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Is the US nuclear community prepared for the extreme weather climate change is bringing? 

Is the US nuclear community prepared for the extreme weather climate change is bringing?  https://thebulletin.org/2021/04/is-the-us-nuclear-community-prepared-for-the-extreme-weather-climate-change-is-bringing/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter04222021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearExtremeWeather_04202021 By Susan D’Agostino | April 20, 2021 

In May 2000, a planned burn to remove dead, dried underbrush on New Mexico’s drought-stricken Cerro Grande peak in the Bandelier National Monument grew out of control. As the sky darkened with smoke, a wall of flames fueled by high winds burned through tens of thousands of acres of land where people, elk, and bald eagles made their homes. The monstrous blaze escaped the monument’s containment line and headed to the forested birthplace of the atomic bomb—Los Alamos National Laboratory. There, it raced over soil, rocks, and trees contaminated from decades-old nuclear weapons testing, releasing radioactive particles into the air and setting 47 buildings ablaze. As the devastation unfolded, the wildfire inched close to, but stopped short of, a facility containing tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.

In May 2000, a planned burn to remove dead, dried underbrush on New Mexico’s drought-stricken Cerro Grande peak in the Bandelier National Monument grew out of control. As the sky darkened with smoke, a wall of flames fueled by high winds burned through tens of thousands of acres of land where people, elk, and bald eagles made their homes. The monstrous blaze escaped the monument’s containment line and headed to the forested birthplace of the atomic bomb—Los Alamos National Laboratory. There, it raced over soil, rocks, and trees contaminated from decades-old nuclear weapons testing, releasing radioactive particles into the air and setting 47 buildings ablaze. As the devastation unfolded, the wildfire inched close to, but stopped short of, a facility containing tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.

The US response to potential climate impacts on the country’s various nuclear activities has, in the eyes of many experts, fallen far short of what it needs to be.

“All of these [nuclear] structures were built on the presumption of a stable planet. And our climate is changing very rapidly and presenting new extremes,” Hill said. “There’s harm that stems from that.”

Drought and spent nuclear waste. When forests are drier for long periods of time, they act as kindling for wildfires. Extreme drought exacerbated by climate change is a key driver of wildfires in the Western United States, which are increasing both in frequency and in size. For nuclear infrastructure in the heart of wildfire territory, this trend spells trouble.

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April 24, 2021 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Rising threat of nuclear war is barely noticed. Corporate media likes it that way.

Rising Threat of Nuclear War Is Barely Noticed, Consortium news,    By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com   23 Apr 21, U.S. Strategic Command, the branch of the U.S.  military responsible for America’s nuclear arsenal, tweeted the following on Tuesday:

“The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable. We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.”

STRATCOM called it a preview of the “posture statement” it submits to U.S. Congress every year. It was a bit intense for Twitter and sparked a lot of alarmed responses. This alarm was due not to any inaccuracy in STRATCOM’s frank statement, but due to the bizarre fact that our world’s increasing risk of nuclear war barely features in mainstream discourse.

STRATCOM has been preparing not just to use its nuclear arsenal for deterrence but also to “win” a nuclear war should one arise from the (entirely U.S. -created) “conditions” which are “neither linear nor predictable.”

And it’s looking increasingly likely that one will as the prevailing orthodoxy among Western imperialists that U.S.  unipolar hegemony must be preserved at all cost rushes headlong toward America’s plunge into post-primacy.

The U.S. has been ramping up aggressions with Russia in a way that has terrified experts, and it looks likely to continue doing so. These aggressions are further complicated on increasingly tense fronts like Ukraine, which is threatening to obtain nuclear weapons if it isn’t granted membership to NATO, either of which would increase the risk of conflict. 

Aggressions against nuclear-armed China are escalating on what seems like a daily basis at this point, with potential flashpoints in the China Seas, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, India and any number of other possible fronts………

The fact that those in charge of U.S. nuclear weapons now see both Russia and China as a major nuclear threat, and the fact that U.S. cold warriors are escalating against both of them, is horrifying.

The fact that they’re again playing with “low-yield” nukes designed to actually be used on the battlefield makes it even more so. This is to say nothing of tensions between nuclear-armed Pakistan and nuclear-armed India, between nuclear-armed Israel and its neighbors, and between nuclear-armed North Korea and the Western empire.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has the 2021 Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, citing the rising threat of nuclear war:……………

As I all too frequently find myself having to remind people, the primary risk here is not that anyone will choose to have a nuclear war, it’s that a nuke will be deployed amid heightening tensions as a result of miscommunication, miscalculation, misfire, or malfunction, as nearly happened many times during the last Cold War, thereby setting off everyone’s nukes as per Mutually Assured Destruction.

The more tense things get, the likelier such an event becomes. This New Cold War is happening along two fronts, with a bunch of proxy conflicts complicating things even further. There are so very many small moving parts, and it’s impossible to remain in control of all of them.

Thousands of Starter Buttons 

People like to think every nuclear-armed country has one “The Button” with which they can consciously choose to start a nuclear war after careful deliberation, but it doesn’t work that way.

There are thousands of people in the world controlling different parts of different nuclear arsenals who could independently initiate a nuclear war. Thousands of “The Buttons.” It only takes one. The arrogance of believing anyone can control such a conflict safely, for years, is astounding.

A 2014 report published in the journal Earth’s Future found that it would only take the detonation of 100 nuclear warheads to throw 5 teragrams of black soot into the Earth’s stratosphere for decades, blocking out the sun and making the photosynthesis of plants impossible. This could easily starve every terrestrial organism to death that didn’t die of radiation or climate chaos first. China has hundreds of nuclear weapons; Russia and the United States have thousands.

This should be the main thing everyone talks about. There is literally no more urgent matter on earth than the looming possibility that everyone might die in a nuclear war.

But people don’t see it.

On a recent “Tucker Carlson Tonight” appearance, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard did a solid job describing the horrors of nuclear war and the very real possibility that it could be inflicted upon the U.S. due to America’s insane brinkmanship with Russia. She spoke earnestly about how “such a war would come at a cost beyond anything we can really imagine,” painting an entirely accurate picture of “hundreds of millions of people dying and suffering, seeing their flesh being burned from their bones.”

Gabbard is correct, and was right to give such a confrontational account of what we are looking at right now. But if you read the replies to Gabbard’s tweet in which she shared a clip from the interview, you’ll see a deluge of commenters accusing her of “hyperbole,” saying she’s being soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin and admonishing her for appearing on Tucker Carlson. It’s like they can’t even hear what she’s saying, how real it is, how significant it is.

Normalcy Bias & Media Malpractice

 People’s failure to wrap their minds around this issue is a testament to the power of normalcy bias, a cognitive glitch which causes the U.S. to assume that because something bad hasn’t happened in the past, it won’t happen in the future.  We survived the last Cold War by the skin of our teeth, entirely by sheer, dumb luck; the only reason people are around to bleat “hyperbole” is because we got lucky. There’s no reason to believe we’ll get lucky in this New Cold War environment; only normalcy bias says we will. Believing we’ll survive this Cold War just because we survived the last one is as sane as believing Russian roulette is safe because the guy passing you the gun didn’t die.

It’s also a testament to the power of plain old psychological compartmentalization. People can’t handle the idea of everything ending, of everyone they know and love dying, of watching their loved ones die in flames or from radiation poisoning right in front of them, all because someone made a mistake at the wrong time after a bunch of imperialists decided that U.S.  planetary domination was worth putting every terrestrial organism at risk.

But mostly it’s testament to the ubiquitous malpractice of the Western media. It’s inconvenient to the agendas of the imperial war machine to have people protesting these insane Cold War games of nuclear brinkmanship, so their media stenographers barely touch on this issue. If mainstream journalism actually existed, this flirtation with nuclear war would be front and center in everyone’s awareness and people would be flooding the streets in protest against their lives being toyed with as casino chips in an insane all-or-nothing gamble.

This is so much bigger than any of the petty little things we spend our mental energy on from day to day……….The rising threat of nuclear war is the most urgent matter in the world and it’s absolute madness that we’re not talking about it all the time.    https://consortiumnews.com/2021/04/23/rising-threat-of-nuclear-war-is-barely-noticed/
Attachments areaPreview YouTube video Tulsi Gabbard issues warning about potential war with RussiaTulsi Gabbard issues warning about potential war with RussiaPreview YouTube video Vasili Arkhipov: HeroVasili Arkhipov: Hero

April 24, 2021 Posted by | media, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Not necessary to increase USA’s nuclear arsenal – China’s goal is defence – a stronger-second strike arsenal.

We Don’t Need a Better Nuclear Arsenal to Take on China

The military’s arguments for a nuclear overhaul are unconvincing. Slate, BY FRED KAPLAN, APRIL 23, 2021

This week, top military officers launched their big push on Capitol Hill for a total overhaul of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, at an estimated cost of $1.3 trillion over the next 30 years, and their top rationale—the go-to rationale for just about every large federal program these days—was the threat from China.

Their case was less than compelling

Yes, China is displaying some bellicose behavior these days, economically, politically, and militarily. But a new generation of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers, cruise missiles, and submarines would do nothing to deal with the problem.

Adm. Charles Richard, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, which runs plans and operations for the nuclear arsenal, laid out his case in hearings before House and subcommittees on strategic forces. He noted that China is expanding its nuclear arsenal at an “unprecedented” pace, on course to double in size by the end of the decade. It’s building more solid-fuel missiles, which can be launched right away (older liquid-fuel missiles require hours to load). It’s also building better early-warning radar, putting some of its ICBMs on trucks and moving them around. It might have adopted a launch-on-warning policy.

But all of this adds up to something less alarming than Richard’s rhetoric suggested—namely that the People’s Liberation Army is improving its ability to detect, and respond to, a nuclear attack on the Chinese homeland. Even if the Chinese doubled the size of their arsenal, which would give them about 600 nuclear weapons instead of the current 300, it would be well under half the size of the U.S. arsenal, so they would have no ability to launch a first strike against us.

In other words, China seems to be building a more potent second-strike arsenal—what we in the West would call a deterrent—perhaps in the face of Russia’s build-up of medium-range missiles and America’s development of a missile-defense force. This is troubling only to the extent it means that the United States would have a hard time launching a nuclear first-strike against China.

This is a bit troubling, but for reasons that seem less so, the more deeply the problem is analyzed. China’s military strategy is to establish hegemony in the region—especially in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea—and to prevent U.S. air and naval forces from intervening in this area. Beijing has made progress toward this goal by declaring some small islands, which are clearly in international waters, to be Chinese territory and converting them into military bases. It has also built and deployed hundreds of missiles that can attack ships, even large ones, with steadily improving accuracy and steadily longer range. China has also improved its ability to hit satellites and sensors in outer space (through cyber and more conventional means). Again, the goal is to keep the U.S. from intervening in Chinese military ventures. The American trump card in any such conflict has long been its nuclear arsenal (whether any president actually would use nukes to protect, say, Taiwan is another matter), but if China has its own potent nuclear deterrent, this card’s value is reduced: if we attack them, they can attack us……..

But all of this adds up to something less alarming than Richard’s rhetoric suggested—namely that the People’s Liberation Army is improving its ability to detect, and respond to, a nuclear attack on the Chinese homeland. Even if the Chinese doubled the size of their arsenal, which would give them about 600 nuclear weapons instead of the current 300, it would be well under half the size of the U.S. arsenal, so they would have no ability to launch a first strike against us.

n other words, China seems to be building a more potent second-strike arsenal—what we in the West would call a deterrent—perhaps in the face of Russia’s build-up of medium-range missiles and America’s development of a missile-defense force. This is troubling only to the extent it means that the United States would have a hard time launching a nuclear first-strike against China.

This is a bit troubling, but for reasons that seem less so, the more deeply the problem is analyzed. China’s military strategy is to establish hegemony in the region—especially in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea—and to prevent U.S. air and naval forces from intervening in this area. Beijing has made progress toward this goal by declaring some small islands, which are clearly in international waters, to be  Chinese territory and converting them into military bases. It has also built and deployed hundreds of missiles that can attack ships, even large ones, with steadily improving accuracy and steadily longer range. China has also improved its ability to hit satellites and sensors in outer space (through cyber and more conventional means). Again, the goal is to keep the U.S. from intervening in Chinese military ventures. The American trump card in any such conflict has long been its nuclear arsenal (whether any president actually would use nukes to protect, say, Taiwan is another matter), but if China has its own potent nuclear deterrent, this card’s value is reduced: if we attack them, they can attack us.

……. the main point is this: We would gain no leverage in this scenario by building new ICBMs, bombers, cruise missiles, or submarines. To the extent these sorts of weapons loom as the ultimate deterrent, as a sort of overlord to any military competition, we already have plenty.

………. There will be fierce resistance to any slowdown of the strategic juggernaut. Most members of the congressional armed services committees regard the Nuclear Triad with the same veneration that Catholics bestow to the Holy Trinity. When they ask a witness if he believes in the Triad, they do so with a quivering tone, as if they were priests asking a supplicant if he believes in God.

At the same time, budget pressures are rousing some lawmakers to mull, a bit more deeply than before, whether so many nukes are necessary, whether they all have to be 100 percent reliable to deter adversaries from aggression, whether the recondite scenarios and theories of the nuclear game are quite real. It’s long past time to demystify the nuclear enterprise, to strip away the fear and trembling, and ask how many weapons are needed to do what.  https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/nuclear-triad-overhaul-china.html

April 24, 2021 Posted by | China, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Brookfield interested in selling its stake in nuclear company Westinghouse

Brookfield explores sale of stake in nuclear firm Westinghouse -sources, Reuters, 24 Apr 21, Joshua FranklinDavid French,  Brookfield Business Partners (BBU_u.TO) is exploring options including the sale of a minority stake in Westinghouse Electric Co that could value the U.S. nuclear power developer and servicer at as much as $10 billion including debt, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The sale plans come as the nuclear power sector may benefit from President Joe Biden’s push to tackle climate change. Biden unveiled a target to slash America’s carbon emissions by the end of the decade to 50% of what they were in 2005, and included nuclear power in the potential energy mix to achieve this goal. read more

While critics argue it is more expensive than renewable power sources and poses heightened safety risks, Westinghouse is among the companies seeking to develop smaller nuclear reactors, which are billed as cheaper and easier to deploy.

Brookfield Business Partners has hired investment banks to engage with potential buyers for a minority stake in Westinghouse, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are private.

The sources cautioned that there is no certainty Brookfield will find a buyer and that an outright sale of the company is also an option. Brookfield Business Partners and Westinghouse declined to comment.

Brookfield Business Partners Chief Executive Cyrus Madon said on a Feb. 5 earnings call that it could “test the market” in relation to Westinghouse.

“We could hang onto it and continue milking these incredible cash flows, but it will all come down to what’s the value we can get versus what we can create by keeping it,” Madon said.

One of the most storied names in the American power industry, Westinghouse was acquired by Brookfield Business Partners, an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield (BAMa.TO), in 2018 for $4.6 billion, including debt, from Toshiba Corp (6502.T)……   Brookfield Business Partners Chief Executive Cyrus Madon said on a Feb. 5 earnings call that it could “test the market” in relation to Westinghouse.

“We could hang onto it and continue milking these incredible cash flows, but it will all come down to what’s the value we can get versus what we can create by keeping it,” Madon said.

One of the most storied names in the American power industry, Westinghouse was acquired by Brookfield Business Partners, an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield (BAMa.TO), in 2018 for $4.6 billion, including debt, from Toshiba Corp (6502.T)…….. Brookfield Business Partners Chief Executive Cyrus Madon said on a Feb. 5 earnings call that it could “test the market” in relation to Westinghouse.

“We could hang onto it and continue milking these incredible cash flows, but it will all come down to what’s the value we can get versus what we can create by keeping it,” Madon said.

One of the most storied names in the American power industry, Westinghouse was acquired by Brookfield Business Partners, an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield (BAMa.TO), in 2018 for $4.6 billion, including debt, from Toshiba Corp (6502.T)……. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-brookfield-explores-sale-stake-nuclear-firm-westinghouse-sources-2021-04-23/

April 24, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Washington’s nuclear industry a costly failure for ratepayers. Now they’re about to fail again, with small nuclear reactors

Advanced Nuclear Dreaming in Washington State, CounterPunch, PATRICK MAZZA  19 Apr 21……………..The WPPSS default was part of the first wave of nuclear failures in the U.S. In the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, approximately 100 proposed nuclear plants were cancelled. Recent years have seen a second round of failures. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put $25 billion in nuclear subsidies on the table. That jumpstarted all of four nuclear reactors, two each in Georgia and South Carolina.  The only way Wall Street would touch the projects was to make ratepayers carry the risk by paying for “work in progress” before the first watt is delivered. South Carolina ratepayers won’t even see that. Cost overruns killed the project there in 2017 after $9 billion was thrown away, setting up a political and court fight over whether ratepayers will continue to be soaked.  The last two standing, Georgia’s Vogtle plants, were to have cost $14 billion and come on line in 2016-17. Now costs have doubled to $28 billion and scheduled completion this year and next is considered unlikely.

IS THE SMR A SOLUTION?

SMRs are the nuclear industry’s answer to avoid such failures in the future. Instead of being custom-built and individually licensed, SMRs are intended to cut costs by licensing a single design manufactured at a plant and sent for final assembly to their operating site.  Smaller than the 1,000-megawatt-plus plants with which we’re familiar, SMRs are 100 MW or less, and designed with safety features to prevent meltdowns such as experienced at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. Though there are questions about that, as covered below.

X-energy’s proposed plant is 80 MW. The Washington partnership envisions clustering four to make a 320-MW complex, with costs estimated at $2.4 billion. Half is to come from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), and half from private investors, apparently leaving ratepayers out of the picture this time.

ARDP in 2020 made two $80 million grants to advanced nuclear reactor developers, one to X-energy, and the other to TerraPower, a venture in which Bill Gates has invested. The latter, slated to be 345 MW, aims at eventual scales as large as today’s plants, so it is not an SMR. The TerraPower liquid-sodium cooled reactor concept has its own set of issues. Liquid-sodium reactors have suffered operating difficulties and fires, and pose potential weapons proliferation hazards. The Raven will look at TerraPower in a future post……..

ROCKY ROAD TO MASS PRODUCTION

“The road to such mass manufacturing will be rocky,” Makhijani and M.V. Ramana write in a recent article, “Why Small Modular Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis.” “Even with optimistic assumptions about how quickly manufacturers could learn to improve production efficiency and lower cost, thousands of SMRs, which will all be higher priced in comparison to large reactors, would have to be manufactured for the price per kilowatt for an SMR to be comparable to that of a large reactor.”

That sets up “a chicken-and-egg economic problem,” they write. “Without the factories, SMRs can never hope to achieve the theoretical cost reductions that are at the heart of the strategy to compensate for the lack of economies of scale. But without the cost reductions, there will not be the large number of orders to stimulate the investments needed to set up the supply chain in the first place.”

That is leaving aside the prospect of a design defect being discovered after many SMRs have been deployed. In the 1990s, multiple Westinghouse-built reactors suffered common steam generator problems, resulting in lawsuits. “If an error in a mass-manufactured reactor were to result in safety problems, the whole lot might have to be recalled, as was the case with the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner jetliners,” Makhijani and Ramana write. “But how does one recall a radioactive reactor? What will happen to an electricity system that relies on factory-made identical reactors that need to be recalled?”

The economic hurdles of SMRs posed by its competitors are overwhelming.

“Lazard, a Wall Street financial advisory firm, estimates the cost of utility-scale solar and wind to be about $40 per megawatt-hour,” Makhijani and Ramana write. “The corresponding figure for nuclear is four times as high, about $160 per MWh – a difference that is more than enough to use complementary technologies, such as demand response and storage, to compensate for the intermittency of solar and wind.”

While costs for competitors declines, nuclear costs continue to escalate. Cost for a proposed Idaho project by NuScale, another SMR developer, has doubled from an estimated $3 billion in 2015 to $6.1 billion in 2020  “long before any concrete has been poured,” Makhijani and Ramana note……….  https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/19/advanced-nuclear-dreaming-in-washington-state/

April 24, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

70 years later, ionising radiation from nuclear bomb tests still found in U.S. honey

Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades after bomb tests, Science  Nikk Ogasa Apr. 20, 2021 

Fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and ’60s is showing up in U.S. honey, according to a new study. Although the levels of radioactivity aren’t dangerous, they may have been much higher in the 1970s and ’80s, researchers say.

“It’s really quite incredible,” says Daniel Richter, a soil scientist at Duke University not involved with the work. The study, he says, shows that the fallout “is still out there and disguising itself as a major nutrient.”

In the wake of World War II, the United States, the former Soviet Union, and other countries detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in aboveground tests. The bombs ejected radiocesium—a radioactive form of the element cesium—into the upper atmosphere, and winds dispersed it around the world before it fell out of the skies in microscopic particles. The spread wasn’t uniform, however. For example, far more fallout dusted the U.S. east coast, thanks to regional wind and rainfall patterns.

Radiocesium is soluble in water, and plants can mistake it for potassium, a vital nutrient that shares similar chemical properties. To see whether plants continue to take up this nuclear contaminant, James Kaste, a geologist at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, gave his undergraduate students an assignment: Bring back local foods from their spring break destinations to test for radiocesium.

One student returned with honey from Raleigh, North Carolina. To Kaste’s surprise, it contained cesium levels 100 times higher than the rest of the collected foods. He wondered whether eastern U.S. bees gathering nectar from plants and turning it into honey were concentrating radiocesium from the bomb tests.

So Kaste and his colleagues—including one of his undergrads—collected 122 samples of locally produced, raw honey from across the eastern United States and tested them for radiocesium. They detected it in 68 of the samples, at levels above 0.03 becquerels per kilogram—roughly 870,000 radiocesium atoms per tablespoon. The highest levels of radioactivity occurred in a Florida sample—19.1 becquerels per kilogram.

The findings, reported last month in Nature Communications, reveal that, thousands of kilometers from the nearest bomb site and more than 50 years after the bombs fell, radioactive fallout is still cycling through plants and animals………

The findings raise questions about how cesium has impacted bees over the past half-century, says Justin Richardson, a biogeochemist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “They’re getting wiped out from pesticides, but there are other lesser known toxic impacts from humans, like fallout, that can affect their survival.”

After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, scientists showed radiation levels nearby could hamper the reproduction of bumble bee colonies. But those levels were 1000 times higher than the modern levels reported here, notes Nick Beresford, a radioecologist at the U.K. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

So even though the new study shouldn’t raise any alarm bells over today’s honey, understanding how nuclear contaminants move around is still vital for gauging the health of our ecosystems and our agriculture, says Thure Cerling, a geologist at the University of Utah. “We need to pay attention to these things.”  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/nuclear-fallout-showing-us-honey-decades-after-bomb-tests

April 22, 2021 Posted by | environment, radiation, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Alaska to increase its radiation testing of seafood..

A Decade After Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Alaska Expands Seafood Monitoring High North News,  Apr 21 2021

State environmental regulators announced Monday they’re expanding radiation testing of commercially harvested Alaska seafood using a gamma radiation detector at a state laboratory in Anchorage, according to APM.

A devastating earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan in 2011 crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which released radioactive material into the air and ocean……..  https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/decade-after-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-alaska-expands-seafood-monitoring

April 22, 2021 Posted by | oceans, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Overdue Shutdown of the Indian Point Nuclear Plant

Overdue Shutdown of the Indian Point Nuclear Plant

Environmental groups write that gains in energy efficiency and renewable power exceed the plant’s annual output. 

“Nuclear Plant’s Shutdown Means More Fossil Fuel in New York”(news article, April 13):

New York State is making good on its promise to replace the aging, unsafe Indian Point nuclear plant with clean energy. Gains in energy efficiency and renewable power over the last decade already exceed the plant’s total annual output, with much more to come.

We can expect year-to-year changes given fluctuations in energy demand and prices. But the overall trend in New York is clear: Clean energy is here to stay, and emissions reductions are on track to reach the state’s ambitious climate goals.

Closing this dangerous plant is overdue. Over the years Indian Point has experienced reactor structure problems with the potential for structural failure, as well as leaks, fires and unplanned shutdowns.

For the 20 million people who live within 50 miles of it, Indian Point’s long-planned closure ends a risky chapter.  Paul GallayKit Kennedy
Mr. Gallay is president of Riverkeeper and Ms. Kennedy is senior director, climate and clean energy program, at the Natural Resources Defense Council.   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/opinion/letters/indian-point-nuclear.html

April 22, 2021 Posted by | decommission reactor, ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

The $2.5Billion-a-year effort to stabilise the Hanford reservation’s dangerous nuclear wastes


Nuclear waste structures in Washington state are stabilized,  https://apnews.com/article/environment-and-nature-business-government-and-politics-washington-nuclear-waste-14e29e8923c62bf5835f33e1b649000c    RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed that two underground structures at the decommissioned Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state have been stabilized after they were deemed at risk of collapsing and spreading radioactive contamination into the air.

“With this work completed, Hanford has ensured the stability of these structures and reduced risks to workers and the environment,” department spokesperson Geoff Tyree said.

The partial collapse of a tunnel storing nuclear waste the nuclear reservation in 2017 prompted a federal study which concluded last year that a large settling tank and two trenches where plutonium-contaminated liquids were poured into the ground for disposal posed a high risk of collapse and contamination, Tri-City Herald reported Tuesday.

The Hanford reservation produced plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War and World War II, leaving 56 million gallons (212 million litres) of radioactive waste in underground tanks. The largest of the three underground structures, which operated from 1955 to 1962, was estimated to be contaminated with 105 pounds (48 kilograms) of plutonium.

Scott Sax, president of Hanford contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Co., told employees that the three underground structures identified in the study were filled with concrete-like grout to prevent them from collapsing.

The work was done by White Shield Inc. of Pasco under a contract originally valued at about $4 million.

Sax also said that at least one of the trenches was buried deep enough to prevent nuclear waste from releasing into the air in the event of a collapse.

“Routine monitoring will continue to ensure all three structures remain stable,” Sax said, at least until further environmental cleanup action is taken.

Final cleanup plans for the structures have not yet been made as the Energy Department focuses on other high-priority projects, including capsules of radioactive waste that are at risk of releasing contamination in the event of a severe earthquake.

About $2.5 billion a year is being spent to stabilize and clean up waste and contamination left at the 580-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometer) site in Richland, Washington about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southeast of Seattle, officials said.

April 22, 2021 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – a ”soldier’s soldier” and a useful purchaser for Raytheon’s military merchandise

Austin’s personal history and connection to the military and Raytheon mark him as a fitting Pentagon chief in an era of destructive militarism and creeping fascism in the U.S.

When civilians no longer control the key institutions of government and war industries ensure the perpetuation of endless wars from which they make obscene profits, the political system can no longer be defined as a democracy. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—Former Member of Raytheon Board of Directors—Has Awarded Over $2.36 Billion in Contracts to Raytheon Since His Confirmation in January, Covert Action Magazine By Jeremy Kuzmarov – April 19, 2021 he Pentagon has awarded the defense giant Raytheon Technologies over $2.36 billion in government contracts since Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III’s confirmation on January 22nd.

Austin was on Raytheon’s board of directors prior to his confirmation.

Austin at the time had made a commitment to resign from Raytheon’s board and recuse himself from all matters concerning Raytheon for four years and agreed to divest from his financial holdings in the company, amounting to between $500,000 and $1.7 million in stock.

These initiatives, however, have not prevented Austin from using his position to bolster Raytheon’s fortunes. Nor those of other defense contractors on whose board he has sat such as Booz Allen Hamilton, the world’s “most profitable spy organization,” according to Bloomberg News, and Pine Island Capital, a private equity firm that invests in military industry.[1]

At Austin’s nomination hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned him about his ties to Raytheon—whose headquarters are based in Warren’s home district (Waltham, Massachusetts).

A year earlier, Warren had proposed legal changes to strengthen ethics at the Defense Department by blocking the revolving door between the Pentagon and giant defense contractors like Raytheon, including by prohibiting big defense contractors from hiring former Pentagon officials for four years after they leave government.

Warren paradoxically voted to confirm Austin’s appointment as Defense Secretary—even though he embodies the danger of the revolving door.

Mark Pocan (D-WI), who with Barbara Lee wrote a letter in November 2020 to President-elect Joe Biden requesting that he nominate a Secretary of Defense with no previous ties to weapons manufacturers, stated that “American national security should not be defined by the bottom lines of Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon.”

With men like Austin at the helm, however, it is very clearly being defined in this way…………….

Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think-tank, told The Intercept that since “Raytheon manufactures the bomb components that are used in Yemen, [General Austin] bears a direct responsibility [for war crimes and civilian deaths]. He was making money as a board member of this company that is directly responsible for the death and destruction there.”

William Hartung, the director of the arms and security project for the Center for International Policy, said that “picking Austin was tantamount to making the position of Secretary of Defense the Secretary of Defense contractors.”

Raytheon’s 2021 Pentagon Contracts

Fitting with Hartung’s assessment, Raytheon has benefitted from multi-million-dollar government contracts on a near-daily basis since Austin has taken charge at the Pentagon.

On February 1st, the company secured a whopping $290,704,534 government contract to produce equipment for depot maintenance facilities and services in support of the F-35 Lightning II, which military analyst Pierre Sprey characterized as “overweight and dangerous.”……………….

Promoting More War

Though Austin claims to have recused himself from decisions involving Raytheon, the Pentagon under his direction is providing his old company with huge contracts on a daily basis that is bolstering its profits and stock price.

Austin furthermore has used his new bully pulpit to advocate for yet greater levels of military spending—to the benefit of Raytheon.

On February 25th, for example, on a visit to the U.S.S. Nimitz, Austin emphasized the need for U.S. warships throughout the globe to deter security threats—from China to Iran. A week later on a tour of Southeast Asia with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin warned about China again and the North Korean nuclear threat and pledged that the U.S. would maintain a robust military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

He further cautioned North Korea that the United States, following military exercises with South Korea, was “ready to fight tonight.”

When fighting resumed in Eastern Ukraine in early April, Austin assured Ukraine’s Defense Minister Andrii Taran of the “U.S. commitment to building the capacity of Ukraine’s forces to defend more effectively against [supposed] Russian aggression”–which was demonstrated by a recent $125 million military aid package–and took to Twitter to reaffirm the U.S.’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”

…………A Soldier’s Soldier

Besides his connection to Raytheon, Austin’s appointment as Pentagon chief was controversial because he had not been retired from the military for the requisite seven years and required a legal waiver.

Traditionally, the role of Defense Secretary is supposed to be a civilian position, ensuring the U.S.’s military apparatus is led not by a warfighter, but a policymaker. That requirement is laid out in the National Security Act of 1947 that established the Defense Department.

Heralded as a “soldier’s soldier” who would endure hardships with his troops, the 6’4” tall Austin graduated from West Point in 1975, and led infantry troops in the capture of Baghdad during the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After a stint commanding the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, Austin was appointed as chief of staff of the U.S. Central Command at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, a high-tech command post where military officers could watch live imagery on plasma screens and order air-strikes through the Pentagon’s secure internet server.

Groomed for high military command by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011, Austin was appointed as Commanding General of U.S. forces in Iraq in 2010, and Commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for all military operations in the Middle East, by President Obama in 2013.

In this latter capacity, Austin drafted a war plan—approved by Obama—that allowed the U.S. military for the first time to directly provide ammunition and weapons to Syrian opposition forces, who included Islamic jihadists.

President Obama also endorsed General Austin’s idea to increase the air campaign on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The result was an increase in civilian deaths. Journalists Anand Gopal and Azmat Khat determined that one in five of the 27,500 coalition air strikes in the 2nd Iraq War resulted in at least one civilian death, more than 31 times the number that was publicly acknowledged

Austin’s personal history and connection to the military and Raytheon mark him as a fitting Pentagon chief in an era of destructive militarism and creeping fascism in the U.S.

When civilians no longer control the key institutions of government and war industries ensure the perpetuation of endless wars from which they make obscene profits, the political system can no longer be defined as a democracy. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/04/19/defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-former-member-of-raytheon-board-of-directors-has-awarded-over-2-36-billion-in-contracts-to-raytheon-since-his-confirmation-in-january/

April 20, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

How weapons maker Raytheon determines U.S. foreign policy decisions

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—Former Member of Raytheon Board of Directors—Has Awarded Over $2.36 Billion in Contracts to Raytheon Since His Confirmation in January, Covert Action Magazine By Jeremy Kuzmarov – April 19, 2021

”…………… One of the Raytheon company founders, Vannevar Bush, became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and chairman of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, which initiated the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the atomic bomb.

In 2003, Raytheon put out a press release bragging that half of all air-to-ground precision guided missiles (PGMs) used by coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom were made by Raytheon.

…………….On February 25th, for example, on a visit to the U.S.S. Nimitz, Austin emphasized the need for U.S. warships throughout the globe to deter security threats—from China to Iran. A week later on a tour of Southeast Asia with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin warned about China again and the North Korean nuclear threat and pledged that the U.S. would maintain a robust military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

He further cautioned North Korea that the United States, following military exercises with South Korea, was “ready to fight tonight.”

When fighting resumed in Eastern Ukraine in early April, Austin assured Ukraine’s Defense Minister Andrii Taran of the “U.S. commitment to building the capacity of Ukraine’s forces to defend more effectively against [supposed] Russian aggression”–which was demonstrated by a recent $125 million military aid package–and took to Twitter to reaffirm the U.S.’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”

The latter implied the joining of the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which would inevitably escalate conflict between the world’s two major nuclear-armed powers (the U.S. and Russia).

On April 13th, Austin announced that the United States would increase its military presence in Germany by about 500 personnel and was scuttling plans introduced by President Donald Trump for a large troop reduction in Europe.

Austin meanwhile in Tel Aviv affirmed the U.S. “ironclad commitment” to Israel, which receives a record $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid each year, and on a visit to Afghanistan stated that the Biden administration wanted to see a “responsible end” to the Afghan war, but that the “level of violence must decrease” for “fruitful diplomacy” to have a chance.

These comments and many others were music to the ears of Raytheon, which gave $506,424 in donations to Biden’s presidential campaign.

…………….Raytheon was also the first major defense contractor to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, selling the kingdom over 1,000 cluster bombs designed to maximize civilian casualties between 1970 and 1995. The company further hired members of the Saudi Royal Family as consultants, and opened a branch in Riyadh in 2017.

After the Yemen war began in 2015, Raytheon, according to an analysis by The New York Times, booked more than $3 billion in new bomb sales to the Saudis, causing its stock prices to increase from about $108 to more than $180 per share.

In 2019, Raytheon sold an estimated $8 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are centrally involved in the war in Yemen.

After an October 2016 Saudi airstrike on a funeral home in Sana’a that killed 140 people and wounded 500 more, human rights workers discovered a bomb shard bearing the identification number of Raytheon.[2]    It was one of at least 12 attacks on civilians that human rights groups tied to Raytheon’s ordnance during the first two years of the war.

In order to secure the lucrative Saudi deals, Raytheon took advantage of federal loopholes by sending former State Department officials to lobby their former colleagues, and later benefitted by having their former top lobbyist, Mark Esper, appointed as Defense Secretary in June 2019 in a precursor to General Austin’s hiring.………..

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—Former Member of Raytheon Board of Directors—Has Awarded Over $2.36 Billion in Contracts to Raytheon Since His Confirmation in January

April 20, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sexual harrassment: reUSA’s National Nuclear Security Administration could improve prevention and response efforts in its nuclear security forces.


Sexual Harassment:NNSA Could Improve Prevention and Response Efforts in Its Nuclear Security Forces, Government Accountability Office GAO-21-307 Apr 19, 2021. Sexual harassment is harmful to employees and negatively affects workplaces. Reports of sexual harassment have been rare in the nuclear security forces at the National Nuclear Security Administration, but research shows those experiencing harassment are unlikely to report it.

NNSA and its security contractors may have limited information on the prevalence of harassment within their forces. The degree to which the agency and its contractors follow recommended practices to prevent and respond to harassment varies.

We made 5 recommendations that include proven approaches for preventing and responding to sexual harassment………… https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-307

April 20, 2021 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

US backs Japan’s Fukushima plans despite S Korea’s concerns

US backs Japan’s Fukushima plans despite S Korea’s concerns

Seoul fails to gain US support against Japan’s decision to release contaminated water from Fukushima nuclear plant.  Aljazeera, 18 Apr 2021

US climate envoy John Kerry has reaffirmed Washington’s confidence in Japan’s decision to release contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea despite concerns raised by South Korea.

Kerry arrived in Seoul on Saturday to discuss international efforts to tackle global warming, on a trip that included a stop in China ahead of President Joe Biden’s virtual summit with world leaders on climate change this month.

South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong sought to rally support behind the country’s protest against the Fukushima plan at a dinner meeting with Kerry.

Under the plan, more than one million tonnes of water will be discharged from the plant wrecked by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 into the nearby sea off Japan’s east coast.

Seoul strongly rebuked the decision, with the foreign ministry summoning the Japanese ambassador and President Moon Jae-in ordering officials to explore petitioning an international court.

“Minister Chung conveyed our government and people’s serious concerns about Japan’s decision, and asked the US side to take interest and cooperate so that Japan will provide information in a more transparent and speedy manner,” the ministry said in a statement.

But Kerry, at a media roundtable on Sunday, said Tokyo had made the decision in a transparent manner and will continue following due procedures.

“The US is confident that the government of Japan is in very full consultations with the IAEA,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency……..   The former US secretary of state added that Washington would closely monitor Japan’s implementation “like every country, to make certain there is no public health threat”……..    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/18/s-korea-us-show-differences-over-japans-fukushima-plans

April 19, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

PNM Resources to replace its Palo Verde nuclear energy with 100% solar and battery


Sierra Club 16th April 2021, After announcing it would drop one of its leases in the Palo Verde Nuclear plant last year, this month PNM proposed replacing the energy with 100% solar and battery. In support of its proposal, PNM cited the Energy Transition Act’s requirements and the Public Regulation Commission’s decision last year to choose a 100% solar/storage proposalrather PNM’s favored gas-inclusive replacement scenario for San Juan Generating Station coal. The replacement proposal will need to be approved by the commission. In selecting carbon emission-free generation to replace Palo Verde, PNM states in testimony it has taken into
consideration “the state’s energy transition policies and long-term mandate for a carbon emission-free generation portfolio.” While we have yet to delve into all of the details of PNM’s application, this is very
encouraging and we look forward to supporting PNM’s request for prompt approval of replacement resources.

https://www.krwg.org/post/pnm-cites-eta-proposing-100-solar-and-storage-replace-nuclear

April 19, 2021 Posted by | decommission reactor, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

A new plan for disposing of nuclear waste at USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Carlsbad Current Argus 14th April 2021, A plan to build two new areas to dispose of nuclear waste began taking
shape at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after the U.S. Department of Energy published a report on the feasibility of adding an 11th and 12th waste panel to the underground nuclear waste repository.

At WIPP, low-level transuranic (TRU) waste made up of equipment and materials radiated during nuclear activities is permanently emplaced in an underground salt deposit more than 2,000 feet underground. In its original design, WIPP was planned to have eight panels for such disposal, but much of that space wasrestricted and abandoned following an accidental radiological release in2014 that contaminated parts of the underground and led to a three-year
pause of WIPP’s emplacement operations.

https://eu.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2021/04/14/wipp-aims-expand-underground-facility-hold-nuclear-waste/7149136002/

April 17, 2021 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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