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America’s military leaders reassure their staff ”We will win a nuclear war!”

US defense to its workforce: Nuclear war can be won, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Alan Kaptanoglu, Stewart Prager | February 2, 2022  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev once said that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and five major nuclear weapon states, including the United States, repeated this statement earlier this year. Yet many in the US defense establishment—the military, government, think tanks, and industry—promote the perception that a nuclear war can be won and fought.

Moreover, they do so in a voice that is influential, respected, well-funded, and treated with deference. The US defense leadership’s methodical messaging to its workforce helps shape the views of this massive, multi-sector constituency that includes advocates, future leaders, and decision makers. It advances a view of nuclear weapon policies that intensifies and accelerates the new nuclear arms race forming between the United States, China, and Russia.


The 23-chapter Guide to Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of Great Power Competition provides an excellent and representative case study for examining this critical messaging. This guide is published by the Louisiana Tech Research Institute, which provides support for the US Air Force Global Strike Command. It is written by nuclear arms experts for the approximately 30,000 members of the US Air Force Global Strike Command and the “700,000 total force airmen who engage in the profession of arms.”

All of the authors have direct or indirect connections with the nuclear weapons complex or associated think tanks, and several of the authors have held senior positions with the Air Force Global Strike Command, US Strategic Command, and other national security agencies in the US government. The guide’s messaging is comprehensive but dangerously skewed.

The guide centers around a new reality—the aggressive development of nuclear arms by Russia and China that is intensifying a new Cold War. Nuclear arms treaties—an important tool for limiting arms races—are brushed aside as functionally pointless since, according to the guide, Russia will cheat and China won’t come to the bargaining table.   In one passage, the guide claims “it is unlikely that these countries would be foolish enough to engage in a strategic arms race with the United States, and, if they do, they will lose.” Yet much of the remainder of the document analyzes all the ways in which China and Russia are advancing their capabilities beyond US capabilities. These threatening developments are then used to justify the rapid and expensive modernization of the US nuclear weapon complex, while many historic nuclear arms agreements wither away, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Iran nuclear deal.

What follows are some of the misrepresentations, an omission, and a questionable policy in the guide:

Misrepresentation: A nuclear war can be fought and won. That the US military considers scenarios under which nuclear deterrence fails is unsurprising. But in the event of limited nuclear war, the United States has plans in place to “beat” its adversaries. …………………

Omission: The reality of nuclear war. In this more-than-400 page guide, only three pages are devoted to a rather anodyne description of the devastating harms of nuclear weapons. ………..

The guide does not mention the well-documented human toll of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The guide does not discuss the full horrors of the “day after” a nuclear exchange. Nor does it address the potentially civilization-ending effects of climate change and nuclear winter from the resulting firestorms. …………………

Misrepresentation: Nuclear weapons keep the peace. The guide credits nuclear weapons and US nuclear superiority with the era of “long peace”—the absence of major wars between superpowers since 1945. As such, it posits that, the more US nuclear weapons, the better……………… 

The guide does not note that the world came very close to a potentially catastrophic nuclear exchange during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It singularly portrays US nuclear weapons as a benefit for humankind.

Misrepresentation: Nuclear weapon mistakes and accidents never happen. Indeed, the guide does not mention the many well-documented false-alarms and close calls of nuclear detonation from technical or human error that could have led to catastrophe. It does not acknowledge the dangers posed by the imperfect humans who control the nuclear weapons and infrastructure. It does not mention that intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) crew members were caught cheating on exams or that the Joint Chiefs’ of Staff unanimously recommended an invasion of Cuba during the missile crisis. Nor is there mention of the harms caused by nuclear testing to many communities.

The guide portrays the United States as if it is in perfect control of its nuclear weapons operations.

Questionable policy: A nuclear triad is necessary. The guide argues strenuously that the United States would be less secure without all three legs of its nuclear triad consisting of warhead-equipped submarines, aircraft, and land-based missiles…………………

Lastly, this scenario assumes that NATO allies would not bother to use any of their several hundred nuclear warheads after an adversary destroys a significant portion of the US homeland.

The guide dismisses critiques of the ICBM force, including the accompanying launch-on-warning and use-them-or-lose-them postures that increase the danger of accidental nuclear war.

The authors seek perpetual US nuclear superiority. They dismiss the option of minimal deterrence—keeping only a minimal complement of nuclear weapons primarily to provide a second-strike capability—as not viable. According to the guide, the United States must not only possess a second-strike capability but the potential to fight and win a limited nuclear war against any adversary. ……………..

 To be clear, the authors are considering a scenario in which at least several hundred nuclear weapons have been used on both the US and adversary’s homeland. Hundreds of millions of people are likely dead, modern civilization might have collapsed, and nuclear winter might soon starve another few billion people. What exactly is worth bargaining for in this scenario?

Finally, the guide notes that “[t]he United States has never been content with a mere second-strike capability.” In this context, “[t]he United States” appears to refer primarily to US military and government institutions; the majority of the US public favors a minimal deterrence policy, and an overwhelming majority support the phasing out of ICBMs, according to a recent poll.

…………….  defense messaging justifies a vigorous and expanding nuclear arms force, exceptionalizes the United States, and blames downsides on Russia and China. If service members received more thoughtful messaging about nuclear deterrence and preparedness, their efforts to think critically might help them understand—in the profound ways that Reagan and Gorbachev once understood—that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”  https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/us-defense-to-its-workforce-nuclear-war-can-be-won/

February 4, 2022 Posted by | spinbuster, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Raytheon and Lockheed Martin boast to investors that Ukraine-Russia crisis is a boon for their business

The statements come from leaders of an industry that exerts tremendous influence in Washington, employing an average of 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years, or more than one lobbyist per member of Congress, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.

Everyone in D.C. knows that weapons manufacturers are helping skew U.S. policy towards militarism

WEAPONS COMPANIES BOAST UKRAINE-RUSSIA TENSIONS ARE BOON FOR BUSINESS ,  Popular Resistance, By Sarah Lazare, In These Times., January 31, 2022

In Calls With Investors, Raytheon And Lockheed Martin Boasted That The Worsening Conflict Is Helping Profits.As the United States weighs more involvement in the growing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, some of the largest weapons companies in the world — Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — are openly telling their investors that tensions between the countries are good for business. And General Dynamics, meanwhile, is boasting about the past returns the company has seen as a result of such disputes.

The statements come as the U.S. government escalates arms shipments to Ukraine, among them the Javelin missiles that are a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. House Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to quickly push through a bill that would significantly increase U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, and impose new sanctions on Russia.

Anti-war campaigners warn that U.S. escalation, amid renewed tensions between Ukraine and Russia, could bring dire consequences, and spill into a much larger and more protracted war. “As we are shipping advanced weaponry to the Ukrainian military, the Biden administration has signaled that U.S. military advisors will continue to stay in the country,” Cavan Kharrazian, progressive foreign policy campaigner for the advocacy organization Demand Progress, tells In These Times. “Who will most likely set up and teach the Ukrainian army how to use these weapons systems? The U.S. military.”

Among those openly discussing the boon to profits is Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes. During a January 25 appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” he was asked, “Do we have anything that would make it so if you inserted 8,000 American soldiers into Ukraine, they can stop 103,000 Russian soldiers?”

In his reply, Hayes touted the role the company could play in arming U.S. allies. “Obviously we have some defensive weapons systems that we could supply which could be helpful, like the patriot missile system.” He went on to add, “We’ve got the technologies to help in these engagements, whether it’s patriot systems, some of the radar systems.”………

If it sounds like Hayes is using mounting tensions as an advertising opportunity for his company, this may not be far fetched. On a January 25 earnings call (which was noted on Twitter by Nick Cleveland-Stout of the Quincy Institute), Hayes included “tensions in Eastern Europe” among the factors that Raytheon stands to benefit from. He said: “We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”

Raytheon isn’t alone in its projections. Among those noting the likely boost to profits is Jim Taiclet, the chairman, president and CEO of Lockheed Martin. In a January 25 earnings call, he told investors, “If you look at the evolving threat level and the approach that some countries are taking, including North Korea, Iran and through some of its proxies in Yemen and elsewhere, and especially Russia today, these days, and China, there’s renewed great power competition that does include national defense and threats to it.”

This “great power competition,” he suggested to investors, bodes more business for the company. Taiclet says, “And the history of the United States is when those environments evolve, that we do not sit by and just watch it happen. So I can’t talk to a number, but I do think, and I’m concerned personally that the threat is advancing, and we need to be able to meet it.” 

The statements come from leaders of an industry that exerts tremendous influence in Washington, employing an average of 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years, or more than one lobbyist per member of Congress, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.

Everyone in D.C. knows that weapons manufacturers are helping skew U.S. policy towards militarism, but they usually try to be less obvious,” Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war organization, told In These Times. “They are cashing in on tensions over Ukraine as the U.S. pours weapons into the region.”……..

Everyone in D.C. knows that weapons manufacturers are helping skew U.S. policy towards militarism, but they usually try to be less obvious,” Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war organization, told In These Times. “They are cashing in on tensions over Ukraine as the U.S. pours weapons into the region.”

But Kharrazian warns, “While it may not be profitable for arms manufacturers, engagement in good-faith, realistic diplomacy is what will benefit the region as a whole and mitigate unnecessary and potentially catastrophic conflict.”    https://popularresistance.org/top-weapons-companies-boast-ukraine-russia-tensions-are-a-boon-for-business/

February 4, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New Mexico’s Bill to stop the State becoming a ‘sacrifice zone’ for nuclear wastes

“New Mexico, with less than one half of 1% of the nation’s population, should not continue to be the sacrifice zone because we can be exploited,”

New Mexico Debates Bill to Block Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, Feb. 1, 2022,  By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated PressALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation already have voiced strong opposition to building a multibillion-dollar facility along the state’s border with Texas that would store tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants around the U.S.

Top New Mexico officials contend the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn’t done enough to vet plans by Holtec International to build a facility to store thousands of tons of spent uranium in the state. They argue that without a plan by the federal government to deal with spent fuel, the material would remain in New Mexico indefinitely.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also expressed his opposition to a similar storage facility in his state. Both states have sued the federal government over the issue.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Steinborn of Las Cruces, who is sponsoring the New Mexico legislation, said the federal government needs to address the problem and establish a policy for dealing with the spent fuel piling up at the nation’s nuclear power plants.

“New Mexico, with less than one half of 1% of the nation’s population, should not continue to be the sacrifice zone because we can be exploited,” he told fellow lawmakers, noting that many communities have passed resolutions opposed to bringing high-level nuclear waste to the state.

…………………  The federal government is paying to house the fuel, and the cost is expected to stretch into the tens of billions over the next decade, according to a review by independent government auditors.

The fuel is sitting at temporary storage sites in nearly three dozen states, either enclosed in steel-lined concrete pools of water or in steel and concrete containers known as casks.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has talked about revisiting recommendations made a decade ago by a blue ribbon commission on America’s nuclear future. In November, her agency issued a request seeking input on a consent-based siting process to identify locations to store commercial spent nuclear

fuel…….. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-02-01/new-mexico-debates-bill-to-block-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage

February 4, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Increased risk of flooding due to population increase and global heating

Climate change and population growth could drive a 26% rise in US flood
risk by 2050 – disproportionately impacting black and low-income groups
– new research finds. The study, published in Nature Climate Change,
models property-level changes in flood risk across the US over the next
three decades.

It finds that in 2020, the US saw an “average annual
loss” of $32bn from flooding, but that cost could rise to $41bn by 2050.
The authors find that population growth will be the main driver of
increasing flood risk, causing 75% of the rise in “average annual
exposure” to flooding by 2050. The impacts of climate change –
including rising sea levels, intensifying hurricanes and changing rainfall
patterns – will account for 19% of the increased risk.

 Carbon Brief 31st Jan 2022

US flooding increase will ‘disproportionately’ impact black and low-income groups

February 3, 2022 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Bill to help build small nuclear reactors in Indiana passes Senate, 

Bill to help build small nuclear reactors in Indiana passes Senate, WFYI Indianapolis,  

REBECCA THIELE  2 Feb 22,  

A bill that would make it easier for smaller, more advanced nuclear power plants to be built in Indiana passed in the state Senate on Tuesday…….

But opponents of SB 271 said small modular nuclear reactors are a risky investment for the state. None of the planned modular nuclear reactors have been built yet and many have gone over their proposed budgets — some by billions of dollars.

Sen. Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington) said the fact that ratepayers would have to foot the bill for these projects is concerning.

“This is a question of who is going to pay and for quite some time and before any project has ever come to fruition,” she said.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has also questioned the safety of the plants. It said the nuclear industry has sometimes used the plant’s smaller size to justify cutting back on safety equipment and staff as well as shrink the area that would be told to evacuate in a disaster.

The bill now moves on to the House for consideration.   https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/bill-to-help-build-small-nuclear-reactors-in-indiana-passes-senate

February 3, 2022 Posted by | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

UK preparing for ‘exo-atmospheric nuclear attack’ as greatest threat in space war, government report warns

UK preparing for ‘exo-atmospheric nuclear attack’ as greatest threat in space war, government report warns

Such an event would be a ‘permanent kill’ scenario worse than any electronic weapons or orbital anti-satellite weapons, a new report states, Adam Smith Independent 2 Feb 22,

The government says space will be a key future battlefield with the most dangerous threat being a “exo-atmospheric nuclear attack”.

In a report from the Ministry of Defence, the government body described such an event as a “permanent kill” scenario; this would be vastly more dangerous than either electronic warfare, laser dazzling, cyber attacks, or orbital ASATs (anti-satellite weapons)………… (registered readers only) https://www.independent.co.uk/space/atmospheric-nuclear-attack-space-war-government-b2005990.html

February 3, 2022 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Give Nuclear Exposure Victims a Break

Those who become sick as a result of work in the nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing industry are eligible for health care benefits and compensation from those two federal programs: the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program (RECP) and the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP). 

Give Nuclear Exposure Victims a Break  https://progressive.org/op-eds/give-nuclear-victims-break-stephens-220202/

My experience working with nuclear weapons and uranium workers has shown me that we must continue to provide essential benefits to workers and their survivors.

BY R. HUGH STEPHENS, FEBRUARY 2, 2022  Every month or so, my law office will get a call from the spouse of a nuclear weapons or uranium worker who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We help file a claim for the worker with the Department of Justice or the Department of Labor, both of which run a compensation program.

Typically, these claims can be handled in a matter of weeks. Modest compensation provided through these programs provide help with medical bills and certain other financial obligations. 

Most people don’t realize that these programs exist, or even that our nuclear weapons system affects so many people across the country.

Originally known as the Manhattan Project, the U.S. nuclear weapons program in 1945 produced its first nuclear blast, the Trinity Test, in Alamogordo, New Mexico. But the impact of this testing has not been limited by either time or geography. Every day, downwinders, on-site participants, uranium miners, millers and ore transporters are diagnosed with cancers, pulmonary fibrosis and other serious illnesses from exposures that happened decades ago. Even today, nuclear weapons workers are being made ill at facilities across the country.

Those who become sick as a result of work in the nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing industry are eligible for health care benefits and compensation from those two federal programs: the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program (RECP) and the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP). 

The programs, not unlike the Veterans Affairs program that provides benefits for U.S. soldiers, provide vital benefits to workers who have borne the brunt of the physical and financial toll imposed by the nation’s nuclear weapons program. 

Currently pending bills would extend the RECP and allow on-site participants and downwinders to receive medical care for their accepted conditions under the EEOICP. This would make their claims more similar to the other beneficiaries, including uranium miners, millers and ore transporters, thereby eliminating a flaw in the RECP that prevents on-site participants throughout the country and downwinders in the southwest from receiving the same medical benefits as uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters receive.

Without action from Congress and the president, RECA will expire in July of this year. One path forward is a set of bipartisan bills introduced by Representative Leger Fernandez (H.R. 5338) and Senator Mike Crapo (S.2798). These bills extend and make important improvements to these compensation programs.

My experience working with nuclear weapons and uranium workers has shown me that these programs continue to provide essential benefits to workers and their survivors, whose lives have been disrupted by participation in the nuclear weapons program. Both of these programs should be extended and improved. 

We owe that, at least, to those who have sacrificed their health in the service of the nation’s nuclear ambitions. 

February 3, 2022 Posted by | health, Legal, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Terra Power chose Wyoming because it is an oligarch and dictator’s paradise.


Paul Richards, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, https://www.facebook.com/groups/102118604791305231 Jan , TerraPower – nuclear reactor design and research firm, chose, Wyoming, as it’s an oligarch and dictator’s Paradise.

Wyoming’s trust, as well as asset protection laws, combined with its property tax, sales tax, and excise tax. Give the uber-wealthy 1% a free ride, as one of only seven states that have no personal income tax.Therefore, even more, difficult for top tier energy auditors, to test and measure, proof of concept in engineering terms, by default that includes economic and environmental viability.Wyoming is the best on-shore tax haven state in the 🇺🇸 USA, arguably the best in the world outside 🇨🇳 China.

“Wyoming trust and layers of private companies with concealed ownership allow the world’s wealthy to move and spend money in extraordinary secrecy, protected by some of the strongest privacy laws in the country and, in some cases, without even the cursory oversight performed by regulators in other states.” The Washington PostAll in a state, that has a deplorable record of ecological disasters, created by the other fuel-burning;💀 Linear Business Model,damaging earth systems, accelerating the Anthropocene.• burning – fuel

• churning – production• consuming – excess energy• consuming – products• dumping – waste in earth systems• ad Infinitum – Latin, literally ‘to infinity’19C flawed business model, that birthed corporatism, which created an acceleration in the climate crisis in the first place.Democracy without transparency is not democracy._____________source: The Washington Post.https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/wyoming-trusts…/BANKING FRAUD PANDORA PAPERShttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_PapersPANAMA PAPERShttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_PapersPARADISE PAPERShttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_PapersMAURITIUS PAPERShttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritius_Leaks

February 1, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

COVID-19 an obstacle for nuclear waste disposal at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, officials say

COVID-19 an obstacle for nuclear waste disposal at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, officials say,

Officials plan to ramp up operations as pandemic hoped to subside, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 31 Jan 22,

COVID-19 continued to strain operations to dispose of nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, officials said, slowing shipments accepted at the repository near Carlsbad last year.Officials from WIPP detailed the progress made in 2021 before state lawmakers Monday during the annual WIPP Legislative Breakfast held each year at the start of the Legislative Session.

This year’s presentation was held virtually via Zoom due to health concerns from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the Fiscal Year 2021, about 199 shipments of waste were emplaced at WIPP, where they are permanently disposed of as an underground salt formation slowly collapses to bury the waste about 2,000 underground.

Shipments averaged about five weekly last year and were occasionally reported at seven or eight per week, said Reinhard Knerr, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office.

The facility’s target was about 240 shipments of waste for FY 2021, he said, and officials hoped to aim for up to 400 shipments in FY 2022.

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 has continued to be a significant challenge on that front,” he said of last year’s shipments. “We’ll be looking to increase here in the next few months.”

In early 2022, Knerr said WIPP hoped to increase shipments of waste to 10 to 12 per week from DOE nuclear facilities around the country including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico.

Shipments from LANL recently drew concerns from state officials as the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) called for federal oversight into how the DOE prioritizes shipments from around the country.

Meanwhile, the DOE announced plans to increase LANL’s production of plutonium pits, which are used to trigger nuclear bombs, to about 30 pits a year by 2026 – a move critics argued would increase waste generation at the site………………………   https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/31/covid-19-obstacle-nuclear-waste-disposal-wipp/9239299002/

 

February 1, 2022 Posted by | health, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

In 2022, compensation funds for the nuclear-affected ”Downwinders” are due to expire

Funds for those impacted by nuclear weapons tests set to expire in 2022 https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/funds-for-those-impacted-by-nuclear-weapons-tests-set-to-expire-in-2022 By: Bo Evans, , Feb 01, 2022

Raymond Harbert may not have the words to describe it.

“It is really hard to relay all the feelings you get from one of those megaton tests,”

But he never forgot the details of the detonation of a nuclear bomb well.

“If you can imagine, 40 miles away, and you can feel the heat when it arrives. It arrives at a separate time. It’s a prickly heat, and then the pressure wave coming—the brightness. The feeling when they finally say, you can take your glasses off. Those are memories that will stick with me for the rest of my life,” said Harbert.

In this 2005 interview conducted by the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Harbert lays out an experience shared by thousands of Americans exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and 1962.

The fallout has lasted for decades.

“People don’t realize over 200 above-ground tests were done between 1945 and 1962, and an additional 900+ were done after that below ground. Which exposed Nevadans, people in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, places that were downwind of these tests to fallout,” said Dr. Laura Shaw.

Shaw works with the Nevada Radiation Exposure Screening & Education Program or RESEP at UNLV to provide medical services and cancer screening to people who are known as downwinders.

We review their history, we look at their medications, we offer additional screenings that include colon cancer screening, lung imaging, labs that screen for diabetes, anemia, cholesterol, so we do a lot,” said Shaw.

It’s all paid for by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA. The law was passed in 1990. The fund is set to expire in July 2022.

“These people have another 30, 40 years, hopefully, to live that were potentially exposed, so we need this program much, much longer,” said Shaw.

Some in Congress are attempting to extend and expand the fund.

“Tragically, for some, it is already too late. We’ve lost Idahoans Sheri Garmin, Teresa Valberg, and Srgt. 1st Class Paul Cooper to Cancer,” said Sen. Mark Crapo, (R) Idaho, in a congressional hearing.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2021 have been introduced in both the House and Senate and have been referred to committees.

Dr. Shaw remains hopeful it will pass.

“Cancer is still going to happen. These people are going to develop problems associated with their previous exposure. Cancer can happen years later, and it’s not going to pay any attention to any deadlines,” she said.

February 1, 2022 Posted by | health, Legal, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons plutonium pits development planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory, but there’s strong opposition on safety grounds.

Nuclear weapons development coming soon to Los Alamos National Laboratory amid safety concerns https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/29/los-alamos-national-lab-prepares-nuclear-weapons-development/6562490001/, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus

A main component of nuclear weapons was poised to be built in New Mexico after federal regulators granted approval for a plan to prepare Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for the work.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, announced earlier this month it approved LANL’s project to prepare areas of the lab to be used in plutonium pit production – a project known as LAP4.

Plutonium pits are hollow spheres of plutonium that when compressed using explosives cause a nuclear detonation, per a DOE report.

The pits were first used in the 1940s during the Manhattan Project, the report read, used to detonate atomic bombs tested at the Trinity Site in south-central New Mexico and then in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in Japan – largely credited with ending World War II.

Since the war ended, Los Alamos’ pit production was limited to research purposes, and from 2007 to 2011 the lab produced pits to replace those in 31 warheads carried on U.S. military submarines.

Between 1952 and 1989, most of the plutonium pits in the U.S. were generated at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver amid the Cold War with a peak nuclear stockpile of 31,225 weapons outfitted with the pits reported in 1967, read the report.

Rocky Flats was shut down in 1989, and after concerns that the pits produced since the 1980s or earlier would begin to deteriorate over time, Los Alamos was called to make new ones.

The DOE called on Los Alamos to increase efforts at the lab to produce 30 pits a year by 2026, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina was tasked with producing 50 pits annually by 2030.

That means that by that year, the U.S. would be producing 80 pits per year.

But to prepare LANL for the work, a project to remove existing equipment and glove boxes was needed to make way for pit manufacturing equipment.

That work was intended to begin this spring via a project known as the Decontamination and Decommissioning Subproject, the first of five operations to get the site ready.

equipment and infrastructure needed to safely manufacture pits for the nuclear stockpile,” said Summer Jones, NNSA assistant deputy administrator for production modernization at LANL.

“LAP4 is a complex, challenging endeavor, and getting the approval to begin the D&D subproject is a big step toward restoring this important capability.”

Opponents call for environmental review of plutonium operations 

The effort to resume producing plutonium pits and thus nuclear weapons at the New Mexico lab and in South Carolina as met with controversy from government officials and watchdog groups in both states opposing the projects.  

Santa Fe City Councilors passed a resolution last year calling for a “site-wide” environmental impact statement to be conducted and any safety issued be resolved and certified by the federal government before pit production was increased.

“The Governing Body (Santa Fe City Council) requests that the National Nuclear Security Administration suspend any planned expanded plutonium pit production until all nuclear safety issues are resolved, as certified by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board,” read the resolution.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Savannah River Site Watch subsequently in June 2021 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina’s Aiken Division against the DOE and NNSA, arguing pit production should not be increased until site-wide environmental analysis were conducted at both facilities.

“The drastic expansion of plutonium pit production and the utilization of more than one facility to undertake this production are substantial changes from the Defendants’ long-standing approach of producing a limited number of pits at only one facility,” the suit read.

The suit argued the increased pit production was not only intended for replacing existing warheads but to develop a new warhead known as the W87-1.

This project was developed with proper environmental analysis, the suit read, or proper planning for where associated nuclear waste would be disposed of.

“The drastic expansion of plutonium pit production and the utilization of more than one facility to undertake this production are substantial changes from the Defendants’ long-standing approach of producing a limited number of pits at only one facility,” read the suit.

In southeastern New Mexico is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a repository for low-level transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste – clothing materials and equipment irradiated during nuclear activities.

But the litigants argued WIPP was already at limited capacity and its current permit with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) specified the repository would have to cease waste disposal by 2024 and begin the decommissioning process.

The DOE last year submitted a permit renewal application to NMED that removed the 2024 closure date, leaving WIPP’s lifetime largely open ended.

Still, the suit alleged the DOE failed to address the need for waste disposal.

“As a National Academy of Sciences has concluded, the WIPP is already oversubscribed for future waste from multiple sites and will overextend its capacity from this increase in TRU production from the pit project and other DOE projects set to generate large amounts of TRU waste,” read the suit.

“The Defendants have failed to meaningfully address this critical waste disposal question.”

February 1, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US DOE announces clean-up progress at Savannah River Site

US DOE announces clean-up progress at Savannah River Site,  NEI Magazine,  31 January 2022  The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Environmental Management (EM) and its clean-up contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have reached an important record of decision (ROD) agreement with South Carolina and federal environmental regulators on the final clean-up of a 25-mile-long stream corridor at the site. 

The corridor consists of Par Pond, nine miles of canals adjacent to the pond and a stream named Lower Three Runs. The stream begins near the centre of the site, just above Par Pond, and winds its way southward across SRS.

SRS, a 310-square-mile-site in Aiken, South Carolina, focused on the production of plutonium and tritium for use in the manufacture of nuclear weapons from its inception in the early 1950s until the end of the Cold War. In 1992, the focus turned to environmental clean-up, nuclear materials management, and research and development activities……………………

SRNS Engineer and Project Technical Lead Jim Kupar explained that much of the remaining work involves ensuring additional fencing and signage are in place to warn site workers and the public that potential hazards may be present. “Though it is illegal for the public to cross the fencing onto SRS, our first priority is always their safety,” he said.

He added that surveying 25 miles of waterways, especially Lower Three Runs, was often challenging and sometimes potentially hazardous within the forest…………………..   https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsus-doe-announces-clean-up-progress-at-savannah-river-site-9448456

February 1, 2022 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

 U.S. and Russian Threats Over Ukraine—What They’re About 

“It’s a noble principle, just not one the United States abides by. The United States has exercised a sphere of influence in its own hemisphere for almost 200 years, since President James Monroe declared that the United States ‘should consider any attempt’ by foreign powers ‘to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety’.”.

Blinken wants a one-way street where spheres of influence are concerned. The U.S., for him, has the right to wield influence everywhere, while others don’t.


STRIPPING AWAY THE BULLS**T: U.S. and Russian Threats Over Ukraine—What They’re About and Who’s the Aggressor, Covert Action Magazine By Dee Knight – January 25, 2022 Threats and counter-threats flying between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine have caused a flurry of fear and confusion that escalates and expands daily. Is the world on the brink of war? What is it about, who is the aggressor and who is to blame?

The dangerous standoff has lasted for most of a year. Each side accuses the other of threatening war—in a way reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

During a week of intense diplomatic meetings in three European capitals, which appeared to reach a dead end, President Joe Biden seemed to “blink” midweek, on January 19, telling reporters in Washington he had indicated to Russian President Putin that “we can work out something.”

New York Times senior reporter David Sanger jumped on it: “Mr. President, it sounds like you’re offering some way out here, some off-ramp—an informal assurance that NATO is not going to take in Ukraine… and we would never put nuclear weapons there.” Sanger went on to say Russia “wants us to move all of our nuclear weapons out of Europe and not have troops rotating through the old Soviet bloc.” Biden quickly said “No, there’s not space for that.”

Biden’s blink was a break in the warlike atmosphere that has prevailed endlessly. Katrina van den Heuvel wrote the day before in The Washington Post that “Hotheads [were] having a field day. A White House task force that includes the CIA [was] reportedly contemplating U.S. support for a guerrilla war if Russia seizes Ukraine; Russian hawks talk of a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela.” Biden had “installed a team of national security managers from the ‘Blob,’ marinated in successive debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and more.”

Guns and sanctions are the U.S. empire’s preferred options, van den Heuvel said: “with about 800 military bases outside the United States,” the U.S. has “more bases than diplomatic missions. (Russia’s only military bases outside the former Soviet Union are in Syria.)” She added that Secretary of State Blinken and the Blob “talk about a rules-based international order but respect it only if we make the rules, often exempting ourselves from their application.”

Spheres of influence?

“When will the U.S. stop lying to itself about global politics?” asked CUNY Professor Peter Beinart, writing in the New York Times on January 13. He took issue with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who pontificated last month that “One country does not have the right to dictate the policies of another or to tell that country with whom it may associate; one country does not have the right to exert a sphere of influence. That notion should be relegated to the dustbin of history.”

Beinart commented: “It’s a noble principle, just not one the United States abides by. The United States has exercised a sphere of influence in its own hemisphere for almost 200 years, since President James Monroe declared that the United States ‘should consider any attempt’ by foreign powers ‘to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety’.”………….

Blinken wants a one-way street where spheres of influence are concerned. The U.S., for him, has the right to wield influence everywhere, while others don’t.

The same day Biden blinked, French President Macron weighed in saying war would be the “most tragic thing of all.” Speaking in the European Union’s capital of Strasbourg, as new interim EU chair, Macron said he hoped to revitalize the four-way “Normandy format” talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis. “It is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia,” Macron said. The EU had no part in the talks last week between Russia, the U.S., NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCD).

The Normandy format has been a vehicle for implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements designed to end the separatist war in Ukraine’s Donbas region. This solution has already been proposed and accepted in principle, according to Anatol Lieven, who wrote in The Nation that the Minsk II agreement was already adopted by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in 2015, and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council.

Key elements of the Minsk II deal are full autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern regions in the context of decentralization of power in Ukraine, demilitarization, and restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty. Despite agreement by all parties, political analyst Anatol Lieven says “because of the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the solution and refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so,” the settlement is a kind of “zombie policy.”

The issue of NATO expansion is another “zombie policy” as the U.S. refuses to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate opposition to it.

After the first of three negotiating sessions between the U.S. and Russia during the week of January 10, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had declared it “absolutely mandatory” that Ukraine “never, never, ever” become a NATO member. In response, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said: “we will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open-door policy.”……………………..

US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland helped orchestrate the 2014 coup in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, that toppled a government friendly to Russia. The new far-rightist government ended language rights for Russian speakers who are the majority in the Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Donetsk and Lugansk voted to separate, as did Crimea. Russia then annexed Crimea, to protect Russian speakers there and secure its Black Sea naval base. Russia provided humanitarian aid and trade to Donetsk and Lugansk, and stationed troops on their eastern border for protection.

“Pro-Democracy Protests” or a Fascist Coup?

A New York Times report on January 6 said “Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine in 2014 after pro-democracy protests erupted there.” [Emphasis added.] The coup was actually carried out by fascist gangs, according to a May 2, 2018, report in The Nation by Stephen Cohen.

The gangs, including self-declared neo-Nazis, were encouraged by Nuland, Biden and other prominent U.S. politicians. The neo-Nazis were integrated into Ukraine’s official military which, since 2014, has been trained, armed and reorganized by the U.S., Britain, Canada and other NATO countries.

Stephen Cohen wrote that “the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II.” These horrors have been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative, despite being well-documented.

Cohen added that “stormtroop-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other ‘impure’ citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s… The police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms and their leaders during World War II, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.”

The people of the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine suffer under a complete economic blockade by Ukraine and its Western allies. Historically known as the Donbass region, eastern Ukraine is a mining and industrial center. Donbass miners played a crucial and heroic role in the defeat of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. Many Russians revere the Donbass as “the heart of Russia.”

All of Ukraine east of the Dnieper river is predominantly Russian-speaking. U.S. claims of a “Russian invasion” are reminiscent of claims of North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam after the artificial separation of Vietnam in 1954. The entire U.S. narrative about Ukraine is a cynical fabrication designed to justify aggression.

Russian Security Proposals

In mid-December Russia took a diplomatic initiative and presented a list of security proposals to the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal, they include ending NATO’s expansion further eastward to include Ukraine, a promise for each side to refrain from hostile activities, and an end to NATO military activities in all of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia……….

Among the “severe consequences” threatened by the U.S. against Russia, the Financial Times has said sanctioning Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany was “top of the list.” Western Europe is already facing an energy crunch, with skyrocketing prices for natural gas.

Europeans need energy security and are wary of war. They want the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as soon as possible, while the Biden administration calls it a “bad deal” and claims that it makes Europe vulnerable to Russian “treachery.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz has pressed hard against the pipeline, which offsets opportunities for U.S. energy companies to supply gas to the European market. U.S. foreign adventures have often constricted Europe’s energy sources.

A 2021 survey by the European Council on Foreign Affairs found that most Europeans want to remain neutral in any U.S. war against Russia or China. But new NATO member-states align with the U.S. against Russia. They have installed terminals to receive U.S. liquid natural gas deliveries, to reduce dependence on Russian gas.

Despite all the diplomatic efforts, powerful institutional and economic forces in the U.S.—the military industrial complex and big energy companies among others—are eager for a new Cold War with Russia, which would provide them with boundless opportunities for profitable deals. “The U.S. military-industrial complex needs enemies like human lungs need oxygen,” the saying goes. “When there are no enemies, they must be invented.”

The demonization of Vladimir Putin and Russia by the U.S. media is part of this policy of inventing enemies. There is a long list of foreign leaders and nations whose attempts to defy the dictates of Washington and pursue an independent foreign policy have brought down upon them the wrath of the U.S. Capitalist Empire.https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/01/25/stripping-away-the-bullst-u-s-and-russian-threats-over-ukraine-what-theyre-about-and-whos-the-aggressor/

January 31, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Forensic experts are working to recover texts deleted by ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones after he was fired

Forensic experts are working to recover texts deleted by ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones after he was fired Cleveland.com : Jan. 28, 2022,  By Jeremy Pelzer,

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Forensic experts have been working to recover text messages deleted by former FirstEnergy Corp. CEO Chuck Jones in October 2020, shortly after the utility fired him for violating company ethics policies amid the House Bill 6 scandal, according to a recent civil lawsuit filing.

The filing was part of a submission made Thursday by attorneys representing FirstEnergy shareholders suing company officials for not stopping a massive bribery scheme to pass HB6. In addition, the filing says the content of the deleted messages remains unknown, and it did not disclose any recipients…………..

A federal complaint against ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and several allies accuses them of using $60 million in FirstEnergy bribe money to secure the passage of HB6. The complaint says that Jones and Householder emailed and texted each other several times a week about the issues with the legislation, which offered a $1 billion-plus bailout to two Northern Ohio nuclear power plants owned by a then-subsidiary of FirstEnergy………………….

Jones has so far not been accused of any crime, and he denies any wrongdoing. However, a civil lawsuit filed by Attorney General Dave Yost accuses him and two other former FirstEnergy executives of engaging in extortion, money laundering, coercion, intimidation and an attempted coverup.

Cleveland.com has reached out to a spokesman for Jones for comment.

Thursday’s court filing states that plaintiffs in the civil suit have reviewed more than 400,000 pages of documents so far and are preparing to start depositions on Feb. 10. The filing states that plaintiffs will be ready to go to trial by this August.

Read the full filing here:      https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/01/forensic-experts-are-working-to-recover-texts-deleted-by-ex-firstenergy-ceo-chuck-jones-after-he-was-fired.html

January 31, 2022 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Leaders say nuclear will save Kemmerer. Residents aren’t convinced.

when TerraPower announced in November that it would build a first-of-its-kind sodium-cooled nuclear reactor at the town’s Naughton Power Plant, community leaders exhaled at last. The project promised a lifeline, not just to the town, but to similarly coal-dependent Wyoming.

The people who claimed they didn’t have much to say about the project, the ones who actually had a lot to say — a lot of them didn’t feel like trailblazers. They felt more like guinea pigs.

Many were suspicious. Why, they asked, would TerraPower stick its flagship project in such a tiny, remote town? Was it because they were too desperate to protest? Too isolated for anyone to care if things went awry?…….


Leaders say nuclear will save Kemmerer. Residents aren’t convinced. Casper Star Tribune 
Nicole Pollack,  Jan 29, 2022   The Star-Tribune visited Kemmerer this month to talk with the community about TerraPower’s nuclear plant. Energy reporter Nicole Pollack and photographer Lauren Miller will continue reporting from Kemmerer as the project develops.Roaming Kemmerer, asking people about the planned nuclear reactor, I expected excitement. Or trepidation. Or anger.

Apathy wasn’t on the list.

“We don’t really talk about it,” a retired miner told me as his fellow retirees — former coal miners and quarry workers and power plant operators — heckled one another around a senior center pool table.

Most of the Kemmerer residents I met said the same thing. They were familiar with the plan to replace their half-century-old coal plant with a nuclear reactor; did I know Bill Gates was behind it? Everyone, they assured me, was aware. They just didn’t have much more to say.

The energy sector is always changing, the miner said, and people in Kemmerer are used to riding out those booms and busts. Another boom isn’t anything special. So the project doesn’t come up in conversation very often.

He discusses it with his wife sometimes, though. The two of them speculate, nervously, about how a nuclear plant might change the tiny town they’ve called home for decades.

Coal’s demise hangs heavy over Kemmerer, and when TerraPower announced in November that it would build a first-of-its-kind sodium-cooled nuclear reactor at the town’s Naughton Power Plant, community leaders exhaled at last. The project promised a lifeline, not just to the town, but to similarly coal-dependent Wyoming. Gov. Mark Gordon proudly unveiled the project last summer during a celebratory press conference featuring a video message from Gates himself. 

We’re absolutely ecstatic,” Mayor Bill Thek told me after Kemmerer was chosen.

The miner and his wife aren’t so sure. While they agree Kemmerer needs an economic boost of some kind, a replacement for its fading coal sector, they’re not sure whether a next-generation reactor will be the right answer. They’d rather keep burning coal.

I asked a lot of people in Kemmerer about the nuclear plant. At first, most sounded unconcerned, almost indifferent: “I don’t have much to say about it.”

But, it turned out, they usually did………………..

Maybe, another offered, the company was already starting to build the plant itself.

He hoped construction hadn’t started. There were still too many unknowns, he told me. The town wasn’t ready for nuclear; not by a long shot. He didn’t know if it would ever be.

Life after coal

Gillette, Rock Springs, Glenrock and Kemmerer — the four communities considered for TerraPower’s first nuclear reactor — are all coal towns. But in Kemmerer, the victor, founded in 1867 near the coal mine that gave the town its name, coal has always been king.

Much of the younger workforce has opted to work at the gas plant, or even at the fossil quarries, over the coal plant, in the hopes that those jobs will last even after coal is gone. And Kemmerer and Diamondville are trying to put themselves on the map — on tourists’ lucrative radar — for their fossils………………………………………

TerraPower and Rocky Mountain Power had convened roughly 40 high-profile community leaders, including elected officials, town managers, school and hospital administrators and police officers, in the Best Western conference room for a question-and-answer luncheon.

…………………   they [the community]  also know about the plant’s “aggressive” seven-year time limit — a condition of the company’s nearly $2 billion Department of Energy grant. And, as the meeting wrapped up, they wanted to know: How sure was TerraPower that the project would succeed?…..

Why us?

In the Best Western conference room, the descriptor of choice was “demonstration.” Outside of that room, at the senior center and the bowling alley and the booths at Place on Pine, the nuclear plant was “experimental.”

The people who claimed they didn’t have much to say about the project, the ones who actually had a lot to say — a lot of them didn’t feel like trailblazers. They felt more like guinea pigs.

Many were suspicious. Why, they asked, would TerraPower stick its flagship project in such a tiny, remote town? Was it because they were too desperate to protest? Too isolated for anyone to care if things went awry?…….

There will be protests,” I was told several times. No one who said it wanted to participate themselves — I didn’t meet anyone who did — but they were suresomeone would…………………   https://trib.com/business/energy/leaders-say-nuclear-will-save-kemmerer-residents-arent-convinced/article_64d05a74-9245-5183-8366-651079ad9b12.html………………. 

January 31, 2022 Posted by | public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

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