Could President Trump launch a nuclear attack via Twitter?
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The proverbial “big red button” is one of the most important responsibilities that a U.S. President has. But Americans know very little about it.
Last week, he said that is ordering the Navy to “shoot down and destroy” Iranian boats that get too close to U.S. ships, and then the Pentagon turned it into a reminder that “our ships retain the right of self-defense.” Do you see any situations where the President says something ambiguous, and then the military has to figure out whether he meant to use nuclear weapons, or some other similarly drastic measure?…….. The modern military has long adapted to the idea that nuclear weapons are a relatively clunky think to imagine using in practice. They might work as a strategic threat, but the United States benefits a lot more from not using them, and from using our many conventional options that are very diverse and capable, instead.
If we normalize the use of nuclear weapons, we are a very big target…….
I do worry about—it’s somewhat clear that the President and the military have a complicated communications relationship. There have a number of things that the President announced via Twitter, that he clearly did not get full consent from the military on or did not even inform them on……. Maybe your secure phone lines don’t work. Maybe your regular phone lines don’t work. You could imagine a situation in which Twitter is the only channel by which the President can communicate with the military, and he would tweet out an order on it, but it would have to be a very well-formed order. ……
if the President’s Twitter account suddenly started tweeting legitimate nuclear authentication codes and nuclear launch orders, I think that would raise a lot of questions for the military. Even in that situation, assuming they don’t see incoming missiles coming at them—which is to say, they’re not under any belief that this is a true, obviously unambiguous nuclear war situation—I think that would go through rather extreme efforts to contact the White House, or the Secretary of Defense, and/or anybody around there, just to find out if this was real or not.
That would definitely be a weird way for the world to end. |
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Federal appeals court dismisses case against GE over Fukushima nuclear disaster
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit by numerous Japanese individuals and business who hoped to sue General Electric (GE) over its role in building and maintaining the reactors that exploded in the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.
Compensation for the Fukushima disaster in Japan is covered by a 1961 law addressing nuclear damages—the Compensation Act. The Compensation Act creates a complex scheme with several ways for injured parties to recover, and it ultimately places all liability for Fukushima in the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that operated the plant. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against GE, as well as millions of others, had recovered money from TEPCO in Japan through lawsuits, claims directly to the company, and mediated processes. But the plaintiffs in this case also wanted to recover money from GE, which had built, designed or maintained all the reactors at Fukushima, and, according to the plaintiffs, were responsible for some of what went wrong there during the tsunami in 2011. The plaintiffs sued in Massachusetts because GE is headquartered there.
USA Government prioritises nuclear industry over its duty to public health
As Pandemic Rages, Federal Nuclear Regulators Put Keeping Reactors
Running Ahead of Public Health and Safety https://www.ewg.org/energy/23141/pandemic-rages-federal-nuclear-regulators-put-keeping-reactors-running-ahead-public-27 Apr 20,
The federal government’s toothless nuclear “watchdog” has historically shown more concern for keeping dangerous aging reactors running than for Americans’ safety from a nuclear accident. So how is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, responding to the coronavirus pandemic?
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- Letting nuclear power plants cut back their workforces to facilitate social distancing – but letting them make up for the reduced numbers by requiring the remaining control room operators and other key employees to work back-to-back 84-hour weeks, heightening the danger of worker exhaustion that could contribute to a reactor accident.Telling the agency’s on-site safety inspectors – two or more resident inspectors at each plant – to work from home, and allowing plants to defer required inspections of piping systems critical to cooling the reactors.
- Keeping reactor refueling crews of up to 1,500 technicians traveling from plant to plant, working in crowded conditions and staying in nearby communities, increasing the likelihood of crew members spreading the virus
The U.S. has 58 nuclear power plants housing 96 nuclear reactors in 29 states. Each plant employs 500 to 1,000 workers. Every 18 to 24 months, plants are powered down for four to six weeks for refueling, done in the spring or fall, when electric demand is low. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, or NEI, the lobbying arm of the nuclear industry, refueling is scheduled at 56 plants this year.
On March 20, the NEI wrote the NRC to request that refueling crews have “unfettered access to travel across state lines” and unrestricted access to local hotels and food services, and to be prioritized for personal protective equipment. The NRC responded by allowing a reduction in the required number of plant personnel, and allowing an increased work week for remaining employees of 12-hour days for up to 14 days straight.
That worries Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit that advocates “for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.”“Nuclear plant operators on extended 12-hour shifts, who can now be assigned to work two consecutive 84-hour weeks, will suffer excessive fatigue,” Beyond Nuclear’s director of plant oversight, Paul Gunter, said in a news release. “This not only compromises their immune systems, but makes catastrophic mistakes more likely.” The release cited the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear accident, in 1979, which it said was attributed to “mechanical failure worsened by operator fatigue and error.”
One week after the Nuclear Institute’s letter, the NRC directed resident inspectors to work from home, “only coming on site for risk-significant in-plant operations.” The agency has also allowed utilities operating the plants to request postponement of inspections and maintenance. “There are some ancillary activities during an outage that can be deferred,” an NRC spokesperson told Bloomberg.Among the “ancillary” activities that can be deferred is inspection of piping critical to cooling the reactors. Beyond Nuclear says three plants, in Illinois, Florida and Texas, have requested 18-month deferments of inspections of steam generator tubes that are subject to extreme heat, radiation and vibration. Failure of the piping, says the International Atomic Energy Agency, could lead to “core damage or large release events” of radiation.At least four nuclear plants – Fermi 2, near Detroit, Susquehanna, near Berwick, Pa., Limerick, near Pottstown, Pa., and Vogtle, near Waynesboro, Ga. – have seen cases of COVID-19
The Pottstown Mercury reports that local officials asked Exelon, the owner of Limerick, to postpone refueling because they found the company’s plans to address the pandemic inadequate. Regardless, the company went ahead with refueling and didn’t begin social distancing until workers told the press they were “terrified” that they’re working in a “breeding ground” for COVID-19.Nearly 30 Limerick workers have tested positive for the virus, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. But Vogtle has by far the biggest outbreak, with 143 workers testing positive. It’s unknown how many nuclear plant workers nationwide have tested positive, because the NRC has not reported cases.“The key question,” Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Utility Dive, “is how much additional risk will the NRC allow nuclear plants to accept in order to keep them running during the crisis?”Good question
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Poll shows that Americans favour a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy
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Poll: What the American public likes and hates about Trump’s nuclear policies, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jonathon Baron, Stephen Herzog, April 27, 2020 It is difficult to overstate the importance of nuclear policy in determining a US presidential candidate’s fitness to be commander-in-chief. Such priorities are evident in the Bulletin’s recently published special issue dedicated to discussing nuclear weapons policy ahead of the 2020 election. Nuclear issues played a prominent role in the 2016 election, but despite some anomalies, they have hardly factored into the 2020 campaign. This is almost certain to change even as priority is given to the COVID-19 pandemic response. Nevertheless, very few recent polls (with one notable exception) have attempted to identify preferences among the US population for President Donald Trump’s nuclear policies.
To fill this gap, we worked with the firm YouGov in late 2018 after the release of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review to conduct a nationally representative survey of 1,000 Americans. Previous surveys have illuminated US public attitudes on nuclear energy, extending the New START treaty, and even hypothetical nuclear retaliatory scenarios. It isn’t clear, however, how Americans view the core elements of the Trump administration’s nuclear policy: its Nuclear Posture Review and its overall strategies toward Iran and North Korea. We report our study results publicly for the first time here, offering insights for policymakers and presidential candidates as they weigh their positions on nuclear issues Nuclear Posture Review. The study highlights how the US public as a whole and various demographic groups view Trump’s positions on nuclear weapons. To begin, we asked respondents to indicate whether they supported, opposed, or were unsure about key parts of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. Of course, many elements of the Trump administration’s nuclear posture are continuations of longstanding US policy that have been preserved by Republican and Democratic presidents alike. Our survey questions did not indicate the current US administration’s policy on different parts of the Nuclear Posture Review. So the results convey the respondents’ natural preferences for the policies themselves, not for the current occupant of the White House. Such data should prove useful to politicians staking out campaign stances on nuclear weapons that would have broad public appeal. Our findings reveal that Americans overall express fairly low support for the administration’s nuclear weapons policies, though indecision also runs high among the public. Further, the table of group preferences indicates—with a few surprising exceptions—that males, Republicans, and older Americans are the most likely groups to back President Trump on nuclear issues. Even so, support is relatively modest among Trump’s base, and several elements of the Nuclear Posture Review do not receive majority or even plurality support from Republicans……. Only 34 percent of Americans support the longstanding policy of providing the nuclear umbrella in principle, and that number drops to 27.9 percent for nuclear deployments in Europe. …..men and Republicans remain the most supportive of the nuclear umbrella and forward-deployed B61 nuclear bombs. Women, Democrats, and Independents respond less favorably. Additionally, Americans who came of age during the Cold War are more favorable toward these policies than their Millennial and Generation Z counterparts……. fewer than 20 percent of Americans support possible US first use of nuclear weapons. By contrast, disapproval stands at 63.5 percent……The public is also broadly unsupportive of using nuclear weapons in response to cyberattacks……. a majority of every demographic group of Americans—whether by gender, political party, age, race, education, income, or region of residence—oppose a first-use doctrine. Public opinion may accordingly present opportunities for presidential candidates to favor a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons………. https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/poll-what-the-american-public-likes-and-hates-about-trumps-nuclear-policies/# |
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