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Nuclear Waste: DOE Needs to Improve Transparency in Planning for Disposal of Certain Low-Level Waste

GAO-22-105636 Sep 29, 2022,

Fast Facts

The Department of Energy is responsible for disposing of certain low-level nuclear waste from medical equipment, metals in nuclear reactors, and cleanup sites. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required DOE to assess the potential environmental effects of various disposal options. No legal options currently exist.

DOE’s assessments were extensive but didn’t give rationales for preferring certain disposal options. They also weren’t clear on the amount of waste that will need disposal—key information for decision makers.

We recommended ways to improve transparency. We also suggested that Congress consider addressing legal barriers to waste disposal……………………………………………….. more https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105636

September 18, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Trump’s Top-Secret Document Hoard Included Nuclear Weapons Data

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, September 7, 2022

Donald Trump now has at least 19 attorneys defending him in eight or more investigations, according to Politico. If the revelations keep piling up, that number could double in about as much time as it takes a box of bunny rabbits to breed. Finding that help won’t be easy, either; this is an area of the law that isn’t lousy with specific experts, and the ones available have this thing about getting paid.

Plus, the latest development in the saga would have most lawyers running for the hills.

“A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month,” reports The Washington Post. “Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs.”………………

“A fortress mindset feeds the U.S. government’s huge ‘defense’ budget — which is higher than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined — while the Pentagon maintains about 750 military bases overseas,” author and activist Norman Solomon writes for Truthout. “But victimology is among Washington’s official poses, in sync with a core belief that the United States is at the center of the world’s importance and must therefore police the world to the best of its capacity.”

The core nature of secrets is their importance, which is why they are usually so well guarded, and why this latest Trump debacle has so many people freaked. …………………………

Understand: No intelligence body on the planet would gladly grant top-secret access to a person like Donald Trump. He is the living embodiment of an easily compromised individual, a walking blackmail target with debts on his debts. The only reason he got his hands on all that stuff is because the country went berserk and made him president, and presidents are automatically gifted top-flight clearance by dint of electoral victory.

Yet he remains Donald Trump, the blowhard desperate to hide the small fraction of a man within.

Even being president of the United States wasn’t enough to assuage his insecurity, so, perhaps, he surrounded himself with boxes of secret documents that made him feel whatever passes for powerful in his shriveled little soul.

Who knows what country those nuke documents were describing. Israel? China? Russia? Does it even matter at this juncture? Thanks to a million profit-driven war decisions made over the last 80 years, we exist within a wildly delicate latticework of perils that are mostly left over from the Cold War. Not our fault, but all our problem. https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-top-secret-document-hoard-included-nuclear-weapons-data/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=df913dd0-f214-4843-a78f-46849632c0c5

September 8, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

WHAT HAPPENED AT CAMP LEJEUNE

I grew up drinking and bathing in the toxic waters around a military base in North Carolina. Thirty years later, I went back to investigate.

BY LORI LOU FRESHWATER, AUG 21, 2018

In the autumn of 1980, a contractor showed up to grade a parking lot. He had no idea he was about to start digging up the radioactive bodies of dead beagles. But the forked bucket on his bulldozer started pulling up more than soil, and it turned out he was digging in a pit of strontium-90 and dog carcasses that had been buried in an ash-gray tomb: a nest of dead dogs and laboratory waste labeled “Radioactive Poison.”

The new parking lot was on the site of the former Naval Research Laboratory dump and its associated incinerator in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina—and it was just one of many areas contaminated by an assortment of hazardous waste and chemicals on the base.

About half a mile away from the dump, soon to be known as Site 19, my friends and I were living in our neighborhood, called Paradise Point. We spent our time putting other girls’ bras into freezers at slumber parties, playing the Telephone Game, riding our bikes all over the place: to the golf course to steal a cart, to swim at the pool, to play soccer on Saturdays.

During the same autumn the dead beagles were found, I was sitting in front of a fake backdrop of rusty colored leaves, a slight 11-year-old girl with spaces between my teeth and freckles spritzed across my nose and cheeks, to take my school photo.

Under normal circumstances, this entirely unremarkable fifth-grade photo, in a plaid shirt and fragile gold necklace, would have likely ended up where most school photos do, in an old album or a drawer or simply lost to time. Instead, the photo would become a marker in the medical history of my family and my community, a reminder of the crime that was being committed on the day the photo was taken—and also for decades before, and for years after.

The place was Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base wrapped around the New River in Onslow County that served as an amphibious training base where Marines learned to be “the world’s best war fighters,” picking up skills that would allow them (for example) to make surprise landings on the shores of far away countries. From the 1950s until at least 1985, the drinking water was contaminated with toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3400 times higher than what is permitted by safety standards.

There may never be a true accounting of the suffering caused at Lejeune. As with many other hometown environmental disasters, the Marines and family members poisoned on this military base were not born here, nor did they settle here to make a permanent life and raise their children. Instead, they were often here just for a short time, literally stationed at Lejeune for weeks, months, or, at most, a few years. From the 1950s through at least 1985, an undetermined number of of residents, including infants, children, and civilian workers and personnel, were exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune. These exposures likely increased their risk of cancers, including renal cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and more. It also likely increased their risk of adverse birth outcomes, along with other negative health effects. Now the sick and the dying are all over the world, and an untold number will never be notified about what happened. Instead, we are left to rely on scientific models and data trickling out of public-health agencies and the slow process of adding one story at a time, person-by-person, to the cold data representing an environmental and public-health disaster.

In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency placed 236 square miles of North Carolina’s coastal soil and water on the list of toxic areas known as Superfund sites. The agency cited “contaminated groundwater, sediment, soil and surface water resulting from base operations and waste handling practices” as reasons for including it on the National Priorities List.

Camp Lejeune remains a sprawling Superfund site, and it is also the place where my mom and I spent years drinking a terrible mix of chemicals from our faucet. In the book A Trust Betrayed: The Untold Story of Camp Lejeune, author Mike Magner gives special attention to my mother’s story: “A woman with the ironic name of Mary Freshwater may have had the most ghastly experiences at Camp Lejeune.”

Of course, I share her ironic name, which can still seem like more of a curse. Nearly my entire childhood was consumed by tragedy. The chemical contamination can be linked to the deaths of my two baby brothers, Rusty and Charlie, and to my mom’s own difficult final years, when she was dying from two types of acute leukemia. My mother also suffered from mental illness, which was intensified—understandably—by our family’s brutal losses. Sometimes it seems that, behind me, there is nothing but inescapable grief. …………………..more https://psmag.com/.amp/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune

September 2, 2022 Posted by | environment, Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

City of Aiken provides will receive more than $168M in plutonium storage settlement

by: Dixie Dawson, Joey Gill,  Aug 30, 2022  “………………………………… The community also got an update on plutonium settlement money. Aiken County will reportedly receive more than $168 million, or 30% of $525 million, from the federal government’s settlement with the state over plutonium storage.

“They secured 168-million-850-thousand dollars for projects through Aiken County from the South Carolina plutonium settlement funds,” said David Jameson, President and CEO of the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, “Aiken County citizens will benefit from the catalytic impact of your efforts to many, many years.”……………………… https://www.wjbf.com/news/aiken-county/city-of-aiken-provides-updates-on-city-will-receive-more-than-168m-in-plutonium-storage-settlement/

August 31, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s Inflation Reduction Act a tidy little bonanza for the nuclear industry

Nuclear Fuel for Advanced Reactors Spurred by Climate Bill Funds

 https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/nuclear-fuel-for-advanced-reactors-spurred-by-climate-bill-funds DEEP DIVE, Daniel Moore Aug. 29, 2022, 

  • Inflation Reduction Act includes $700 million for enrichment
  • Energy Department still formulating plan for fuel supply

The Biden administration’s efforts to develop a more energy-dense nuclear fuel got a sudden $700 million windfall in the climate-and-tax bill signed into law this month, a boost for the agency’s plans to demonstrate two next-generation reactors before the end of the decade, energy officials and nuclear supporters said.

The funding—more than 15 times the program’s current annual appropriation—is a down payment for the Energy Department’s efforts to develop fuel supplies for advanced reactors, which are designed to be much smaller than the current fleet of nuclear plants………………..

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Congress in April the agency was “in final stages” of developing a HALEU strategy, which at that time had just $45 million appropriated by Congress for fiscal year 2022.

August 30, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Mothers For Peace disappointed that California Governor supports ”lifeline” for Diablo Canyon nuclear power station

California’s governor seeks lifeline for last nuclear plant, Ft.com 29 Aug 22,

State confronts extreme weather and rising demand as it rids carbon from the electric grid

After nearly 40 years of protesting against the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, Linda Seeley thought victory was finally at hand. Seeley and other members of Mothers for Peace — an activist group with roots in the 1960s antiwar movement — cheered when Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility that operates California’s last nuclear power station, announced in 2016 that it would close by 2025.

But governor Gavin Newsom, a longtime proponent of shutting down the plant, has reversed course and embarked on a last-minute effort to extend its operation by a decade. Newsom’s administration has cited “unprecedented stress” on the state’s energy system as a reason for keeping open Diablo Canyon, which alone accounts for 9 per cent of the state’s generation and 17 per cent of its electricity from [ed so-called] carbon-free sources. The California legislature will need to vote on whether to extend its operating life by Wednesday.

Seeley, who lives 7 miles from the plant in San Luis Obispo County, is furious. “With this proposal, Gavin Newsom is keeping an asset that is antiquated, needs tons of upgrades [and] has a six-year history of deferred maintenance,” she said. “It would be unconscionable to allow the plant to go on operating without doing the due diligence needed to make sure the plant is safe enough to work.” Beyond those concerns, she said, are the issues that have kept her up at night for decades. Diablo Canyon’s coastal location sits on faultlines, prompting concerns that seismic activity could trigger a nuclear meltdown. The plant, Seeley said, “is precariously perched on the edge of the ocean in an earthquake zone”………………..

California is a leader in renewable generation, with a quarter of its electricity powered by solar and wind resources in 2021 compared to 12 per cent for the US as a whole. But problems in the supply chain and cost inflation threaten to impede their expansion, according to state officials. The state’s power system will hit a “critical inflection point after Diablo Canyon retires”, the California Independent System Operator (Caiso), which manages most of the state’s grid, warned in a filing last year…………………………….. https://www.ft.com/content/58dfc631-a415-4954-b845-c563c93c6ceb

August 30, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Ukraine and the Politics of Permanent War

Permanent war requires permanent censorship.

Day and night, the drums of war never stop beating. Its goal: to keep billions of dollars flowing into the hands of the war industry and prevent the public from asking inconvenient questions. 

Chris Hedges, 29 Aug 22. No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.

On August 24, the Biden administration announced yet another massive military aid package to Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion. It will take months, and in some cases years, for this military equipment to reach Ukraine. In another sign that Washington assumes the conflict will be a long war of attrition it will give a name to the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and make it a separate command overseen by a two- or three-star general.

 Since August 2021, Biden has approved more than $8 billion in weapons transfers from existing stockpiles, known as drawdowns, to be shipped to Ukraine, which do not require Congressional approval.

Including humanitarian assistance, replenishing depleting U.S. weapons stocks and expanding U.S. troop presence in Europe, Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s February 24 invasion.

War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts. 

The militarists who have waged permanent war costing trillions of dollars over the past two decades have invested heavily in controlling the public narrative. The enemy, whether Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin, is always the epitome of evil, the new Hitler. Those we support are always heroic defenders of liberty and democracy. Anyone who questions the righteousness of the cause is accused of being an agent of a foreign power and a traitor.

The mass media cravenly disseminates these binary absurdities in 24-hour news cycles. Its news celebrities and experts, universally drawn from the intelligence community and military, rarely deviate from the approved script. The mass media cravenly disseminates these binary absurdities in 24-hour news cycles. Its news celebrities and experts, universally drawn from the intelligence community and military, rarely deviate from the approved script. Day and night, the drums of war never stop beating. Its goal: to keep billions of dollars flowing into the hands of the war industry and prevent the public from asking inconvenient questions. 

In the face of this barrage, no dissent is permitted. CBS News caved to pressure and retracted its documentary which charged that only 30 percent of arms shipped to Ukraine were making it to the front lines, with the rest siphoned off to the black market, a finding that was separately reported upon by U.S. journalist Lindsey Snell. CNN has acknowledged there is no oversight of weapons once they arrive in Ukraine, long considered the most corrupt country in Europe. According to a poll of executives responsible for tackling fraud, completed by Ernst & Young in 2018, Ukraine was ranked the ninth-most corrupt nation from 53 surveyed.

There is little ostensible reason for censoring critics of the war in Ukraine. The U.S. is not at war with Russia. No U.S. troops are fighting in Ukraine. Criticism of the war in Ukraine does not jeopardize our national security. There are no long-standing cultural and historical ties to Ukraine, as there are to Great Britain. But if permanent war, with potentially tenuous public support, is the primary objective, censorship makes sense.

War is the primary business of the U.S. empire and the bedrock of the U.S. economy. The two ruling political parties slavishly perpetuate permanent war,………………………………………………

An organization like NewsGuard, which has been rating what it says are trustworthy and untrustworthy sites based on their reporting on Ukraine, is one of the many indoctrination tools of the war industry. Sites that raise what are deemed “false” assertions about Ukraine, including that there was a U.S.-backed coup in 2014 and neo-Nazi forces are part of Ukraine’s military and power structure, are tagged as unreliable. Consortium News, Daily Kos, Mint Press and Grayzone have been given a red warning label. Sites that do not raise these issues, such as CNN, receive the “green” rating” for truth and credibility.  (NewsGuard, after being heavily criticized for giving Fox News a green rating of approval in July revised its rating for Fox News and MSNBC, giving them red labels.) 

The ratings are arbitrary. The Daily Caller, which published fake naked pictures of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was given a green rating, along with a media outlet owned and operated by The Heritage Foundation. NewsGuard gives WikiLeaks a red label for “failing” to publish retractions despite admitting that all of the information WikiLeaks has published thus far is accurate. …………..

NewsGuard, established in 2018, “partners” with the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as corporations such as Microsoft. Its advisory board includes the former Director of the CIA and NSA, Gen. Michael Hayden; the first U.S. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO………………………………

As the persecution of Julian Assange illustrates, the throttling of press freedom is bipartisan. This assault on truth leaves a population unmoored. It feeds wild conspiracy theories. It shreds the credibility of the ruling class. It empowers demagogues. It creates an information desert, one where truth and lies are indistinguishable. It frog-marches us towards tyranny. This censorship only serves the interests of the militarists who, as Karl Liebknecht reminded his fellow Germans in World War I, are the enemy within.

 https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/ukraine-and-the-politics-of-permanent?r=cqey&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email—

August 28, 2022 Posted by | media, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Bruce Gagnon Interview: An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy

“Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons”.

BY JOHN RACHEL, 26 Aug 22,

Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Bruce Gagnon for his most current thoughts.

Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and was a co-founder of the Global Network when it was created in 1992………………. He is currently an active member of Veterans for Peace.

……………Here is what Bruce had to say.

Q. We hear a lot of terms and acronyms bandied about. ‘Deep State’ … ‘MIC’ … ‘FIRE sector’ … ‘ruling elite’ … ‘oligarchy’ … ‘neocons’. Who actually defines and sets America’s geopolitical priorities and determines our foreign policy? Not “officially”. Not constitutionally. But de facto.

A. The banksters in London and Wall Street are the essential movers and shakers of US-UK-NATO foreign policy. The CIA is their primary arm of control. Add to them the burgeoning global military industrial complex and the political ‘mis-leaders’ they generously contribute to. The corporate controlled mainstream media are also accessories to the present day crimes. Together they add up to a formidable crew of what I call ‘pirates’ who are stealing the national treasures throughout the western capitalist world and using them to supress and colonize others across the Global South and here at home.

Q. We’ve had decades of international tensions. Recent developments have seen a sharp escalation in the potential for a major war. ………………..  war inevitable and peace impossible?

A. During the reign of George W. Bush in Washington, at the time of the US ‘shock and awe’ attack in Iraq, I was watching C-SPAN one evening. They introduced then Naval War College instructor Thomas Barnett (author of a book called ‘The Pentagon’s New Map’) and they announced that in the audience were hundreds of top-level Pentagon officers and CIA bigwigs. During his talk Barnett told the assembled that due to globalization of the world economy every nation would have a specific role to fill. In the US he said we won’t make ‘consumer products’ anymore because it was cheaper to send those jobs overseas. Our role in the US, Barnett said, would be ‘security export’. Thus it should be no surprise that the #1 industrial export product of the US today is weapons. When weapons are your #1 industrial export product, what is your ‘global marketing strategy’ for that product line?

Barnett (introduced as Rumsfeld’s ‘strategy guy’) also told the leading brass that the Pentagon would be endlessly fighting to take control of the ‘non-integrating gap’ around the globe – those parts of the world that were not submitting to the authority of corporate globalization. He instructed the audience to go and teach these ‘new concepts’ to those under their authority if they hoped to get promoted within the system in the years ahead.

For more than a year after this Barnett presentation I witnessed him being squired around Washington speaking to Republican and Democrat audiences on C-SPAN. It was evident to me that his ‘new doctrine’ was a bi-partisan plan. Since that time it has become quite clear that this is true as we now see the Democrats leading the proxy war on Russia – using Ukraine as the hammer in this dangerous and provocative attempt to force regime change in Moscow. Pelosi’s recent ill-fated trip to Taiwan also indicates the plan to force regime change in Beijing.

Imagine that Washington and its NATO allies, who limped out of Afghanistan after 20 years of brutal occupation there, are now planning for war with Russia and China. The absurdity is beyond imagination. It reveals much about their psychopathology.

As long as this reality persists then we will move from one war to another. Arundhati Roy says, “Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons”. She is right on the money…………………..

Q. Our leaders relentlessly talk about our “national interests” and our “national security”, warning that both are under constant assault. Yet, we spend more than the next nine countries combined on our military. Why does such colossal spending never seem to be enough?


A. When they talk about ‘national interests’ they are actually talking about the interests of the banksters. When they talk about ‘freedom’ they are talking about their freedom to steal the national wealth from nations with resources and the people around the world. Washington claims that Russia wants to re-create the former Soviet Union and take control of Europe. In 2022 Russia is spending $66 billion on their military. It is a defensive military to protect their vast border regions. The US this year is spending $800 billion plus. When you add up the hidden military spending in the other pots of gold – like the nuclear weapons spending inside the Department of Energy budget – the US total is around $1.2 trillion this year. They are robbing us blind and we keep handing over our hard-earned tax dollars. Why?………………………………………………….  

  •   We need to convert the military industrial complex (the war machine) to build public mass transit systems, tidal power systems, solar, wind power and the like – all of which would create more jobs than weapons manufacturing does.
  • We need to ban corporate funding of elections. We need to open up a multi-party system so that more voices can be heard by the voters.
  • We need to end the massive poverty that exists (which will be worsening in the near future) by taxing the rich and corporations. 
  • Stop the massive corporate subsides – welfare for the rich.
  • We need to close down the more than 800 US military bases around the world and cut the Pentagon budget by at least 80%. 
  • We only need a defensive military that protects our borders.
  • Do all these things and we might have a chance if we don’t first perish from a red-hot nuclear war or climate crisis.We don’t have time to fool around. 
  • Folks need to get off their arses and speak out NOW.  ………..

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/23/bruce-gagnon-interview-an-objective-look-at-u-s-foreign-policy/
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August 26, 2022 Posted by | politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden Pledges Nearly $3 Billion To Ukraine In Largest U.S. Military Aid Package Yet

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced nearly $3 billion in new U.S. military aid for Kyiv as Ukraine marked its independence day six months after Russia invaded the country.

“On behalf of all Americans, I congratulate the people of Ukraine on their Independence Day,” Biden said in a statement on August 24.

“The United States of America is committed to supporting the people of Ukraine as they continue the fight to defend their sovereignty. As part of that commitment, I am proud to announce our biggest tranche of security assistance to date: approximately $2.98 billion of weapons and equipment to be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative,” Biden said.

The financial package will allow Kyiv to obtain air-defense and artillery systems, ammunition, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars, the statement said…………….

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the United States has provided $10.6 billion in military assistance to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government.

On August 23, Germany said it will soon ship more than 500 million euros’ ($499.3 million) worth of weapons to Ukraine.  https://www.rferl.org/a/biden-pledges-3-billion-military-aid-ukraine/32002639.html

August 26, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

All About Groundwater – Hanford part 2

In Part 1 we covered the basics of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report, Adaptive Site Management Strategies for the Hanford Central Plateau Groundwater, that outlines an innovative strategy to tackle the challenge of groundwater cleanup. In Part 2 we’ll cover the history of Hanford’s soil and groundwater contamination, current cleanup strategies, and the various challenges to cleaning up the soil and groundwater.

Hanford’s history of soil contamination

The Hanford Site has a history of dumping radioactive and chemical waste directly into the ground on site. About 450 billion gallons of nuclear and chemical waste were dumped directly into the soil during the plutonium production years—the equivalent of more than 680,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Manhattan Project workers dumped waste in unlined cribs, ponds, ditches, and trenches—four different types of holes in the ground used for disposing of waste. Injection wells pumped the toxic waste directly into the soil to dispose of it.

Workers constructed 177 underground tanks (149 single-shell tanks and 28 double-shell tanks) to hold the most dangerous, high-level waste. However, the soil contamination didn’t stop there. These enormous underground tanks were connected in a row of three or four tanks. The Manhattan Project workers used a process called cascading—which allowed them to fill up one tank with waste, and while the waste solids settled to the bottom, the liquids would flow from one tank to another. If too much waste was added to the final tank, it would overflow to the soil. “From 1944 through the late 1980s, Hanford generated nearly 2 million cubic meters (525 million gallons) of high-level tank waste. Liquid evaporation, discharge to the ground, chemical treatment, and tank leakage reduced this volume by 90%—to 204,000 cubic meters (54 million gallons).”[1]

Cascading wasn’t the only way that waste reached the soil from the tanks. The tank farms were backfilled under an 8-to-10-foot layer of soil before waste was added. Workers built the single-shell tanks between 1943 and 1964. As their name suggests, they only have one liner of carbon steel to contain the waste. Sixty-seven single-shell tanks are known or suspected to have leaked 1 million gallons of waste into the surrounding soil. Two single-shell tanks—B-109 and T-111—are currently leaking. The single-shell tanks were designed to contain the waste for 20-25 years, and they are now more than 40 years past their design life. As these tanks get older and older, they are more likely to fail—causing the waste to leak out into the soil. Once the waste gets into the soil it may remain there—making it very hard to remove—or it may travel with water through the soil and reach the groundwater.

Current cleanup of the groundwater

Today, the soil at the Hanford Site (particularly in the Central Plateau) remains heavily contaminated. Some radioactive and chemical contaminants are more mobile in water, which means a rainstorm may cause those contaminants to move with the water through the soil—reaching the groundwater and ultimately the Columbia River.

One of the cleanup methods to prevent contaminants from spreading and reaching the groundwater is to remove contaminated soil by digging it up and disposing of it in the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. Hanford Challenge is concerned that USDOE will decide that it doesn’t need to dig up all of the contaminated soil and will leave it in place—which would increase the risk of harm to future generations.

USDOE implements specific strategies for cleaning up the groundwater. One of those strategies is pump and treat. Pump and treat is the process of pumping contaminated water to the surface, filtering out some of the contaminants, and injecting the water back into the ground. Monitoring wells, extraction wells, and injection wells are interspersed throughout the Hanford Site to implement the pump and treat process. There are six pump and treat facilities on site.

Soil flushing is one strategy used to enhance the pump and treat process. Some contaminants remain in the soil and may take a long time to reach the groundwater. Until the contaminants hit the groundwater, they are impossible to capture with the pump and treat system. Soil flushing speeds up the process by using 225 gallons of water per minute to force—or flush—these hard-to-reach contaminants down to the groundwater where they can be brought up to the surface with the pump and treat system. USDOE has found success using soil flushing to push hexavalent chromium to the groundwater to treat it.

An additional strategy for meeting water quality standards is monitored natural attenuation. Contamination is left to naturally attenuate, which means letting the radiation decay over time. It sounds like a do-nothing approach, and it basically is.

Challenges to groundwater cleanup

USDOE faces many challenges when pursuing groundwater cleanup. As previously mentioned, there are hundreds of contaminated soil sites at Hanford due to past dumping practices and leaking underground tanks. The extent of groundwater contamination is vast.

  1. There are significant data gaps regarding the number of contaminants in the vadose zone (the area of soil between the ground surface and the water table), the depth and location of the contamination, and the risk the contamination poses to groundwater.
  2. Some hard-to-control, persistent contaminants, such as technetium-99, iodine-129, uranium, nitrate, and chromium, are located in the deep vadose zone and pose a long-term risk to the groundwater.
  3. There are extensive groundwater plumes with intermixed contaminants (or contaminants located together), making it difficult to accurately measure the total amount in the aquifer and the contaminant distribution.

  4. Depending on the contaminant, one specific treatment may work better than another. When contaminants are intermixed, the treatment process becomes more complex. Multiple technologies used in tandem or various treatment methods may need to be used to effectively treat intermixed contaminants.
  5. The soil underneath the tank farms is contaminated by tank leaks, accidental spills, and intentional releases, which creates an additional pathway for contaminants in the soil to reach groundwater. As tanks leak—potentially more frequently—they become an additional complexity in groundwater cleanup.
  6. A borehole is a circular hole drilled into soil or rock that draws samples from deep below ground. USDOE uses boreholes to characterize, or identify, the physical and chemical properties of the contaminants in the vadose zone. Unfortunately, deep borehole characterization is limited in certain areas due to the high price of drilling—contributing to the lack of information regarding the amount, location, and strength of contaminants in the soil.

Geological challenges to groundwater cleanup

Hanford’s geology poses unique challenges to groundwater cleanup. Manhattan Project managers chose the site partially for its geology and proximity to the Columbia River. The reprocessing facilities were sited in certain areas at Hanford because the gravelly soil allowed them to dump waste into the ground, where it percolated down and vanished without a trace. It was a handy way of disposing of the waste—it just disappeared—but the dumped waste now requires a complicated cleanup strategy.

The 200 Area in the Central Plateau contains a high hydraulic conductivity zone that consists of porous soils and rocks that allow contaminants to quickly move through the soil to groundwater and eventually to the Columbia River. USDOE doesn’t know the exact size and location of the hydraulic conductivity zone in the 200 Area, which means that the underground movement of liquids between the Central Plateau and the Columbia River is still an area of considerable uncertainty. On the other hand, some places at Hanford’s Central Plateau have less permeable soils that trap specific contaminants, making it difficult to separate the contaminants from the soil and treat them using the most common cleanup strategies.

Ancient lake beds are hidden underneath the surface and cause contaminants to move laterally (horizontally) instead of vertically down to the groundwater. Lake beds cause contaminants to take longer to reach the groundwater because they aren’t taking the most direct route straight down, and are instead moving sideways. USDOE uses models to predict when specific contaminants will reach groundwater. USDOE bases its models on the assumption that contaminants move vertically to the groundwater. However, ancient lake beds and the lateral flow of contaminants challenge that assumption and highlight the need for USDOE to update its models to better account for the geologic conditions underneath the site.

Perched water also complicates groundwater cleanup. Imagine a bird’s nest that is perched or sitting in a tree. Now, imagine that bird’s nest perched in a tree underground and filled with water. As contaminants move through the soil they can get caught and trapped in that underground bird’s nest. The underground nest creates a pocket of contaminants that is hidden and hard to reach. USDOE is aware of several contaminated perched water areas at Hanford, but lacks information about the size, what contaminants they hold, and how full the perched water areas are. USDOE must incorporate perched water areas into its strategies to ensure a comprehensive cleanup plan for groundwater.

Groundwater cleanup at Hanford is incredibly complex due to the history of waste disposal, the inherently dangerous nature of the contaminants, and the challenges created by the site’s geology. Hanford Challenge urges USDOE to update its groundwater models to include the intricacies of Hanford’s geology, such as ancient lake beds and perched water. Hanford Challenge also encourages USDOE to recognize, investigate, and resolve the uncertainties present in groundwater cleanup.

If you are interested in learning more about Hanford’s geology, check out Tim Connor’s presentation on the cataclysmic floods that shaped the Hanford Site and Vince Panesko’s presentation on the ancient lake beds that impact cleanup.

 

This blog post is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency, but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.

[1] Gephart, Roy. E. (2003). A Short History of Hanford Waste Generation, Storage, and Release. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, PNNL-13605.

August 26, 2022 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Worst Places to Be If There’s a Nuclear Attack on America

247melly, Michael B. Sauter, August 26, 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has included battles in or near nuclear power plants. The recent shelling at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has raised alarm bells worldwide. The recent grandstanding by Russia, China, and North Korea [ed: what about USA and UK?], including several intercontinental ballistic missile tests, has further raised global tensions.


In the unlikely scenario of a nuclear attack on America – an all-out nuclear war – very few places would be safe, though no doubt less populated, remote areas would be safer.

An enemy nation would first aim to neutralize the U.S. nuclear capabilities by targeting strategic military installations, many of which are near large urban centers.

Stephen Schwartz, author of “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940,” identified 15 such targets. The targets, mapped by Business Insider, include command centers, ICBM bases, communication stations, and air force and submarine bases. In addition, Dr. Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, identified six economic centers most likely to be attacked.

To find the worst places to be if there’s a nuclear attack on America, 24/7 Wall St. constructed an index consisting of several measures to rank major U.S. cities likely to be targets based on both Schwartz’s and Redlener’s lists. The measures in the index include population density; city preparedness for emergency; economic significance; city preparedness plans; distance to the strategic military target; proximity to nuclear power plants; and ease of evacuation based on commute time as a proxy to congestion and the percentage of a city area that is water. We also added projected fatalities and injuries assuming a 1 megaton bomb, using Nukemap. 

Click here to see the worst places to be if there’s a nuclear attack on America.

Click here to see our detailed methodology.…………..  https://247wallst.com/special-report/2022/08/26/worst-places-to-be-if-theres-a-nuclear-attack-on-america/—

August 26, 2022 Posted by | election USA 2020, weapons and war | Leave a comment

All About Groundwater- Hanford Part 1

 https://www.hanfordchallenge.org/inheriting-hanford 9 Aug 22, [good diagrams]

Part 1

The Hanford Nuclear Site is one of the most complex and arduous cleanup efforts in the history of the United States. Hundreds of billions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste were dumped into the ground on site. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) issued a report in September 2021, Adaptive Site Management Strategies for the Hanford Central Plateau Groundwater, that outlines an innovative strategy to tackle the challenge of groundwater cleanup. The report suggests adopting a new approach—Adaptive Site Management—to address groundwater cleanup in Hanford’s Central Plateau.

Adaptive Site Management is centered on thorough site planning and a robust understanding of site conditions and uncertainties. Large and complex hazardous waste sites often implement this approach. Adaptive Site Management would create a groundwater cleanup framework of planning, implementation, and assessment to nimbly adapt to new information and changing site conditions at Hanford. The goal would be to develop effective cleanup strategies that achieve the required outcomes while staying on schedule and budget.

The Adaptive Site Management approach attempts to reduce uncertainty by comprehensively characterizing the contaminants in the soil and groundwater. Characterization identifies the physical and chemical properties of the waste and the extent of contaminants in the vadose zone and groundwater. Characterization also identifies the geological makeup of the site, which can influence the movement of contaminants. The characterization process gathers information that then informs waste treatment and cleanup strategies.

An Adaptive Site Management approach for Hanford’s Central Plateau would include: 

  1. Establishing site objectives or end goals that are consistent with the overall Hanford Site goals and that support the development of a long-term management approach;
  2. Developing interim objectives that provide step-by-step progress toward the overall site cleanup strategy; and
  3. Identifying key cleanup actions to reduce uncertainty, address site complexities, and analyze data gaps.

The report proposes various long-term site and interim objectives for the Central Plateau to provide examples for implementing the Adaptive Site Management approach at Hanford. These objectives are based on the primary goal of Hanford cleanup operations—protecting the Columbia River.  

The objectives must also be consistent with the United States Department of Energy’s (USDOE) decision about future land use when cleanup finishes. For example, USDOE decided that the Central Plateau is designated exclusively for industrial use, meaning manufacturing, processing, or storing materials. The decision to have the Central Plateau remain solely for industrial use means that the cleanup strategy doesn’t have to be as protective as for other areas of the Hanford Site, such as the River Corridor. USDOE can leave some contamination in place because it’s assuming that the land won’t be openly accessible to the public. However, that is a big assumption considering that some radionuclides remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s impossible to know what the world will look like that far into the future, but USDOE probably won’t be around to prevent future generations from staying out of the Central Plateau.

In conclusion, the report makes the case that the Adaptive Site Management approach is an appropriate tool for a large and complex site, such as Hanford. Since many of the cleanup activities in the Central Plateau are still early in the decision process and not set in stone, the report states that now is an appropriate time to implement the Adaptive Site Management approach.

In addition to outlining the Adaptive Site Management approach, the report dives into the history of Hanford’s soil and groundwater contamination, current cleanup strategies, and the various challenges to cleaning up the soil and groundwater. Read on to Part 2 to learn more about soil and groundwater contamination at Hanford.

This material is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency, but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.

August 26, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Rethink Research throws cold water on the Nuclear Energy Institute’s enthusiasm for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

 For SMRs to remain competitive there will need to be heavy state-side subsidizes for consumers, as the initial cost of energy produced from them is considerably above wholesale auction prices.

https://rethinkresearch.biz/articles/smr-boon-forecast-by-nei-rethink-doubts-it/—SMR boon forecast by NEI, Rethink doubts it, By Connor Watts, 24 Aug 22, Some 19 utilities surveyed by the US Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) says they see potential for up to 90GW of small modular reactors (SMR) within the United States by 2050. This would work out to around 300 reactors producing 731.3 TWh of energy, most of which would come online before 2050. Those numbers look pretty good until you look at current generation figures

During 2021 the US consumed around 790 TWh of electricity from nuclear power plants and 899 TWh from coal plants. The EIA projects that 16GW of nuclear plants will be decommissioned, alongside 69GW of coal plants up to 2050. This means that as much as 95% of potential SMR energy production could be going directly to the replacement of existing facilities.

This leaves only 5GW of remaining demand potential for SMR energy production up to 2050 outside of decommissioning existing facilities, we think even this may be optimistic.

Traditional nuclear plants take upwards of a decade to build and often run massively overbudget, making the energy it does produce once built more expensive as costs are attempted to be recouped.

SMR producers promise to do away with these drawbacks through standardizing their designs to enable factory production. Minimizing cost while shortening production times, theoretically addressing the main weaknesses of traditional reactors.

In practice it’s a little more complicated.

Considering the complexity and risks involved with nuclear power generation, commercial production and design of SMRs remains a slow and meticulous process. This has left many SMR sites still in the planning or design phase years after their announcements, almost competing in deployment time with traditional nuclear plants.

Once a new SMR gets deployed after its design and development period, it will need to be monitored for a few years to inspect for defects and inefficiencies within the design to prevent any mishaps. This is likely to add yet more time to an already long production horizon, adding costs as new units cannot go into production.

The cost savings achieved through modularity and standardization are borne through mass-production and deployment. In a way this is the “gigafactory” approach for nuclear. Considering long initial production times, this will contribute significantly to a short-term increase in the price of nuclear electricity, minimizing its applications where it remains competitive.

SMRs are supposed to come to market at $60 per MWh LCOE – but already wind and solar are considerably below that, and what level will they be at after SMRs arrived on the scene in volume, by say 2030?

For SMRs to remain competitive there will need to be heavy state-side subsidizes for consumers, as the initial cost of energy produced from them is considerably above wholesale auction prices.

Another issue with nuclear power generation is water usage. Earlier this month nuclear plants in France had a rule concerning water discharging waived as heatwaves boiled most of Europe.

Typically, the reactors would reduce their output to minimize damage from discharging hot water into the nearby ecosystems, but this rule has been waived until the 11th of September to ensure energy supplies in the short term. SMRs will also need to use local water supplies as a coolant, which makes them ineffective in a drought.

This can be mitigated through the use of alternative coolants such as liquid metal, gas and molten salt, but many SMR designs currently work similarly to traditional nuclear.

To use the time horizon for SMRs makes them look economically  unfavorable, and while these 19 utilities may genuinely feel they like the idea of more nuclear, their controlling state utilities commission may well have something to say about whether they ever actually get installed.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

How the USA climate bill will promote the nuclear industry.

What the climate bill does for the nuclear industry, CNBC, Catherine Clifford, AUG 23 20222

Production tax credit for existing nuclear power plants

Production tax credit for advanced nuclear power plants

Investment tax credit for new nuclear power plants

“………………………………………Production tax credit for existing nuclear power plants, Starting in 2024 and running through 2032, utilities will be able to get a credit of $15 per megawatt-hour for electricity produced by existing nuclear plants. If the price of power rises above $25 per megawatt-hour, then the credit will gradually decrease, but it doesn’t phase out completely until energy prices reach around $44 per megawatt-hour, explained Matthew Crozat, the executive director of strategy and policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group.

“Every plant is different and some plants have a different revenue model but we can say that this credit will offer a reprieve from the low revenues that had forced more than a dozen reactors to close,” Crozat told CNBC.

To be eligible for the full $15 per megawatt-hour base tax credit, a nuclear power plant operator has to pay workers operating and doing maintenance on the power plant “prevailing wage requirements,” according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Production tax credit for advanced nuclear power plants

Several companies in the United States are working to commercialize new nuclear power plant designs that are meant to be safer and with a smaller capacity, making them ideally cheaper to build and maintain as well.

For example, Bill Gates’ nuclear innovation company, TerraPower, is developing a couple of advanced reactor designs, one of which is going to be built at a retiring coal facility in Wyoming as part of a demonstration program in partnership with the U.S. government.

Advanced nuclear reactors could benefit from the IRA by way of the Clean Electricity Production Tax Credit, a technology-agnostic production credit, which can be applied toward emissions-free power generation that goes online after 2025. The clean energy production credit is for at least $25 per megawatt-hour for the first ten years the plant is in operation, adjusted for inflation. The credit phases out in 2032 or when carbon emissions coming from electricity have fallen by 75% below the level of 2022, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The tax credit is increased by 10% for locating the zero-emissions power source where a coal plant previously lived.

Worth noting, there’s another Advanced Nuclear Production Tax Credit already on the books. That tax credit was established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and is for $18 per megawatt-hour for the first eight years that a nuclear power plant is operating, provided the nuclear power plant had not begun construction when the 2005 bill was signed into law, Crozat told CNBC. The third reactor unit of the Vogtle Power plant being constructed in Georgia will be the first power plant to take advantage of the 2005 Advanced Nuclear Production Tax Credit, according to Crozat.

A company can not take advantage of both tax credits — it has to pick. Going forward, the tax credits in the IRA just signed into law will be more attractive. “Since the new production tax credit has been indexed to inflation and last for two additional years, it will be considerably more valuable than the older version,” Crozat told CNBC.

Investment tax credit for new nuclear power plants

New nuclear power plants are eligible for claiming an Investment Tax Credit made available through the new law for facilities that generate energy with zero emissions and that go into service in 2025 or after.

The investment tax credit allows a nuclear power plant to get a tax credit for 30% of what was invested in building the zero-emissions energy production facility, which includes nuclear power plants, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The investment tax credit is increased by 10% for locating the zero-emissions power source where a coal plant previously lived. It starts to phase when carbon emissions from the sector are 75% lower than 2022 levels.

Money to spur innovation

The law includes $700 million that will go towards the research and development of high-assay low enrichment uranium (HALEU) fuel sources in the United States through 2026, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington DC-based think tank. That’s important because the advanced, next-generation reactors which are currently being developed by 20 companies in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, depend on HALEU fuel to operate.

The existing fleet of nuclear power reactors in the United States operate on uranium that has been enriched up to 5%. HALEU fuel has been enriched between 5% and 20%. Many advanced reactor designs are smaller builds than conventional nuclear reactors and so to make a nuclear reactor smaller, they need to get more power from smaller quantities of fuel, the Department of Energy says.

“Right now, the only commercially available source of HALEU is from the Russian Federation and the support for HALEU in the IRA signals an understanding that the federal government is needed to jumpstart domestic enrichment capabilities to support the coming wave of new nuclear technologies,” Rampal told CNBC.

It’s also just the first step, Rampal said. The nuclear industry needs multiple billions of dollars to invest in HALEU production over the next ten years, he told CNBC.  

The IRA also includes $150 million for the Office of Nuclear Energy through 2027, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. That money is for the Department of Energy to invest in its nuclear innovation research at its network of National Laboratories.  ……………………………………..

Tax credits for making component parts

The IRA includes a manufacturing production provision that allows for a tax credit for component parts produced and sold after 2022, according to a summary of the benefits of the IRA for the nuclear industry from the law firm Morgan Lewis.  https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/22/what-the-climate-bill-does-for-the-nuclear-industry.html

August 23, 2022 Posted by | climate change, politics, USA | Leave a comment

The only thing keeping US and China from war is running dangerously thin

Washington’s ambiguous Taiwan policies are edging towards conflict, but Beijing wants to exhaust peaceful options first.

 A US policy at war with itself

What emerges from this amalgam of policy statements and positions is a US policy that is inherently at war with itself, unable to fully commit either to the finality of a “one China” policy or walk away from the sale of weapons to Taiwan. The US disguises this inherent inconsistency by referring to it as “strategic ambiguity.” The problem is this policy stew is neither strategic in vision, nor ambiguous.

radical departure from stated US policy by the Biden administration helped launch a Congressional trifecta of hubris-laced ignorance, which saw the dispatch of three consecutive delegations that threaten to propel China down the path toward a war with Taiwan it doesn’t want to wage, and which the world (including the US) is not prepared to suffer the consequences of.

Despite the clear evidence of a marked departure [by USA] from past policy regarding Taiwan and weapons sales, China continues to believe that there is a non-violent solution to the one China problem. 

https://www.rt.com/news/561182-china-taiwan-us-war/ Scott Ritter, 22 Aug 22,

American relations with China in regards to Taiwan have been dictated by years of ambiguous statements and commitments. Now this rhetoric is breaking down and armed conflict seems closer than ever – but is Washington ready to fight over Taiwan, or capable of winning?

Assurances and commitments

Officially, US policy toward Taiwan is guided by three US-China Joint Communiques issued between 1972 and 1982, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, and the so-called “Six Assurances” issued in 1982. In the Shanghai Communique of 1972, China asserted that “the Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations between China and the United States,” declaring that “the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China,” that Taiwan is a province of China, and that “the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere.”

The US responded by acknowledging that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China,” something the US government did not challenge. The US also reaffirmed its interest “in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”

Before that, on January 1, 1979, the US and China had issued a “Joint Communique of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations” in which the US undertook to recognize “the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China,” noting that, within the context of that commitment, “the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”

President Jimmy Carter, in announcing the communique, went out of his way to ensure the people of Taiwan “that normalization of relations between our country and the People’s Republic will not jeopardize the well-being of the people of Taiwan,” adding that “the people of our country will maintain our current commercial, cultural, trade, and other relations with Taiwan through nongovernmental means.”

Carter’s move to establish diplomatic relations with China did not sit well with many members of Congress, who responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, in which it was declared that it is US policy “to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland,” and “to make clear that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”

In this regard, the Taiwan Relations Act underscored that the US would “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States,” and “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.” Finally, the Act declared that the US would maintain the capacity “to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

The emphasis on arms sales contained in the Taiwan Relations Act led to the third joint communiqué between the US and China, released on August 17, 1982, which sought to settle differences between the two nations regarding US arms sales to Taiwan. The communique was basically a quid-pro-quo agreement where China underscored that it maintained “a fundamental policy of striving for a peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, over which it claimed sovereignty. For its part, the US declared that it “understands and appreciates the Chinese policy of striving for a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question,” and, with that in mind, the US declared that it did not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, and that it would gradually reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan while working for a final resolution to reunification.

To mollify Taiwanese concerns about the third communique, the US agreed to what have become known as “the Six Assurances” between the US and Taiwan. These are 1) the US has not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, 2) the US has not agreed to prior consultations with China about arms sales to Taiwan, 3) the US has not agreed to any mediation role between China and Taiwan, 4) the US has not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act, 5) the US has not taken a position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan, and 6) that the US would never put pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with China.

There was an unwritten corollary to the third communique—an internal memorandum signed by President Ronald Reagan in which he declared that “the US willingness to reduce its arms sales to Taiwan is conditioned absolutely upon the continued commitment of China to the peaceful solution of the Taiwan-PRC [People’s Republic of China] differences,” adding that “it is essential that the quantity and quality of the arms provided Taiwan be conditioned entirely on the threat posed by the PRC.”

A US policy at war with itself

What emerges from this amalgam of policy statements and positions is a US policy that is inherently at war with itself, unable to fully commit either to the finality of a “one China” policy or walk away from the sale of weapons to Taiwan. The US disguises this inherent inconsistency by referring to it as “strategic ambiguity.” The problem is this policy stew is neither strategic in vision, nor ambiguous.

From the moment President Reagan issued the “Six Assurances,” US-China policy was strained over the issue of weapons sales, with China making the case that the US was not serious about either the peaceful reunification of Taiwan with China, or the elimination of arms sales to Taiwan. Arms sales increased exponentially from the Reagan administration to that of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, with the US providing Taipei F-16 fighters, Patriot surface-to-air missiles, and other advanced weapons. In 1997, House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited Taiwan as part of a Pacific tour that included China. Gingrich claims he told his Chinese hosts that, if China were to attack Taiwan, the US “will defend Taiwan. Period.”

In 2005, in response to US backsliding when it came to arms sales and Taiwan, China adopted legislation known as the “Anti-Secession Law” which stated firmly that Taiwan “is part of China.”

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August 22, 2022 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | 2 Comments

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