US preparing ‘bloody nose’ cyber attacks on North Korea, Telegraph, UK, Julian Ryall, Tokyo Danielle DemetriouThe United States is drawing up plans for cyber attacks on North Korea in an effort to bring the regime of Kim Jong-Un to heel, according to intelligence sources, as Pyongyang says it is ready for “both dialogue and war” as the Winter Olympics draws to a close.
A cyber assault could cripple Pyongyang’s online communications and ability to control its military, causing huge disruption but avoiding the loss of life. It may also assuage concerns that a conventional attack against missile sites or nuclear facilities by the US could trigger a massive counter-strike by Kim Jong-Un.
In the last six months, the US has been covertly laying the groundwork for cyber attacks that would be routed through South Korea and Japan, where the US has extensive military facilities. The preparations include
installing fibre cables into the region and setting up remote bases and listening posts from where hackers will attempt to gain access to North Korea’s version of the Internet, which is walled off from the rest of the world.
Another official told the magazine that a large part of the US spying and cyber warfare capability is being refocused on North Korea, including analysis of signals intelligence, overhead imagery and geospatial intelligence
………. North Korea has reportedly set up a 6,000-strong hacking unit and is strongly suspected of being behind a number of cyberattacks on South Korean banks, media companies and infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, in recent years
As well as gathering intelligence on military, scientific and political developments in the North, US cyber warfare experts are likely to be tasked with accessing the regime’s command-and-control structure in order to interfere with Pyongyang’s ability to communicate with its military and launch counterattacks.
US and South Korea to announce plans for military manoeuvres with more than 320,000 troops, Express UK. 20 Feb 18
SOUTH KOREA and the United States will announce plans before April for a postponed joint military drill, South Korea’s defence minister said today. Seoul and Washington had agreed to postpone the regular joint military exercise until after the Winter Olympics being hosted in South Korea, which end on March 18.
After the decision to delay the joint exercise, North Korea agreed to hold the first official talks with South Korea in more than two years and send athletes to the Winter Games, easing a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Asked when the two countries will hold the postponed drill, Song Young-moo told parliament he and his US counterpart, Jim Mattis, would make an announcement between March 18 and the start of April.
“The exercise was postponed according to the spirit of the Olympics,” Song said.
COLUMBIA — As Westinghouse Electric’s bankruptcy dashed South Carolina’s nuclear ambitions, one group of people reaped the rewards: lawyers.
One attorney charged $280 to respond to a grand jury subpoena.
Another invoiced $407 to research the statute of limitations for criminal charges in South Carolina.
Others got paid more than $5,810 to review the “potential criminal liability” stemming from The Post and Courier’s story Stamped for Failure, which revealed how Westinghouse disregarded state engineering laws in their attempt to build a new generation of nuclear reactors.
These are just some of the legal expenses found in the bankruptcy records for Westinghouse, the company that designed and attempted to build the two unfinished nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer station.
The court records show Westinghouse paid more than $1 million last year for more than a dozen highly paid defense attorneys to monitor the legal disputes and political backlash that erupted in South Carolina after the nuclear project was dropped last summer.
The company’s legal bills open a small window into the ongoing cost of what is widely considered the biggest economic failure in South Carolina history. The invoices also highlight Westinghouse’s concerns over the possible criminal implications stemming from its decade of work on the nuclear reactors near Jenkinsville.
Westinghouse declined to answer questions about the ongoing legal expenses.
“It may just be they are trying to cover themselves,” said state Sen. Shane Massey, an Edgefield Republican who led a special committee that investigated V.C. Summer. “Or, as things progressed, they might have realized they are in trouble.”
While 14 years seems like a long time to clean up the 44-acre nuclear waste dump in Parks Township, progress seems imminent.
But only after another delay.
The resolution of a bid challenge for the $350 million contract to excavate and remove radioactive contamination from 10 shallow trenches added 1 1⁄2years to the cleanup process, which now could run through 2032.
President Trump’s 2019 budget allotment of $8 million to the Army Corps of Engineers will continue the planning, testing and other preparations for the cleanup.
Excavation stopped at the site in 2011 because a Corps contractor allegedly mishandled and found more complex nuclear material than expected.
The sentence revealed that the Trump administration had ordered the Department of Energy to be ready to conduct a nuclear test at the Nevada National Security Site in as little as six months. Time reporter W.J. Hennigan went on to write that the White House was considering conducting a nuclear test as a show of force.
“The point, this and other sources say, would be to show Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and other adversaries what they are up against,” Hennigan reported.
For a megaton of reasons, this test absolutely must not happen.
First and foremost, there’s simply no need to stage this kind of demented theater, because the nation’s adversaries are well aware “what they’re up against.” It’s annihilation. There are nearly 7,000 warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, deliverable across the globe at a moment’s notice by missile, aircraft and submarine. The biggest nuke is the B83 bomb, which at 1.2 megatons is 80 times more powerful than the World War II bomb that wiped out Hiroshima and killed at least 90,000 people.
Triggering a U.S. nuclear strike would be suicide. That’s not in question.
So it’s no more necessary to prove that point with a nuclear test in the Nevada desert than it is to stage a military parade, yet another stupid idea that has spun out of the White House during President Donald Trump’s 13 months in office.
It demonstrates an astonishing lack of understanding about the nation’s military and the world’s perception of the U.S. More than anything, it proves that Trump’s feelings of inadequacy and inferiority know no bounds.
To be clear, Trump hasn’t ordered a nuclear test. But the fact that the administration has even considered it is chilling. A U.S. test would almost certainly provoke other nations into following suit and building up their own arsenals.
And for what? It’s not as if there’s any question that nuclear weapons work. The U.S. conducted more than 1,000 tests, many at the test site 90 miles north of Las Vegas, during an arms race that culminated when the former Soviet Union unleashed a 50-megaton monster of a bomb in 1961.
For Nevadans to allow a new test would be to disrespect generations of heroic state residents who fought to stop the testing. That fight led to George H.W. Bush imposing a self-imposed moratorium in 1992, and there hasn’t been a U.S. test since then.
The door should remain closed.
The good news is that Gov. Brian Sandoval says he has received “100 percent confirmation” that the Trump administration isn’t planning to test a nuclear device in the Nevada desert.
But just in case Trump or anybody on his team is wondering whether Nevadans want him to set off one of his oversized firecrackers in our state, the answer is a loud hell no.
It’s bad enough that Trump’s new budget contains funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a project that would lead to high-level nuclear waste being transported through the heart of Las Vegas.
That project should be buried and forgotten, and so should any notion of testing a nuclear devicein the Nevada desert.
Trump should stop treating our state like enemy territory.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Los Alamos Field Office is proposing to install a permanent fire break across the canyon bottom, which includes approximately 300 feet of the 100-year floodplain.
The proposed work will occur in Portrillo Canyon in Technical Area (TA) 36. The purpose of this work is to further reduce wildfire risk in upper Potrillo Canyon from the Lower Slobbovia firing site operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
In accordance with 10 Code of Federal Regulations 1022 Compliance with Floodplain and Wetland Environmental Review Requirements, NNSA has prepared a floodplain assessment for the proposed action.
The Floodplain Assessment for the Proposed Fire Break at the Lower Slobbovia Firing Site at Los Alamos National Laboratory is available in the LANL Electronic Public Reading Room, on the Los Alamos Field Office NEPA Documents webpage or in hard copy at the LANL Public Reading Room, 94 Cities of Gold Road, Pojoaque, NM. The 15-day public comment period for this assessment ends March 2, 2018.
To submit comments or for further information, contact Kristen Dors at the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office at Kristen.Dors@nnsa.doe.gov.
‘Atomic Homefront’ unboxes the cruel consequences of Missouri’s radioactive landfill, The Daily Dot Kahron Spearman—Feb 18
The film takes a human look into a St. Louis-area radioactive landfill that dates back to the Manhattan Project. Cammisa runs down the intertwining and harrowing paths of Bridgeton, Missouri, residents, and those living near the Coldwater Creek floodplain, which flows downstream from the nuclear landfill……..
Because there isn’t any official evidence—or any that the government will admit to—supporting a causal relationship between the radiation and the extraordinary rates of various cancers, pulmonary di – wepons before peopleseases, and multiple sclerosis, the residents exist on a shifting plate, tottering white-hot anger and unparalleled astonishment toward the federal authorities. The film is well-researched given that there’s an open, yet silent antagonism toward those seeking purpose by pushing back on the government’s “science” about the radiation exposure. …..
In the end, the critical takeaway remains the government’s dark submission to weapons. The human impact in the film is maddening and undeniable, begging for some exploration into the awful self-evidence of our defense apparatus: We need these weapons, so whatever collateral damage arises is for the good of the country. Yes, even your cancer.
#NukeGate: Shady Offline Negotiations Must Stop, FITS News, 17 Feb 18
More than perhaps any other lawmaker, fiscally liberal state senator Luke Rankin of Horry County, South Carolina bears direct responsibility for the now-notorious “Base Load Review Act.”
This, of course, is the constitutionally dubious, special interest legislation that effectively socialized $2 billion (and counting) worth of investment risk associated with the abandoned V.C. Summer nuclear power expansion project – a.k.a. #NukeGate.
Basically, lawmakers allowed crony capitalist utility SCANA and its state-owned partner, Santee Cooper, to force ratepayers to shell out this cash on a pair of next generation reactors that are now unlikely to ever be completed.
In addition to being a lead sponsor of this legislation in the Senate, Rankin – a party-switching “former” Democrat – was a member of the S.C. Senate judiciary subcommittee that advanced this legislation to the floor of the Senate (where it passed on a unanimous voice vote).
His fingerprints are all over the hated law, in other words.
Same goes for establishment “Republican” senator Larry Grooms of Berkeley County – who joined Rankin and more than a dozen other senators (ahem) in sponsoring this abomination back in 2007.
Why are we singling out Rankin and Grooms today? Because these two politicians – who deserve to be run out of the S.C. State House on a rail for their shortsightedness and subservience to the status quo – are among the state senators currently engaged in offline negotiations to “extricate” the Palmetto State from this $10 billion hole in the ground.
That’s right … the politicians who landed our state in this mess now want us to trust them to dig us out.
Oh, and they want to conduct their negotiations under the cover of darkness …
What could possibly go wrong, right?
We addressed these offline negotiations earlier this week in this piece, and several weeks ago we exclusively reported on another round of offline negotiations involving newly elected state senator Mike Fanning – who represents the district where the abandoned reactors are located.
In fairness to Fanning, he has infinitely more credibility here than either Rankin or Grooms (who ought to recuse themselves from any role in these discussions). Not only does Fanning represent the impacted area, but as a newly elected senator he has no connection to the legislation that created this debacle in the first place.
Still, all of these offline negotiations are problematic …
First and foremost, they are being conducted behind closed doors – which is especially troublesome considering one of the items up for sale is a government-owned utility.
Shouldn’t public officials discussing the possible sale of a state-owned asset conduct their deliberations in the light of day?
Plagued by disease, ridiculed for their explanation: A TMI ‘survivors’ group is growing, York Daily Record, Joel Shannon, jshannon@ydr.com 12 Feb 18,
They’re battling health issues and grieving lost loved ones — and they are confident that there’s an explanation for their suffering. Nearly 4,000 people now call themselves “Three Mile Island Survivors” in a private Facebook group.
The group, started in Nov. 2016, believes that the partial meltdown of a TMI reactor on March 28, 1979, was far more dangerous than has been publicly acknowledged. They link the incident to myriad health issues they or loved ones have experienced. They say most people disagree with their belief.
“Most of (the group members) just want the truth,” group administrator Christine Layman said.
The truth as the “TMI survivors” see it: That the incidents of cancer, thyroid issues and other health problems they’ve experienced can be traced back in some way to the incident at TMI. ………
Layman says the group of “survivors” feel pressured to keep quiet about their beliefs, for fear of ridicule. She’s said her mental soundness has been questioned as the result of her opinion: Doctors have attributed her beliefs to anxiety and fear.
But she still believes: She says the truth is hiding in plain sight.
She sees herself as an example. She says her list of health issues has been unusually long: melanoma, fibromyalgia, thyroid problems, infertility and brain lesions. And she lived in the Strinestown area — a few miles from TMI — during the partial meltdown.
She remembers the evacuation, being told to throw a blanket over her four-year-old daughter’s head and drive away. Being told that it was safe to return days later.
She says since then, her daughter has had a scare with cancer. Her granddaughter has spina bifida.
………. She refuses to believe all that suffering can exist so close to the scene of the TMI incident and not be linked — somehow.
And some in the scientific community suggest the “survivors” may — may — be on to something that can be measured, although so far evidence for their claims is thin.
Speaking of the mainstream view that TMI caused no adverse effects, the study’s leader commented: “I’m always wary when people say ‘there’s nothing to see, here.”
Dr. David Goldenberg, a surgeon and thyroid researcher, who led the study after seeing anecdotal evidence for a connection, stopped short of saying that the accident “caused” the thyroid cancer, instead saying there’s a “possible correlation” between the accident and the cancer.
Boy Scouts try their hand at nuclear science at Byron plant RRStarr Adam Poulisse
Staff writer Feb 17, 2018, BYRON— The alarm was buzzing and the lights were blinking in the Byron Nuclear Generating Station simulation room Saturday.
It was a faux reactor trip, and dozens of Boy Scouts were there to learn how the plant staff would respond in such a crisis…….
Scouts had the opportunity to take two four-hour classes to earn two merit badges. But those interested in nuclear science only had time for one badge, since that career path took all day and concluded with a tour of the plant. …….
Before going into the simulation room, Scouts studying nuclear science sat in classrooms and learned about different types of radiation and ionization.
This is the first time in a while the plant hosted the merit badge event; its been held at Sauk Valley for the past 15 years or so.
Paul Dempsey, the station’s community manager, said bringing the Scouts to Byron also benefits the station.
on the future of the West Lake Landfill — a decision that could free the St. Louis area of the seven-decade environmental burden it has borne in America’s quest for nuclear superiority.
For Pruitt, the right decision would be costly and complicated. The wrong decision, though far cheaper and most expedient, would leave in place a radioactive nightmare that would haunt the region for generations to come. The right decision is the only decision.
At issue are thousands of tons of radioactive waste left over from secret uranium refinement carried out in St. Louis during the Manhattan Project, the 1940s effort to produce America’s first nuclear bomb. Although officials at the time were well aware of the radioactive dangers, they paid little heed to where they dumped the wastes from years of uranium processing. An uncovered, unlined pit at the West Lake landfill became the dumpsite of choice, two miles northwest of St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The landfill, uphill and less than two miles from the Missouri River, was never designed for radioactive waste and never would have met today’s federal safety guidelines. Various radioactive hot zones have been discovered in downstream watersheds, as have large cancer clusters among residents. For years, a slow-moving underground fire at an adjacent landfill is believed to be advancing toward the buried nuclear waste.
In tests conducted from 2012 to 2014, groundwater at West Lake contained unsafe levels of radioactive uranium, radium and thorium-230, along with arsenic, manganese, barium and benzene.
An exhaustive, 814-page EPA study, updated on Jan. 10, outlines the dangers and costs associated with six options Pruitt can choose from for West Lake. One option, doing nothing, is laughable. Three cheaper proposals call for partial excavation of the site at varying depths and capping the site but leaving many toxins behind. The two best options involve full excavation — one would store the waste on-site in a modern, secure containment cell, and the other would transport it offsite to a remote, federally approved storage facility.
Full excavation and removal would keep the region safest over the long term. But it’s also the most expensive option at $695 million. Capping the site would cost about $75 million but also would pose the greatest future cancer risks to farmers and residents downstream.
Pruitt has the comfort of making this decision from Washington, D.C., far from the exposure zone. We urge him to consider all who have suffered so far because of the irresponsible, lazy solutions imposed on St. Louis decades ago. If Pruitt would regard it as unacceptable for his own family to be exposed to such risks, then he must conclude that St. Louisans deserve the same consideration. This radioactive time bomb must go.
NASA revives its Cold War-era idea of using atomic rockets to create ‘drastically smaller’ craft that will get to Mars by the 2030s
NASA plans to use the same technology it discontinued using in the 1970s
NASA partnered with BWXT Nuclear Energy to develop nuclear propulsion tech
A nuclear system can cut the voyage time to Mars from six months to just four
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion project could significantly change space travel
“……..NASA says it will use technology it discontinued in the 1970s to create ‘drastically smaller’ craft capable of greater speeds than their non-nuclear rivals.
This system could cut the voyage time to Mars from six months to four and safely deliver human explorers by reducing their exposure to cosmic radiation.
NASA first hinted at the potential for nuclear thermal propulsion technologies last year, saying that they are more promising than ever.
It partnered with BWXT Nuclear Energy, based in Lynchburg, Virginia, in an $18.8 million (£13.3m) contract to refine those concepts.
The resulting Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) project could significantly change space travel, according to its creators.
This is mostly due to its ability to push a large amount of propellant out of the back of a rocket at very high speeds, resulting in a highly efficient, high-thrust engine.
‘As we push out into the solar system, nuclear propulsion may offer the only truly viable technology option to extend human reach to the surface of Mars and to worlds beyond,’ said Sonny Mitchell, nuclear thermal propulsion project manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre, in Huntsville, Alabama.
We’re excited to be working on technologies that could open up deep space for human exploration.’
…….. getting to Mars entails a 55 million-kilometre (34 million-mile) flight, more than 100 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
The NTP project is under the umbrella of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, which advances space technologies that may lead to entirely new approaches for the Agency’s future space missions and provide solutions to significant national needs.
Given its experience delivering nuclear fuels for the US Navy, BWXT will help with the design and testing of promising, low-enriched uranium-based nuclear thermal engine concept and ‘Cermet’ – ceramic metallic – fuel element technolgy.
During BWXT-NASA contract, which is set to run through to September 30, 2019, BWXT will manufacture and test prototype fuel elements and also help NASA address and resolve nuclear licensing and regulatory requirements.
The project will test full-length fuel rods using a unique Marshall test facility.
………. the complexities of the technology and testing could lead to high development costs, which could be a major barrier, however, using NASA technology developed decades ago could help speed up progress, says Claudio Bruno,
Russia also has plans to reach the red planet using nuclear technologies.
Russia’s Rosatorm Corporation plans this year to test a nuclear engine for a spacecraft that can travel to Mars.
China also plans to use nuclear-powered shuttles as part of its space explortation endeavours through to 2045.
NASA also faces competition in reaching Mars from the likes of Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, which just launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is designed to carry humans to space.
However, SpaceX is planning on using a liquid oxygen and methane fueled engine.
…….NASA is also developing technologies that could power human settlements on Mars.
Government officials said an earthquake centered less than 10 miles from Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant didn’t seem to have caused any damage yesterday, but anti-nuclear activists are worried the tremors could have increased instability in already-cracking containment walls.
The 9:28 a.m. quake, which shook the ground in northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire but only hit 2.7 on the Richter scale, didn’t trigger any emergency procedures at Seabrook Station, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. The station is just down the road from the earthquake’s epicenter in East Kingston.
Sheehan said workers walked through the plant yesterday in search of any signs of damage, but stressed Seabrook Station is built to withstand much stronger earthquakes.
But activists said many of the plant’s walls — including in the spent fuel pool and the reactor dome — are already weakened. And though they’re several feet thick, they’ve been damaged by water mixing with compounds in the walls’ concrete and cement, creating a gel that expands and cracks the walls.
Paul Gunter, a director at activist group Beyond Nuclear and a former member of the Clamshell Alliance that led large protests against Seabrook coming online in the 1970s, said activists have long been concerned by the power plant’s proximity to an earthquake zone. He said yesterday’s tremor was a “wake-up call.”
“Even these small earthquakes are a wake-up call to look at the broader issues of vulnerability at the plant and the inherent danger of the operation,” Gunter said. “These are legitimate reasons to question the continued operation of Seabrook Station.”
Natalie Hildt Treat, executive director of C-10, a Newburyport-based group that monitors emissions at the plant, agreed.
“You would think a measurable earthquake would put further stress on that,” she said. “Little cracks can lead to bigger cracks … it’s definitely a safety concern.”
But Seabrook Town Manager William M. Manzi III said he wasn’t concerned that the quake caused any structural damage, saying, “We’re confident that the plant will be able to withstand any seismic event.”
Plant owner NextEra Energy didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. The company is seeking to extend its license to operate from 2030 to 2050, and Sheehan said the NRC is currently reviewing NextEra’s plans to address deterioration before it considers an extension.
“The real issue here is longer-term,” Sheehan said. “In terms of the earthquake today, we don’t believe it poses a safety issue.”
More workers tested positive for Hanford radiation, The 6 people are added to 31 who tested positive for inhaling or ingesting contamination in June, February 15, 2018 By Annette Cary / Tri-City Herald
Another spread of radioactive contamination has been confirmed at the Hanford nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant.
In addition, more central Hanford workers have tested positive for inhaling or ingesting radioactive contamination from demolition of the plant.
For the second time since workers were moved in January to offices away from the plant, contamination has been found on the steps of the newly assigned offices.
Most recently, a spot of radioactive contamination described as about the size of a 50-cent piece was found on the step outside an office on Feb. 8. The step has been removed.
In some cases radiation detected at Hanford is determined to have come from naturally occurring radon, but in this case it appears to be related to demolition of the heavily contaminated plant.
Demolition and the packing and hauling away of the debris has been stopped at the plant since mid-December after a spread of particles of radioactive contamination was discovered.
Most of the demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, the most contaminated portion of the plant, had just been completed when the spread was found.
Several steps have been taken since December, including bringing in new contractor management for the project, widely expanding the area where access is controlled and moving workers from offices near the plant to offices outside the control area.
Workers take shuttles to and from the plant, as needed for work assignments, from their newly assigned offices.
In response to the first discovery of a spot of contamination outside the new offices in late January, more stringent rules were instituted for checks of workers leaving radiologically contaminated demolition areas.
In response to the Feb. 8 spread, the radiological buffer around areas where radioactive material is expected to be present has been expanded. Workers have their hands and feet checked for radiation when they leave that area to board a shuttle to offices.
The number of workers known to have inhaled or ingested radioactive particles has increased to six.
Some 212 workers who requested checks had no contamination, with about 60 checks pending. Bioassays, or checks of body waste, are being done to determine if workers have radioactive contamination inside their bodies.
The amount of internal contamination is small. The largest estimated radiation dose for the six workers is 10 to 20 millirem over 50 years.
In comparison, the average person in the United States receives about 300 millirem a year annually from natural background radiation, including radon or radiation bombarding the Earth from outer space.
The six workers with positive bioassay results are in addition to 31 workers who tested positive for inhaling or ingesting radioactive contamination from Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition in June. The highest estimated dose from June was 10 millirem total over 50 years.
World Nuclear News 15th Feb 2018, Holtec International and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) are to collaborate
on accelerating the commercialisation of Holtec’s SMR-160 small modular
reactor (SMR). Their cooperation will initially include nuclear fuel
development and control rod drive mechanisms. Under a memorandum of
understanding, GEH, Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), Holtec and SMR Inventec LLC
(SMR LLC) have agreed to enter into a “procompetitive collaboration” to
progress the SMR-160. GNF, a GE-led joint venture with Hitachi and Toshiba,
is primarily known as a supplier of boiling water reactor fuel. SMR LLC is
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Holtec established in 2011 to manage the
development of the SMR-160. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Holtec-and-GEH-team-up-on-advancing-SMR-160-1502184.html
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5 From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
nuclear-news 