nuclear-news

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

Cuban missile crisis -a reminder that nuclear war could so easily still happen

Yes, nuclear war could still happen   https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/523951-yes-nuclear-war-could-still-happen, BY JOHN DALE GROVER, — 11/02/20  The recent anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis should be a reminder to American citizens and policymakers that nuclear war is not impossible. For 13 days from Oct. 16, 1962, to Oct. 28, 1962, America and the Soviet Union nearly killed each other in a nuclear war. Today, the passing of that anniversary should warn us that through a crisis that spirals out of control, sheer accident, or miscommunication, Washington could still find itself in a nuclear exchange with Moscow, Beijing, or Pyongyang.

Today, relations with China are strained and tensions with North Korea — though on an uneasy pause — will likely resume sooner rather than later. America’s relationship with Russia is also contentious and only one arms control treaty remains in place between Washington and Moscow. The 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is set to expire in February 2021, but last-minute negotiations are underway to extend that treaty for another year.

History shows that dealing with a hostile nuclear power requires dual firmness: a strong military to deter any attack and a strong diplomatic corps to diffuse any crisis or misunderstanding. The problem is that without diplomacy, miscommunication, changing redlines, and accidents could start a nuclear war. In fact, the Cuban Missile Crisis is a perfect example of that.
In April 1961, President John F. Kennedy tried to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, just one of several events that prompted Castro to ask Moscow for help. Complicating the situation, the U.S. stationed Jupiter nuclear missiles in its ally Turkey, which were very close to the Soviet Union. As a result, Moscow feared an attack and wanted to do the same thing to Washington by putting nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Kennedy considered many options, including bombing the missile sites or invading Cuba, but thankfully decided against military action. Instead, he ordered a “quarantine” of Cuba. While America enforced its de-facto blockade, negotiations commenced, and a secret agreement was made: Moscow would remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba if Washington removed its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. However, Washington kept its end of the deal quiet to make it look as if Moscow had backed down — a decision which has incorrectly given the impression to later generations of policymakers that hard power is all that matters when facing a crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis nearly spiraled into a nuclear war as accidents, errors, and miscommunication was commonplace. For example, the CIA incorrectly estimated that only around 12,000 Soviet troops were in Cuba. In reality, there were over 40,000 and if any of them had died, Moscow would surely have retaliated.

Kennedy considered many options, including bombing the missile sites or invading Cuba, but thankfully decided against military action. Instead, he ordered a “quarantine” of Cuba. While America enforced its de-facto blockade, negotiations commenced, and a secret agreement was made: Moscow would remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba if Washington removed its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. However, Washington kept its end of the deal quiet to make it look as if Moscow had backed down — a decision which has incorrectly given the impression to later generations of policymakers that hard power is all that matters when facing a crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis nearly spiraled into a nuclear war as accidents, errors, and miscommunication was commonplace. For example, the CIA incorrectly estimated that only around 12,000 Soviet troops were in Cuba. In reality, there were over 40,000 and if any of them had died, Moscow would surely have retaliated.
In addition, according to the U.S. National Archives, the CIA “was also unaware that the Soviets had on hand 35 LUNA battlefield nuclear weapons that would have devastated any American landing force.” The Archives also noted that during the crisis, “Several anti-Castro groups, operating under a CIA program… went about their sabotage activities because no one had thought to cancel their mission, which could have been mistaken for assault preparations.”

The list goes on. Shortly after being ordered to Defcon 2, General Thomas Powers, commander of America’s nuclear bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) dangerously broadcast some of his orders without code and out in the open. America also conducted a routine ICBM test even though such a move may have looked like an attack.

A guard at Duluth Air Base mistook a bear for a saboteur and pulled an alarm, which accidentally rang the nuclear attack warning at Volks Field in Wisconsin. The nuclear-armed fighter jets nearly took off but were halted by an officer who drove onto the runway with his lights flashing.
There were also not one — but two — simultaneous U-2 spy plane incidents. One American spy plane accidentally got lost over the Soviet Union for at least an hour and a half, while another U-2 over Cuba was actually shot down by Russian troops that acted unilaterally without authorization from Moscow.

November 3, 2020 Posted by | history, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A USA Senator reflects on the anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis

November 3, 2020 Posted by | history, politics international, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nukes in space

New Los Alamos spin-off aims to put nuclear reactors in space,   LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Nov. 2, 2020—A new agreement hopes to speed along a nuclear reactor technology that could be used to fuel deep-space exploration and possibly power human habitats on the Moon or Mars. Los Alamos National Laboratory has signed an agreement to license the “Kilopower” space reactor technology to Space Nuclear Power Corporation (SpaceNukes), also based in Los Alamos, NM…… https://www.miragenews.com/new-los-alamos-spin-off-aims-to-put-nuclear-reactors-in-space/

November 3, 2020 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Coronavirus cases rise in grim march to America’s Election Day

Coronavirus cases rise in grim march to Election Day,  SMH, By Doina Chiacu and Susan Cornwell

Washington: Coronavirus cases continued their grim climb in the United States on Sunday, local time, with Midwestern states experiencing record hospitalisations, as increasingly bitter rhetoric kept the virus front and centre of campaigning two days before the presidential election.

Nearly 87,000 cases were reported on Saturday, with 909 deaths and record hospitalisations for the sixth straight day in the Midwest, according to a Reuters tally. In October, 31 states set records for increases in new cases, 21 for hospitalised COVID-19 patients and 14 for record increases in deaths.

President Donald Trump, the Republican seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Joe Biden on Tuesday, downplays the virus and has accused Democrats of overblowing the pandemic that has killed more 230,000 Americans, more than any other country.

Biden and fellow Democrats have hammered Trump as a poor leader who failed to contain COVID-19 in the United States, which also leads the world in the daily average number of new cases.

Trump’s false accusation Friday that doctors were profiting from COVID-19 deaths drew harsh criticism from the governor of the election battleground state of Wisconsin.

“We have a president that believes that the doctors are at fault, they’re messing with the numbers and he believes that it’s over. It ain’t over,” Democratic Governor Tony Evers told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“We have hospitalisations going through the roof,” he said. “We absolutely need somebody that understands that this is an issue, it’s a thing. People are dying.”……..

Stanford University economists estimated that Trump’s campaign rallies have resulted in 30,000 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, and likely led to more than 700 deaths overall, according to a paper posted this weekend.

Infectious disease experts have long suspected that the president’s rallies might be so-called superspreader events. But scientists have not been able to get a good read on their impact, in part because of a lack of robust contact tracing.

Trump has repeatedly disdained masks, even after outbreaks affected his own family and multiple White House staffers.

In contrast, Biden has stuck to federal health guidelines that discourage large, crowded gatherings during his campaign events. He has called Trump’s handling of the virus negligent and irresponsible.

Amid the acrimony, DeWine urged Americans to come together and fight what he called a war against a common enemy.

“This virus doesn’t care whether we vote for Joe Biden or whether we vote for Donald Trump. It’s coming after us.”    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/coronavirus-cases-rise-in-grim-march-to-election-day-20201102-p56ali.html

November 2, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, health | Leave a comment

USA should accept Russia’s offer of a one-year extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 

Russia and the U.S. Need a Timeout on Nuclear Weapons, With New START about to expire, the U.S. should accept Moscow’s offer of a one-year extension.  Bloombeerg By James Stavridis, 31 October 2020,  “…….. The stakes are vastly higher when it comes to negotiations involving the possible use of strategic nuclear weapons, such as those on intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have the potential to end civilization as we know it. In my final military job, as supreme allied commander at NATO, I argued contentiously with senior Russian officials that U.S. Aegis missile systems in Eastern Europe — which are intended primarily to avert an Iranian attack on the continent — could not threaten their strategic nuclear force. It was a debate that went around and around in circles.

The simple truth is that both sides have a vital interest in reducing the number of strategic nuclear weapons systems — and likewise moving away from tactical nukes, the less-powerful weapons geared to use on the battlefield. Now the U.S. and Russia are performing a complicated negotiating dance around replacing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before it expires next February. For the sake of the entire world, Washington and Moscow have to be able to get to “yes” and “da,” respectively. …..

The administration’s goals are overambitious for now — particularly given that Trump may not be in office in three months — so it would be smart to take up Russia’s offer.

Eventually, Washington should seek an agreement that includes, most fundamentally, even tighter limits on the warheads aboard intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach each other’s shores. Then there are new systems coming into play — notably nuclear-powered torpedoes with strategic nuclear warheads, and boost-glide, ultra-high-speed versions of ICBMs — that will require new kinds of restrictions and possible inspection regimes……
one long list of tricky issues to be hashed out if New START is to get a new life. It would be in America’s interest to agree to at least a one-year timeout to continue the conversation — regardless of which party ends up in the White House. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-30/putin-s-right-that-u-s-and-russia-need-a-nuclear-timeout

November 2, 2020 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Senate unanimously passes resolution supporting nuclear weapons workers made ill by radiation

November 2, 2020 Posted by | employment, health, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Expert guidance for the next President to head off a nuclear catastrophe

5 Steps for the Next President to Head Off a Nuclear Catastrophe

To the horror of experts, 30 years after the Cold War, the global risk from nuclear weapons is actually getting worse. Here’s how a new administration can turn that around. Politico, By EDMUND G. BROWN JR. , REP. RO KHANNA and WILLIAM J. PERRY, 10/30/2020

Edmund G. Brown Jr. is the former governor of California and executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) represents Silicon Valley in the House of Representatives.

William J. Perry was the 19th United States Secretary of Defense.

As fires rage across the West and the coronavirus continues its deadly march, President Donald Trump tweets and fulminates but refuses to take charge. He denies climate change; on the pandemic, he leaves to the states his clear responsibility to protect the people of America.

Tragically, his incompetence extends beyond Covid-19 and climate change to another existential danger, rarely debated in Washington or covered by the media: the chance of a nuclear blunder.

The Cold War may have ended in 1989, but the United States and Russia together still possess more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, 90 percent of the world’s arsenal, nearly 2,000 of which are programmed to launch in minutes at the command of either countries’ president. The risk of a real nuclear catastrophe is not a bugbear from a past decade. It is a current threat, and becoming more serious because of Trump’s policies—and because the public has largely stopped paying attention.

Like passengers on the Titanic, our leaders in Washington don’t see what is in front of them.
Trump has pulled out of two vital nuclear treaties—one covering Iran’s nuclear program and the other banning intermediate and short-range missiles. Now, there’s just one treaty holding back an all-out revival of the nuclear arms race with Russia—the New START Treaty, signed in 2010, and expiring early next year. Instead of promptly extending this agreement, Trump is dithering and has shown no interest in controlling nuclear weapons. In fact, he just authorized $13.3 billion to build new intercontinental ballistic missiles. The president is playing Russian roulette with humanity—with weapons that could kill millions, and in the case of a full-scale nuclear war, lead to the end of civilization itself.

How can we change course? That starts with the election of a new president, one who will have the courage to restore nuclear sanity. This is precisely what President Ronald Reagan did when he joined Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, declaring that “a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.”

The next step would be for the new president to publicly reaffirm that principle and take bold action to pull us back from the brink.
Where does the next president begin? Fortunately, serious academic and policy experts have thought long and hard about this continuing and intractable nuclear danger. They have proposed many practical steps. Based on their ideas and our own experience, we recommend that the new president and Congress take the following actions—practical, commonsense and eminently achievable.
First, prohibit “launch on warning” of nuclear weapons. The gravest threat facing the world today is that both the United States and Russia have their intercontinental ballistic missiles on hair-trigger alert, which means that nuclear weapons can be fired before an incoming attack is even verified. The president can quickly change this since he has the sole authority to decide when, and under what conditions, nuclear weapons can be launched………..
Second, cut back the current plan, initiated by the Obama administration, to spend—over three decades—more than $1 trillion to build and maintain a new generation of missiles, submarines and bombers for a nuclear arms “modernization.” ……….

Third, the next president should immediately extend the New START Treaty with Russia and begin follow-on negotiations to reduce deployed strategic nuclear forces by one-third, something Obama himself had planned to do.

Fourth, we should find a way to limit strategic missile defenses, which perversely incentivize building ever more offensive systems—making the world far more dangerous. The United States has spent $300 billion since 1983 trying to build a defense system to stop incoming nuclear missiles, without success………..
Fifth, after the bluster and bombast of Trump, it is now time for serious and intensive diplomacy with Russia and China, and also with North Korea and Iran—one already a nuclear power and the other striving to be one……..

The next president should reflect deeply on our existential predicament and chart a new and wiser path for America.  https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/30/5-steps-for-the-next-president-to-head-off-a-nuclear-catastrophe-433695

October 31, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Financial red flags warn against Utah’s NuScale small nuclear reactor project

October 31, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Another city bites the dust in regard to Utah’s NuScam small nuclear reactors plan

Seven Utah cities have now bailed out of an Idaho nuclear power project, Salt Lake Tribune,  By Taylor Stevens-30 Oct 20,

Three more Utah cities voted this week not to move forward with a first-of-its kind nuclear power project that proponents have pitched as the future of clean energy but that opponents have lined up against over concerns about financial risk.

Beaver, Bountiful and Heber are the latest municipalities to exit the small modular nuclear reactor pursuit, following in the footsteps of Murray, Kaysville, Lehi and Logan, which also backed out in recent weeks. ………

The Heber Light and Power Board, which voted 5-1 to get out of the project, and the Bountiful City Council, which unanimously made the decision to back out, both did so this week largely over concerns about the subscription rate of the nuclear energy pursuit.

“There’s enough things wrong with this project that it made it really scary,” said Bart Miller, Heber Light and Power’s chief financial officer. “We’re just a bunch of little utilities in the state of Utah trying to do a $6 billion nuclear power plant.”………

Bountiful City Councilman Richard Higginson said the leaders there had similar concerns, and felt too many of the development and construction costs were falling to a small number of municipalities…….

Costs have been one of the main concerns for several of the cities that have backed out over the last few weeks, as the project’s projected price tag has ballooned significantly, from $4.5 billion a few years ago to around $6 billion now. Opponents have also raised concerns about time and cost overruns, safety considerations and an uncertain regulatory environment.

The Utah Taxpayers Association has been among the critics of the project, arguing that municipal power companies should not act as a “seed investor” for the new technology, a responsibility it’s argued should lie with the private sector.

Environmental groups, such as the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, have also raised concerns about the radioactive waste that would be generated by the project.

Cities participating in the Carbon Free Power Project through the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems — a consortium of municipally owned power systems in Utah and several other Western states that has partnered with NuScale Power to study and create the nuclear technology — have until Saturday to decide whether to stay in the project or back out.  https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/10/29/seven-utah-cities-have/

October 31, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

 A Joe Biden administration would re-examine the U.S. nuclear strategy and arsenal.

October 31, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A Joe Biden victory could push Scott Morrison – and the world – on climate change

A Joe Biden victory could push Scott Morrison – and the world – on climate change, Guardian Katharine Murphy 30 Oct 20,  International action on emissions reduction will get a huge shot in the arm if the US election goes to the Democratic leader.

I’m a deeply superstitious person, so I can barely bring myself to utter the words “if Joe Biden wins the American presidency next week”, but for the purposes of where we are going this weekend, I need to utter those words, because that’s our starting point for unpacking a few things.

If Biden wins, obviously that’s the end of Trumpism, which would be a boon on so many fronts. So, so many fronts. The compendium of boon would span many volumes, and we haven’t got all weekend, so let’s just hone in on one critical issue that impacts Australia, and that’s climate change.

If we take the former vice-president at his word (and if you want a recent interview that dives right in, have a look here), a Biden victory would be a massive shot in the arm for international action on emissions reduction.

If we take the former vice-president at his word (and if you want a recent interview that dives right in, have a look here), a Biden victory would be a massive shot in the arm for international action on emissions reduction……………

Without wanting to ruin anyone’s weekend, we have to track back to America to find our final cause for pessimism – and that it, of course, the re-election of Donald Trump next Wednesday Australian time.

If Trump returns to the White House, the prognosis is simple. The planet loses.   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/31/a-joe-biden-victory-could-push-scott-morrison-and-the-world-on-climate-change

October 31, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Two politicians to plead guilty in Ohio nuclear corruption case

Ohio Political Operatives to Plead Guilty in Nuclear Plant Bribery Case
The five are accused of shepherding $60 million in energy company money for personal and political use. Manufacturing,  Oct 29th, 2020    Andrew Welsh-Huggins  COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two Ohio political operatives plan to plead guilty to charges that they conspired as part of what another defendant called an “unholy alliance” aimed at bailing out two aging Ohio nuclear power plants, court documents show.

Former Republican House Speaker Larry Householder and four others are charged with racketeering for their roles in the alleged scheme, under a law federal prosecutors typically use to charge gang members.

The five are accused of shepherding $60 million in energy company money for personal and political use in exchange for passing a legislative bailout of two aging nuclear plants and then derailing an attempt to place a rejection of the bailout on the ballot.

A federal court docket showed that “plea agreements” were filed Thursday for defendants Jeffrey Longstreth, a longtime Householder political adviser, and Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist described by investigators as a “key middleman.”

…………. The government says the energy company money was funneled through Generation Now, a group created to promote “social welfare” under a provision of federal tax law that shields its funding source or spending. The government says part of the scheme involved bribing or otherwise discouraging signature gatherers from doing their job. Generation Now is charged as a corporation in the case.An 82-page criminal complaint makes clear the energy company is FirstEnergy and its affiliates. FirstEnergy’s CEO has said he and the company did nothing wrong.

In a recorded conversation in September 2019, Borges described the relationship between Householder and the energy company as “this unholy alliance,” according to the July 21 complaint that lays out the details of the alleged scheme.

Lawmakers from both parties have pledged to repeal the bailout and to pass legislation requiring disclosure of money contributed to and spent by dark money groups. However, hearings to repeal the bailout ended this fall without resolution.

As recently as Wednesday, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called on lawmakers to repeal the bailout during the Legislature’s lame duck session following next month’s election.

On Tuesday, two Ohio cities sued to block the bailout law from taking effect in January. https://www.manufacturing.net/energy/news/21200589/ohio-political-operatives-to-plead-guilty-in-nuclear-plant-bribery-case

October 31, 2020 Posted by | legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

The human cost in illness and death, caused by working with nuclear weapons

October 31, 2020 Posted by | employment, health, PERSONAL STORIES, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The tangled web – well-being of communities has become dependent on the nuclear weapons industry

 

Nuclear disarmers can’t forget the communities that rely on military spending  https://thebulletin.org/2020/10/nuclear-disarmers-cant-forget-the-communities-that-rely-on-military-spending/By Tricia White, Matt Korda | October 28, 2020  If Russia were to launch a nuclear attack against the United States, what would the targets be? You might guess the most likely targets would be major cities like Washington D.C. or New York City, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But would you have also guessed Great Falls, Montana (population: 58,505) and Cheyenne, Wyoming (population: 65,165)? These small communities are part of the United States’ “nuclear sponge”—areas in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming that house the US arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and that are supposed to “soak up” hundreds of incoming nuclear warheads. Should an attack on the United States ever occur, these Midwestern states would be the first to go. And, somewhat counterintuitively, the majority of residents in these communities want to keep it that way.

It is difficult to overstate the degree to which ICBM-hosting communities rely on retaining their missiles. Missile bases like Minot in North Dakota, F. E. Warren in Wyoming, and Malmstrom in Montana are directly responsible for between eight and thirteen percent of their respective local labor forces. Additionally, the indirect economic benefits—a by-product of everyday activities like grocery shopping or school registration—certainly boost those numbers even further.

Recognizing that ICBMs could function as an economic insurance policy for local communities, politicians jockeyed to bring nuclear missiles to their states during the early stages of deployment in the 1960s.

In one particularly infamous case, Missouri Sen. Stuart Symington wrote to General Thomas Power, head of Strategic Air Command to ask, “Dear Tommy, why can’t we have one of the missile bases in Missouri?” Symington, previously the first Secretary of the Air Force, was heavily tied to weapons contractors, and his then-unique position at the intersection of business, politics, and the military prompted President Eisenhower to issue his prescient warning about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.”

Today, this type of politicking has organized itself into the Congressional ICBM Coalition—a bipartisan collective of lawmakers from the three ICBM host states plus Utah, where ICBM sustainment and replacement activities are headquartered at Hill Air Force Base. The coalition’s members are extremely well-funded by contractors like Northrop Grumman, which spent more than $162 million on lobbying from 2008 to 2018. In a fantastic return on investment, Northrop Grumman was recently awarded a $13.3 billion contract to manufacture a replacement for the aging Minuteman III, the only land-based, nuclear-armed missile in the US arsenal. 

These weapons contractors are not just funding politicians, however. They also work in concert with local community leaders to sustain and modernize the ICBM force ad infinitum. In response to potential base closures throughout the 1990s, many ICBM communities formed coalitions via their Chambers of Commerce to advocate for their neighboring bases to stay open. Today, community-led organizations like Task Force 21 (Minot), the Montana Defense Alliance (Malmstrom), and the Wyoming Wranglers Committee (F. E. Warren) meet with Pentagon officials, weapons contractors, and their Congressional representatives to advocate on behalf of their respective bases.

It’s especially notable just how integrated these groups are with their local communities: they offer career opportunities in schools, allow weapons contractors to host community events when new project bids are occurring, and guide local businesses through the ins-and-outs of subcontracting for Northrop Grumman, Boeing, or Lockheed Martin. Since many of the organizations’ activities are in turn sponsored by these corporations, it’s effectively a win-win for everyone involved.

However, these intimate relationships between local communities, corporations, and politicians come with serious ramifications. In a cruel twist of irony, it means that in order to protect their livelihoods, community leaders are encouraged to ensure that their respective cities remain—now and forever—ground zero for a future nuclear attack.

These communities are also expected to lobby on behalf of an ICBM replacement program that is dangerous, unnecessary, and very expensive. Not only do ICBMs serve little strategic purpose in a post-Cold War environment, but they are also the only weapons in the US nuclear arsenal that force the president to make potentially catastrophic decisions within mere minutes. For these reasons, as well as their astounding $264 billion estimated life-cycle costs, several nuclear experts—and a majority of both Democrats and Republicans—agree that the Pentagon should hit pause on the ICBM replacement program while officials examine cheaper life-extension options for the current arsenal. Many even argue the United States should eliminate the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad altogether. 

Additionally, as Gretchen Heefner, a professor at Northeastern University, articulates in her book The Missile Next Door, “By insisting that new missions be found for old bases, that more money be spent to upgrade facilities and fortify defenses, Americans [have] long stopped resisting militarism and instead embraced it as an economic necessity.” And who could blame them? If the Minuteman ICBMs were to be phased out, the futures of Minot, Malmstrom, and F. E. Warren Air Force Bases—and the communities that serve them—would be thrown into jeopardy. Heefner quotes one ICBM community’s Chamber of Commerce president on the indirect impacts of such closures: “A lot of people probably won’t realize the impact until their soccer coach is gone and their Bible teacher is not here or their teacher’s aide is gone.” “Nothing so aptly demonstrates the dependency of American municipalities on the military,” Heefner concludes, “as the threat of its abandonment.” To that end, organizing to keep their nuclear ICBMs is a form of community self-defense, albeit one with far-reaching consequences.

This presents a challenging conundrum for the nuclear expert community. It is easy to advocate for the phaseout of the ICBM force by only examining the costs and benefits on paper. In fact, such a phaseout is a realistic and worthwhile security goal, but it may come at the cost of American jobs and rural towns.

If disarmament advocates really want to push for the retirement of the US ICBM force, we need to come prepared with answers to the economic problems it would have on these “nuclear sponge” communities. Is Congress willing to offer a guaranteed income to the constituents who will lose their jobs? Will there be an equivalent of the Paycheck Protection Program? How does a community that loses its predominant industry rebuild its economy, especially in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic? Without answers to these questions, disarmament could be the very thing that destroys them—long before a nuclear missile ever strikes American soil.

October 29, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, health, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Big questions on the costs and safety of NuScale’s little nuclear reactors

NuScale Faces Questions on Nuclear Reactor Safety and Financing Its First Project

The first small modular reactor to receive federal approval must still grapple with design changes and safety concerns if it’s to be built by 2030. GreentechMedia

JEFF ST. JOHN OCTOBER 27, 2020   NuScale Power wants to build the first small modular nuclear reactor complex in the U.S. by decade’s end and has pointed to recent federal safety approvals and a cost-sharing arrangement with its first prospective public utility customers as advancing that goal.

But its reactor design faces significant safety questions that were not resolved by a Nuclear Energy Commission (NRC) review completed in August. Those include potential problems with the system that automatically shuts down its reactors in case of emergency, casting doubt on key safety claims from the Portland, Oregon-based company, critics say.

The nature of NRC’s review will leave the resolution of these key safety issues to be completed later this decade.

This could prove problematic for NuScale’s first project, the 12-reactor Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Over the past two years, the project has seen expected costs double from $3 billion to $6.1 billion and its completion date moved from 2026 to 2030, putting pressure on parent company Fluor Corp. to keep further cost increases in check and secure financial backers for the project.

NuScale won’t complete key safety reviews for its reactor design until later this decade. These design changes and safety reviews will be the responsibility of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), the first customer for 213 megawatts of the 720 MW the CFPP will produce, under a combined construction and operating license process. This could open up the CFPP to technical and legal challenges after significant investments in the project have already been made, critics warn.

UAMPS, a division of the Utah state government serving wholesale electric services to communities across the Intermountain West, has seen three cities vote to depart the 33-city consortium planning to agree to buy power from the CFPP in the past few months and is facing an October 31 deadline to commit to its role in the project.

And while the Department of Energy has issued a $1.36 billion, 10-year cost-share pledge to UAMPS, that funding will require future congressional appropriations in order to become reality. …..

Other U.S.-based SMR developers include Bill Gates-backed TerraPower and X-Energy, which have recently received financial support from DOE with the goal of building their first working units in the next seven years. Others include Hyperion Power Generation and Terrestrial Energy. ……

Safety questions on emergency shutdown

One of the most pressing unresolved safety issues deals with NuScale’s system to prevent overheating or meltdown during emergencies, according to the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), which reviews reactor designs for the NRC.

NuScale’s reactor must submerge its fuel in water carrying boron, an element that absorbs neutrons and slows the fission chain reactions that generate heat and radioactivity. That water can be boiled away during emergencies, meaning that redundant safety systems are required that are capable of replacing it.

NuScale has said its system can reintroduce boronated water into the reactor without pumps that might lose power during an emergency, by venting steam into a surrounding containment vessel and condensing it back into water to inject into the core. But a March ACRS review noted that boron could be left behind as water turns into steam, yielding condensed water without enough boron to slow the chain reactions that could lead to overheating or core meltdown.

NuScale submitted design modifications to add boron to that reintroduced water supply. But in an April meeting, ACRS member Jose March-Leuba noted that the new design requires a series of 10 valves to operate without fail to solve the problem it’s geared to address, which he characterized as “10 single failure points.”

The ACRS told the NRC in a June letter that it “cannot reach a final conclusion on the safety of the NuScale design until the issue of the potential for a reactivity insertion accident” — a sudden increase in fission that cannot be halted — “is resolved to our satisfaction.” ………

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the ACRS finding casts doubt on “one of the major selling points for this reactor, which is that it can passively shut down without any operator actions.”

NuScale has relied on its passive safety claims to argue that it should be exempt from other nuclear reactor safety requirements, such as maintaining emergency evacuation and planning zones within a 10-mile radius of the site and employing a security force to prevent sabotage attempts. Integrating these safety requirements into its projects may push NuScale’s power costs beyond the $55 per megawatt-hour it has targeted, he said.

“Nuclear safety is not just design. It’s the whole set of measures,” Lyman said.

Uncertain path to approval, unclear financing future

NuScale’s recent safety approval from the NRC is not as comprehensive a stamp of federal approval as the company had planned to obtain by now.

In March testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, NuScale CEO John Hopkins said that parent company Fluor Corp. and investors have spent about $500 million to prepare a “design certification application,” which was submitted in 2016 and expected to be complete by September.

But NuScale’s recent approval from the NRC is not for a design certification application, Lyman said. Rather, it’s a “standard design approval,” which comes with less stringent rules for NRC review and allows future design changes. But it opens up NuScale’s design to future legal challenges that a design certification approval would not, he said.

NuScale also plans to increase the size of its reactor units from 50 MW to 60 MW units, which will require a separate design approval review, Lyman said. Meanwhile, NuScale’s original design certification, “when it’s approved, may never actually be used.” ……

these uncertainties have complicated the picture for UAMPS, which has pushed back its deadline for finalizing its licensing agreement with NuScale from September until October 31. UAMPS could be facing more than $100 million in commitments under its yet-to-be-finalized agreement. ….

Broader challenges for small modular reactors

In a September report, M.V. Ramana, a professor of disarmament and human security at the University of British Columbia, highlighted other risks facing NuScale. Those include further delays in licensing and certification, as well as the potential that design changes and increased safety requirements will raise the cost of power from NuScale’s reactors, which is already higher than the prices being set by new wind and solar energy today. Adding batteries or other forms of energy storage to renewables may prove a less costly solution to providing reliable zero-carbon electricity than NuScale can, he wrote.

Ramana also questioned the financial stability of NuScale’s parent company, engineering and construction giant Fluor, which has seen its share price drop about 80 percent over the past two years amid mounting financial losses and federal investigations into its accounting practices.

Fluor has invested $643 million into NuScale alongside $314 million in DOE funding, Hopkins told Congress in March. But it will need to bring more financial backers on board in the decade to come.

As for the DOE cost-share agreement, Lyman said it’s dependent on future congressional budget approvals that may not emerge. “The bottom line is, without a large subsidy, it would not be economical for them to buy this power.” ……… https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nuscale-faces-questions-over-nuclear-reactor-safety-path-to-financing-first-project

October 29, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »