nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Establishment support, secrecy and corruption, in the promotion of dangerous nuclear power.

For all the hopeful talk about new technology, however, the industry’s principal concern is to keep aging reactors running long after their original life spans, even where this poses serious safety risks. In a process known as embrittlement, for example, vital components such as containment vessels crack following decades of neutron bombardment, leading to the release of lethal radiation. Nonetheless, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears happy to grant extensions: plants originally designed to last forty years are being authorized to run for sixty or eighty in total.

Spent Fuel, Harpers, by Andrew Cockburn, 20 Dec 21, The risky resurgence of nuclear power  ”………………………………………….Even groups long noted for opposing nuclear power, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Sierra Club, seem quietly ready to temporize on practical matters, such as allowing existing plants to continue as transitional energy sources………..

The nuclear-power industry has long enjoyed establishment support. Navin was acting chief of staff at the Department of Energy under Barack Obama. The current energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, says that the Biden Administration plans to launch more nuclear energy projects across the country, and touts in particular Natrium’s promise of “345 megawatts of clean and affordable and reliable baseload power.” The White House climate czar, Gina McCarthy, stresses the need to keep existing plants in operation, as well as the prospects for “these small nuclear reactors, these modular reactors,” in which “people are really investing significant resources.” ……..

The State Department has launched an effort to foster similar small reactor programs abroad. Most significantly, even amid bitter fights over the administration’s infrastructure and social-reform bills, the inclusion of $41 billion of industry subsidies in the legislation has received unquestioning bipartisan backing. “………..

Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program, unveiled in 1953, set the optimistic tone for nuclear power:……………..

No such lyrical announcement marked the day in July 1959 when the Santa Susana Field Laboratory plant’s coolant system failed and its uranium oxide fuel rods began melting down. With the reactor running out of control and set to explode, desperate operators deliberately released huge amounts of radioactive material into the air for nearly two weeks, making it almost certainly the most dangerous nuclear accident in U.S. history. The amount of iodine-131 alone spewed into the southern California atmosphere was two hundred and sixty times that released at Three Mile Island, which is generally regarded as the worst ever U.S. nuclear disaster.

None of this was revealed to the public, who were told merely that a “technical” fault had occurred, one that was “not an indication of unsafe reactor conditions.” As greater Los Angeles boomed in the following years, the area around the reactor site—originally chosen for its distance from population centers—was flooded with new residents. No one informed them of the astronomical levels of radioactive contaminants seeded deep in the soil.

Meanwhile, utilities were commissioning scores of nuclear plants across the country and promising electricity “too cheap to meter,” incentivized by the 1957 Price-Anderson Act, which shifted financial liability in the event of a serious accident onto taxpayers. Rapid development throughout the Sixties engendered hopeful predictions from the AEC that more than a thousand reactors would be operating in the United States by the turn of the century. But it was not to be. As the environmental movement gathered strength in the Seventies, the dangers associated with nuclear power—from the routine disposal of radioactive waste to the risk of catastrophic meltdowns—galvanized a determined, informed, and organized opposition. Then, in 1979, one of two reactors at Three Mile Island had a partial meltdown. Officials from the president on down issued soothing reassurances, downplaying the health risks. Negative assessments were discouraged; when the Pennsylvania state health secretary, Gordon MacLeod, criticized the state’s response, he was promptly fired by the governor. MacLeod later revealed that child-mortality rates had doubled within a ten-mile radius of the plant. Cost overruns in plant construction, sometimes two times above industry estimates, were a further deterrent to expansion. Ultimately, more than 120 projects were canceled, and construction ground to a halt. “The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale,” Forbes magazine commented in 1985, a year before Chernobyl. “Only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent.”……….


In 1988, Hans Blix, the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the United Nations that “the public should be aware that nuclear energy emits . . . no carbon dioxide whatever.” Given this assumption (which discounts the enormous quantities of carbon dioxide generated during plant construction), nuclear power’s high cost could be offset by rewarding its low emissions. 

Other partisans of nuclear power also recognized the relevance of climate alarms. This included Alex Flint,…….. In 2000, following a traditional trajectory for well-connected congressional staffers, he moved over to the private sector as a lobbyist and quickly recruited an impressive list of nuclear-industry clients, including Exelon Corporation………………..

Exelon was not alone in securing presidential favor. In February 2010, Obama announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors known as Vogtle 3 and 4, to be built in Burke County, Georgia. “We will not achieve a big boost in nuclear capacity,” declared the president, “unless we also create a system of incentives to make clean energy profitable.” As is traditional with the placement of such industrial facilities, the new reactors were to be constructed adjacent to a poor black community. The neighborhood, Shell Bluff, was already racked by cancers that residents ascribed to existing nuclear facilities. Not surprisingly, they vehemently opposed the project. “We voiced our opinion,” one local resident told CNN. “We didn’t want them, but we’re just the little peons.” The president, they said, “doesn’t know we’re down here.”

Eleven years later, the Vogtle plants are still under construction……………..

Passing off additional costs to utility customers would appear to be a standard business model. It tends to require the complaisance of state legislators, who can demand and receive a high price for their favors—unseemly transactions that call into question the notion of “clean” nuclear energy. In November 2016, senior executives at Ohio’s FirstEnergy hatched plans to shunt more of the operating costs of their two nuclear plants onto individual customers.

As later detailed by an FBI criminal complaint, the scheme involved lubricating the election of a cooperative Republican legislator named Larry Householder as speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. To this end, $61 million moved via a series of dark money cutouts to Householder, who used the funds both for personal needs and for financing his campaign and those of allies who could supply the necessary votes for the rate increase.

It proved a sound investment. Householder was duly elected speaker and proceeded to pass a bill in 2019, with bipartisan support, that authorized $1 billion in rate supplements to bail out the company’s two Ohio plants. (One of these, Davis-Besse, outside Toledo, has a hair-raising safety record, including a hole in the reactor vessel and cracks in its concrete containment shell.) Although the bill canceled existing mandates for renewable energy, proponents were eloquent in their concern for the climate. Representative Jamie Callender, for example, who got just under $25,000 from FirstEnergy and served as a primary sponsor of the bill, spoke piously of the need to encourage “zero carbon emissions.” A FirstEnergy spokesman applauded Callender and other sponsors “for their efforts in recognizing the important and vital role nuclear energy, along with many other clean energy sources, plays in providing clean, safe, and reliable carbon-free energy to Ohioans.”

Unfortunately for the plotters, the FBI had monitored their deliberations. Following disclosure of the bribery scheme, public outrage led to a repeal of the bailout. Householder, indicted along with four associates, denies the charges and has yet to go to trial. FirstEnergy, none of whose employees faced criminal charges, agreed to a $230 million fine, and its generating unit was spun off under the name Energy Harbor. (“We call it Pirates’ Cove,” joked the Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, who has been litigating cases related to Davis-Besse since 1979.)

While Energy Harbor saw its scheme collapse, Exelon has suffered no such setback in pursuit of bailouts through similar means. A federal investigation revealed that an Exelon subsidiary lavished favors in the form of jobs and contracts on associates of Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, long the most powerful politician in the state, and was rewarded with beneficial legislation, most notably a $2.35 billion subsidy enacted in 2016, for two money-losing reactors that the company had discussed closing. The subsidiary agreed to pay a $200 million fine, which was more than balanced by the $694 million subsidy signed into law by J. B. Pritzker in September 2021, a response to Exelon’s threats to close two other aging plants—one of which appears to have generated a significant cancer cluster in its neighborhood. Though the Sierra Club opposes nuclear energy, the Illinois chapter supported that legislation because of the measures it included to phase out coal and gas sources. The Illinois bailout is far eclipsed, however, by the federal largesse promised by the Biden Administration’s infrastructure and climate legislation. An analysis by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service suggests that 54 percent of the $41 billion will be split between just three companies, with Exelon set to receive $15 billion. (Energy Harbor is the runner-up, with $5 billion.)

For all the hopeful talk about new technology, however, the industry’s principal concern is to keep aging reactors running long after their original life spans, even where this poses serious safety risks. In a process known as embrittlement, for example, vital components such as containment vessels crack following decades of neutron bombardment, leading to the release of lethal radiation. Nonetheless, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears happy to grant extensions: plants originally designed to last forty years are being authorized to run for sixty or eighty in total. Point Beach 2, a reactor on Lake Michigan that the NRC itself listed in 2013 among the most embrittled plants in the country, is applying to be relicensed to operate for eighty years. The reactor and its twin, Point Beach 1, have been cited for safety violations and equipment malfunctions more than 130 times. At the NRC, there is even discussion of allowing plants to run for a century, long after their designers and builders are dead. “None of these extreme extensions have addressed critical ‘knowledge gaps’ for the reliability of major irreplaceable and inaccessible systems,” said Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear, a tireless watchdog group working to challenge the extensions. In his view, the industry is being allowed to head blindly into the unknown, with no idea how or when age-related cracking and embrittlement will lead to component failure and potential meltdown……………….  https://harpers.org/archive/2022/01/spent-fuel-the-risky-resurgence-of-nuclear-power/

December 21, 2021 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

USA has 85,000 metric tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants, 90 million gallons of weapons wastes – robots to the rescue.

 There’s over 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial
nuclear power plants, and 90 million gallons of waste from government
weapons programs in the U.S. today, according to the Government
Accountability Office.

That number is rapidly growing. Every year, we add
2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. Disposing and handling nuclear
waste is a dangerous task that requires precision and accuracy. Researchers
from the National Centre for Nuclear Robotics led by the Extreme Robotics
Lab at the University of Birmingham in the UK are finding ways to help
humans and robots work together to get the job done.

The researchers have
developed a system using a standard industrial robot that uses a parallel
jaw gripper to handle objects and an Ensenso N35 3D cameras to see the
world around it. The team’s system involves allowing humans to make more
complex decisions that AI isn’t equipped to do, while the robot
determines how to best perform the tasks. The team uses three kinds of
shared control.

 The Robot Report 18th Dec 2021

Researchers develop new approach for handling nuclear waste
Researchers develop new approach for handling nuclear waste

December 21, 2021 Posted by | technology, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Archbishop calls for nuclear disarmament

Archbishop calls for nuclear disarming, Santa fe New Mexican By Robert Nott rnott@sfnewmexican.com, Dec 20 , 2021   

Looking up at the sky as a young teen one day in Daly City, Calif., Archbishop John C. Wester had one thought as he saw military planes overheard.

Were they ours, or were they Russian planes?

The year was 1962, perhaps the first time nuclear war between the two superpowers seemed likely to erupt as the Cuban Missile Crisis played out and students were taught to prepare for an atomic attack by diving under their desks at schools.

“I don’t think going under our desks was very helpful,” Wester said Sunday in Santa Fe, moments before issuing a call for the world to rid itself its nuclear weapons.

Now, some 60 years later, he said he wants to do more to end the threat of an atomic war. Wester spoke and prayed during a 30-minute prayer service and ceremony at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe before he unveiled a sign bearing an image of Pope Francis and a quote uttered by the pope in Hiroshima in 2020: “The possession of nuclear arms is immoral.”

Wester said “our archdiocese needs to be facilitating, encouraging an ongoing conversation” about nuclear disarmament.

He urged people to “pray for God’s intervention” to keep that conversation going.

At least 125 people were present for the service, many bearing roses in honor of the Lady of Guadalupe. Among them was Karen Weber, who said it’s “highly symbolic” for Wester to speak out on the “abolishment of nuclear weapons.”

The shrine is across the street from the Firestone building at West Alameda and Guadalupe streets in downtown Santa Fe, where Los Alamos National Laboratory recently opened a small office. The proximity of the two locales was not lost on Mary Riseley, who described herself as a Quaker and an Episcopalian and who handed out roses to participants in Sunday’s event.

Calling Wester a “prophet in the Catholic Church,” she said it’s important for him to stand up “for peace and understanding” during these times of turmoil.

In his comments, Wester alluded to the growing tension around the Russia-Ukraine border and said there are at least “40 active conflicts in the world.”

“We need to be instruments of peace,” he said, especially as we head into the Christmas season, a “season of peace.”

The current arms race, he said “is more ominous” than any that came before……..   https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/archbishop-calls-for-nuclear-disarming/article_0aabf9f0-60e8-11ec-9e5f-5f7820707fca.html

December 21, 2021 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The reasons for the USA’s persecution of Julian Assange : Glenn Greenwald spells it out

“much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely — and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.”


Julian Assange Loses Appeal: British High Court Accepts U.S. Request to Extradite Him for Trial

Press freedom groups have warned Assange’s prosecution is a grave threat. The Biden DOJ ignored them, and today won a major victory toward permanently silencing the pioneering transparency activist.

Glenn Greenwald  11 December   In a London courtroom on Friday morning, Julian Assange suffered a devastating blow to his quest for freedom. A two-judge appellate panel of the United Kingdom’s High Court ruled that the U.S.’s request to extradite Assange to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges is legally valid.

As a result, that extradition request will now be sent to British Home Secretary Prita Patel, who technically must approve all extradition requests but, given the U.K. Government’s long-time subservience to the U.S. security state, is all but certain to rubber-stamp it. Assange’s representatives, including his fiancee Stella Morris, have vowed to appeal the ruling, but today’s victory for the U.S. means that Assange’s freedom, if it ever comes, is further away than ever: not months but years even under the best of circumstances…………

In response to that January victory for Assange, the Biden DOJ appealed the ruling and convinced Judge Baraitser to deny Assange bail and ordered him imprisoned pending appeal. The U.S. then offered multiple assurances that Assange would be treated “humanely” in U.S. prison once he was extradited and convicted. They guaranteed that he would not be held in the most repressive “supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado — whose conditions are so repressive that it has been condemned and declared illegal by numerous human rights groups around the world — nor, vowed U.S. prosecutors, would he be subjected to the most extreme regimen of restrictions and isolation called Special Administrative Measures (“SAMs”) unless subsequent behavior by Assange justified it. American prosecutors also agreed that they would consent to any request from Assange that, once convicted, he could serve his prison term in his home country of Australia rather than the U.S. Those guarantees, ruled the High Court this morning, rendered the U.S. extradition request legal under British law.

What makes the High Court’s faith in these guarantees from the U.S. Government particularly striking is that it comes less than two months after Yahoo News reported that the CIA and other U.S. security state agencies hate Assange so much that they plotted to kidnap or even assassinate him during the time he had asylum protection from Ecuador. Despite all that, Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde announced today that “the court is satisfied that these assurances” will serve to protect Assange’s physical and mental health.

The effective detention by the U.S. and British governments of Assange is just months shy of a full decade. ……………………….. Assange has been imprisoned in the high-security Belmarsh prison, described in the BBC in 2004 as “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay.” He has thus spent close to seven years inside the embassy and two years and eight months inside Belmarsh: just five months shy of a decade with no freedom………..

……….  In May 2019,the British government  unveiled an 18-count felony indictment against him for espionage charges, based on the role he played in WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs and diplomatic cables, which revealed multiple war crimes by the U.S. and U.K. as well as rampant corruption by numerous U.S. allies throughout the world. Even though major newspapers around the world published the same documents in partnership with WikiLeaks — including The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais and others — the DOJ claimed that Assange went further than those newspapers by encouraging WikiLeaks’ source, Chelsea Manning, to obtain more documents and by trying to help her evade detection: something all journalists have not only the right but the duty to their sources to do.

Because the acts of Assange that serve as the basis of the U.S. indictment are acts in which investigative journalists routinely engage with their sources, press freedom and civil liberties groups throughout the West vehemently condemned the Assange indictment as one of the gravest threats to press freedoms in years. In February, following Assange’s victory in court, “a coalition of civil liberties and human rights groups urged the Biden administration to drop efforts to extradite” Assange, as The New York Times put it.

That coalition — which includes the ACLU, Amnesty International, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Committee to Protect Journalists — warned that the Biden DOJ’s ongoing attempt to extradite and prosecute Assange is “a grave threat to press freedom,” adding that “much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely — and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.” Kenneth Roth, Director of Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times that “most of the charges against Assange concern activities that are no different from those used by investigative journalists around the world every day.” ………………

But the Biden administration — led by officials who, during the Trump years, flamboyantly trumpeted the vital importance of press freedoms — ignored those pleas from this coalition of groups and instead aggressively pressed ahead with the prosecution of Assange. The Obama DOJ had spent years trying to concoct charges against Assange using a Grand Jury investigation, but ultimately concluded back in 2013 that prosecuting him would pose too great a threat to press freedom. But the Biden administration appears to have no such qualms, and The New York Times made clear exactly why they are so eager to see Assange in prison:

Democrats like the new Biden team are no fan of Mr. Assange, whose publication in 2016 of Democratic emails stolen by Russia aided Donald J. Trump’s narrow victory over Hillary Clinton.

In other words, the Biden administration is eager to see Assange punished and silenced for life not out of any national security concerns but instead due to a thirst for vengeance over the role he played in publishing documents during the 2016 election that reflected poorly on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. Those documents published by WikiLeaks revealed widespread corruption at the DNC, specifically revealing how they cheated in order to help Clinton stave off a surprisingly robust primary challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). WikiLeaks’ reporting led to the resignation of the top five DNC officials, including its then-Chair, Rep. Debbie Wassserman Schultz (D-FL). Democratic luminaries such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Al Gore’s 2000 campaign chair Donna Brazile both said, in the wake of WikiLeak’s reporting, that the DNC cheated to help Clinton……………………………

It is difficult at this point to avoid the conclusion that Julian Assange is not only imprisoned for the crime of journalism which exposed serious crimes and lies by the west’s most powerful security state agencies, but he is also a classic political prisoner. When the Obama DOJ was first pursuing the possibility of prosecution, media outlets and liberal advocacy groups were vocal in their opposition. One thing and only one thing has changed since then: in the interim, Assange published documents that were incriminating of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, and Democrats, as part of their long list of villains who they blamed for Clinton’s defeat (essentially everyone in the world except Clinton and the Democratic Party itself), viewed WikiLeaks’ reporting as a major factor in Trump’s victory.

That is why they and their liberal allies in corporate media harbor so much bloodlust to see Assange imprisoned. Julian Assange is a pioneer of modern journalism, a visionary who was the first to see that a major vulnerability of corrupt power centers in the digital age was mass data leaks that could expose their misconduct. Based on that prescient recognition, he created a technological and journalistic system to enable noble sources to safely blow the whistle on corrupt institutions by protecting their anonymity: a system now copied and implemented by major news organizations around the world.

Assange, over the last fifteen years, has broken more major stories and done more consequential journalism than all the corporate journalists who hate him combined. He is not being imprisoned despite his pioneering journalism and dissent from the hegemony of the U.S. security state. He is imprisoned precisely because of that. The accumulated hostility toward Assange from employees of media corporations who hate him due to professional jealousy and the belief that he undermined the Democratic Party, and from the U.S. security state apparatus which hates him for exposing its crimes and refusing to bow to its dictates, has created a climate where the Biden administration and their British servants feel perfectly comfortable imprisoning arguably the most consequential journalist of his generation even as they continue to lecture the rest of the world about the importance of press freedoms and democratic values.

No matter the outcome of further proceedings in this case, today’s ruling means that the U.S. has succeeded in ensuring that Assange remains imprisoned, hidden and silenced into the foreseeable future. If they have not yet permanently broken him, they are undoubtedly close to doing so. His own physicians and family members have warned of this repeatedly. Citizens of the U.S. and subjects of the British Crown are inculcated from birth to believe that we are blessed to live under a benevolent and freedom-protecting government, and that tyranny only resides in enemy states. Today’s judicial approval by the U.K. High Court of the U.S.’s attack on core press freedom demonstrates yet again the fundamental lie at the heart of this mythology. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/julian-assange-loses-appeal-british

December 20, 2021 Posted by | civil liberties, politics, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Independent advice to British government said that no further nuclear plant is needed, beyond Sizewell C

In July 2021, the Commission was asked to offer advice to government on whether an additional new nuclear plant, beyond the proposed Sizewell C project, is needed to deliver the sixth Carbon Budget. The advice not linked to below concludes that such a new plant is not necessary to achieve the rapid deployment of new low carbon capacity over the next 15 years.
This advice was provided to government ahead of the Budget and Spending
Review in autumn 2021.

 National Infrastructure Commission 19th Nov 2021

https://nic.org.uk/studies-reports/national-infrastructure-assessment/advice-note-on-nuclear-power-plant-deployment/

December 20, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

How to keep US-China rivalry from starting a nuclear arms race

The US needs to understand the Chinese government’s deeply anxious view of its own nuclear and wider geostrategic vulnerability.

China’s strategic culture is deeply realist. Moral appeals to China about doing the right thing will not get American negotiators anywhere, but cold, pragmatic arguments can.

The deepening US-China rivalry might itself create an incentive for Beijing to come to the table. That is provided the US can convince China it would be less vulnerable with an arms-control agreement than without one.


How to keep US-China rivalry from starting a nuclear arms race,   https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3159963/how-keep-us-china-rivalry-starting-nuclear-arms-race

With tensions threatening to undermine strategic nuclear stability, talks are urgently needed to prevent the situation from spinning out of controlEven if the relationship is destined to be marked by mutual suspicion, establishing strategic transparency is still possible  Kevin Rudd

19 Dec, 2021  China’s recently reported tests of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in July and August, though officially denied, are threatening to undermine strategic nuclear stability. They have already added to escalating tensions between the United States and China.

Throughout the summer, satellite images revealed that China was in the process of building as many as 300 new missile silos in its northern deserts. Some of these silos are likely to be used merely as empty decoys. But, if even half of them become sites for nuclear-armed missiles, it would represent a near-tripling of China’s nuclear arsenal.

China’s recently reported tests of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in July and August, though officially denied, are threatening to undermine strategic nuclear stability. They have already added to escalating tensions between the United States and China.

Following these revelations, the US State Department warned that, “This build-up is concerning. It raises questions about the PRC’s intent … We encourage Beijing to engage with us on practical measures to reduce the risks of destabilising arms races and conflict.”

China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, Li Song, responded the same day. He described the new Aukus pact between Australia, Britain and the US to help Australia acquire nuclear submarines as a “textbook case” of nuclear proliferation spurring a regional arms race.

Continue reading →

December 20, 2021 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We the People: What led to the Cold War?

We the People: What led to the Cold War? Fear of nuclear weapons annihilating all life on Earth, for one thing https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/dec/19/we-the-people-what-led-to-the-cold-war-fear-of-nuc/ 19 Dec 21   By Pip CawleyFor The Spokesman-Review

Each week, The Spokesman-Review examines one question from the Naturalization Test immigrants must pass to become United States citizens.

Today’s question: During the Cold War, what was one main concern of the United States?

There are two official answers to this question. One is that the U.S. was concerned about the spread of communism. The other is that the U.S. was concerned with the possibility of nuclear war. The myriad ways the fear of communism influenced the United States are too numerous and complex for this brief article.

Instead, I want to discuss the fear of nuclear war. It is easy to forget that since the invention and proliferation of nuclear weapons, we now have the technology available to exterminate our entire species. The fear of nuclear war was ever-present and influenced every aspect of American life. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the celebrated author William Faulkner stated, “Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?”

Let’s discuss how we got to this point.

The Cold War, so named because the two major powers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, never “heated up” or fought open war in Europe, lasted from 1945 to 1990.

Some historians argue the Cold War started during the end of World War II and that the use of the first nuclear weapons on Japan was intended, among other things, to intimidate the Soviets.

The Cold War impacted not just military concerns but was a ubiquitous concern for everyday Americans. A real fear of nuclear war was ever-present in American society. Government-backed films like “The Red Menace” reminded the public of the threat of nuclear war, and families built bomb shelters in their yards and basements.

Schools practiced drills where children were taught to hide under their desks in the case of nuclear war. Obviously, a small desk won’t protect a child from nuclear bombs, but it was part of what is called “security theater.” Security theater is the performance of security or safety measures that realistically do nothing to increase the individual’s safety but give a small sense of control and comfort. They are doing something, and even if what they’re doing is useless, it still helps them feel better.

In reality, there is nothing we could do to protect ourselves from the devastation nuclear weapons bring. Those not killed in the blast instead die of radiation exposure. If enough nuclear weapons are detonated, it will cause a nuclear winter in which the sun’s rays are blocked by clouds of dust and debris. Without warmth from the sun, temperatures on Earth would radically drop, killing all plant and animal life on the planet. This was, and still is, a new and frightening reality.

We arrived at this new reality thanks to what is called the arms race. The U.S. and the USSR sought to get or maintain a technological and tactical advantage over each other. Both countries invested immense amounts of resources to develop new and more powerful weapons. For example, if the U.S. built one aircraft carrier, the USSR would build two, which would prompt the U.S. to build three more even larger aircraft carriers, and so on. The constant one-upmanship of the arms race led to the development of nuclear weapons, first in the U.S. and then in the USSR.

Eventually, these stockpiles of weapons became so large that the two countries each had the capability of destroying all human life on Earth. If one country attacked, the other would retaliate and the conflict could eventually escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, which would then lead to our own extinction.

For that reason, the two countries agreed not to directly attack each other in what is called Mutually Assured Destruction.

Since neither side wanted to end all life on Earth, they agreed not to directly attack each other. This kept an all-out war from breaking out between the two countries.

They did wage proxy wars against each other all over the globe. The U.S. and the USSR demanded that other countries pick a side, theirs or their enemy’s. The USSR expanded its sphere of influence toward Europe, drawing an Iron Curtain across the territory.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and spent 10 years fighting for control of the country. On the other hand, the U.S. invaded Korea and later Vietnam in order to prevent the countries from “falling to communism.” Meanwhile, the push for decolonization in Africa led to armed conflicts, often funded or supplied by one of the major powers. In Iran and several South American countries, clandestine plans and espionage were used to unseat governmental leaders, some of whom were democratically elected, and replace them with new leaders who would be friendly to U.S. interests.

Today, the U.S. and Russia possess the most nuclear weapons, and despite disarmament treaties and downsizing of stockpiles, both still possess enough nuclear devices to destroy the planet several times over. In the years since the Cold War ended, other countries have obtained nuclear capabilities. There are nine countries with nuclear weapons; some others are seeking to obtain their own.

While fear of nuclear war no longer influences our daily lives, as it did during the Cold War, it remains a real concern in international relations.

Pip Cawley received her Ph.D. in political science from Washington State University in Pullman.  This article is part of a Spokesman-Review partnership with the Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University

December 20, 2021 Posted by | history, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA govt moves towards getting an interim storage for nuclear wastes

The feds have collected more than $44 billion for a permanent nuclear waste dump — here’s why we still don’t have one, CNBC, DEC 18 2021    KEY POINTS

  • The federal government has more than $44 billion collected from energy customers since the 1980s specifically to be spent on a permanent nuclear waste disposal in the United States.
  • Currently, nuclear waste is mostly stored in dry casks on the locations of current and former nuclear power plants around the country.
  • On Nov. 30, the Office of Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy took a preliminary step towards establishing an interim repository for nuclear waste. Some see this as a reason for optimism, others as kicking the can down the road.

The federal government has a fund of $44.3 billion earmarked for spending on a permanent nuclear waste disposal facility in the United States.

It began collecting money from energy customers for the fund in the 1980s, and the money is now earning about $1.4 billion in interest each year.

But plans to build a site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, were scuttled by state and federal politics, and there’s been a lack of political will to find other solutions. The result is that the U.S. does not have the infrastructure to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste in a deep geologic repository, where it can slowly lose its radioactivity over the course of thousands of years without causing harm………………………………………….

After 2014, the federal government was forced to stop collecting money for the Nuclear Waste Fund because of a legal ruling. Owners and operators of nuclear power plants had challenged Department of Energy’s collection of fees, arguing that ratepayers should not be paying into a fund when the United States had no viable options for where the used fuel permanent disposal should go.

Amid all the stops and starts, the money in the Nuclear Waste Fund has been put back into the general fund and is being used for other purposes, Frank Rusco of the Government Accountability Office says. To use the funds for their original purpose would require new authorization and appropriation by Congress, he said.

“This will potentially cause a difficulty in getting a repository built,” Rusco said.

Since the federal government has not established a permanent repository for its radioactive nuclear waste, it’s had to pay utility companies to store it themselves. Currently, nuclear waste is mostly stored in dry casks on the locations of current and former nuclear power plants around the country. So far, the system is working, and in 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the lead oversight body for the industry, has said that current storage technology would be sufficient for 100 years……………………

As of Sept. 30, the government has paid $9 billion to utility companies for their interim storage costs and the Department of Energy’s Agency Finance Report estimates it will cost another $30.9 billion until a permanent waste disposal option is completed in the United States.

hat estimate could prove to be low, Rusco said.

However, the tide may be turning back toward finding longer-term solutions.

On Nov. 30, the Office of Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy put out a formal “request for information” for a temporary, but consolidated, nuclear waste storage in the U.S.

Unlike a permanent storage facility, which involves digging deep into the ground, a temporary facility would simply keep all the dry casks together in one place, as opposed to distributed around the country. In some cases, the local nuclear plants have been completely disassembled — but the waste is still stored on site. Consolidating it would at least save on costs.

December 20, 2021 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is never safe or economical


Nuclear power is never safe or economical

I hope Sen. Durbin changes his mind about promoting nuclear energy. The real carbon-free sources of electricity are wind and solar. Chicago Sun Times George Milkowski, West Ridge  Nov 27, 2021  ”’ 

  ……….. When nuclear power plants were first touted in the 1950s as a new and safe method for producing electricity, it was said the electricity would be “too cheap to meter.” This is pure nonsense! If it was so safe, why weren’t any power plants built and put on line until passage of the Price-Anderson Act? The law has been amended a number of times and greatly limits the liability of operators of nuclear power plants.

Anything paid out beyond the limits set in Price-Anderson would take years of lawsuits.

Sen. Durbin wrote “It is past time for Congress to step up and develop a comprehensive, consent-based plan to store nuclear waste.” That’s an understatement. Nuclear waste is stored within a half-mile of Lake Michigan at the now-closed Zion nuclear power plant. Why is it close to the source of our drinking water? Because there is nowhere to ship it! Plans to ship such waste to a depository in Yucca Mountain in the southwest fell through when some improperly stored barrels burst into flames, releasing large amounts of high-level radioactive material.

Who does the senator think will agree to a “consent-based plan” when there is no known method of safely storing these dangerous materials for thousands of years, the time it takes for radioactive decay to make it safe for the environment?

Sen. Durbin argued that “we must ensure the nuclear fleet remains safe and economical,” but nuclear power has never been economical. As far as I know, the last time a permit was approved for a new nuclear plant was during the Obama administration. That plant in Georgia is only about half complete, although it was to be finished by now and the cost is already double the initial estimate.

The current “fleet,” as Sen. Durbin called them, of nuclear power plants were designed and engineered to last about 30 to 40 years. Most of our country’s plants are near that age. Their internal systems are constantly bombarded by radioactive particles, making the metal in the systems more brittle and prone to failure every year. Subsidizing them is a waste of taxpayer money and a dangerous gamble with our lives.

I hope Sen. Durbin changes his mind. The real carbon-free sources of electricity are renewables: wind and solar.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/11/27/22800997/nuclear-power-renewable-energy-wind-solar-infrastructure-remapping-letters

December 20, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Hundreds of Scientists Ask Biden to Cut the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

Hundreds of Scientists Ask Biden to Cut the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal, New York Times, 

In a letter, the scientists also urged President Biden to declare that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict., By David E. Sanger 17 Dec 21,

WASHINGTON — Nearly 700 scientists and engineers, including 21 Nobel laureates, asked President Biden on Thursday to use his forthcoming declaration of a new national strategy for managing nuclear weapons as a chance to cut the U.S. arsenal by a third, and to declare, for the first time, that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

The letter to Mr. Biden also urged him to change, for the first time since President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, the American practice that gives the commander in chief sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. The issue gained prominence during the Trump administration, and the authors of the letter urged Mr. Biden to make the change as “an important safeguard against a possible future president who is unstable or who orders a reckless attack.”

But while Mr. Biden has often declared that he will be guided by scientific advice alone when it comes to managing the Covid-19 pandemic, he has made no such pledge in the nuclear arena, where strategists, allies protected by the American nuclear umbrella and members of Congress all have views — many of them diametrically opposed to the ones described by scientists…………………..   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/us/politics/scientists-letter-nuclear-arsenal.html

December 18, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Small nuclear reactors for military use would be too dangerous – excellent targets for the enemy

In normal operation, they release potentially hazardous quantities of fission products that would be widely distributed by any penetration of the reactor vessel. More worryingly, the resiliency of tri-structural isotropic particles to kinetic impact is questionable: The silicon carbide coating around the fuel material is brittle and may fracture if impacted by munitions.

Further, graphite moderator material, which is used extensively in most mobile power plant cores, is vulnerable to oxidation when exposed to air or water at high temperatures, creating the possibility of a catastrophic graphite fire distributing radioactive ash. Even in the case of intact (non-leaking) fuel fragments being distributed by a strike, the radiological consequences for readiness and effectiveness are dire.

Given these vulnerabilities, sophisticated adversaries seeking to hinder U.S. forces are likely to realize the utility of the reactor as an area-denial target…….. , a reactor strike offers months of exclusion at the cost of only a few well-placed high-explosive warheads, a capability well within reach of even regional adversaries

Even an unsuccessful or minimally damaging attack on a reactor could offer an adversary significant benefits…………..placing these reactors in combat zones introduces nuclear reactors as valid military targets,

MOBILE NUCLEAR POWER REACTORS WON’T SOLVE THE ARMY’S ENERGY PROBLEMS, War on the Rocks, 14 Dec 21, JAKE HECLA  ”………… As China and Russia develop microreactors for propulsion, the U.S. Army is pursuing the ultimate in self-sufficient energy solutions: the capability to field mobile nuclear power plants. In this vision of a nuclearized future, the Army will replace diesel generator banks with microreactors the size of shipping containers for electricity production by the mid-2020s.

…….  the question is whether or not reactors can truly be made suitable for military use. Are they an energy panacea, or will they prove to be high-value targets capable of crippling entire bases with a single strike?

nuclear power program is confidently sprinting into uncharted territory in pursuit of a solution to its growing energy needs and has promised to put power on the grid within three years. However, the Army has not fielded a reactor since the 1960s and has made claims of safety and accident tolerance that contradict a half-century of nuclear industry experience.


The Army appears set to credulously accept industry claims of complete safety that are founded in wishful thinking and characterized by willful circumvention of basic design safety principles……….. 

Continue reading →

December 16, 2021 Posted by | Reference, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Biden administration must end the environmental injustices of the nuclear era

Biden administration must end the environmental injustices of nuclear era  https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/12/14/22827937/renewable-energy-nuclear-biden-executive-order-chiefs-raiders-person-year-letters

If nuclear energy can’t be changed into something safe, it’s a bad idea to produce it in the first place Stephanie Bilenko, La Grange Park,  Dec 14, 2021,    President Joe Biden’s executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, created the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) to advise the federal government’s efforts to address environmental injustice.

In a May report, WHEJAC recommended ruling out nuclear power under the council’s criteria for federal investments that maximize benefits and avoid harm. WHEJAC concluded that nuclear power is not beneficial to communities that have suffered from environmental injustice and are on the frontlines of radioactive exposure, contamination and environmental degradation across the entire nuclear fuel chain and radioactive waste streams.

Instead of propping up aging reactors and perpetuating injustices, the Biden administration must implement policies that end injustice. Congress and the Biden administration should commit to phasing out nuclear power, cleaning up radioactive sites, making reparations to impacted communities and transitioning to 100% renewable energy — now.

The more nuclear power we generate now, the more radioactive waste will be stockpiled for generations far into the future. An essential boundary of appropriate tech is the boundary between matter you can change with tools on hand, and matter you can’t change. If it can’t be changed to something safe, it’s a bad idea to produce it in the first place.

Basic morality teaches us that we ought to leave the world a better place for those who come after us. If we know better, we have to do better.

December 16, 2021 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Federal inspector falsified safety reports at North Anna nuclear plant.

Federal inspector falsified safety reports at North Anna nuclear plant,   https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/breaking-federal-inspector-falsified-safety-reports-at-north-anna-nuclear-plant/by: Jakob CordesPosted: Dec 14, 2021  CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WRIC) — A federal inspector who led safety efforts at the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant in Louisa County plead guilty this week to falsifying safety inspection reports.

The charges were filed after Gregory Croon’s retirement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2020. In a press release, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said the charges were a result of a joint investigation between the OIG and NRC.

According to court documents obtained by 8News, Croon worked at the power plant for four years and was the senior inspector at the North Anna facility, overseeing safety inspections for the entire plant.

Over three separate quarterly reports in 2017, Croon was found to have lied about on-site inspections of key fire and flood safety systems, describing the completion of inspections that never actually took place. The systems in question included fire suppression mechanisms and flood barriers protecting key equipment.

While only a few specific instances of falsification were described in court documents, a statement of facts signed by Croon stated that for years he “allowed days or even weeks to pass without entering North Anna.”

Court documents go on to say that his immediate supervisor told him on several occasions to conduct physical inspections more frequently, but that Croon continued to avoid the plant.

The North Anna Nuclear Nuclear Generating Station is a 1892 Megawatt plant located on the shores of Lake Anna in Louisa County. It’s situated near major population centers in Central Virginia, about 60 miles from Richmond and 50 miles from Charlottesville.

“The accuracy of NRC inspection reports is critical to the NRC’s oversight of licensees’ safe operation of nuclear power plants around the nation,” said NRC Inspector General Robert J. Feitel. “Croon’s false statements could have jeopardized that safety oversight function.”

At a Dec. 13 hearing before the Hon. Judge Norman K. Moon in the Western District Court of Virginia, Croon submitted a guilty, signing a plea agreement with prosecutors that would allow him to avoid jail time but carries a term of probation and a potential fine of up to $9,500.

Croon was released on bond but will reappear before the court in Charlottesville for a sentencing hearing on March 7, 2022.

December 16, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying Virtual Reality journey into the nuclear bunker

15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker, Guardian  Julian Borger in WashingtonTue 14 Dec 2021 Nuclear Biscuit, a simulated experience, allows US officials to wargame a missile attack and see the devastating consequences of their choices…………

I was experiencing what a US president would have to do in the event of a nuclear crisis: make a decision that would end many millions of lives – and quite possibly life on the planet – with incomplete information and in less than 15 minutes……………

The VR simulation has been developed by a team from Princeton, American and Hamburg universities, based on extensive research, including interviews with former officials, into what would happen if the US was – or believed itself to be – under nuclear attack. They have called their project the Nuclear Biscuit, after the small card bearing the president’s launch authorization codes.

……………………….. In 1979, the world came within minutes of nuclear war because someone had left a training tape simulating a Russian attack in the early warning system monitors. In September 1983, Russian computers erroneously showed incoming US missiles. Armageddon was only averted because the duty officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, went against protocols and decided not to act on the alert because his gut told him it was a glitch……….

…………… The pressure to take one of the options presented by the Pentagon felt almost overwhelming. At one point an aide asked how I would be able to face my country if I failed to respond. The simulation raises the question of who chooses those options in the first place. In the 15 minutes available, it would be impossible to put all feasible alternatives in front of a president, so whoever whittles them down holds a huge amount of power. All we know is that it is someone from the US military. Diplomats, politicians or ethicists are not part of the process.

……………  Shockingly, the researchers found no evidence that any US president except Jimmy Carter, had taken part in realistic drills to practise potentially world-ending decisions. Other presidents occasionally participated in table-top exercises with aides to discuss options but more often sent surrogates in their place.

In January, the research team will take their experiment to Capitol Hill, with the aim of provoking some contemplation about the realities underlying US nuclear planning.

“Hopefully members of Congress will come to experience this and at least see the consequences of the choices they’ve made about nuclear weapons issues,” Weiner said. “They will see everybody in that virtual room is trying to do their job, but it’s an impossible job.”   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/14/vr-game-simulating-nuclear-attack-tests-decision-making-skills

December 16, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Westinghouse keen get new 40-year operating license for nuclear fuel plant, despite pollution, leakscand spills.

Westinghouse investing $131 million at nuclear fuel plant after recent leaks and spills, The State,  BY NOAH FEIT AND SAMMY FRETWELL DECEMBER 15, 2021

Westinghouse will invest $131 million in its troubled nuclear fuel factory on Bluff Road under a plan that includes improving pollution controls at the facility, which has been plagued by leaks and spills and recently has drawn scrutiny from federal agencies about environmental problems…………..

Wednesday’s announcement is a potentially significant step in the company’s effort to gain a new 40-year operating license, which is critical to keeping the plant open.The current license expires in 2027, but Westinghouse is seeking a new license now to help ensure future stability of its business to customers. An environmental study for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission — a report criticized by some federal agencies as inadequate — recommended the 40-year license, as did an advisory panel to McMaster. But the U.S. Department of the Interior recommended a 20-year license because of pollution that has seeped into groundwater at the plant, a problem the department said could threaten nearby Congaree National Park. Making substantial improvements at Westinghouse could mollify some concerns about future environmental threats………..

According to plans, the company’s $131 million investment includes upgrades to equipment and procedures, increasing the company’s capacity and future growth………
Westinghouse’s fuel plant, which employs about 1,000 workers, has been under intense scrutiny the past five years because of spills and leaks, and information has surfaced about contaminated groundwater that had been unknown for years to regulators and the public. Among other troubles, uranium, a radioactive material, leaked through a hole in the plant’s floor and uranium built up in an air pollution control device, a problem that could have sent a burst of radiation inside the plant. Leaking containers also allowed toxins to dribble into the ground.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently voiced concerns about the plant in comment letters to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is weighing whether to grant the 40-year license. The S.C. Department of Natural Resources also expressed reservations.
Bob Guild, a veteran environmental lawyer and local Sierra Club member, questioned the impact of the $131 million plant announcement. The news release did not explain in detail how much of the investment would be for specific improvements to protect the environment. It also did not address the legacy of pollution on the property. “I’m very skeptical that there is significant investment in pollution control,’’ he said.“To the extent they are committing resources to improving processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again, all the better,’’ Guild said. “But none of that addresses cleaning up contamination that is historic at the site.’’………….Read more at: https://www.thestate.com/news/business/article256614776.html#storylink=cpy

December 16, 2021 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

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