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
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/
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
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……………….
West Virginia public weighs in on nuclear power plant prohibition repeal .
Public weighs in on nuclear power plant prohibition repeal The Weirton Daily Times, 30 Jan 22,
STEVEN ALLEN ADAMS STAFF WRITER, CHARLESTON —With lawmakers on the cusp of removing a more than 25-year-old ban on nuclear energy in West Virginia, members of the House of Delegates received input from the public Friday.
The House Government Organization Committee held a public hearing in the House of Delegates chamber Friday morning on Senate Bill 4, repealing sections of the state code banning the construction of nuclear power plants in West Virginia………
The bill would remove two sections of code banning the construction of new nuclear power plants except under certain circumstances. The ban has been in place since 1996.
Supporters of the bill include the West Virginia Manufacturers Association and the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. …………………
Opposition to the bill united two sides normally fighting each other: the coal industry and environmental activists. ……….
Hannah King, a lobbyist with the West Virginia Environmental Council, read a prepared statement on behalf of Gary Zuckett, executive director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, due to Zuckett being quarantined for a COVID-19 infection. Zuckett, who advocated for the 1996 ban on nuclear power, said even with improvements in technology the state should take its time before repealing the ban.
“We need climate solutions now, not in 10 years,” King said on behalf of Zuckett. “The prudent thing to do would be to put these bills on hold, assemble an interim study, gather experts on both sides of this critical issue, and make a measured and informed decision. If we’re going to open up West Virginia to nuclear power, let’s do it with proper regulations and safeguards for its people, economy and environment.”……………… https://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/local-news/2022/01/public-weighs-in-on-nuclear-power-plant-prohibition-repeal/
Montana communities have better options than nuclear power.
We have better options than nuclear, https://helenair.com/opinion/letters/we-have-better-options-than-nuclear/article_620c7b44-dfaa-5448-b4fd-f8964dded79e.html Jeff Havens, 30 Jan 22,
Voter voices were silenced last spring by legislators and the governor on the topic of whether nuclear fission reactors and their highly radioactive waste can be located within our communities. Simultaneously, a separate but related law was enacted for the state to study “small advanced nuclear reactors.”
Contrary to their myopic moves, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported “newly built reactors must be demonstrably safer and more secure …. Unfortunately, most ‘advanced’ nuclear reactors are anything but. … for any reactor concept it is critical to understand that ‘burning’ spent fuel first entails reprocessing to separate out and re-use plutonium and other weapon-usable materials. Reprocessing makes these materials more accessible for use in nuclear weapons by states or terrorists….”
I hate to think that some “recycled” material from such reactors could be diverted into manufacturing nuclear weapons to be leveraged by domestic states or terrorists during the next coup attempt on our nation. This alarming possibility is amplified when one considers federal seditious conspiracy indictment of Oath Keepers founder and leader Elmer Rhodes, who is a former Montana attorney and resident.
We have better options for jobs than hazards associated with fission reactors. Let’s try more wind and solar, first.
NATO practices nuclear missile sorties near borders of the Russia-Belarus Union
NATO practices nuclear missile sorties near Union State borders — Belarus’ security chief
A breach of international norms and elementary rules of good neighborly relations by neighboring countries is already turning into an alarming trend, Alexander Volfovich stated
MINSK, January 28. /TASS/. The NATO Air Force is practicing sorties with cruise missiles, including with nuclear warheads, near the borders of the Russia-Belarus Union State, State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Alexander Volfovich said on Friday.
“The head of state drew attention to intensified flights by US strategic bombers near the borders of the Union State,” the BelTA news agency quoted Volfovich as saying.
“In our assessments, this means that the NATO Air Force is practicing employing cruise missiles, including those with nuclear warheads,” he said…………….. https://tass.com/defense/1394647
Nuclear waste storage in New Mexico would be blocked if Senate, House bill pass Legislature
Nuclear waste storage in New Mexico would be blocked if Senate, House bill pass Legislature, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus 27 Jan 22, High-level spent nuclear fuel would be prohibited from being stored in New Mexico if lawmakers pass a pair of bills introduced during this year’s legislative session.
The bicameral effort comes as Holtec International proposed to build and operate a facility in southeast New Mexico to temporarily hold spent nuclear fuel rods from generator sites across the U.S.
Sponsored by New Mexico Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-36), a frequent critic of the Holtec project, Senate Bill 54 would prohibit the kind of waste Holtec planned to store in New Mexico. It’s twin bill, House Bill 127, was sponsored by Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-50).
The state does have a facility for low-level waste. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy in the same region and permitted by the State of New Mexico
The Holtec site recently received approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which recommended Holtec be issued a license to build the facility and a final decision was expected this year.
Holtec would hold up to 100,000 metric tons of the waste in total on an interim basis until a permanent repository was available.
The U.S. does not presently have a permanent repository for the waste after such a project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada stalled amid opposition from leaders in that state.
In New Mexico, high-ranking state officials voiced their own opposition to the proposal with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham calling the project “economic malpractice” as she worried it could risk nearby oil and gas and agriculture industries in the region.
Last year, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed a lawsuit against the NRC arguing its license recommendation ignored the environmental and safety impacts the site could have if built and operated.
SB 54 was awaiting a hearing in the Senate Conservation Committee, while HB 127 was to be considered in the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Both bills added language to New Mexico’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Act that “no one” will store high-level waste or spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico, adding to a clause that already required state consent before such a facility could be built.
The bill would also amend requirements of the state’s Radioactive Waste Consultation Task Force to include private nuclear facilities like Holtec’s in its purview for analysis and require the committee meet at least annually.
“No person shall store or dispose of radioactive materials or radioactive waste (or spent fuel) in a disposal facility until the state has concurred in the creation of the disposal facility, except as specifically preempted by federal law; provided that spent fuel and high-level waste shall not be stored or disposed of in the state; and provided further that the state or a political subdivision of the state shall not issue or certify a permit for the construction or operation of a disposal facility for spent fuel or high-level waste,” read the language of the bills.
Local leaders in southeast New Mexico opposed the bill, believing the Holtec project was a safe way to diversify the region’s economy and insulate it from future up and downswings in the oil and gas markets.
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway, Eddy County Commission Chairman Steven McCutcheon, along with Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb and Lea County Commissioner Jonathan Sena signed letters to Lujan Grisham opposing each bill and asking that she not sign them into law if passed.
The cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties formed the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance which sited the project and recruited Holtec………………. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/27/nuclear-waste-storage-new-mexico-would-blocked-if-bills-pass/6578755001/
”All options on the table” to punish Moscow -could bring about a nuclear conflict.
Repeated assertions that “all options are on the table” to punish Moscow should it reinvade Ukraine are seen as particularly troubling.
“In the nuclear age, ‘all options on the table’ in a conflict involving nuclear powers could be understood to mean the potential use of nuclear weapons, even if that wasn’t the intention in this instance,
Nuclear fears mount as Ukraine crisis deepens,
Officials and experts are warning that a Russian invasion could inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange with the U.S. Politico By BRYAN BENDER, 01/27/2022, As Russian troops bear down on Ukraine and the United States prepares its own military buildup in Eastern Europe, concerns are growing across the ideological spectrum that the standoff could inadvertently escalate into the unthinkable: nuclear war.
President Joe Biden has insisted that he will not use American forces to directly defend Ukrainian territory against a possible Russian invasion. But that is no guarantee that the two sides won’t come to blows.
The world’s two largest nuclear powers could even stumble into nuclear confrontation if the situation spins out of control, current and former officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic worry.
“At the point you unleash war in the modern environment, the one thing that is certain is the law of unintended consequences,” Des Browne, a member of the British Parliament and a former secretary of state for defense, told POLITICO. “If you are talking about a nuclear-armed environment, which is already fragile … then you are living in an environment [where] things could escalate quite quickly, by accident or miscalculation.”
“Nobody thinks any of these weapons are going to be used deliberately, but miscalculation is a significant chance,” added Browne, who chairs the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group.
It’s a concern shared by current and former nuclear security officials who usually don’t agree on much — from disarmament advocates to nuclear hawks.
“I think the Ukraine conflict is demonstrating that the nuclear escalation scenario we’re worried about is not out of sight,” said Patty-Jane Geller, an expert on nuclear strategy at the hawkish Heritage Foundation.
Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited the Ukraine conflict as contributing to its decision to keep the “Doomsday Clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, an indication of how close it assesses that the human race is to potential self-annihilation.
“Ukraine remains a potential flashpoint, and Russian troop deployments to the Ukrainian border heighten day-to-day tension,” it noted in citing the threat of a nuclear conflict.
A primary concern, according to Geller and others, is Russia’s arsenal of thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons, which are central to its military strategy.
“The Russians have something like 4,000 [tactical nuclear weapons] and they have an ‘escalate to win’ nuclear doctrine, which says ‘we use nuclear weapons first if the conventional conflict starts to spin out of our favor,’” said a former senior GOP government official who still works on nuclear security issues.
One Russian diplomat last month went so far as to publicly threaten the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the crisis.
The weapons have a lower “yield” than traditional atomic bombs and are designed to be used against conventional forces in battle. But they still have enormous explosive power and are considered particularly destabilizing to deterrent strategy.
The United States has reportedly been flying dedicated spy missions over in recent weeks to determine if Russia has deployed any of its tactical nuclear weapons along the border with Ukraine.
There’s also concern among Russian nuclear experts about the potential that the Ukraine crisis could escalate, according to former U.S. Ambassador Richard Burt, who negotiated arms control treaties with the Soviet Union…………
The situation is exacerbated by the growing number of U.S., NATO, and Russian military forces in close proximity, Burt said.
“One thing I think is useful to remember is people are not just putting their forces on alert in and around Ukraine, but you’ve got nuclear-capable naval forces in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean,” he said. “In the Baltic Sea there also has been an intensification of activity as well. You have a lot more aircraft flying overflights.”………….
Others have taken issue with American rhetoric that they see as sowing unnecessary confusion about what military options might be under consideration to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Repeated assertions that “all options are on the table” to punish Moscow should it reinvade Ukraine are seen as particularly troubling.
“In the nuclear age, ‘all options on the table’ in a conflict involving nuclear powers could be understood to mean the potential use of nuclear weapons, even if that wasn’t the intention in this instance,” two leading arms control advocates wrote last week.…..https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/27/nuclear-fears-mount-ukraine-crisis-deepens-00003088
Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon.
Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon
By Georgina Rannard, BBC News, 28 Jan 22, A rocket launched by Elon Musk’s space exploration company is on course to crash into the Moon and explode.
The Falcon 9 booster was launched in 2015 but after completing its mission, it did not have enough fuel to return towards Earth and instead remained in space.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell told BBC News it will be the first known uncontrolled rocket collision with the Moon……..
It was part of Mr Musk’s space exploration programme SpaceX, a commercial company that ultimately aims to get humans living on other planets.
Since 2015 the rocket has been pulled by different gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon and Sun, making its path somewhat “chaotic”, explains Prof McDowell from the US-based Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“It’s been dead – just following the laws of gravity.”
It’s joined millions of other pieces of space junk – machinery discarded in space after completing missions without enough energy to return to Earth.
“Over the decades there have been maybe 50 large objects that we’ve totally lost track of. This may have happened a bunch of times before, we just didn’t notice. This would be the first confirmed case,” Prof McDowell says…………………. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60148543
Nuclear-Testing ‘Downwinders’ Speak about History and Fear
Nuclear-Testing ‘Downwinders’ Speak about History and Fear. An archival project aims to document the experiences of people who suffered from U.S. nuclear weapons testing, Scientific American , By Sarah Scoles on January 27, 2022 When Sandra Evans Walsh was growing up in Parowan, Utah, her class would sometimes trek outside to a row of trees. They were about to watch history in the making, the teacher would tell them. The kids would then stare as an orange shroud spread across the sky. “I remember the clouds coming over our town and writing our names in the dust,” she said in an interview with Justin Sorensen, a geographical information systems (GIS) specialist at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library.
That dust had traveled around 200 miles, all the way from what is now called the Nevada National Security Site, where scientists once tested nuclear weapons. Between 1945 and 1962, U.S. researchers detonated around 200 bombs aboveground—100 of them in Nevada. Fallout from the nuclear tests—radioactive particles that were swept into the atmosphere and fell back down to the earth—found their way into crops and livestock, whose radioactivity humans took on when they consumed milk, meat and produce. Fallout takes many different chemical forms, one of which is iodine-131: an isotope, or version, of iodine that has the usual 53 protons but 78 neutrons instead of the standard 74. Inside the body, the thyroid gland will absorb iodine-131, which eventually decays to produce radiation that can cause thyroid cancer and other problems.
People, such as Walsh, who lived “downwind” of nuclear development and open-air explosions are now called “downwinders.” Mary Dickson, another downwinder, told Sorensen and one of his colleagues that she thought the attitude toward those in Utah who were affected by nuclear testing was, “you know, ‘They were Mormons and cowboys and Indians—who cares?’ In general, she added, “they test where they think there are populations that don’t matter.”
Sorensen and his team spoke to both women and dozens of other people for a project called the Downwinders of Utah Archive. Hosted by the J. Willard Marriott Library, the archive is an attempt to qualify, quantify and make accessible people’s experiences of, and effects from, the American legacy of nuclear weapons testing. In 2011 the Senate unanimously designated January 27 as the National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders. “The downwinders paid a high price for the development of a nuclear weapons program for the benefit of the United States,” stated the resolution establishing the designation.
But when the tests were conducted, no one had done the research necessary to truly calculate what that price would be. Wanting to understand the potential link between regional health issues and fallout from nuclear tests, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) undertook a study on Americans exposed to iodine-131 from the Nevada tests. The results were released in 1997 in a report entitled “Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests.” It was this document that first led Sorensen to the archival project. “We were just kind of wondering, originally, ‘What does this data look like if you put it on a map?’” he says, “because a spreadsheet doesn’t really tell you a lot.” Sorensen’s background is in GIS and cartography, so he took the NCI’s fallout data and overlaid them onto his home state. “It just really grew from there,” he says. “We started seeing there’s a story to be told.”……………………..
Although no single illness can be conclusively tied to a test-site cause, investigations by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, among others, have established links between radiation exposure and cancer occurrence. In the early 2000s a report by NCI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that fallout could have led to around 11,000 excess deaths. The NCI has also created a calculator that allows users to calculate their thyroid dose and risk of developing thyroid cancer from fallout. “We can’t know any individual’s cancer was caused by radioactivity,” explains Scott Williams, former executive director of HEAL Utah, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on the environment and public health, “but we do know that some people’s cancer risk was increased by radioactivity.”
Since 1990 the federal government has offered some recompense to downwinders and others affected by nuclear testing through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Set to expire this summer unless a bill is passed to renew (and expand) it, RECA pays downwinders, test participants and uranium workers between $50,000 and $100,000—if they have specific ailments and can prove (with decades-old evidence that is sometimes hard to come by) they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. “We left a burden on unwitting citizens across the country without ever informing them,” Williams says. “We need to do the honorable thing and own the problem and not create these problems again.”
The Downwinders of Utah Archive is always expanding, and though Sorensen paused interviews during the pandemic, he plans to light the fuse again soon. He also hopes to expand the project to other Western states to preserve their history, too.
Making sure that information remains accessible is part of the point of the Downwinders of Utah Archive. The day of remembrance is, in its own way, an isotope of that openness. “Those kind of markers are really important…,” Dickson told Sorensen and his colleague. “Otherwise, you know, time marches on, and it’s like dipping a big spoon in the water. The rest of the water just fills in, and it’s like it was never there.”
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-testing-downwinders-speak-about-history-and-fear/
Lawsuit looks to force nuclear regulator to turn over records from San Onofre ‘near-miss’ incident
Lawsuit looks to force nuclear regulator to turn over records from San Onofre ‘near-miss’ incident, August 2018 “near-miss” saw a 50-ton canister of nuclear waste left suspended for 45 minutes. San Diego Union TribuneBY ROB NIKOLEWSKIJAN. 24, 2022 A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court seeks to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hand over unredacted documents regarding an incident in August 2018 when a 50-ton canister filled with nuclear waste from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was left suspended for about 45 minutes.
“The information sought will show the extent to which the NRC has colluded with the utilities it is supposed to regulate so as to prevent the disclosure of on-going safety violations and whether the NRC failed to take the necessary steps to enforce safety regulations at the nuclear site,” said the complaint filed by San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre.
An NRC spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending legalmatters.
At issue are 13 pages of records concerning what happened on Aug. 3, 2018, at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, known as SONGS for short, operated by Southern California Edison……………………………..ore https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2022-01-24/lawsuit-looks-to-force-nuclear-regulator-to-turn-over-redactions-from-san-onofre-incident#:~:text=A%20lawsuit%20filed%20in%20U.S
Explanation of near-miss at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
NEAR-MISS AT NUCLEAR SITE AT SAN ONOFRE EXPLAINED https://www.surfer.com/environmental-news/nuclear-san-onofre-near-miss-explained/
SONGS ALMOST SUFFERED A SERIOUS ACCIDENT IN AUGUST, NEW DETAILS EMERGE, NOVEMBER 9, 2018 BY JUSTIN HOUSMAN Back in August, workers at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), were lowering a 50-ton spent nuclear fuel canister into a holding tank at the controversial nuclear storage site, not far from Old Man’s. While the workers thought they’d lowered it all the way, the massive canister containing deadly amounts of nuclear waste, was resting–barely–on a metal ring at the top of the tank, never intended to support the weight of the canister.
Democrats urge Biden to keep pledge to limit nuclear weapons
Democrats urge Biden to keep pledge to limit nuclear weapons, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/biden-democrats-white-house-nuclear-weapons Julian Borger in WashingtonThu 27 Jan 2022
Letter by 55 senators and members of Congress comes amid reports Biden will make only minor changes to nuclear posture review
Leading Democrats have written to Joe Biden appealing to him to stick to his promise to reduce the US reliance on nuclear weapons for its defence and to revive arms control.
The letter, signed by 55 senators and representatives, was sent on Wednesday while the White House was making final decisions on the US nuclear posture review (NPR), amid reports that Biden will make only minor adjustments to the vast nuclear modernisation plans inherited from his predecessors.
“Your NPR represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that US nuclear doctrine reflects your recognition that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the letter said
During the election campaign, Biden said the US “does not need new nuclear weapons” and pledged that his administration would “work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our reliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons”.
The campaign also said it would make deterring and responding to a nuclear attack the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal. The current nuclear posture envisages its potential use against a range of threats, including an overwhelming cyber-attack.
Despite Biden’s campaign rhetoric, an advocate for restraint in nuclear weapon modernisation and arms control was removed last year from her Pentagon post overseeing the drafting of the NPR, after a campaign against her by hawks in the defence department and in Congress.
The draft NPR produced by the Pentagon is believed to be a conservative document, endorsing the existing modernisation plans, expected to cost well over $1tn.
Meanwhile, allies led by France have lobbied the Biden administration not to introduce a “sole purpose” policy, concerned about the global pressure it would bring on them to change their own doctrines. The White House insists that the president will have the last word in shaping the policy.
The Democrats behind the letter urged Biden to make the “sole purpose” policy part of the NPR and to scrap two new weapon variants introduced by Trump: a low-yield warhead for Trident missiles, and a planned nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, saying the moves “would further signal that the United States believes that deterrence, not war-fighting, is the sole purpose of nuclear weapons”.
Your forthcoming NPR should reflect your administration’s views, not embrace President Trump’s nuclear weapons programs,” the letter said. It was written by the two leading voices in the Senate for arms control, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley, and their co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group from the House, Donald Beyer and John Garamendi.
Failure to change the status quo would fuel a cold war-style arms race with Russia and China, the letter warned, arguing: “A clean break with President Trump’s policies can send a strong signal to Russia and China that the United States believes restraint and nuclear arms reduction are measures of a country’s great power status, not nuclear weapons overkill.”
Call to stop the unfair Vogtle nuclear construction surcharge
Now they want US to pay for THEIR mistakes, botched work & do-overs, delays, and retesting. NO…THEY SHOULD PAY!
REPEAL THE UNFAIR VOGTLE CONSTRUCTION SURCHARGE
5 Repeal Reasons Below
It is simply wrong and disgraceful for the state of Georgia to continue to have
elderly, schools, food banks, mom & pop restaurants, churches, tire stores, car repair shops, households, gas stations, doctors offices, renters, dentists, synagogues, beauty parlors, dry cleaners, shoe stores, insurance offices, meals-on-wheels, homeless shelters, colleges and universities, Salvation Army stores, drug stores, police stations, nursing homes, car washes, pet stores, fast-food restaurants, veterinarian offices, county governments, small manufacturing businesses, hospitals, recycling centers, animal shelters, hardware stores, grocery stores, YMCA & YWCA, bookstores, healthfood stores, consignment stores, rehab centers, phone stores, barbershops, grocery stores, warehouses, franchise businesses, clothing stores…
all paying month after month an extra surcharge amount on their Georgia Power electric bill to finance, without compensation, someone else’s years overdue for-profit venture.
The nuclear finance surcharge law was for construction, not for costly, continuing re-dos, re-testing, and delays after delays.
The surcharge is clearly failing to benefit customers, as the 2009 legislature was led to believe.
STOP The Surcharge Fee On Georgia Power Customers’ Electric Bills
Repeal the Unfair 2009 Nuclear Energy Finance Act
1. The original controversial nuclear finance act of 2009 anticipated that Georgians would pay a surcharge for five years. However, Georgia Power has collected the nuclear tax for SIX YEARS LONGER than anticipated with no end in sight.
2. The original finance act DID NOT anticipate making people pay for expensive construction mistakes, costly delays, and expensive do-overs.
3. The company testifies that construction is 99% complete. Most of the current work is fixing mistakes and do-over work. Customers should not keep paying surcharges if the project is so near completion as claimed, yet so late.
4. Extensive ITAAC testing (Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Inspections, Tests, Analyses, and Acceptance Criteria) is far from complete. Numerous problems found by testing will push startup much later than the present startup claim of late 2022, and thus continue the surcharges even longer. Note: NRC reports that, of the 399 tests, about 150, or 38% remain to be done. All tests must be complete before fuel is loaded.
5. The surcharge unfairly burdens the small and medium size residential and commercial customers, including schools, elderly, non-profit services, while it unfairly gives a pass to very large customers. These very large customers get to use rates that avoid much of the surcharge. (See Reference 1)
Surcharges started on Georgia Power bills in 2011
In 2019, they hit a high of 10.76 %
In 2020, they were 9.46 % (The NCCR-10 rate)
In 2021, they are 9.46 %
In January, 2022, they will be 3.81 % (The NCCR-11)
Background For Repealing the 2009 Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act:
The nuclear surcharge finances the new power plant Vogtle “Vortex” 3 & 4 nuclear reactors. The surcharge is money given to a private for-profit endeavor.
The surcharge takes money from Georgia electric power customers, and there is nothing in return.
The average Georgia residential customer has already paid over $ 850.00 in Vogtle surcharges. So far, Georgia Power has collected over $ 3.6 Billion from Georgians via this nuclear tax!
The nuclear finance surcharge goes on and on, month after month, years longer than proposed. This was not intended by legislators, more than half of whom have retired, when they enacted the 2009 Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing law.
The surcharge began when Vogtle nuclear construction started in 2011 and went to a high of 10.76% in 2019. Under the current law, the nuclear surcharge will stay on Georgians’ power bills until the reactor is operating and selling electricity. Ongoing massive construction delays and cost overruns make that date uncertain………… http://stopvogtlesurcharge.org/
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