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Donald Trump tweets that US will not lift sanctions to secure nuclear deal with Iran

US will not lift sanctions to secure nuclear deal with Iran , https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-will-not-lift-sanctions-to-secure-nuclear-deal-with-iran 26 Jan 2020, Donald Trump has tweeted that the US will not lift sanctions on Iran in order to negotiate a new nuclear deal.

The United States will not lift sanctions on Iran in order to negotiate, US President Donald Trump has tweeted, seemingly in response to a Der Spiegel interview with Iran’s foreign minister.

“Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran wants to negotiate with The United States, but wants sanctions removed. @FoxNews @OANN No Thanks!” Trump tweeted in English on Saturday and later in Farsi.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Sunday by tweeting an excerpt from the interview with Der Spiegel published on Friday, where he said Iran is still open to negotiations with America if sanctions are lifted.

“@realdonaldtrump is better advised to base his foreign policy comments & decisions on facts, rather than @FoxNews headlines or his Farsi translators,” Zarif said in the tweet with the interview excerpt.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have reached the highest levels in decades after the US killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, prompting Iran to fire missiles days later at bases in Iraq where US troops are stationed.

Tensions between the two have been increasing steadily since Trump pulled the United States out of Iran’s nuclear pact with world powers in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have driven down Iran’s oil exports and hammered its economy.

January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Ask presidential candidates about nuclear and climate issues, says former energy secretary Moniz

Former energy secretary urges voters to ask about nuclear issues

– 26 Jan 2020 Conversations at town halls around New Hampshire have been focused on domestic policy, like the job market and health insurance.

At a forum Monday, Ernst Moniz, who served as energy secretary under former President Barack Obama and is now CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, will try to convince New Hampshire voters to look beyond those kitchen table issues, and ask presidential primary candidates about nuclear weapons

“The bread-and-butter issues if you like—the economy, health care, education—are typically a major focus at this time of the political season, Moniz said Saturday. Voters are typically less worried about foreign policy and security issues like nuclear weapons.

“Unfortunately, catastrophic risks for our society and future gens are very, very considerable.”

Moniz said he hoped Monday’s forum would spur voters to think about nuclear proliferation when they talk to candidates, as much as kitchen table issuse.

New Hampshire voters can shape candidates, he said.

With the history of the political tradition in New Hampshire, where I think priorities for candidates can be shaped, we are hoping to bring those issues to the attention of the New Hampshire voters.

In an interview Saturday, Moniz spoke about what he saw as a growing potential for accidents and miscalculations to be made with nuclear weapons.

“Especially in the context of the current international geopolitical situation,” Moniz said, citing tensions with Russia and uncertainty in the Middle East.

International treaties have a strong role to play in arms control, Moniz said, and he hopes whoever wins the 2020 election will take those treaties seriously. A treaty with Russia known as New START is due to be renewed in the next president’s term, Moniz said.

“If we do not, we will have upended the entire hierarchy of nuclear arms control,” he said. If New Hampshire voters want to ask about these issues, Moniz said, it could impact how much attention is paid to nuclear weapons during the 2020 election. He recalled the 2004 election, when Nuclear Threat Initiative activists raised the specter of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups. He said that issue became critical in the 2004 election.

Moniz said this year, he would ask candidates what they would you do to re-starting dialogue between the Russia and the United States nuclear weapons, what they would do to stabilize North Korea, how they would protect against cyber attacks that could affect the United States’ early warning systems

“If the New Hampshire voters are asking these questions, if the media are putting these questions out in front and getting responses from the candidates, that raises those issues in the priorities of these candidates,” he said.

“This is the right time in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, where the people the voters are so much closer to the candidates. They do in fact have influence in how these issues can be talked about now and addressed over the next several years.

Moniz will speak at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Southern New Hampshire University, in the Hospitality Center Salon Rooms. Register online at https://wacnh.org/event-3673124.

January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Lawmakers seek safeguards on decommissioning of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

Lawmakers seek safeguards on nuclear plant decommissioning, 22 WWLP.com by: Chris Lisinski: Jan 25, 2020 BOSTON (SHNS) – Lawmakers are seeking additional influence over the decommissioning of the recently shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, but a representative for the company conducting the work argued Wednesday that those attempts may be unconstitutional.

Tom Joyce, a lobbyist for Holtec Decommissioning International, said that bills imposing higher clean-up standards (H 2904 / S 1949) or reforming how decommissioning is funded (S 1948, S 1992) would exceed the state’s authority and infringe on the jurisdiction of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Joyce told the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that passage of the bills would likely prompt a lawsuit from Holtec, delaying the decommissioning process that the company has said will take seven years……..

Backers of the legislation, though, see the proposals as important steps to protect local stakeholders amid a process that has drawn criticism and a lawsuit from the attorney general.

Plymouth Republican Rep. Mathew Muratore, who filed one of the bills that would require decommissioning to meet stricter environmental standards, said his goal is to ensure the land is clean enough to appeal to potential businesses and avoid remaining vacant……

The Pilgrim facility officially ended operations on May 31 after decades of generating power. In August, the NRC approved the transfer of Pilgrim’s license from Entergy to Holtec International to handle its decommissioning.

Attorney General Maura Healey, with the backing of the Baker administration, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the transfer until the NRC holds a hearing on concerns about Holtec’s ability to decommission the plant safely, its financial stability and the company’s alleged involvement in a kickback scheme.

Speakers at Wednesday’s committee hearing said the case, which also features the Pilgrim Watch group as a party, is still pending.

Other bills before the committee (S 1948, S 1992) would charge the owners of any nuclear power station in the state $25 million per year and stash the money into a fund managed by the state treasurer only to be used for postclosure activities.

Pilgrim Watch chair Mary Lampert said that money would serve as an “insurance policy” – if decommissioning concluded using the existing trust fund set aside for those purposes, the owners would get back the additional funding plus interest, she said. If not, the state would have a reserve ready to cover any shortfall.

Without a safety net backing up the more than $1 billion trust fund, Lampert said taxpayers would be on the hook.

“Who’s going to pay the difference? We’re going to pay the difference,” she told the committee. “Holtec cannot be required to do so. Why can it not be required to do so? Because it is a limited liability company and you cannot get blood out of this stone.”

Rep. Sarah Peake, a cosponsor of the bill, said Connecticut found itself footing a $480 million bill to complete decommissioning of the former Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

Like the legislation concerning cleanup standards, Joyce argued the funding proposals would unconstitutionally circumvent NRC authority….

Muratore and Lampert said they did not agree with that argument, with the latter arguing that the bills in question are all “money bills” and therefore grant the state authority to take additional action.

“States have the authority to enact a more conservative (environmental) standard if it applies after NRC has released the site because once the NRC has released the site, it no longer has authority, so there is not a question of preemption,” Lampert said.

In his fiscal year 2021 budget unveiled Wednesday, Gov. Charlie Baker proposed language that would allow the Department of Public Health to assess operators of nuclear reactors in the process of being decommissioned — such as Holtec — for the costs of radiation monitoring and emergency planning associated with the project. https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-politics/lawmakers-seek-safeguards-on-nuclear-plant-decommissioning/

January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

Republicans try to get nuclear power accepted as “renewable” in California

Proposed bill would include large hydro, nuclear in California’s renewable portfolio standard, Utility Dive, By Kavya Balaraman Jan. 23, 2020

Dive Brief:

California Republicans on Tuesday introduced legislation to temporarily halt the requirements of the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) program and redirect funds to ensure utilities improve their infrastructure and vegetation management programs.
The proposed bill would also, if and when the program is reinstated, include nuclear generation and all hydroelectric facilities operating as of January 1, 2021 in the program’s definition of an “eligible renewable energy resource.”
The bill, along with a second piece of legislation introduced by state Assemblyman James Gallagher, R, and Sen. Jim Nielsen, R, “will help prevent future wildfires and utility power shutoff events,” according to a press release. But environmental advocates say that the move to extend RPS eligibility to hydro and nuclear facilities might not go far in California’s current political landscape.

Dive Insight:

California established its RPS program in 2002, requiring at the time that renewable resources make up 20% of electricity retail sales by 2017. However, the program’s targets have changed over the years; the state passed Senate Bill 100 in 2018, accelerating RPS requirements to 60% by 2030, as well as requiring that carbon-free resources supply all of the state’s electricity by 2045.

Large hydropower and nuclear generation don’t currently count toward the RPS standard requirements, but the state is still defining the zero-carbon requirement passed in SB 100, Alex Jackson, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Utility Dive.

In the last three years, California utilities have also been wrestling with the increased threat of wildfires posed by their infrastructure. Devastating fires in 2017, 2018 and 2019 have caused billions of dollars in damage across the state, pushing Pacific Gas & Electric to declare bankruptcy in early 2019.

To reduce this risk, the utility adopted a public safety power shut-off (PSPS) program, proactively de-energizing areas that are particularly prone to fires during windy or dry weather conditions. The shut-offs have drawn widespread criticism from regulators, lawmakers and customers in Northern California……..

Environmental advocates pushed back against the proposal to include both large hydropower and nuclear generation as eligible resources under the RPS program.

The RPS is part of a deliberate state move away from fossil fuels, and utilities already get a lot of their power from hydro, so counting it in the RPS requirements would discourage investments in wind, solar, and other renewables, Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, told Utility Dive…..

On the nuclear energy front, “there’s no way you can call nuclear renewable,” she said. “It doesn’t emit carbon, but it has lots of other very intense environmental impacts.”

“Nuclear is being phased out not because of its ineligibility for RPS requirements, but because these large inflexible baseload plants are increasingly incompatible with a system that’s predominantly run on intermittent clean energy resources,” according to Jackson.

Flexibility is key going forward and the high operating costs of nuclear plants is what led PG&E to propose the retirement of the Diablo Canyon plant in the first place, he added. …….https://www.utilitydive.com/news/proposed-bill-include-large-hydro-nuclear-power-californias-rps/570919/

January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Class action lawsuit about failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant goes back to state court

Federal judge kicks Santee Cooper nuclear fiasco lawsuit back to state court, https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article239614263.html

BY JOHN MONK, JANUARY 26, 2020 A class action lawsuit resulting from the failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant and involving South Carolina-owned power company Santee Cooper is back in state court.

That’s the latest turn of the legal screw in a lawsuit involving more than 2 million of Santee Cooper’s customers.

A key issue is whether Santee Cooper’s customers will be stuck with paying several billion dollars that the power company is said to owe due to the nuclear project’s failure in mid-construction in July 2017.

Another affected matter is whether the historic state-owned utility, which began as a rural electrification project in the 1930s, will eventually be sold to a big out-of-state energy company or remain under state control.

Last year, Santee Cooper’s partner in the doomed V.C. Summer nuclear venture — SCANA, a publicly traded company suffering financial woes because of the project — was sold to Dominion Energy, one of the nation’s largest power companies. The state’s 170 lawmakers will be mulling the possible sale of Santee Cooper in this legislative session.

Last week, U.S. Judge Terry Wooten ordered that the Santee Cooper case — which had temporarily been transferred to federal court — be sent back to state court to be tried before special Judge Jean Toal, a former S.C. Supreme Court chief justice.

It is unclear when a trial will begin. Toal had originally set Feb. 24 as the trial start date in the case. But Judge Wooten’s order could be appealed to the federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, delaying the trial.

The lawsuit was initially filed in August 2017 by Santee Cooper customers seeking to avoid having to pay for the failed nuclear plant. Costs for the project — estimated at $9 billion before it failed — had for years been added to their monthly bills and continue to be added, according to a complaint in the case.

Over the next two years, the parties “vigorously litigated in state court, engaging in significant discovery — including dozens of depositions and the exchange of millions of pages of documents — and arguing numerous substantive motions,” according to a memorandum in the case.

Defendants in the case included Santee Cooper, SCANA and various electric cooperatives to which Santee Cooper provides power to be sold to customers around the state.

As joint partners in the nuclear venture, Santee Cooper contributed 45% of the cost, while SCANA took responsibility for project oversight and shouldered 55% of the cost.

In November, SCANA suddenly moved to transfer the case from Toal’s court to federal court, where it wound up before Judge Wooten.

In the month before the case was transferred, Toal had certified the case as a class action, rejected a move by SCANA to send the case to an arbitrator and set a three-week trial to begin on Feb. 24, according to records in the case.

Although numerous lawsuits have been filed in state and federal court against SCANA, this lawsuit is the major legal action against Santee Cooper on behalf of ratepayers.

According to plaintiffs in the case, Santee Cooper increased its electricity rates five times over the years to pay for construction and other costs associated with the doomed nuclear project. Santee Cooper spent some $4.7 billion on the failed project, and its customers continue to pay extra on their monthly bills for the failure, according to plaintiffs. Santee Cooper is a main defendant in the case, along with SCANA and SCE&G.

Plaintiffs are asking the court to refund hundreds of millions of dollars in costs associated with the failed nuclear project they say they have already paid in increased monthly bills. Plaintiffs also also asking the court to rule that Santee Cooper cannot keep passing costs for the failed project on to them — a future amount estimated at more than $4 billion.

After the case was transferred to Wooten, the Santee Cooper customers, along with Santee Cooper, urged Wooten to send the the case back to state court, arguing there was no need for federal courts to take up the case.

“The central issues involve South Carolina actors, agreements made in South Carolina, governed by South Carolina law, affecting a South Carolina power project and costing South Carolina customers billions of dollars,” they argued.

Wooten agreed. “The court finds it would not be appropriate to exercise federal jurisdiction here,” he wrote in his order last week.

@ChristinaMac1

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January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Despite years of negotiations, we came once again to the brink of conflict with Iran.

Reporting on the Iran nuclear deal: ‘nothing happens until everything happens’Our world affairs editor reflects on how, despite years of negotiations, we came once again to the brink of conflict. Guardian, Julian Borger Sun 26 Jan 2020, Countries tend to go to war when diplomacy fails. But Washington and Tehran are now facing off because it succeeded. It was because the 2015 nuclear deal was Barack Obama’s proudest foreign policy achievement that Donald Trump was so determined to destroy it.

The US and Iran are sliding back towards the brink of conflict. If a missile had landed a little bit differently in the course of the latest exchange of hostilities, they would probably be at war by now.

As the pendulum has swung one way and then the other, the Guardian has tried to cover the diplomacy with the same depth and emphasis as the military manoeuvres, even when it seems slow-moving and complex.

When formal talks began between the Obama administration and the new government of Hassan Rouhani in September 2013, our foreign editor, Jamie Wilson, decided we should cover the whole process in detail because of the potentially historic nature of success, and the very high price of failure.

. When formal talks began between the Obama administration and the new government of Hassan Rouhani in September 2013, our foreign editor, Jamie Wilson, decided we should cover the whole process in detail because of the potentially historic nature of success, and the very high price of failure.

……… For Rezaian – now a Washington columnist – and many of those who saw the worst side of the Islamic Republic, its cruelties are all the more reason to prevent it developing nuclear weapons, and bind it into an international agreement. For others, particularly on the American right, any deal that eased the pressure on Iran’s economy would make the west complicit in Iran’s oppression at home and aggression abroad.

In the end, all those years of diplomacy and all the delicate compromises of the JCPOA, by which the Iranians accepted nuclear limits for sanctions relief, came to naught. Tehran’s nuclear programme is expanding again, and the US and Iran are back on the brink of conflict.

It is a chilling thought that no one in the US chain of command has the authority to stop Trump if he were to pick up the verification codes on the small plastic card (for some reason called the nuclear “biscuit”) that a US president always has close by, and order up Armageddon.

With that other extinction-level threat, the climate emergency, there is so much happening that it is impossible to keep up. But the nuclear threat is different: nothing happens until everything happens. By the time there is something substantial to report on, it could be far too late.https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2020/jan/25/iran-nuclear-deal-us-reporting

January 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spurns environmental assessment for plutonium cores

NNSA Says No EIS Needed to Expand LANL Pit Production, http://nuclearactive.org/ January 24th, 2020 The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), has determined that a full environmental impact statement is not needed to increase the number of triggers for nuclear weapons manufactured at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) by 50 percent – from 20 to 30. Since 1997, DOE has limited production to 20 triggers, or plutonium pits, per year. Nevertheless, since that time, LANL has not produced anything near 20 pits per year – the most in one year was six. Safety and seismic issues have shut down production for years. Even so, LANL is the only U.S. location for such work. Critics oppose the decision and have stated that litigation may result.

In 2018, the current administration determined that the U.S. would increase pit production at LANL and begin production at the Savannah River Site, located in South Carolina. Savannah River has never produced plutonium pits, let alone the planned 50 per year. For Savannah River, NNSA has determined that it would follow the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and issue a full environmental impact statement for public review and comment.

The federal agencies have refused to conduct a programmatic environmental impact statement for operations at both facilities, including the transportation of nuclear materials between them.

For LANL, NNSA said it would produce a supplemental analysis to the 2008 environmental impact statement. A supplemental analysis may not address the impacts of the 2011 Las Conchas fire, increased hexavalent chromium in the regional aquifer, and increased seismic danger on the Pajarito Plateau, which LANL occupies.

The 1997 decision to limit the number of pits to 20 is the result of citizen litigation. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), based in Washington, DC, represented 39 citizens groups from around the country against DOE. CCNS was one of the citizen plaintiffs, along with Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, or Tri-Valley CARES, located in Livermore, California, where the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LANL’s “sister” nuclear weapons laboratory, is located.

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs, said, “NNSA’s refusal to complete programmatic environmental review before plunging ahead with plans to more than quadruple the production authorization for plutonium bomb cores flies in the face of our country’s foundational environmental law, the [NEPA], and a standing federal court order mandating that the government conduct such a review. The order was obtained in prior litigation by [NRDC] on behalf of itself, Tri-Valley CAREs, and additional plaintiffs. Today, I find myself shocked but not surprised that NNSA would so flagrantly flout the law. [] My group stands ready to uphold NEPA and the specific court order.” http://www.trivalleycares.org/

For more information, please see the following documents [links provided by Nuclear Watch New Mexico]:

NNSA’s Federal Register Notice of Availability for the final Supplement Analysis is available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-01-08/pdf/2020-00102.pdf It provides succinct background.

NNSA’s final Supplement Analysis is available at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/01/f70/final-supplement-analysis-eis-0236-s4-sa-02-complex-transformation-12-2019.pdf

The 1998 court order that requires DOE to prepare a supplemental PEIS when it plans to produce more than 80 pits per year is available as Natural Resources Defense Council v. Pena, 20 F.Supp.2d 45, 50 (D.D.C. 1998), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/20/45/2423390/

January 25, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA Politicians on both sides sucked in by propaganda for fantasy new nuclear reactors

Reporter’s notebook: Nuclear reactors prove tough tech, despite

bipartisan push, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Reporter-s-notebook-Nuclear-reactors-prove-15000083.php
James Osborne Jan. 24, 2020 WASHINGTON – If there’s any clear area of agreement between Republicans and Democrats on climate change, it’s on the need to develop a new generation of nuclear power plants as quickly as possible.

More precisely, it’s the need to bring down the multi-billion dollars costs of existing plants and create a meltdown-proof reactor that can run on recycled uranium and plutonium rods, which power companies and environmentalist alike can get behind.

But getting bipartisan agreement on the need for those reactors has proven far easier than developing them, as companies look to overhaul a nuclear reactor design that has changed little since they first began operation in the United States in the 1950s.

One year after the Senate passed a law requiring the government’s leading nuclear authority, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to overhaul its processes for approving nuclear power plants to account for the new reactors, senators are already beginning to exhibit impatience.

At a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, quizzed NRC officials about why they thought the Senate passed the law.

When one of them said, “You really want me to guess,” he responded: “I would hope you would know, that it would be so clear why we gave you this power.”

Two-fer

The point, Whitehouse said, is to create a new carbon-free energy source that could also be fueled by the growing stockpiles of spent nuclear rods at reactors around the country, ending a decades-long debate about where to dispose of them.

“I don’t know if that’s going to pan out, but people who are very smart and have invested millions of dollars tell me that is their intention,” Whitehouse said. “We want to see that focus on turning that waste into something positive.”

With backers like billionaire Bill Gates, a wave of startups is trying to develop a reactor that uses materials such as molten salt or liquid metal to cool itself — instead of water — allowing a reactor that loses power to cool down on its own.

But so far only one company, California-based Oklo, is ready to submit plans for its reactor to the NRC for review, said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the agency.

January 25, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

No clear explanation of USA’s rush to produce more plutonium cores for nuclear weapons

The U.S. is Boosting Production of Nuclear Bomb Cores (For More Nuclear Weapons) https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-boosting-production-nuclear-bomb-cores-more-nuclear-weapons-115826 Thanks, arms race. by Michael Peck, 22 Jan 2020,

In another sign that the nuclear arms race is heating up, the U.S. is ramping up production of nuclear bomb cores.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has announced that it plans to increase the production of plutonium pits to 80 per year. The grapefruit-sized pits contain the fissile material that give nuclear weapons such tremendous power.

Production will center on the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River site in North Carolina, which would be modified to manufacture at least 50 pits per year, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which would generate at least 30, by 2030.

America’s nuclear weapons cores are aging, with some pits dating back to the 1970s, leading to concerns about the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

“The U.S. lost its ability to produce pits in large numbers in 1989, when the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Colorado, was shut down after the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Environmental Protection Agency investigated environmental violations at the site,” noted Physics Today magazine in 2018. Up to 1,200 pits per year had been manufactured there.

“Since then, only 30 pits for weapons have been fabricated—all at LANL [Los Alamos National Laboratory], the sole U.S. facility with production capability. Weapons-quality pit production ceased in 2012, when LANL began modernizing its 40-year-old facilities, although several practice pits have since been fabricated. The oldest pits in the stockpile—which now numbers 3,882, according to DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—date to 1978.”

In its 2018 Nuclear Policy Review, the Trump administration called for 80 new plutonium pits per year. Congress has also allocated large sums, with $4.7 billion alone allocated in FY 2019 for maintenance and life extension of the nuclear stockpile. The NNSA says it is legally mandated to ensure a capacity of at least 80 pits per year.

Though the production of nuclear cores has been an issue for years, a looming U.S.-Russia arms race makes the situation even more sensitive. Russia is fielding a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons, including a hypersonic nuclear-armed glider and an air-launched ballistic missile. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia, alleging Russian violations, leading to fears that a new competition will beget the return of nuclear-armed, medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles.

Anti-nuclear groups are furious. “Expanded pit production will cost at least $43 billion over the next 30 years,” argues the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups.Yet the Defense Department and NNSA have never explained why expanded plutonium pit production is necessary. More than 15,000 plutonium pits are stored at NNSA’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. Independent experts have concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 100 years (the average pit age is less than 40 years). Crucially, there is no pit production scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, proposed future pit production is for speculative new-design nuclear weapons, but those designs have been canceled.”

Introducing a new generation of nuclear weapons “could adversely impact national security because newly produced plutonium pits cannot be full-scale tested without violating the global nuclear weapons testing moratorium.”

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

January 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

”Plutonium pits” not only unnecessary, but also very dangerous for the environment

“They want as much dirty warhead manufacturing as possible for Los Alamos, and they don’t want anybody to know or discuss the predictable problems and impacts on our communities and environment,”

Lawmakers assured review of nuclear weapons work to be open https://apnews.com/5d500281694f4bbae30dc5356d18244d

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) 22 Jan 2020 — A review of a proposal to ramp up production of key components for the United States’ nuclear arsenal will be open and transparent, according to members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation.

Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan said in a joint statement to The Associated Press that they received assurances from federal officials that the review process also will include an opportunity for public comment.

The Democrats were briefed last week by federal officials after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced it did not need to do a more expansive nationwide review of the impacts of building plutonium cores at federal installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.

As supporters of bringing more defense-related spending to New Mexico, the lawmakers initially refrained from commenting on whether they would support an expanded review, saying they needed more information. Watchdog groups have argued that federal officials are violating national environmental laws by not doing a more in-depth analysis.

The lawmakers said as the U.S. Energy Department, Los Alamos National Laboratory and its contractors move forward with plutonium core production, they have a responsibility to take precautions to protect employees, the community and the environment.

“Furthermore, we expect that the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will continue to conduct thorough oversight of lab plans and operations and their recommendations will be taken seriously by DOE and Los Alamos leadership,” the lawmakers said in the statement.

Watchdogs say the federal government already has tried to limit the oversight of the safety board and that a site-specific review at Los Alamos lab would fall short of what’s needed to understand the affects of such a major undertaking. They also point to the lab’s history of safety and security lapses.

Greg Mello of the Albuquerque-based Los Alamos Study Group said he’s disappointed the delegation “wants to remain the dark about the environmental impacts” of what he likened to a new Rocky Flats-type plutonium warhead factory in northern New Mexico. With a long history of leaks, fires and environmental violations, the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado underwent a $7 billion cleanup that was finished in 2005.

Watchdogs also have concerns about the waste that would be generated by plutonium core production, saying it could take up valuable space at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico, where the federal government sends tons of Cold War-era waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research as part of a multibillion-dollar cleanup effort.

“Our politicos should explicitly support nationwide public review of expanded plutonium pit production instead of condoning NNSA’s stove-piped approach that is designed to suppress citizen opposition,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

A draft supplemental analysis of the work planned for Los Alamos is expected to be released in the coming months. However, a few of the concerned groups are considering legal action to force a broader analysis.

Federal officials have set a deadline of 2030 for increased core production, with work being split between Los Alamos lab and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At stake are jobs and billions of dollars to revamp existing buildings or construct new factories.

The mission of producing the plutonium cores has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011 as the lab has been dogged by a string of safety problems and concerns about a lack of accountability.

Officials for years have pushed for production to resume, saying the U.S. needs to ensure the stability and reliance of its nuclear arsenal. The National Nuclear Security Administration has said most of the cores in the stockpile were produced in the 1970s and 1980s.

January 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | 3 Comments

History of U.S. missiles testing atomic, bacterial and viral weapons in Utah

from anonymous contributor, 22 Jan 2020, Some of What The USA Military , Corporations and government did to us on top of detonating several open air nuclear bombs on us.

My government had a missile base 60 miles from Uranium and downwinder hell in Utah. My governemt also detonated four atomic bombs under the river that went through my town, in the llate 1960s..
My government and military contractors launched hundreds of single and multistage missiles from Green River Utah to White Sands new mexico from 1965 to 1970. The missiles went to white sands New Mexico, which is approximately 900 miles from Green River Utah. Their trajectory took them over southern Utah National parks, the navajo, zuni, ute hopi and pueblo nativ,e reservations, and most of north and central New Mexico. White sands New Mexico is 925 miles from Green river utah. White sands new mexico is 50 miles from alamagordo New Mexico . Alamagorgo is where the fist Atomic bomb, in the world was detonated. The cold war, multibillion dollar Missile project tested single and multistage rockets and biological warfare payloads.

They tested payloads

The Green-White sands missile project was to test missile paylods over the south west usa. You can find sections of missiles that failed in the 900 mile stretch, from Green ricver to white sands nm. They launched hundreds of missiles and rockets Some of the missile-rockets failed and crashed into the desert, long before reaching their south central New Mexico destination clasw to the mexico usa border. There are missile carcasses and stages from southern utah to in the Canuyonlands national Park, The Grand Gulch National Nation Monument, in The Four Corners Area of the USA where Utah, Colorado and Arizona intersect. Missile parts and from failed missiles can also be found in the New Mexico and Utah Navajo reservations. There detritus of missiles can found by Farminton New Mexico , west of Santa Fe New Mexico, east of demming New mexico and by Socorro nm . The initial stages of multistage rockets are mostly in utah.

The military and government tested several biological weapon payloads, in the missiles-rockets that went from Utah to white sands new mexico.The army , and corporate contractors, put Biological Warfare payloads on missiles. with viruses and bacteria in them. They tested the a weaponized version of the Hanta Virus. They tested Hearty bacterial spores, like anthrax as well. They launched the biological warfare payloads with viruses and bacteria in special mediums to test the stability of the most Hearty virus and bacterial spore-systems in missile carrier systems.
The biological warfare medium-containing–payloads were on rockets that went from Green River Utah to White sands new mexico from 1965 to 1970.

Hannta virus did not exist in the United States of America in Humans, until 1990. It was weaponized by the United States government and corporations in the 1960s. The first Hanta Virus casualties recorded in the USA were a family of Navajos in New Mexico, in 1992. Hanta virus is has now apread to mice vectors in all parts of the United States of america. It is epidemic in the USA . I know because I once worked for an agency that treated and tracked it.
The 1993 Four Corners hantavirus outbreak was an outbreak of hantavirus that caused the first known human cases of hantavirus disease in the United States. It occurred within the Four Corners region – the geographic intersection of the U.S. states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona – of the southwestern part of the country in the spring of 1993. This region is largely occupied by Native American tribal lands, including the Hopi, Ute, Zuni, and Navajo reservations, from which many of the cases were reported.

“The Discovery of Hantaan Virus: Comparative Biology and …
by KM Johnson · 2004 · Cited by 10 · Related articles
Nov 1, 2004 · They became infected by tissues of antigen-positive wild mice of that single species. … Dr. Lee named it “Hantaan,” after a small river near the border between the 2 Koreas, where human infection was isolated and endemic in the 1950s”

FROM “Brief Histories of Three Federal Military Installations in Utah: Kearns Army Air Base, Hurricane Mesa, and Green River Test Complex” (PDF). Utah Historical Quarterly. Utah State Historical Society. 34 (2). Spring 1966. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 29, 2013. Retrieved September 12, 2013. More than 100 employees of the [Atlantic Research]
The Utah Launch Complex was a Cold War military subinstallation of White Sands Missile Range for USAF and US Army rocket launches. In addition to firing Pershing missiles, the complex launched Athena RTV missiles with subscale warheads of the Advanced Ballistic Re-entry System to reentry speeds and impact at the New Mexico range. From 1964 to 1975 there were 244 Green River launches, including 141 Athena launches and a Pershing to 281 kilometers altitude. “Utah State Route 19 runs through the Green River Launch Complex, which is south of the town and eponym of Green River.”

January 22, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

John Wayne and the movie crew killed by nuclear radiation

John Wayne squares off against Jim Hansen, Medium, Albert Bates, 11 Jan 2020 “……..The famous cowboy actor John Wayne may have been felled by the same foe, as was Marie Curie. From 1951 to 1962 the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) detonated more than 100 bombs in the southwestern US desert, sending huge pinkish plumes of radioactive dust across the stony valleys and canyons of southern Utah and northern Arizona. It gave each “shot” names like Annie, Eddie, Humboldt and Badger. Eleven of those tests were part of a series called Upshot-Knothole in Utah in 1953. In 1954, the Upshot-Knothole site was chosen as the location for a John Wayne film called The Conqueror.

The AEC sent a scientist with a Geiger counter to show Wayne that the location was safe enough for him to bring his wife and children to visit the set. The Geiger counter is said to have crackled so loudly Wayne thought it was broken. Waving it over clumps of cactus, rock and sand produced the same loud result. The Duke, by all accounts, shrugged it off. By 1980, 91 out of 220 cast and crew on The Conquerer had contracted cancer and 46 of them, including Wayne and co- stars Dick Powell, Pedro Armendáriz, Agnes Moorehead, and Susan Hayward had died. Those numbers did not include the families of the cast and crew. John Wayne’s wife and two sons all got cancer. While the two sons survived, the daughter of one of Wayne’s sons also died of cancer. Hayward’s son Tim Barker had a benign tumor removed from his mouth. Many of the Native American Paiute extras went on to die of cancer also……..https://medium.com/@albertbates/john-wayne-squares-off-against-jim-hansen-42a258b2260d

January 21, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. cities near nuclear weapons stations realise they are targets

Cities in the crosshairs are pushing back against nuclear weapons

“We forget that all power is local. And by forgetting to act locally, we are giving away all the power.” Salon.com JON LETMAN, JANUARY 19, 2020 This article originally appeared on Truthout. Two years after a mistakenly sent text alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile threat caused widespread panic and confusion across Hawaii, cities remain potential targets and nuclear jitters continue to grow around the world.

Panicked responses to the erroneous text alert — which read “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL” and was accidentally issued on January 13, 2018, to Hawaii residents via the Emergency Alert System and Commercial Mobile Alert System — revealed how believably close nuclear fears hover to our everyday life

And now two years later, at the beginning of 2020, those fears have grown even stronger following a year in which talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula faltered, fears of a nuclear clash between India and Pakistan spiked, and Russia announced it had deployed its first hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles.

Meanwhile, the U.S. abandoned the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty and continued to undermine the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran nuclear deal) after it unilaterally withdrew in 2018. Now, many fear the U.S. will likely withdraw from the Open Skies and New START treaties.

As the U.S. modernizes its nuclear arsenal at a cost that could exceed $1.5 trillion and the other eight nuclear armed states upgrade their own nuclear weapons, ordinary citizens and the leaders of cities, towns, and municipalities around the world are resisting nuclear weapons through efforts like the Back from the Brink campaign and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ #ICANSave Cities appeal.

Across the U.S., cities like Seattle, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs and others are located near key military installations, which some see as a good reason to oppose nuclear policies. Today, more than 40 U.S. cities including, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Honolulu have adopted a Back from the Brink resolution, which puts forward five policy goals aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear war: no first use of nuclear weapons, end sole authority to launch a nuclear attack, take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, cancel modernization/replacement of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and ultimately seek the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Back from the Brink aims to prompt cities, counties, and local governments to pressure Congress and the Trump administration to adopt the above five points.

Dozens of smaller cities from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Arcata, California, have adopted the resolution, as have local and state governments across the U.S. More than a dozen more cities (Little Rock, Chicago, Madison) and states (New York, Vermont, Washington) have proposed resolutions.

In a joint article, three council members representing Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Montgomery County, Maryland, wrote, “As leaders of the Greater Washington area, home to the seat of our federal government and headquarters of its military — we are particularly at risk. We are living in the crosshairs of America’s enemies, both hostile governments and terrorists.” That risk, and the financial costs associated with nuclear weapons, led all three communities to adopt Back from the Brink resolutions…………

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) launched its #ICANSAVE cities appeal in 2018, calling on cities large and small around the world to formally support the 2017 U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The ban treaty, currently ratified by 34 nations, will enter into legal force once 50 nations have done so.

ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn says that while, for many people, nuclear weapons can feel abstract and theoretical, it’s important to remain focused on their fundamental purpose.

“What these weapons really are made for is to wipe out whole cities. These are not precision guidance that will take out a specific military facility,” Fihn told Truthout. “We are so obsessed by staring at these world leaders, we forget that all power is local. And by forgetting to act locally, we are giving away all the power.”……….. https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/cities-in-the-crosshairs-are-pushing-back-against-nuclear-weapons_partner/

January 20, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Need to improve Hanford radiation exposure records

Some Hanford radiation exposure records could harm workers and taxpayers, report says, https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/state/washington/article239240843.htm

BY ANNETTE CARY, JANUARY 13, 2020 RICHLAND, WA

Recordkeeping at Hanford could be improved to track worker radiation exposure, including to ensure fair compensation for workers who develop cancer, according to an inspection report of the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General.

Issues in recordkeeping can be a problem for both individual workers and the federal government under a compensation program for ill workers, said the report released Monday.

If a group of workers’ radiation exposure cannot be determined because of lack of records, the compensation program conservatively assumes that working at Hanford caused any of a wide range of cancers and the federal government must offer compensation.

Recordkeeping issues also could prevent a worker from having complete records to make an individual case that cancer was caused by radiation exposure.

The Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) pays each worker $150,000 in compensation for cancer plus medical coverage. An additional payment of up to $250,000 compensation may be made related to wage loss and impairment

The program has paid out $1.7 billion to Hanford workers, former workers and their survivors in compensation and reimbursement of medical costs.

Brian Vance, the Department of Energy Hanford manager, disputed that inconsistencies in recordkeeping posed a liability to DOE under the compensation program, but did not explain why in his response to the Office of Inspector General.

PAST RADIATION RECORDKEEPING INCOMPLETE

The review of the radiation exposure, or dosimetry program, at Hanford generally found that DOE Hanford contractor Mission Support Alliance was doing a good job of managing radiation exposure records for all Hanford workers.

But it raised concerns that about 111 tank farm workers hired in 2014 and 2015 were not given radiation history forms to fill out by their employer, Washington River Protection Solutions. Some may have had previous exposures at the Hanford nuclear reservation or other DOE sites.

Although the problem has since been resolved, some workers went without a historical exposure record in the Radiation Exposure Database for up to 3.5 years, according to the IG report.

Radiation exposure records “provide key and sensitive information to management and workers, who make decisions based on this information, the IG report said.

Although Mission Support Alliance has forms that other Hanford contractors can use to complete records in the site’s Radiation Exposure Database, contractors may instead use their own forms.

Those forms do not require all the information that needs to be input into the database, which increases the risks that the database will not be complete and accurate, according to the IG report.

DOE responded that it would consider working with Hanford contractors on standardized radiation exposure forms where appropriate.

Mission Support Alliance provides sitewide services at Hanford, while contractors Washington River Protection Solutions and CH2M Hill Central Plateau Remediation Co. hires workers for cleanup of environmental contamination at Hanford, including radioactive waste and contamination.

The Hanford nuclear reservation is contaminated from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.

REVIEW OF DOSIMETRY REPORTING POLICIES

DOE also agreed to review contracts and procedure manuals for consistency in radiation exposure reporting requirements, after the IG report said there were inconsistencies.

The report concluded that some of the issues with radiation-exposure records might be because of unclear oversight responsibilities at Hanford.

Mission Support Alliance reports to the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office, while one of the cleanup contractors, the tank farm contractor, reports to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection.

Vance, who oversees both DOE offices, said that was not a problem, but that the two offices will reinforce expectations that existing processes are used to resolve any conflict between contractors on dosimetry service issues.

Hanford workers or the survivors of ill workers can learn more about compensation programs and how to apply for them at the Hanford Workforce Engagement Center at 309 Bradley Blvd., Suite 120, in Richland. The center can be reached at 509-376-4932.

January 20, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | Leave a comment

The B-52 Stratofortress will no longer carry the B61-7 and B83-1 nuclear gravity bombs

The B-52 Will No Longer Carry Certain Nuclear Weapons. Here’s Why, 18 Jan 2020, Military.com | By Oriana Pawlyk

The B-52 Stratofortress will no longer carry the B61-7 and B83-1 nuclear gravity bombs as it prepares to carry the new long-range standoff weapon, known as LRSO.

Following reports that the bomb variants had been removed from the Cold War-era aircraft’s inventory, officials at Air Force Global Strike Command confirmed the move is in line with the bomber’s transition into an era of modern warfare……….

…….. Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, first pointed out the change, which went into effect in September, according to Air Force Instruction 91-111, “Safety Rules for U.S. Strategic Bomber Aircraft.”

“It’s official: B-52 bombers are no longer authorized to carry nuclear gravity bombs,” Kristensen said in a tweet earlier this week. “New Air Force instruction describes ‘removal of B61-7 and B83-1 from B-52H approved weapons configuration.'”

Command officials pointed out that the move actually preceded the AFI.

“The removal of nuclear gravity weapons like the B-61 and B-83 from the B-52 platform has been in effect for several years,” said Justin Oakes, public affairs director for the Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center.

“The B-52 remains the premier stand-off weapons platform utilizing the air-launched cruise missile as the main nuclear deterrent. While B61s and B83s are no longer equipped on the B-52, the weapons remain in the [B-2 Spirit] inventory,” he added.

Eventually, the LRSO — a nuclear cruise missile that provides an air-launched capability as part of the nuclear triad — will replace the AGM-86B ALCM, developed in the early 1980s.

The command said the LRSO, expected by the early 2030s, is one of many investments to keep the B-52, known as the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, flying into the foreseeable future……..https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/01/18/b-52-will-no-longer-carry-certain-nuclear-weapons-heres-why.html