The cost of pretending that nuclear power is “clean”
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Pennsylvania decides whether to subsidize nuclear energy as “clean” https://thebulletin.org/2019/04/pennsylvania-decides-whether-to-subsidize-nuclear-energy-as-clean/?utm_source=Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_medium=iContact%20email&utm_campaign=PAnuclear_04222019, By Heather Wuest, April 22, 2019
To drive growth in its clean energy market and combat climate change, Pennsylvania adopted the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act in 2004.This requires energy companies to buy specific percentages of their total electricity from clean energy sources. The requirements started small but are designed to increase over time. There are now 16 different clean energy choices for electric utilities to choose from in Pennsylvania. But new legislation would include a 17th clean generation option—nuclear power. Bills introduced in the state’s House and Senate are intended to prevent the retirement of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant outside Harrisburg and the Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh. Both plants are set for closure because they cannot compete on price with electricity from natural gas-fired power plants and renewable energy sources. Adding nuclear to the clean energy list would not be a simple or inexpensive process. Pennsylvania energy consumers would have to pay hundreds of millions in subsidies to make the nuclear plants economically viable. It’s a process that other energy generators and the manufacturing sector worry will distort Pennsylvania’s energy market. But the nuclear industry supports roughly 16,000 industry jobs and generates 93 percent of the electricity produced in the state by sources that don’t emit carbon dioxide in the process. Pennsylvania is hardly alone in its quest to buy clean energy; many other states are implementing plans that require energy companies to purchase set amounts so-called “carbon-free” electricity. In some states, nuclear is subsidized as a “green” energy source; in others, it is not. In Pennsylvania, it may be. The battle over that issue will play out in the state Legislature between now and early June, when the owner of the Three Mile Island plant is expected to decide whether to refuel or close it. |
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Uranium waste in New Mexico puts lie to ‘carbon free’
Uranium waste in NM puts lie to ‘carbon free’, Albuquerque Journal, BY DUANE CHILI YAZZIE / SHIPROCK CHAPTER PRESIDENT, NAVAJO NATION, April 26th, 2019 “……..We must understand that abuse of seemingly inanimate matter has consequence. The extraction of uranium and the exploitation of it causes compounded waste and resultant compounded consequence. We have created mountains of radioactive waste; because we have limited knowledge and capacity to conclusively, effectually and permanently deal with this waste, we bury it. Out of sight, out of mind does not ease our minds because we know it is there. My community of Shiprock has one of the largest uranium waste disposal cells in the country sitting in the middle of our community. People who naively exalt science and technology may simultaneously inebriate themselves from the consequence of the devastating reality.The natural law of cause and effect predicates all. With my Navajo people, we have suffered the deaths of hundreds of our uranium miners, millers, transporters and affected family members due to health complications caused by exposure to uranium. In 1979 a United Nuclear Corp. holding pond burst, releasing 94 million gallons of radioactive waste that cascaded through Gallup and on downstream. Women and children who waded in the contaminated Rio Puerco, burning their feet, were told that the radioactive water was a figment of their imagination. … Our lives continue to be at stake. The radioactive levels remain, and we, the contaminated people, continue to develop uranium-related health issues. We die a slow death. The world of science and technology has damaged us and the natural world.
The Public Service Company of New Mexico, which has made an incredible indelible scar of industrial consequence on New Mexico and the Earth, now wants to add more nuclear to its portfolio. By doing so, PNM will only amplify this consequence. Some say that nuclear-generated electricity should be allowed because it is “carbon-free.” From a life-cycle perspective, it is not carbon-free. The semantics are irrelevant; what matters is the eventual and permanent negative impact and consequence to the land, the people and our planet Earth.
(In honor of) this Earth Day, it is imperative we acknowledge the damage done to the integrity of the life of Earth. The seemingly insurmountable effect from the cause of the extractive industry demands our attention. We have a climate crisis that is ebbing the life of our planet. The delicate balance of the equilibrium of the Earth and its life systems have been dangerously upset. We cannot further aggravate this great dilemma with more uranium exploitation and continue to destroy the sanctity of our Earth Mother and all life upon and within her.https://www.abqjournal.com/1307342/uranium-waste-in-nm-puts-lie-to-carbon-free.html
Subsidies to nuclear industry – legislation “anti-competitive” and “anti-consumer.”
Free-market advocate chastises nuclear energy subsidies in committee hearing, Ohio Watchdog, By Tyler Arnold | Watchdog.org, Apr 24, 2019,
More evidence that US may seek to prosecute Julian Asssange under the Espionage Act
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/04/28/more-evidence-that-us-may-seek-to-prosecute-julian-asssnge-under-the-espionage-act/ , 28th April 2019 More evidence has emerged that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be prosecuted for offences under the US Espionage Act. Although testimony provided by a digital forensics expert raises questions about the prosecution.
Secretive Fossil Fuel Lobby Group, “Global Climate Coalition”, Manipulated UN Climate Programs
Global Climate Coalition: Documents Reveal How Secretive Fossil Fuel Lobby Group Manipulated UN Climate Programs, https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/04/25/global-climate-coalition-documents-secretive-fossil-fuel-lobby-un-programs By Mat Hope and Karen Savage • , April 24, 2019 A fossil fuel–backed industry group was able to influence the process behind the United Nations climate assessments for decades, using lobbyists and industry-funded scientists to manipulate international negotiations, a cache of recently discovered documents reveals.
The documents include hundreds of briefings, meeting minutes, notes, and correspondence from the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). They were released Thursday by the Climate Investigations Center in collaboration with DeSmog and Climate Liability News. The documents date from 1989 and continue through 2002, when the lobbying group disbanded as its fossil fuel industry backers succumbed to public pressure to disavow its tactics.
The documents show how the GCC influenced international negotiations, manipulated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) process, and undertook a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt on mainstream climate science.
What was the Global Climate Coalition?
The GCC was initially part of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), before becoming its own entity in 1995. NAMhas a long history of defending portions of its membership, including tobacco companies that were facing an onslaught of liability litigation, with aggressive tactics that include discrediting science, attacking scientists, and misleading the public.
Founding members of the GCC were mainly fossil fuel producers and utilities, including oil majors Shell, Texaco (now a part of Chevron), and Amoco (now part of BP); oil refiner and retailers ARCO (now a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum) and Phillips Petroleum; coal miners BHP-Utah International and Peabody; and utilities American Electric Power and Pacific Gas and Electric.
Other companies, including Exxon, joined later — and the international oil giant would go on to be a key player in the group.
Revealed in the documents is a decades-long campaign that continued until 2002, intended to protect its members’ interests by denying and casting doubt on climate science. Internally, the group acknowledged the dangers of climate change and the scientific consensus that it is overwhelmingly driven by the burning of fossil fuels as early as 1995.
Influencing the UN’s Panel of Climate Scientists
The GCC took a particular interest in the operations of the UN’s official scientific advisory body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produces the international climate assessments that form the basis for global climate policy and negotiations.
GCC representatives regularly met with IPCC scientists to lobby the panel to accept industry language in its reports, the documents show. Tax returns show hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on an “IPCC Tracker Fund” to monitor and lobby the IPCC’s meetings.
In one instance detailed in the documents, the GCC boasted its suggested language was “accepted almost in its entirety”after intensive lobbying by its representatives and after “assistance from several countries.”
The GCC also publicly questioned the validity of the IPCC’s peer-review process and launched public attacks on its scientists, while simultaneously using the IPCC’s status as a respected scientific body to promote the credentials of its own climate science denial research.
The GCC went beyond targeting climate science. In 1995, Exxon gave a presentation to the GCC on how to counter the evidence linking climate change to human health impacts.
In 1997, the GCC wanted to expand its reach with a network of state and local committees that would educate the public about their views on climate change and serve as liaisons to other business and public interest groups with similar views. This plan was implemented, the documents show, with the help of Koch Industries, the U.S.’s largest private energy company, which is an infamous funder of climate science denial across the globe.
The Collapse of the GCC
By the mid-1990s, however, the GCC’s aggressive tactics and continuing effort to cast doubt on accepted climate science had started to become a problem for some of its members. Nine corporations left the GCC from 1996 to 2000: two automakers, one chemical manufacturer, one utility, and five oil companies.
BP was the first major oil company to leave in 1997, stating that “the time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part. We in BP have reached that point.”
The GCC also publicly questioned the validity of the IPCC’s peer-review process and launched public attacks on its scientists, while simultaneously using the IPCC’s status as a respected scientific body to promote the credentials of its own climate science denial research.
The GCC went beyond targeting climate science. In 1995, Exxon gave a presentation to the GCC on how to counter the evidence linking climate change to human health impacts.
In 1997, the GCC wanted to expand its reach with a network of state and local committees that would educate the public about their views on climate change and serve as liaisons to other business and public interest groups with similar views. This plan was implemented, the documents show, with the help of Koch Industries, the U.S.’s largest private energy company, which is an infamous funder of climate science denial across the globe.
Additional Takeaways: Infiltrating UN Climate Negotiations, Embracing Climate Deniers Publicly But Not Privately
The documents published Thursday on the Climate Investigation Center’s Climate Files archive, also show:
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The GCC stacked UN meetings with its members. Some attended meetings transparently, registering as GCC members, while others registered with other NGOs. Often GCC members outnumbered delegates from developing nations at the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings.
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The GCC coordinated to monitor IPCC meetings. After IPCC meetings, GCC notes reveal attendees met to discuss strategies for exploiting scientific uncertainties in IPCC climate models and amplifying scientific differences of opinion. On at least one occasion, a contractor for the Electric Power Research Institute planned to keep tabs on IPCCproceedings.
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The GCC internally refuted climate deniers, yet continued to publicly cite their work: Exxon scientist Lenny Bernstein, who co-chaired the GCC’s committee on science and technology assessment, called the work of climate deniers Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels “not convincing” in a draft document in 1995. The final copy of that document included no mention of Bernstein’s comments and the GCC continued to cite the two — as well as other known deniers — through at least 1998.
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The GCC aggressively attempted to control media coverage of climate change: Press releases were sent to reporters praising media coverage featuring climate deniers and correcting those that did not. One document encouraged reporters to contact the GCC for “balance in the global climate change debate.”
Opposition to nuclear subsidies in Pennsylvania
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Nuclear subsidies an uphill battle in Pennsylvania WHYY, By Marie Cusick
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Russia wants to know details of Trump’s nuclear arms-control initiative
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https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/russia-wants-to-know-details-of-trump-s-nuclear-arms-control-initiative-119042700734_1.html
US and Moscow are at loggerheads on nuclear weapons after Trump announced in February that he’s pulling out of a landmark Cold War-era treaty banning short- and medium-range missiles Olga Tanas | Bloomberg April 27, 2019 Russia is interested in the details of a potential U.S. plan to push for new arms-control agreements, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters Saturday in Beijing. US President Donald Trump has questioned the cost of maintaining a nuclear arsenal and has asked administration officials to prepare options for potential new arms-control agreements with Russia and China, the Washington Post reported April 25, citing an unidentified senior administration official. Peskov said while it would be ideal to rid the world of nuclear weapons, such a move would also remove the “restraining parity” that guarantees that no nuclear power makes a “monstrous mistake.” There had been no contacts with Russian experts on the issue, he said.
The US and Moscow are at loggerheads on nuclear weapons after Trump announced in February that he’s pulling out of a landmark Cold War-era treaty banning short- and medium-range missiles. The U.S. withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, after accusing Russia of violating the pact, has raised the threat of a renewed missile build-up in Europe. Russia has warned that time is also running out to begin talks on extending the other key nuclear weapons accord between Russia and the U.S., the New START treaty, before it expires in 2021. |
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Climate change poses huge flooding risk to USA’s nuclear stations, but this is ignored by Trump administration
 Trump administration is ignoring a massive problem at U.S. nuclear plants “54 of the [60] nuclear plants operating in the U.S. weren’t designed to handle the flood risk they face.” https://thinkprogress.org/nuclear-plants-flood-risk-trump-2eb58bc654a7/  At first, the main effort was a direct bailout — Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s failed planto subsidize nuclear (and coal) power plants by raising consumer energy bills.
Now the administration has started cutting corners in nuclear safety and oversight. Trump appointees, who are a majority at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), are allowing the nuclear industry to avoid costly upgrades to plants that are not designed to withstand current flood risk. What’s especially shocking about this decision, made by the NRC in January, is that a remarkable “54 of the [60] nuclear plants operating in the U.S. weren’t designed to handle the flood risk they face,” as Bloomberg reported last week after reviewing information exchanged between the plant owners and the NRC. Yet, even after examining all of the same information, the three NRC commissioners appointed by President Donald Trump decided to ignore NRC staff recommendations to address the problem. As a result, U.S. nuclear plants weren’t required to upgrade their designs or equipment. The NRC had ordered the original review of the flood risk to U.S. nuclear plants in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. In that tragic incident, an earthquake and tsunami led to three nuclear reactors melting down and widespread radiation releases. The cleanup effort will take decades and is currently estimated to cost $470 billion to $660 billion. Nuclear power plants are uniquely vulnerable to flooding because they need to be located next to a river, lake, or ocean since they require a dependable source of vast quantities of water for cooling. But if a major flood event disables the plant’s power and shuts off its cooling systems — as happened at Fukushima — then the reactor will overheat and start melting down, which, in turn can breach the containment vessel, leading to dangerous radioactive releases. Given the terrible cost of such a flood-driven failure, the NRC told all U.S. nuclear plant operators to examine their current flood risk and compare it to what the plants were designed to withstand. After all, since most of the decades-old plants were built, risks have increased thanks to urbanization and climate change. At the same time, flood modeling tools have vastly improved. The results were stunning. Of the 60 U.S. nuclear plants, Bloomberg reports that 53 “weren’t built to withstand their current risk from intense precipitation,” while 25 couldn’t handle current flood projections. Worse, 19 plants — nearly one third of the total — were now at risk of three or more flooding threats that they were not designed to weather, including the maximum storm surge they might face. And this review may actually understate the flood risk because the plant owners were allowed “not only to perform their own estimates of current flood risk but also to decide what assumptions to make.” Even so, some nuclear plants face flood risks of more than 10 feet above their design level. In response to the new flood risks, the NRC staff had proposed that U.S. nuclear plants upgrade their safety equipment. The industry, however, favors simply relying on an existing system called Flex, for Flexible Mitigation Capability, whereby emergency generators and pumps are put in concrete bunkers. On January 24, the three Trump-appointed commissioners overrode objections by the two other commissioners and ruled that U.S. nuclear operators could skip the upgrades required to handle the actual flood risk they face. What’s more, they were not required to routinely update their flood risk analysis as climate science advanced. The Trump appointees also did away with a requirement that U.S. nuclear plants perform Flex drills. That move is especially dangerous considering that as recently as December 2016, one of the emergency generators at the Palo Verde plant near Phoenix “exploded during a routine test,” as AZCentral.com reported in 2017. Nuclear plants clearly need more drills and tests, not fewer. But the Trump appointees appear to support the president’s view that essentially all regulations on industry are bad. The result, as former NRC chair Gregory Jaczko explained to Bloomberg, is that “any work that was done following Fukushima is for naught because the commission rejected any binding requirement to use that work.” Jaczko added, “It’s like studying the safety of seat belts and then not making automakers put them in a car.” So nine out of 10 U.S. nuclear plants are simply unprepared for the flood risk they face today — and they don’t have to plan for the ever-worsening risks posed by climate change. The president is once again failing to protect Americans from a very real threat to their health and safety. |
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USA’s Dept of Energy fails to provide adequate funding for Hanford nuclear clean-up
“The HAB views the combined lack of compliant budget appropriations, the unanticipated problems at Hanford, and the extreme increase in estimated funding levels identified in the lifecycle cost report with great concern,” the board told DOE. Those factors will result in cleanup taking longer and costing more, putting workers, the environment, and the public at increased risk, the letter says.
“They will also result in additional discussion about reducing standards or potentially conducting a lesser quality cleanup,” according to the board.
Unanticipated problems in work at the former plutonium production complex have included the spread of radioactive contamination at the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition in 2017 and the May 2017 collapse of the older of two PUREX Plant radioactive waste storage tunnels.
The Energy Department has addressed the issues, but the costs and schedule impacts from these and other unanticipated setbacks could compound the challenge of meeting milestones set under the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup, the budget letter said.
The latest Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost Report, released in January, “is particularly concerning,” the board said. It put the remaining cost of Hanford cleanup and the initiation of long-term stewardship at $323 billion to $677 billion, and said work could continue beyond this century. The amount of funding needed annually would increase to $4 billion starting in fiscal 2020 and later could peak as high as $16 billion in 2088 under the worst-case scenario.
“Receiving appropriation for even the low-range annual funding estimates will be extremely challenging, thereby putting the cleanup mission in further jeopardy,” the letter said.
For fiscal 2020, which begins Oct. 1, DOE is seeking $2.1 billion for the two offices at Hanford. That would be a $400 million reduction from current funding levels.
End of nuclear cooperation waivers could quietly kill Iran deal
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Forget oil sanctions, end of nuclear cooperation waivers could quietly kill Iran deal https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/iran-jcpoa-nuclear-deal-sanctions-waivers-trump-arak-fordow.html April 24, 2019 Much of the current debate on the Donald Trump administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran concerns its decision not to extend waivers allowing eight nations – including China, India and Turkey – to import limited amounts of Iranian oil. However, it is the possible revocation of waivers that allow the remaining parties to the deal signed in 2015 to engage in civil nuclear cooperation with Iran — with the aim of reducing the proliferation risks of the Iranian nuclear program — that poses the greatest threat to the future of the nuclear deal. US national security adviser John Bolton and a group of hawkish lawmakers in Congress are agitating for the Trump administration to cancel three key waivers issued in November 2018, when the United States reimposed secondary sanctions on Iran. These waivers pertain to technical work on Iran’s civil nuclear program required under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and cover activities at three sites: Fordow, Arak and Bushehr. The aim of this cooperation is to jointly work toward significantly reducing proliferation risks. In Arak, a waiver is necessary to enable Iran to redesign its heavy water research reactor in order to “support peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production for medical and industrial purposes.” The proposed redesigned Arak reactor would vastly cut the potential for a plutonium path to the bomb. The underground uranium enrichment facility of Fordow is being converted into a “nuclear, physics and technology center.” The aim here is to keep uranium enrichment literally closer to the surface and thus more vulnerable in case of an Iranian dash for the bomb. At Bushehr, the site of a Russian-built nuclear power plant that became operational in 2011, the waiver is necessary to allow Iran to continue to purchase the fuel it needs to run the reactor and produce electricity. A decision to revoke the waivers for civil nuclear cooperation would constitute perhaps the most direct US assault on the JCPOA to date. For this reason, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other figures in the Trump administration, worried about political blowback, have been arguing for their continuation, with European governments lobbying the United States aggressively on the issue. Note, however, that even with the present waivers in place, it is apparent that implementation of the nuclear cooperation has been faltering. Revocation of the waivers would have further and grave consequences for the future of the JCPOA. |
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Chelsea Manning is denied bail, by U.S. appeals court
U.S. appeals court denies Manning’s bail request, upholds contempt finding, Sarah N. Lynch, 24 Apr 19, WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will remain in jail after a federal appeals court on Monday denied her request to be released on bail, and upheld a lower court’s decision to hold Manning in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.
The ruling is a blow to Manning, who has been detained since March after she declined to answer questions in connection with the government’s long-running investigation into Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.
In a comment released by a spokesman, Manning said that while disappointing, the appeals court ruling will still allow her to “raise issues as the government continues to abuse the grand jury process.”
“I don’t have anything to contribute to this, or any other grand jury,” Manning added.
Assange was arrested on April 11 at Ecuador’s Embassy in London, after U.S. prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed a criminal case against him alleging he conspired with Manning to commit computer intrusion.
The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain.
……Manning has tried to fight the grand jury subpoena in the Assange case, citing her First, Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights under the Constitution.
Manning’s lawyer, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, suggested prosecutors were abusing “grand jury power,” and that “the likely purpose of her subpoena is to help the prosecutor preview and undermine her potential testimony as a defense witness for a pending trial.”
Her lawyers have also argued that the courtroom was improperly sealed during substantial portions of the hearing.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-manning/us-appeals-court-denies-mannings-bail-request-upholds-contempt-finding-idUSKCN1RY14O
How a nuclear apocalypse could be launched: how a president’s power to do this could be restrained
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PRESSING THE BUTTON: HOW NUCLEAR-ARMED COUNTRIES PLAN TO LAUNCH ARMAGEDDON (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE U.S.) War on the Rocks, By ANDY CHOW 24 Apr 19, “What would happen if the president of the U.S.A. went stark-raving mad?”That question appeared on the cover of Fletcher Knebel’s bestselling 1965 novel, Night of Camp David. Knebel, who also wrote Seven Days in May, described a president succumbing to paranoia as those around him struggled to keep him from starting a nuclear war. For obvious reasons, the book was re-released in 2018 in a new edition.
The presidency of Donald Trump has renewed a lingering debate about how much of the terrible responsibility to inflict large-scale nuclear destruction nuclear-armed countries should invest in a single person. The question is not only about Trump, of course. He is a member of a club that also includes Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — “Rocketman” himself. It is a club that is far more exclusive than the Mar-a-Lago. The terms of this debate are well-known and relate to the specific requirements of nuclear deterrence. On the one hand, there is a broad desire to retain political control over the use of nuclear weapons and to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used by accident or by an unauthorized person. On the other hand, it is typically thought that the credibility of deterrence relies on the certainty of retaliation under all circumstances, even in difficult ones, such as in response to a surprise attack. These twin goals are in tension, a situation that Peter Feaver famously termed the “always/never” dilemma — the weapons should “always” launch when ordered by a legitimate authority, but “never” if no legal order has been given. Each nuclear-armed state has struck a slightly different balance at different points in time, with states shifting “back and forth between delegative and assertive postures” depending on the importance placed on the urgency of response and the general state of civil-military relations and domestic politics. A preference for “always” — certainty that any lawful launch order will be executed — may lead a state to accept a greater risk that nuclear weapons could be used without proper authorization. The preference for “always” could, in extreme cases, lead to so-called “dead hand” systems that would ensure the launch of nuclear-armed missiles even if political leaders were dead. A common procedure to manage the always/never dilemma is to require two or more persons at various links in the chain of command to agree on a step involving nuclear weapons (the so-called “two-man” rule.) The two-person rule may differ greatly in practice across states……. Neither of us is terribly convinced by recent proposals from Congress to insert itself into the process and usurp, in part, the president’s authority to order a nuclear strike. The president is the commander in chief. Once Congress appropriates the funds for military forces, it has little to say about how these forces might be used beyond the power to declare war. Congress has consistently avoided even this responsibility, as the failure to revise the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force demonstrates. Nevertheless, Congress could attempt to compel the president, time and circumstances permitting, to confer with at least the vice president, secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding any decision to use nuclear weapons and especially a decision to initiate the use of nuclear weapons. These individuals need not be given a veto in the process, but each must be offered a chance to give advice. There would be little downside to such an approach. In our work, we find no evidence that states requiring a collective decision are seen by potential adversaries as less credible than single-person models that favor speed and legitimacy. In NATO, the collective use of nuclear weapons requires consensus of all members of the North Atlantic Council, although the United States, the United Kingdom, and France retain the ability to use nuclear weapons on their own. Whatever doubts we might have about the certainty of retaliation in the most extreme scenarios, those doubts pale in comparison to the ones we have about the wisdom of allowing a single individual unfettered authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. Jeffrey Lewis is a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Bruno Tertrais is Deputy Director at the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris. https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/pressing-the-button-how-nuclear-armed-countries-plan-to-launch-armageddon-and-what-to-do-about-the-u-s/ |
In USA most men support nuclear power, but most women do not.
Americans love clean energy. Do they care if it includes nuclear?
A new poll gets deep into voter preferences on climate policy. VOX, By Nuclear power: The numbers on nuclear power are fascinatingly all over the place. More Republicans than Democrats support it, and more Democrats than Republicans oppose, but not by a ton in either case. The biggest split was not by party but by gender, with 62 percent of men somewhat or strongly supporting it and just 32 percent of women. ……. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/23/18507297/nuclear-energy-renewables-voters-poll
A dangerous mix – LSD drugs and sailors on nuclear aircraft carriers
This can’t be good.
A sailor assigned to the nuclear reactor department aboard the USS Ronald Reagan admitted to bringing LSD aboard the aircraft carrier, Navy Times reports.
In a copy of a plea deal obtained by Navy Times, Machinist’s Mate (Nuclear Power) 3rd Class Philip S. Colegrove said he “wrongfully” brought the powerful hallucinogen aboard the Reagan while docked at various ports across Japan, as though there’s a right way to bring acid into the heart of a nuclear-powered warship.
The recent guilty pleas from Colegove and Electrician’s Mate (Nuclear Power) 2nd Class Sean M. Gevero bring the total number of Reagan nuclear reactor sailors disciplined in connection to “LSD abuse” aboard the Reagan to four, per Navy Times. A fifth is currently awaiting an Article 32 hearing
Ten other sailors, all from the same department, already faced administrative discipline last year for possessing and distributing LSD in connection to a drug ring aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier
The prevalence of LSD in a critical nuclear-related facility is surprisingly not confined to the Navy: In May 2018, 14 airmen from the Air Force security units at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming tasked with safeguarding nuclear missile silos were disciplined for dropping acid between shifts.
But the fact that these LSD rings popped up in the first place isn’t surprising at all. As I previously wrote, the middle of nowhere is the same kind of boring and awful whether it’s patrolling the Pacific or guarding nuclear silos in America’s heartland.
Anyway, if anyone has any insights into the right way to bring LSD into your (potentially radioactive) place of work, give me a shout — for, uh, science.
Nuclear reactors at risk from flooding due to climate change
Flooding linked to climate change puts beaches, nuclear plants at risk https://www.axios.com/climate-change-flooding-waikiki-beach-nuclear-plants-f2c4da7b-0155-4749-a47d-2e606066ee52.html 22 Apr 19, An increasing risk of flooding across the U.S. from climate change has caused lawmakers — from Hawaii to the East Coast — to consider new measures to protect at-risk areas.
The big picture: The risks span from the nation’s natural jewels to some of its most important infrastructure. Rising sea levels mean that Hawaii’s Waikiki Beach could be underwater within the next 15 to 20 years — and an increasing number of U.S. nuclear plants were never designed to handle the flood risk from climate change.
- State lawmakers are considering spending millions for a coastline protection program aimed at defending the city from regular tidal inundations, AP reports.
- 54 of the 60 nuclear plants in the U.S. aren’t prepared for the flood risks expected due to climate change “Nineteen face three or more threats that they weren’t designed to handle,” Bloomberg reports.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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