‘The Bomb’ Presents A ‘Secret History’ Of Nuclear War Planning In America, NPR, September 28, 2020
Heard on Fresh Air
DAVE DAVIES, Author Fred Kaplan reveals how U.S. presidents, their advisers and generals have thought about, planned for — and sometimes narrowly avoided — nuclear war. Originally broadcast Jan. 27, 2020.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. In 2017, when President Trump threatened to rain fire and fury on North Korea if it leveled any more threats at the United States, our guest, Fred Kaplan, decided it was time for a new book. Kaplan’s 1983 book, “The Wizards Of Armageddon,” was about nuclear war strategy during the Cold War. He says the recent confrontation between North Korea and the United States got Americans thinking about the prospect of nuclear war in a way they hadn’t since the end of the Cold War nearly 30 years before. So he decided it was time to look again at how American leaders have managed these terrifying weapons and the threat they pose to the world today.
Kaplan read thousands of declassified documents and interviewed former military leaders and government officials. The result is his new book about how American presidents and their advisers and generals have thought about, planned for and sometimes narrowly avoided nuclear war over the past 70 years. Fred Kaplan is a national security columnist for Slate and the author of five previous books. His latest is “The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, And The Secret History Of Nuclear War.”
September 29, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Where’s the proof that nuclear power plants need a bailout? This Week in the CLE, By Laura Johnston, cleveland.com 28 Sept 20, CLEVELAND, Ohio — How do Ohioans know Energy Harbor’s nuclear power plants need a $1.3 billion bailout? Cleveland.com
The company hasn’t said, and we’re talking about the lack of disclosure on This Week in the CLE…….
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
The owner of the nuclear plants getting our $1.3 billion bailout won’t show proof that it actually needs the money: The Wake Up podcast, Sep 28, 2020, By Staff, cleveland.com, CLEVELAND, Ohio — A bill to bail out Ohio’s two nuclear power plants has led to one of the state’s biggest scandals … and it’s unclear if the plants really needed the money.
September 29, 2020
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business and costs, politics, USA |
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Most of the Kings Bay Plowshares still await sentencing. Mom was sentenced to time served by video conference in June — a surreal and dislocating experience that is now more and more common in our criminal justice system. Her co-defendants opted to postpone sentencing in hopes that it could be in person, but it is unclear if that will happen.
After 4 decades of Plowshares Actions, It’s Nuclear Warfare that Should Be on Trial — Not Activists, Forty years ago, the Plowshares Eight sparked a movement of nuclear disarmers that continues to take responsibility for weapons of mass destruction.
Common Dreams, by Frida Berrigan 26 Sep 20, “Nuclear warfare is not on trial here, you are!” said Judge Samuel Salus, in exasperation.
Before him were eight activists, including two priests and a nun. As Judge Salus tried to preside over the government’s prosecution of them for their trespass onto — and destruction of — private property, the eight were trying to put nuclear warfare, nuclear weapons, nuclear policy and U.S. exceptionalism on trial.
That was 40 years ago this week — ancient history by some measures. And no one reading this will be surprised to find that the eight were found guilty and the human family is still threatened by almost 15,000 nuclear warheads. So, four decades later, why isn’t nuclear warfare on trial?
They are the crime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians 75 years ago. They have littered the landscape with radioactive waste. They have cost the United States more than $5 trillion from the public coffers. They are the apocalyptic nightmare on hair-trigger alert that haunt our children’s dreams.
On September 9, 1980, my father, Philip Berrigan, along with his brother Daniel, John Schuchardt, Dean Hammer, Elmer Maas, Molly Rush, Sister Anne Montgomery, and Father Carl Kabat, gained entry into the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Once inside the complex, they poured blood over two nuclear weapons’ nose cones, and used household hammers to dent the metal. They came to be known as The Plowshares Eight. Continue reading →
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Legal, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA, weapons and war |
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New generation of ICBMs means Nebraska will continue to be ‘nuclear sponge,’ warn nuke skeptics, Omaha World Herald, Steve Liewer-25 Sept 20,
In the unhappy event that the world’s nuclear powers cut loose with their atomic weapons, Nebraska would become an especially hellish place.
That’s because the Cornhusker State is one of a handful in the West and Midwest whose role in Armageddon is to soak up an unfathomable first strike of Russian bombs.
Under the weird logic of mutually assured destruction, the 450 Minuteman III missile silos containing 400 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and western Nebraska are meant to be sitting ducks for any first strike by Russia, or any other potential adversary.
“The specific mission of the ICBMs is to be a nuclear sponge,” said Tom Z. Collina, director of policy for the Ploughshares Fund, a group dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons. “They’re sitting in their silos. Their only purpose is to be a target.”
Today, the nation is once again at a nuclear crossroads. Tensions between the U.S. and Russia, its biggest nuclear adversary, have simmered to a boil since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine (a U.S. ally) and used proxies to occupy the eastern part of its territory.
Russia has begun modernizing its nuclear arsenal, and China is building one, leaving the U.S. in a rush to catch up because almost every plane, submarine, missile and bomb is 30 to 50 years old.
In addition, the New START arms control agreement, signed by the U.S. and Russia in 2010, expires in February. Negotiations to extend the agreement started late and have not gone far, leading to fears of a renewed nuclear arms race.
“The world has never been as dangerous,” said former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who also represented Nebraska as a U.S. senator.
The modernization of the nuclear arsenal includes construction of the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines (replacing the Ohio-class boats), B-21 strategic bombers (replacing the B-1, B-2 and some B-52s), and the new “ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD),” an ICBM to replace the Minuteman III.
Cost estimates exceed $300 billion. In Congress, the modernization has wide support in both political parties. Just this month, the Pentagon awarded defense contractor Northrop Grumman $13.3 billion to start work on the GBSD, a down payment on a $100 billion project.
Nebraska has an outsize stake in America’s nuclear enterprise. U.S. Strategic Command, which commands the arsenal, is at Offutt Air Force Base, on the east side of the state, and 82 Minuteman III silos are in the state’s far western counties.
The silos are underground and heavily reinforced — sturdy, but not invulnerable to a nuclear strike. They’re spaced far enough apart that it would take an enormous number of bombs to wipe them out.
“I’ve always wondered why the Midwest states don’t raise more of a ruckus,” Collina said. “You’re the states that have a target on your back.”
He and others have raised the possibility of scrapping the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad and doing away with the “nuclear sponge.”
Of course, the basic idea of nuclear deterrence is that the missiles’ presence means that they will never be used.
“ICBMs would only be used in world-ending situations,” said Matt Korda, a researcher with the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project. “If they don’t have any purpose in post-Cold War nuclear strategy, then what is the cost of keeping them?”…………………
Collina and others say the ICBMs have outlived their usefulness. The nuclear sponge, they say, is too dangerous and expensive to maintain. The air- and sea-based legs of the triad offer more than enough firepower to destroy any enemy that would dare to attack the U.S.
“If you remove all the ICBMs, we would be safer than we are today,” Collina said.
He and Korda fear an accidental nuclear war because of the speed with which a president must launch the missiles if sensors detect an incoming strike.
“The president would have only a couple of minutes to decide before they are destroyed,” Korda said. “The risk of miscalculation is very high.”
“The point of deterrence is if you attack us, we will devastate your country,” Collina said. “That invites the nightmare: that we might start a nuclear war by mistake.”
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, weapons and war |
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As fossil fuel jobs falter, renewables come to the rescue, BY JEFF BERARDELLI CBS News, SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 “…………. Professor Jay Johnson runs the Wind Energy Technician Program at Lake Region State College in eastern North Dakota, and recently he’s seen a big increase in demand. “Wind energy development has been on a tear the last few years as wind turbines have become unbelievably efficient,” he said.
According to Logan Goldie-Scot, the head of clean power research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), combined solar and wind power capacity has quadrupled since 2010. And in that time, installed wind capacity has increased by 260%, from 41 gigawatts to 106. BNEF expects another 60 gigawatts of wind power to be added in just the next five years.
“The amount of money being invested in wind is staggering, and people don’t realize it, but there is a 100% renewable revolution going on right underneath our feet,” says Johnson, “This all means the cost of wind-generated electricity to homeowners and businesses is the low-cost solution.”
Prices of renewable energy have indeed fallen dramatically. According to BNEF, the cost of generating power from solar photovoltaic (PV) modules has fallen by 90% since 2010, and the price of wind power has been cut in half. In fact, the prices of onshore wind and solar are now even with gas and cheaper than coal and nuclear.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and sustainable development expert at Columbia University, says clean energy now has several advantages over traditional fuels.
“Renewable energy now is at what is called grid parity. That means it is no more expensive to put up a solar field than it is to put up a coal plant,” explains Sachs. “The only difference is the coal plant will pollute the air, kill the people nearby and create incredible climate damage, while the solar will enable clean air and a safe and stable environment and actually put a lot more people to work.”
Recent figures show renewable energy employs about 850,000 people in the U.S. (not including some 2.3 million jobs in energy efficiency), as compared to a little more than 1 million in traditional oil, gas and coal. But most of the future job growth is projected to come from clean energy sources.
In fact, the fastest growing occupation in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is wind turbine service technician, with a median salary of about $53,000 per year. In total, the wind industry employs 120,000 U.S. workers. Solar installer is the third fastest growing occupation on the list, with a median salary of nearly $45,000.
The growth in renewable energy jobs can be explained by the fact that it is a newer, expanding industry and requires more workers per unit of energy than fossil fuels. Research shows that job creation is inherent in the transition required to combat climate change. “Such episodes of ‘creative destruction’ are often associated with innovation, job creation and growth,” as one study put it. A report by the UK Energy Research Centre concluded that for the same amount of energy produced, renewables required two to five times as many workers as compared to fossil fuels.
A poll released this week by Climate Nexus, conducted by Yale and George Mason University, finds that a large majority of registered voters in the U.S. believe combating climate change would be good for the economy. About 7 in 10 people surveyed expressed the view that government action on climate change would bolster renewable energy, create jobs and help the economy. Only about one-third thought government action on climate would impose burdensome regulations, weakening the economy and job creation.
CBS News asked Goldie-Scot how much the outcome of the 2020 presidential election would matter for the future of renewables. He says that while the industry would undoubtedly benefit more from a Democratic administration due to Joe Biden’s pledge to invest $2 trillion in clean energy and related infrastructure, “the fundamental advantages of renewables will persist despite politics. Renewables are the lowest [cost] form of generation in much of the country and renewables are popular in a number of Republican, and windy, states.”
As just one example, the typically red state of Texas is the clear leader in wind energy, generating three times as much as its nearest competitor. Sachs agrees that Republican-leaning states have the most to gain from the surge in renewables. “They could be the leaders in building the new green economy,” he said. “This is exactly a heartland issue for the United States.”
And back in the heartland, as Johnson sees more and more trainees walking through his door, he says the renewable revolution is well underway. “That’s where the jobs are, that’s where the wind energy is. It’s just free money flying across the sky.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/renewable-energy-jobs-replacing-fossil-fuel-jobs-oil-wind/?fbclid=IwAR1aPeyOQTnh5UlpQKkRvonfkMOxT4cFwLn7uYMO-T1ckd-ldGCkOGlNNeU
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, renewable, USA |
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SUPREME COURT. Could Barrett ‘shut the courthouse doors’ on enviros? Pamela King, E&E News reporter, September 26, 2020 President Trump today selected Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the nation’s highest bench.
If confirmed, Barrett, 48, will become the Supreme Court’s sixth Republican-appointed justice, replacing one of the court’s most liberal members and deepening a conservative majority on the bench that could affect the outcome of environmental litigation for decades.
“The courts in general and the Supreme Court in particular are not going to be much help on confronting the major environmental challenges we face,” Vermont Law School professor Pat Parenteau wrote in an email.
Barrett accepted the nomination at the White House this afternoon, highlighting Ginsburg’s achievements on the high court.
“She not only broke glass ceilings,” Barrett said of Ginsburg. “She smashed them.”
Barrett’s record on environmental and energy issues is largely undeveloped, but several environmental groups voiced concern about Barrett’s narrow view of public interest groups’ power to sue in opinions she wrote as a judge for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where she has served since 2017.
In a ruling this summer, Barrett blocked an effort by a park preservation group and Chicago residents to stop construction of the Obama Presidential Center in the city’s Jackson Park.
The challengers’ lack of standing “pulls the rug out from under their arguments,” Barrett wrote.
She also signed on to a 2018 decision that asked the Army Corps of Engineers to revisit its decision that placed 13 acres of Illinois wetlands off-limits to a housing developer.
“Her slim judicial record shows that she’s hostile to the environment and will slam shut the courthouse doors to public interest advocates, to the delight of corporate polluters,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement yesterday.
Ginsburg, on the other hand, penned the Supreme Court’s opinion in the oft-cited 2000 case Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, which took a broad view of environmentalists’ standing to bring lawsuits (Greenwire, Sept. 19).
If Barrett is confirmed, the bench’s three remaining liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — will need the support of their conservative colleagues to grant any petition, potentially making it much more difficult for environmental groups to challenge Trump administration rules at the high court. The court requires that four justices agree to take up a case and accepts fewer than 1% of cases.
Chief Justice John Roberts has become known for siding with the liberal justices in decisions with impact for environmental rulemaking, but his power as a swing voter would be diluted if a sixth conservative justice were added to the bench. Observers have pointed to Trump’s two other appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — as the court’s new potential center.
“I would expect that it will be tougher for EPA to act as aggressively with an Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court than it was with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” said Tom Lorenzen, head of the environment and natural resources practice at Crowell & Moring LLP…….https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063714781
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
environment, Legal, USA |
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Americans deserve a nuclear-free future, https://www.heraldnews.com/opinion/20200923/opinion-americans-deserve-nuclear-free-future Maryellen Kurkulos, 23 Sept 20, This Saturday, Sept. 26, marks the United Nations’ International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This year’s commemoration is of particular importance given the precarious states of our economy, public health, environment and democracy.
Conditions in our country were dire even before the pandemic with 40% of Americans living from paycheck to paycheck. Homelessness, food and housing insecurity as well as deteriorating living standards for much of the middle class had become the norm. Now we are contending with a soaring COVID-19 death-toll, Depression-era unemployment, and millions teetering on the brink of eviction.
Yet there are serious problems that loom even larger. People are finally acknowledging the ominous reality of a rapidly warming planet. In recent weeks “apocalyptic” fires along the West coast and extreme flooding in the South, both directly linked to global warming, have decimated entire towns and displaced hundreds of thousands.
But Americans must also confront the threat presented by nuclear weapons that could be launched accidentally or on purpose. Unless mitigated, irreversible damage to human civilization and our ecosystem from global warming will take decades; a nuclear war could wipe out everything that sustains life on Earth in an instant.
Until recently, a global architecture of nuclear treaties provided a measure of security from that happening, although too many accidents and close calls still happened. But President Donald Trump has demolished these treaties and agreements, undoing decades of painstaking work. His provocations against China and Russia, both nuclear powers, have stoked a new arms race. He has already deployed one of the new, more easily used “low-yield” atomic warheads and is committed to a needless $2 trillion, 30-year nuclear weapons modernization program.
Consequently each year President Trump has been in office experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have moved the hands of the iconic Doomsday clock closer to midnight. Last January, they set the second hand at 100 seconds – closer than ever before – indicating the alarmingly heightened risk of a nuclear launch.
Even without a Trump second-term, reconstructing these treaties and repairing our damaged international relationships will be a formidable feat. Yet, there is hope for progress if Americans confront and correct the warped priorities in our federal budget. For two decades, Congress has been allocating over half of those funds – our tax dollars – to the Pentagon at the expense of many programs that include healthcare, housing and education. In 2018, over $22 billion went to nuclear weapons programs alone. The amount paid by Fall River taxpayers was $2.26 million, enough money to provide COVID-19 testing for most of the city or to hire 22 additional public school teachers that we now need for the smaller classes required in this era of social distancing.
Forty years ago during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union a global movement of millions successfully pressured the leaders of the two nuclear superpowers to meet and negotiate a nuclear freeze. Today, movements led by young people and people of color all across the U.S. are rising up demanding racial, economic and environmental justice. They might be in the streets, but they also are organizing in their communities, lobbying elected officials and working to elect candidates at all levels of government who will deliver the transformative change our collective future is dependent on. Americans absolutely deserve quality healthcare, stable, affordable housing, debt-free education, and good-paying jobs. Above all we deserve a safe, sustainable and nuclear-free future.
September 28, 2020
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USA, weapons and war |
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U.S. Allies Worry Trump Administration Might Let Key Nuclear Treaty With Russia Die
Internal documents acknowledge concern among allies about the expiration of the Obama-era New START accord, but U.S. negotiators are still playing hardball. Foreign Policy, BY JACK DETSCH, ROBBIE GRAMER SEPTEMBER 24, 2020, S. ALLIES ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE REPERCUSSIONS OF THE LOOMING EXPIRATION OF THE OBAMA-ERA NEW START ARMS CONTROL TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA, ACCORDING TO AN INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION REPORT OBTAINED BY FOREIGN POLICY. MEANWHILE, FORMER OFFICIALS AND ARMS CONTROL EXPERTS WORRY THE ADMINISTRATION MAY BE SEEKING TO SLOW-WALK THE ACCORD TO DEATH BY MAKING IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS OF RUSSIA JUST MONTHS BEFORE THE TREATY IS SLATED TO END.
The Trump administration faces a tight deadline to renew the 2010 New START Treaty, which slaps limits on the number of strategic launchers, such as intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers that both nations can deploy. Unless both sides reach an agreement on an extension, it will end in February 2021, leaving no meaningful treaty to stave off the threat of an arms race. Top U.S. arms negotiator Marshall Billingslea appears to have temporarily set aside one condition already broadly dismissed as a nonstarter—adding China to the bilateral accord.
Still, he has insisted Beijing will have to be part of any agreement that would replace New START. “The next treaty will have to be multilateral, it will have to include China, and the framework that we are articulating together as two great powers, us and the Russians, will be the framework going forward that China will be expected to join,” Billingslea told reporters in a briefing last month.
In the meantime, U.S. officials have added other conditions: predicating a short-term extension of New START on expanded restrictions on Russia’s growing arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.
So far, Russia hasn’t shown any inclination to go along with such preconditions for negotiating an extension of the treaty. As the clock winds down, U.S. allies in Europe and arms control experts fear New START might not be renewed.
In an internal State Department report for Congress, the Trump administration acknowledged that the United States’ closest allies are hoping to constrain Russia’s and China’s weapons programs. But the report also notes that allies are growing unnerved by the prospect of talks falling apart as Washington is distracted by a contested presidential election. ……..
Though Billingslea has tried to push the Russians to accept more weapons inspections, there is concern among experts that the United States would also lose vital intelligence into Russian nuclear modernization if the deal lapses. ……. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/24/trump-putin-russia-new-start-nuclear-arms-control-u-s-allies-worry-trump-administration-might-let-key-nuclear-treaty-with-russia-die/
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics international, USA |
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As fossil fuel jobs falter, renewables come to the rescue, BY JEFF BERARDELLI CBS News, SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 In 2011, Don Williams made the long trip from Michigan to North Dakota hoping to capitalize on the Bakken oil boom — to, as he says, “chase oil and make quick cash.” It paid off; for years Williams worked in operations on the oil fields, watching over production and maintaining pump jacks.
To say that Williams worked hard would be an understatement. Putting in 12-hour days, 7 days a week — 84-hour work-weeks were typical. And the work was lucrative. The money flowed as fast as the oil did — until it didn’t. In May, Williams was laid off, along with most of the Bakken workforce, when boom went bust.
But within a week, he made a huge career leap — 300 feet up, to be exact — ascending from the firm grounds of the Bakken Oil Fields to the top of a giant wind turbine to take part in a 12-week training course to become a wind energy technician. In his words, he no longer wanted to “ride the oil waves, the highs and lows,” anymore.
While the jobs are on opposite ends of the energy spectrum — from dirty to clean and from old to new — the mechanical skills Williams gained from his time working in oil helped him navigate the career transition. And lately, many ex-oil workers are taking that same leap in hopes of finding long-term stability — something that is becoming scarcer in fossil fuels.
In the past year, two seismic shocks — a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, followed by global pandemic lockdowns — tanked oil demand and prices too, devastating oil and gas production in the Bakken Formation.
From June 2019 through June 2020, U.S. crude oil production fell 38% and natural gas production fell 31%. The unemployment rate in North Dakota rose to 11.3% in June. For the month of August, continued claims of unemployment in North Dakota were nearly 100,000, and about a quarter of those were tied directly to mining, quarrying and oil & gas extraction — the highest unemployment of any sector in the state.
But as luck would have it, fossil fuels aren’t the only energy source North Dakota is rich in. With an average wind speed of 20 mph 300 feet above the ground where the wind turbines churn, North Dakota is prime real estate for wind power. It ranks 10th in wind production in the U.S. with more than 3,000 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity.
Williams says he sees evidence of a renewable revolution right in his backyard, with wind turbines popping up all around his community.
He received his wind technician training at Lake Region State College, a couple hours’ drive east from the Bakken oil fields. To earn a one-year college credit certificate, the cost of the course is about $5,000. Less than a month out of the training program, Williams has already landed a wind technician job at Gemini Energy Services.
Although he says the starting salary does not quite measure up to what the oil fields paid, the trade-off of more time with his family and more stability is well worth it to him. Besides, he’s optimistic about his future financial prospects because he says the industry offers a lot of upward mobility and areas to specialize in…….. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/renewable-energy-jobs-replacing-fossil-fuel-jobs-oil-wind/?fbclid=IwAR1aPeyOQTnh5UlpQKkRvonfkMOxT4cFwLn7uYMO-T1ckd-ldGCkOGlNNeU
September 28, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, renewable, USA |
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And If You Don’t Know, Now You Know, https://www.independent.com/2020/09/24/all-about-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant/ David Weisman, 24 Sept 20,
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Absent annoyances like the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (A4NR) and allies, it appears that regulators, elected officials, and the press have their COVID-19 facemasks pulled up over their eyes. With no shortage of crises — pandemics, wildfires, social injustice — plaguing 2020 so far, some long-simmering nuclear shortcuts are slipping under the radar.
PG&E, which pled guilty to 84 cases of manslaughter this past spring, has been banking on regulatory inattention to increase profits while ignoring risks to residents and ratepayers from its
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Absent annoyances like the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (A4NR) and allies, it appears that regulators, elected officials, and the press have their COVID-19 facemasks pulled up over their eyes. With no shortage of crises — pandemics, wildfires, social injustice — plaguing 2020 so far, some long-simmering nuclear shortcuts are slipping under the radar.
PG&E, which pled guilty to 84 cases of manslaughter this past spring, has been banking on regulatory inattention to increase profits while ignoring risks to residents and ratepayers from its aging Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
Since the start of the pandemic, here are four examples of declining oversight:
(1) Corroded pipes in the vital emergency cooling water system at Unit 2 ruptured in July, spilling four gallons per minute. The plant shut down for a week of repairs — and more extensive corrosion was detected. Fearing that Unit 1 suffered similarly, PG&E asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to make repairs in place without shutting the reactor down. California’s blackouts mean that the last thing PG&E wants to admit is that Diablo Canyon could fail at the time it might be most needed. Ignoring its own regulatory precedents, failing to wait for PG&E’s responses to staff questions, and skirting public notification and comment requirements, PG&E’s risky request was rubberstamped.
The Takeaway: Despite decades of NRC requirements and inspection orders to PG&E for documented weaknesses, how was this external — visible — pipe corrosion allowed to fester? Have maintenance standards degraded now that the plant is slated for retirement in a few years … the frightening prospect of what engineers call “run to failure?” What other undetected decay lurks in the system — and what will it cost ratepayers to keep this dinosaur running safely?
For those believing that Diablo Canyon is vital in a time of energy shortages, consider this from the New York Times in August:
Steve Berberich, president and chief executive officer of California Independent System Operator, on Tuesday defended his organization’s decision to order rolling blackouts rather than dipping into reserve power supplies set aside for emergencies. He said the grid had to keep some reserves on hand in case a plant like Diablo Canyon unexpectedly shut down.
Perhaps Mr. Berberich rightly feared — or knew of — the situations plaguing Diablo this summer.
(2). Many customers have fled PG&E for Community Choice Aggregation programs (CCA), but they are still charged “exit fees” to cover Diablo’s extraordinary above-market costs — which PG&E projects will exceed $1.25 billion in 2020. That’s money that could be better spent on the demand-response programs, electricity storage, and targeted capacity purchases needed to truly avoid blackouts. Desperate, PG&E tried to pawn off Diablo’s unneeded and overpriced energy on the CCAs (including Santa Barbara’s own Central Coast Community Energy) under the rubric of “Carbon Free.” But alert advocates caught the ruse and reminded the boards of CCAs across the region to remain true to their past commitments to “nuclear free” power sourcing.
(3) PG&E gained an additional eight months use (and associated profit) from Diablo through an unpublicized waiver from the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). In 2010 the SWRCB ruled that all use of once through cooling (OTC) from ocean water would cease on December 31, 2024. Diablo’s Unit 2 has an NRC license through August 2025.
In a move quite similar to the NRC waiver, the Newsom SWRCB relied on a smokescreen staff report replete with internal contradictions and unsubstantiated claims by PG&E. The waiver was shoehorned into the OTC extensions for several Southern California gas plants. But the Southern California 1-3 year extensions allegedly address a 2021-2023 short-term need. No such claim was made for Diablo’s 2025 gift.
As a result, the SWRCB in a unanimous vote heaped an economic bonus on PG&E and perpetuated damage to our oceans through sea life entrainment. Once, the California Coastal Commission declared, “It would be fair to categorize Diablo Canyon as California’s largest marine predator.” Maybe the SWRCB forgot.
(4) On a final and unsettling note, Forbes magazine investigated NRC files and revealed that unidentified drones have hovered above nearly a dozen nuclear power plants without interception, sometimes for 30 minutes or longer, “…and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo in California had no less than seven separate incidents from December 2015 to September 2018, all of them unresolved.”
The National Academies of Science and Engineering determined that spent fuel pools at nuclear reactors represent their greatest security weakness. Enclosed in buildings lacking thick containment structures, these pools hold the highest volume of radionuclides that could be released. While the perpetrators and motives of the drone flights remains unknown, a drone attack on Diablo’s spent fuel building — even absent an off-site radiological catastrophe — wreaks havoc, requires untold costs to remedy, and stops energy production.
Since 2008 A4NR has been advocating that PG&E expedite the transfer of spent fuel from vulnerable pools into simpler, passive dry cask storage. The California Energy Commission agrees; the CPUC has previously ordered PG&E to begin the process. Instead PG&E drags its feet, after previously deferring all offloads until 2032.
And from the aforementioned state regulatory commissions? Only silence.
As these examples indicate, 2020’s serial disruptions have hampered anyone’s ability to closely monitor utility actions. Undoubtedly these are stress filled days for all, including government agencies and reporters. But existing health, economic and societal concerns could be rendered moot by the greater existential threat posed by Diablo Canyon. The final years of an aging nuclear plant operated by a repeatedly bankrupt and felonious utility are not the time to be letting down one’s guard. While all are told to keep their masks covering their noses, this should not prevent our regulators and the media from sniffing out the unpleasant developments at this accident-waiting-to-happen.
David Weisman is the outreach coordinator at the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. Further information and supporting documents for the issues raised here can be found at: www.a4nr.org.
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September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA |
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 Trump Appoints Pair of Climate Science Deniers to NOAA While Climate-Fueled Fires and Storms Rage DeSmog Blog, By Dana Drugmand and Ben Jervey • Thursday, September 24, 2020
The White House has made a pair of controversial appointments to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), positioning within the climate science agency two individuals who consistently misrepresent and disagree with the scientific consensus on various issues concerning climate change and who have notable ties with conservative think tanks that disseminate climate science denial.
As the Washington Post first reported this week, President Trump is naming Ryan Maue to the role of chief scientist at NOAA, a position that will help enforce its scientific integrity process. Maue is a meteorologist who has downplayed the degree and impacts of global warming, particularly ties between extreme weather events and human-caused climate change, and he has a past connection with the Cato Institute.
Maue’s appointment follows the White House’s appointment last week of climate science denier David Legates as NOAA’s deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. Legates refutes the well-established scientific understanding that human activity is causing climate breakdown and he is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, which has and continues to traffic in climate denial and disinformation…….
These appointments of climate science deniers to NOAA — the agency charged with monitoring changes in the climate system and informing Americans on this science — come at a time when there is rising concern over the Trump administration’s embrace of pseudoscience and apparent attempts to interfere with or attack nonpartisan scientific and public health agencies like NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A study published in April surveying federal scientists found a perceived loss of scientific integrity under the Trump administration.
The new NOAA appointments also arrive as climate-fueled disasters such as unprecedented wildfires and a litany of tropical storms and hurricanes have roiled the nation. It is therefore worth taking a closer look at the backgrounds of these two individuals questioning mainstream climate science………….https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/09/24/trump-noaa-david-legates-ryan-maue-climate-denial?utm_source=DeSmog%20Weekly%20Newsletter
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September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, politics, USA |
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Northampton shuns business with companies involved in creating nuclear weapons, https://www.gazettenet.com/Governor-signs-home-rule-petition-36428827 By GRETA JOCHEM, Staff Writer, 9/24/2020
NORTHAMPTON — Under a new state law, Northampton is allowed to refuse contracts with companies involved in the creation of nuclear weapons.
The act comes from a home rule petition recommended by Mayor David Narkewicz and approved by the the City Council in 2019.
“Basically, under Massachusetts contracting law, you are not allowed to discriminate against one sector or industry,” Narkewicz said, explaining the need for the change.
In July, Gov. Charlie Baker signed an act into law that reads, “the city of Northampton may disqualify from an award of a contract a bidder or vendor who participates in the design, manufacture or maintenance of nuclear weapons.”
Saturday marks the United Nations’ International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Rallies will be held in Northampton, Springfield, Sunderland and Greenfield, according to Massachusetts Peace Action. In western Massachusetts, they are hosted by a number of organizations, including The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice and Arise for Social Justice. In Northampton, for example, The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice is holding a rally at L3Harris Technologies at 11 a.m. at 50 Prince Street in Northampton. When L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. merged into L3Harris Technologies last year, the company said it created the sixth-largest defense company in the country and a top 10 defense company worldwide.
Saturday will also be “Nuclear Ban Day” in Northampton, as Narkewicz read a proclamation Thursday declaring it.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.
September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, weapons and war |
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Transporting the waste to the New Mexico and West Texas facilities by rail car and through major cities, including those in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, could be a Pandora’s Box of problems for North Texans
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 Nuclear waste could travel through Dallas-Fort Worth if West Texas plan is approved Fort Worth Star Telegram, BY HALEY SAMSEL, SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 If approved by federal regulators, at least 5,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste from across the U.S. could travel through the Metroplex on its way to a West Texas storage facility that already stores low-level radioactive materials.
High-level nuclear waste refers to spent, or used, reactor fuel and waste materials that exist after the used fuel is reprocessed for disposal. The radioactive waste poses potentially harmful effects to humans and only decreases in radioactivity through decay, which can take hundreds of thousands of years, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that regulates nuclear power plants and the storage and disposal of waste.
Activists who oppose the West Texas plan say the impact will not be limited to residents of Andrews County, where the toxic waste site owned by Waste Control Specialists already sits near the Texas-New Mexico border. The commission is considering a similar plan for a high-level waste storage facility in southeastern New Mexico, brought forward by the nuclear company Holtec.
Transporting the waste to the New Mexico and West Texas facilities by rail car and through major cities, including those in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, could be a Pandora’s Box of problems for North Texans, said Lon Burnam, a former state representative and the chair of the Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness.
“We’ve created all this waste, there’s no good way to handle it, and the question is: What is the least objectionable way to handle it?” Burnam said. “But carting it all through Dallas-Fort Worth, from my perspective, is one of the worst ways to handle it. Why should we be the community that 90% of this stuff goes through on its way to either West Texas or the New Mexico side?”
For years, the U.S. Department of Energy has struggled to find a long-term storage solution for the country’s growing stockpile of radioactive waste. With no permanent destination for safe disposal, more than 80,000 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste sit at the country’s commercial nuclear plants, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. ……
Texans have until Nov. 3 to submit online public comments on the report, which may be the last chance that the public has to voice opposition or support for the application…… https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article245941215.html
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September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA, wastes |
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Amid debate over repealing House Bill 6, Energy Harbor still won’t say whether its nuclear plants are profitable
Cleveland. com Sep 25, 2020, By Jeremy Pelzer,
COLUMBUS, Ohio—State lawmakers are looking at whether to keep in place a $1.3 billion public bailout for the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants along Lake Erie, a law that federal authorities say was corruptly enacted.
But throughout the debate, there’s still a glaring problem: the owner of the nuclear plants refuses to disclose whether they are profitable or not. And so far, there’s been no attempt by state lawmakers to compel the company to release its numbers before the bailout takes effect.
During last year’s debate over whether to pass the bailout as part of House Bill 6, Energy Harbor – then known as FirstEnergy Solutions – asserted it needed public subsidies or it would close the plants. But the company wouldn’t open its books to lawmakers or the public to prove that it actually needed the money, leading legislators to rely on estimates, industry averages and company officials’ word.
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September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, USA |
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A look at Exelon’s 4 economically challenged nuclear plants in Illinois, S & P Global, Author, Anna Duquiatan, 25 Sep 20, Exelon Corp.-owned nuclear power plants in Illinois eyed for early retirement have had declining financial margins of late, according to an analysis using S&P Global Market Intelligence’s plant-level production cost model. ………
Exelon Generation Co. LLC announced Aug. 27 that it plans to retire its 2,346-MW Byron and 1,805-MW Dresden nuclear power stations in September 2021 and November 2021, respectively.
The Exelon Corp. subsidiary added that the 2,384-MW Braidwood Generating Station and 2,313-MW LaSalle County Generating Station are “also at high risk for premature closure,” though the company has not yet projected any closure dates for those plants………
The two-unit Dresden plant in Grundy County, the first of the four northern Illinois plants to enter service, in the early 1970s, is licensed to operate until 2029 and 2031. Braidwood in Will County, Byron in Ogle County, and LaSalle in LaSalle County all began operating in the mid- to late 1980s and are licensed to operate until the 2040s. …………..
Q2: U.S. Solar and Wind Power by the Numbers
Wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic, solar project developers installed nearly three times as much solar power capacity in Q2’20 compared to the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, the U.S. wind industry posted one of its strongest second quarters on record in 2020, adding 2,369 MW of capacity, and the 2020 development pipeline stands strong at 30,554 MW.
Q2: U.S. Wind Power by the numbers
Essential Energy Insights – September, 2020
Numbers Utility-Scale Solar Surge Reaches 1.6 GW in Q2
Utility-Scale Solar Surge Reaches 1.6 GW in Q2
September 26, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA |
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