.S. lobby group, noted that because most small modular reactors (SMRs)being developed would burn different fuels from those of existing reactors, “technology neutral” criteria for accepting spent fuel into repositories was needed as soon as this year in both Canada and the United States.

But the provisions could make it harder to find willing hosts.

Ignace will decide through a council resolution whether it will accept the repository by July 30. South Bruce will hold a by-election in late October.

Consent from First Nations is also required. NWMO spokesperson Fred Kuntz said the organization is negotiating hosting agreements with both Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation for the Ignace project and Saugeen Ojibway Nation for the one in South Bruce. Both are in a position to effectively halt the project, and both have indicated they are not open to accepting SMR wastes at this time.

Mark Winfield, a professor of environmental and urban change at York University, said the NWMO’s decision to accept responsibility for non-Candu wastes means the host communities can’t know the nature of some of the waste they’ll receive, nor the quantity.

“They really are being asked for a blank cheque.”

Canada’s waste inventory includes 3.3 million Candu fuel bundles as of last year, and grows by about 90,000 annually. Each is about the size of a firelog and weighs slightly less than 20 kilograms. They’re highly radioactive upon removal from a reactor, and must be stored in pools of water for about a decade before they can be moved to storage containers. Utilities have considerable experience handling the bundles, and the industry has developed copper-clad containers to place them in, which in turn would be encased in bentonite clay in underground chambers.

The municipalities also agreed to accept fuel owned by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a Crown corporation that operated several research reactors. There are dozens of types of wastes from these reactors, in far smaller amounts.

The hosting agreements detail what the NWMO is offering in return. South Bruce says it’s expecting $418-million over nearly a century and a half. Ignace anticipates $170-million. Jake Pastore, a spokesperson for Ignace, said its lower amount in part reflects the fact that the repository’s site is more than 30 kilometres west of the town, whereas the South Bruce site is on farmland within its boundaries and subject to local taxes.

And the agreements clarify what the repository won’t be receiving: Both agreements explicitly prohibit storing liquid nuclear waste. Waste originating from another country is similarly verboten.

Beyond these provisions, however, the agreements afford the industry considerable flexibility.

Ignace has agreed that the repository could accept spent fuel from SMRs and other non-Candu sources, provided a licence application has been filed with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The commission is considering three SMR-related applications.

The agreement also lays out a process by which the repository’s scope can be changed to accept other forms of spent fuel. Mr. Pastore said the NWMO would have to complete an “intense” regulatory review before introducing non-approved wastes. The organization has provided assurances, he added, that it would not bring such wastes unless there was “full agreement on moving forward.”

Both agreements contain dispute-resolution mechanisms, but the municipalities have agreed to support the NWMO in any regulatory process, including proposals to modify the project’s scope. Ignace has agreed not to support any resident or other municipality that opposes a regulatory approval sought by the organization.

“They’re basically surrendering any kind of fundamental right of public dissent on the part of the mayor and town council,” said Gordon Edwards, a consultant who runs a non-profit organization called the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

“We’re talking about binding future generations.”

South Bruce’s agreement is less permissive than Ignace’s. It doesn’t make direct references to accepting SMR wastes. And it stipulates that before making a regulatory application to modify the repository’s scope, the NWMO must notify the municipality at least three years in advance. ……………………………………………………..

The types of waste produced in Canada could change significantly if the nuclear industry’s plans come to fruition.

Candus consume natural uranium with minuscule concentrations of the more fissile uranium-235. But most reactors in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere use “enriched” fuel containing higher quantities of U-235. Virtually all SMRs would use enriched fuels. And some would use exotic fuels for which there is limited international experience.

For example, New Brunswick Power proposes to build an ARC-100 reactor at its Point Lepreau plant, which would use a metallic uranium alloy fuel. The vendor, ARC Clean Technologies, said its reactor will need to be refuelled only every 20 years, and wastes from the proposed facility “will be fully characterized” and placed in appropriately sized and approved on-site storage containers while awaiting final disposal.

New Brunswick Power also seeks to build a molten salt reactor called the Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner. A 2021 study of reactor technologies by the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that all molten salt reactors it reviewed lacked “a well-formulated plan for management and disposal” of spent fuel.

“There’s so many different SMR designs, and I don’t think we can predict, in 2024, if many or any of them are ever going to go into production,” said Brennain Lloyd, a project co-ordinator with the environmental group Northwatch, which opposes the Ignace repository.

“But there’s potential that we could have a number of different designs, and all of them might behave differently. That’s a dog’s breakfast of additional risk.”………………………………………………………………………………

The Saugeen Ojibway Nation,from whom the industry seeks consent, has objected in writing to receiving SMR waste in its territory, adding that this “fundamental change in circumstances” means its discussions with the NWMO must be “reset.” It said its concerns about these wastes have not been addressed, and it’s not satisfied with the information it provided. “The ground is shifting beneath us, and the original project description no longer reflects the reality,” it declared in a regulatory submission in November.

In an interview, Chief Gregory Nadjiwon of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation – one of the two member nations of Saugeen Ojibway Nation – said his organization is looking for resolution to wastes that have long been in its territory at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. It’s disinclined to receive wastes from other Candu stations outside its territory, let alone from SMRs.

“If you have a complex issue that hasn’t been resolved, why would you add another layer to it?”

………………………………………………………………. More controversial still is the possibility that the repository might accept wastes from reprocessing – which means applying physical and chemical processes to spent fuel to recover fissionable products, which could be used for new reactor fuel.

……………………………………… Mr. Edwards said that when a Candu fuel bundle is demolished for reprocessing, all of the radioactive materials contained within are released into a solid or liquid form. “You no longer have these nicely packaged fuel bun

Mr. Edwards said that reprocessing is the dirtiest segment of nuclear fuel chains. Sites where it has taken place, such as Hanford, Wash., in the U.S., Sellafield in Britain, and La Hague in France, are heavily contaminated and could cost hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up. The two candidate municipalities should have obtained legally binding vetoes against receiving reprocessing wastes, he said.

“Otherwise, they’re being led by the nose, assuming that one thing is going to happen when instead, something very different may end up happening – something that’s much more threatening to the community.”dles, you have something that’s much more complex and more difficult to manage.”

Documents released by New Brunswick Power under the province’s freedom of information legislation, and supplied to The Globe and Mail by nuclear issues researcher and activist Susan O’Donnell, show the corporation regarded long-term storage of reprocessing wastes as critical for attracting investors for its next-generation reactor projects.  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-two-small-communities-are-competing-to-receive-canadas-inventory-of/—

June 13, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Biden hits ‘new low’ in arming ‘pro-Nazi’ Azov: US Congressman

ByAl Mayadeen English, Source: Agencies, 12 Jun 2024  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/biden-hits–new-low–in-arming–pro-nazi–azov–us-congressm

Paul Gosar says the Biden administration’s decision to lift a ban on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion prolongs the war.

US President Joe Biden has reached a new low after his administration decided to remove restrictions on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion, US Congressman Paul Gosar pointed out on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post, citing the US State Department, reported that the Biden administration has lifted the ban on arms supplies to and training of the Azov battalion.

Established in 2014 by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists in the wake of the Western-backed Maidan riots, the Azov Battalion was included in the National Guard of Ukraine in November of that year.

The battalion has come under severe criticism for its support of Nazi ideology and symbols, as well as its human rights violations against the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s Supreme Court designated Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization in August 2022.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov called the reported decision by the United States outrageous, adding that it raises serious concerns about US readiness to fight terrorism.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office last year accused Azov militants of employing prohibited means and methods of warfare, including the torture of civilians and the killing of children.

The battalion’s symbol is the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel, a black swastika against a yellow background. Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen,” the group is a pack of neo-Nazis working with the US-backed Ukrainian military.

June 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is ‘overblown’ as an energy source for data centers, power company CEO says

CNBC Spencer Kimball, MON, JUN 10

KEY POINTS

  • AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power has been a “little overblown.”
  • AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
  • Gluski said renewables are the future, though natural gas will be needed as a transition fuel.

The euphoria over nuclear energy as a power source for data centers is “overblown,” the CEO of a major power provider for large tech companies told CNBC in an interview Monday.

AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said renewable energy is the future, though natural gas will also play a role as a transition fuel. Nuclear power, on the other hand, faces challenges in meeting the growing power demand from data centers, Gluski said.

AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its 12.7 gigawatt backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, according to its most recent earnings presentation to investors.

……………………Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power is a “little overblown.” There is only so much existing nuclear energy that merchant power providers can re-contract to sites such as data centers, the CEO said.

“The question is, going forward, what’s the price of new nuclear,” Gluski said, adding that only one new nuclear plant has been built in the U.S. in decades and it came in far above budget.

‘The future is going to be renewable’

The second of two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia came online in April, but the project was seven years behind schedule and cost double the original projections, according to the Energy Information Administration. The reactors, operated by Georgia Power, are the first newly-constructed nuclear units built in the U.S. in more than 30 years, according to the Department of Energy.

……………………..Gluski pointed to the recent agreement between Microsoft and Brookfield Asset Management for 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy between 2026 and 2030 as a sign of the future. Microsoft and Brookfield described the agreement as the largest renewable purchase ever between two corporate partners.

“It tells you that’s where most of the energy is going to be coming from,” Gluski said. “They are cheaper, they are clean and quite frankly easier to site, so the future is going to be renewable energy.”…………………………….

Solar, storage and wind represented about 95% of the power capacity in line waiting for connection to the grid at the end of 2023, while gas was just 3% and a grab bag made up the rest, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Renewables and storage in line for connection is nearly twice the installed capacity of the U.S. power plant fleet.

AES has already signed long-term contracts with data centers to provide them hourly matched renewable energy 24/7, Gluski said. “We’ve done that already for two years. So we can do that today,” he said.

AES signed an agreement with Google in 2021 to power its Virginia data center campus with 90% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis using a combination of wind, solar, hydro and battery storage resources.

The power company recently signed an agreement with Amazon for an additional gigawatt of solar and storage at a site in Kern County, California, bringing the project to a total of two gigawatts in a 15-year contract that is expected to come online in 2025 to 2026. AES has described the agreement as the largest solar and storage project in the U.S.

All told, the power company has signed agreements to provide Amazon with 3.1 gigawatts of power, Microsoft with 1.7 gigawatts, and Google with 800 megawatts, according to its first quarter earnings presentation.

“All of them want to be part of an energy transition,” Gluski said. “I don’t see anybody saying build me gas and coal plants to power my data centers, unless it’s a temporary situation, give me power from your gas plant until the renewables are available.”

AES stock is up 26% over the past three months and 6% year to date. Some 67% of Wall Street analysts rate AES the equivalent of a buy, 25% have a hold on the company’s stock and 8% rate it the equivalent of a sell.  https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/10/nuclear-is-overblown-as-energy-source-for-data-centers-aes-ceo-says.html

June 12, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

US Drone Flights Over Gaza Supported Israeli Operation That Killed Over 200 Palestinians in Nuseirat

A team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based in Israel assisted in the operation

by Dave DeCamp June 9, 2024 ,  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/09/us-drone-flights-over-gaza-supported-israeli-operation-that-killed-over-200-palestinians-in-nuseirat/

Israel received intelligence support from the US in its Saturday operation in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp that killed over 200 Palestinians and freed four Israeli hostages.

The intelligence support included information provided by US drone flights over Gaza. The US began flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza days after October 7 and deployed special operations forces to Israel, demonstrating that US military support for Israel goes beyond providing weapons.

The Washington Post reported that a team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based at the US Embassy in Jerusalem provided the intelligence support. Besides the drone flights, the US provided communications intercepts, and Israel also received intelligence support from the UK.

Local residents said the Israeli special forces who carried out the raid were disguised as displaced Palestinians from Rafah, and others entered the camp in an aid truck. The Israeli military denied it used an aid truck, but Israeli media reported Israeli soldiers meant to blend in as Arabs were part of the attack. Israeli warplanes pounded Nuseirat as the Israeli commandos on the ground moved to locate the hostages.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 274 Palestinians were killed in the attack on Nuseirat, and 678 were wounded. Gaza’s Media Office said 64 of the dead were children, and 57 were women. The total death toll in Gaza since October 7 has surpassed 37,000.

Israel claimed it killed less than 100 people in the assault, while the US said it didn’t know how many people died. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan celebrated the assault and also acknowledged that “innocent people” were killed.

“We, the United States, are not in a position today to make a definitive statement about that. The Israeli defense forces have put out one number. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has put out another number,” Sullivan said. “But we do know this … Innocent people were tragically killed in this operation.”

Hamas alleged that the Israeli attack killed three other Israeli hostages, including an American citizen. The Palestinian group released a video of three corpses, but they were unidentifiable.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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