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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Russian lawmakers approve New START nuclear treaty extension

January 28, 2021 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Quietly, under the brouhaha of the pandemic, the global nuclear lobby prepares a propaganda onslaught

”If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth ” – Joseph Goebbels 

This month, I’ve concentrated my efforts on the ground-breaking and historic UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons coming into force. Of course, the nuclear weapons states will try to destroy that Treaty.   Failing destruction, they will aim for pooh poohing and rubbishing that Treaty. Finally they’ll go for a favourite strategy – ignoring it, and hoping that the world will just forget about it.

I don’t think that the world will forget about it. The challenge will be to help those workers and communities that depend on nuclear-weapons-making to be helped out of that toxic situation, and into life-sustaining work and activities.

MEANWHILE, as media and science correctly focus on the global coronavirus pandemic, the issue of nuclear power has pretty much disappeared from view.  Nothing is happening?

Not so. Things are happening, and the nuclear lobby is busy planning a big propaganda push – a Goebbels-worthy spinfest, for 2021.

Today, the nuclear weapons industry is pretty much the only reason for”peaceful” nuclear power.  ”Peaceful nukes” provide the trained experts, the technology development necessary for the weapons industry.  If governments and universities can be persuaded to back commercial nuclear energy, this solves a lot of probems. Especially, it helps to blur the picture on the astronomic costs of nuclear weapons, as quite a lot of costs are covered by ”peaceful” nuclear development.

There’s another pressing reason to keep nuclear power going. It’s the horrible and never-ending cost of shutting down reactors and dealing with their toxic wastes.  How much cheaper to just relicense them for 100 years?    That way, the present responsible officials will all be gone, and they don’t have to worry about that problem. Heck – they’ve handed it over to our great-grandchildre,  What a fine idea!  NOT!!

Against this background, the nuclear lobby is girding its loins for the public perception battle.

Armed with lies –  that nuclear fixes climate –  that it’s cheap, is clean, works great with renewables, essential for society –  blah blah,  the nuclear lobby is preparing its onslaught. They generally try pretty hard to ignore matters like comparative costs, and wastes problems.  But they can just lie again, if put on the spot about such problems.

Just a few quotatios from World Nuclear News :-

The barrier to nuclear is perception“

”addressing perceptions of its alleged drawbacks”

Bilbao y León –  “the nuclear industry has responsibly managed all its used nuclear fuel and waste “from day one”.

“We know where every ounce of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste is because we have been managing it throughout the history of the nuclear industry.  …….

“The real challenges to nuclear are external”  – ”small modular reactors ..cheaper, safer, better, and going to provide more discreet financial solutions” [the discreet bit is true?]

The government nuclear regulatory authorities are, unfortunately, usually well onside with the industry –  in what is known as “regulatory capture”.   Again, from World Nuclear News –

”The hurdles advanced nuclear developers face‘ – ””We, as the regulator, are working on building public trust, confidence and social acceptance in these new technologies.’‘ 

Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the skills of Sama Bilbao y Leon, Director General of the World Nuclear Association. She’s great with language (as the global nuclear lobby has realised, in appointing her, and several other women, to top promotional positions.)

January 26, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Christina's notes, spinbuster | 1 Comment

Buddhist leader urges international co-operation in further steps on the Nuclear Ban Treaty

Buddhist Leader Welcomes Entry into Force of Nuclear Ban Treaty, Urges International Cooperation to CombatPandemic in 39th Annual Peace Proposal,     Soka Gakkai , Jan 26, 2021,   TOKYO, Jan. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — On January 26, 2021, the 39th annual peace proposal by Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhist association, titled “Value Creation in a Time of Crisis” was released, marking the anniversary of the founding of the SGI.

Ikeda calls for further global cooperation to address the key issues of our time: the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons. These issues are not constrained by national borders and cannot be solved by any one government or organization alone……….

Consistent with his decades of action toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, Ikeda welcomes the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into force on January 22, 2021, as a “pivotal event ushering in a new era” that will spur a paradigm shift in approaches to security. He calls on Japan to participate in the first meeting of the States Parties to the TPNW, to begin to create the conditions in which future ratification can become possible.

He proposes that a forum for discussing the relationship between nuclear weapons and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) be held during the first meeting of States Parties to the TPNW.

At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference scheduled for August 2021, Ikeda also urges discussion on the true meaning of security in the light of crises such as the climate emergency and the pandemic.

He calls for the final document of the Review Conference to include a pledge of non-use of nuclear weapons and the freezing of all nuclear weapon development until 2025.

A statement from Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada welcoming the entry into force of the TPNW issued on January 22 can be found at: https://www.sokaglobal.org/contact-us/media-room/statements/tpnw-entry-into-force.html. The SGI has also cosigned an interfaith statement together with more than 170 other religious groups. See: https://sgi-ouna.org/tpnw-eif-interfaith-statement ………..https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/buddhist-leader-welcomes-entry-into-force-of-nuclear-ban-treaty-urges-international-cooperation-to-combat-pandemic-in-39th-annual-peace-proposal-301214677.html

January 26, 2021 Posted by | Japan, politics international, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Biden’s USA headed for confrontation with Russia? The troubling appointment of Victoria Nuland

Nuland’s actions helped produce the regime change in Ukraine which led to U.S. arms sales, U.S. sanctions on Russia, even the first Trump impeachment over the matter of anti-tank missile delivery. The coup damaged U.S.-Russian relations

Basic Notes on Victoria (“Fuck the EU!”) Nuland,  more https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/25/basic-notes-on-victoria-fuck-the-eu-nuland/ BY GARY LEUPP, 25 Jan 21
On January 5 Joe Biden quietly announced the nomination of Victoria (“Fuck the EU!”) Nuland as Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs. This announcement may signal the inception of the confrontation with Russia placed on hold during the Trump presidency.

For four years the Democrats have pilloried Trump for “coddling” Putin, although in fact Trump has heaped sanctions on Russia bringing relations to their lowest point since the early Cold War. Now they want some more serious anti-Russian measures. They want their president, Commander-in-Chief of the Exceptional Nation and Leader of the Free World against its adversaries, return us to Clinton-Obama normalcy. That means “getting tougher” with Russia. But what does tougher mean?

Nuland is eminently qualified for the task of making things much worse, even provoking war with the other superpower that while lacking foreign bases, and spending a fraction of what NATO spends on military defense, has over 6000 nuclear weapons. (Remember? The U.S. developed and used nuclear weapons in 1945, the only country to ever do so. The Soviets followed by developing their own bomb in 1949, in self-defense. That’s when Truman established NATO as an anti-Soviet, anti-communist military alliance.)

Moscow feels a mounting resentment over the expansion of a hostile military alliance, formed during the Cold War under conditions no longer pertinent, to surround it. Is this hard to fathom? How would Congress view a gradual expansion of a Russian-led military alliance committed to spending 2% of its members’ GDPs on military spending to embrace Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Panama and maybe Canada next year?

Nuland is a career official, serving under multiple administrations, representing bipartisan imperialism. She was deputy director for “affairs in the former Soviet republics” in the Bill Clinton administration. Her task was to exploit the pain and suffering caused by the implosion of the Soviet Union to assert greater U.S. hegemony over Eurasia, using the traditional mix of covert operations, National Endowment for Democracy meddling, “color revolutions,” aid promises, etc.

During this period Clinton reneged on the U.S. promise to Moscow in 1989 that NATO would not advance “one inch” east after the Soviets accepted German reunification. Instead he drew Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, long members of the dissolved Warsaw Pact, into the anti-Russian military alliance in 1999. It was an extraordinary repudiation of the Bush-Gorbachev agreement, an egregious provocation of a now-friendly country (then headed by the buffoonish Boris Yeltsin), unremarked on by the U.S. press at the time as anything controversial. Since then the expansion of NATO has been treated as no more remarkable than the expansion of UNESCO. Thank Nuland in part for making you think relentless NATO growth is normal, and that it makes sense for North Macedonia and Montenegro to have joined most recently (during the Trump term).

Thank Nuland too, in part, for the “color revolutions” in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The (fake) concept of the popular uprising against (Russian-backed) tyranny, backed by an altruistic America that stands for Freedom and Democracy—that’s Nuland’s baby. She surely has plans for Belarus. And she must be deeply alarmed that the State Department did not try to interfere in the last flare-up of violence in Nagarno-Karabakh leaving Russian diplomacy to resolve the situation. (Just because Russia itself extends into the Caucasus and borders Georgia and Azerbaijan doesn’t mean that it should “interfere” in countries that ought by rights to be ruled by the U.S.A.—due to Exceptionalism and all.)

The extremely reactionary chauvinistic Nuland was deputy foreign advisor to Dick Cheney during the Bush-Cheney administration (2003-2005) and then U.S. ambassador to NATO (2005-2008). Under Obama she was Under Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, handpicked by Hillary Clinton. She is married to noted neocon warmonger-scholar Robert Kagan. Both were deeply complicit in spreading the Big Lies leading to the Iraq War in 2003. Nuland supported Hillary Clinton’s terroristic regime change efforts in Libya and Syria. But her main mission in life is to expand NATO. Joe Biden shares her passion for this project.

Nuland is perhaps best known for her pithy ejaculation: “Fuck the EU!” in a telephone call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2014.

In that year, while Nuland built support for the coup in Kiev (Feb. 18 to 21), she boasted openly that the U.S. had invested $5 billion in supporting “the Ukrainian people’s European aspirations.” (This referred to the support of some Ukrainians for the violent overthrow of the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, on the basis of his alleged pro-Russian policies and his opposition to European Union affiliation under the conditions the EU was then offering.) To state the matter honestly: the U.S. spent $5 billion to install a government in Kiev that would request NATO membership (ostensibly to protect it from always-aggressive, always expanding Russia) and bind it forever to the U.S. military-industrial complex and “Free World.”

Since NATO membership since the end of the Cold War has invariably been followed by EU membership, it was easy for Nuland to pose as the champion of Ukraine’s EU membership versus the evil Russians (supposedly) opposing that membership. Yanukovych himself had negotiated seriously with the EU but rejected a plan for association due to its austerity provisions. Meanwhile Moscow offered an attractive aid package. This in the world of U.S. propaganda was a choice between Europe and Russia, with Yanukovych siding with America’s adversary.

The Maidan coup occurred just a month after Nuland was recorded discussing the upcoming event with U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. Nuland, who had joined Sen. John McCain and other U.S. politicians in offering cookies to the Maidan protestors, discussed with Pyatt who should serve as prime minister after the coup. Pyatt noted that the EU favored Vitali Klitschko, the ex-boxer.

“Fuck the EU!” replied Nuland, who wanted banker and NATO supporter Arseniy Yatsenyuk to lead the new government. She soon got her way.

Nuland worked with Oleh Tyahnybok, head of the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party (and one of the three leaders Nuland ordered Pyatt to keep in touch with) and the Right Sector militia. Both glorify Stephan Bandera, the Ukrainian fascist leader who aided the Nazis in rounding up Ukrainian Jews during the war. Tyahnybok publicly inveighs against the “Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine.”

When Congressman Dana Rohrbacher Nuland in a hearing was asked soon after the coup whether there had been any neo-fascists on the Maidan she refused to answer the question, stating there were “mothers, grandmothers, and veterans…all colors of Ukraine, including ugly colors” on the Maidan. In other words, a diverse anti-Russian crowd. (Notice how she ignored the existence of the 30% of Ukrainians who are ethnic Russians and were a support base for the president targeted for toppling. Just the sort of sensitivity to ethnicity you’d expect from a top U.S. State Department official who’d been comfortable with the slaughter of Iraqis.) Continue reading →

January 26, 2021 Posted by | politics international, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Iran urges Biden to make haste to rejoin the nuclear deal

Iran warns Biden over nuclear deal, Canberra Times Nasser Karimi  26 Jan 21,  Iran has warned the Biden administration it will not have an indefinite time period to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Iran also said it expects Washington to swiftly lift crippling economic sanctions that Donald Trump imposed after pulling America out of the atomic accord in 2018, as part of what he called maximum pressure against Tehran.

He cited Iran’s ballistic missile program among other issues in withdrawing from the accord, and when the Trump administration increased sanctions, Tehran gradually and publicly abandoned the deal’s limits on its nuclear development…..

Biden  has pledged to return to the nuclear deal, but Iran’s cabinet spokesman Ali Rabiei said there has yet to be any communication between the two sides on the subject……..https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7101356/iran-warns-biden-over-nuclear-deal/?cs=14264

January 26, 2021 Posted by | Iran, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A dangerous out-dated ”zombie” U.S. Navy policy on ballistic missile submarines

 one of those zombie policies that keeps going long after it ought to be dead and buried.

Failure to consider new technology may result in a situation where a nuclear first strike is seen as the only way to guarantee “winning” a war, despite the almost incomprehensible levels of destruction involved. As the situation gets complex with China developing its own submarine-based deterrent force, such instability will be dangerous to everyone.

Dismukes argues that to reduce this danger we have to recognize the two factors it stems from: advances in submarine detection technology; and a dubious, outdated U.S. policy on strategic ASW. The new administration should tackle that policy ASAP. 

 

A U.S. Navy policy on ballistic missile submarines may threaten the stability of the strategic nuclear balance.

This seems to be the result of the inertia of a strategy laid down in a different era, one which is becoming increasingly precarious as technology advances.

Previous administrations have failed to spell out the actual policy, preferring to keep it under wraps. Continuing this lack of clarity could prove catastrophic.

Bradford Dismukes is a strategy expert with thirty years’ experience at the Center for Naval Analyses or CNA, having headed a group which supported and developed U.S. Navy strategy. His new blog challenges ideas which have, as he says, “marched zombie-like out of the Cold War,” without being questioned. One such idea is the policy of Strategic Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), which Dismukes says makes nuclear escalation more likely, not less, if threatened in time of crisis or executed in war.

ASW is all about finding, tracking and destroying enemy submarines. Strategic ASW targets the submarines carrying nuclear missiles. During the Cold War, Strategic ASW was about tying up enemy forces and affecting the war on the ground, but now the situation is quite different.

“Today, the Russians would have every reason to see the mission primarily as preparation for a U.S. first strike,” says Dismukes. Continue reading →

January 26, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The aerospace industry – the goal is weaponry and global dominance

January 26, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Bradwell: UK’s ill-conceived nuclear project, with cronyism and vested interests, will damage environment.

Bradwell B Action Network 24th Jan 2021,  Appeal to Prime Minster, Foreign and Energy Ministers, selected MP’s and Essex County Councillors to Reconsider Chinese State Plans for Essex Nuclear Power Plant by local community. Bradwell B Action Network (BAN), a front-line grass roots campaign organisation, sent a strong message to the Prime Minster and other representatives including the government energy and
foreign ministers and their opposites, pointing out a broad range of concerns and urging them to take immediate action to halt CGN’s plans for the Bradwell B nuclear plant.
Time is of the essence if important local heritage is not to be destroyed before the UK government’s Security and Investment Bill comes into being. Local district and county councillors were also copied into the email. The email appeal, which went out late Thursday 21st January is provided below [on original]. Not included in the appeal email but related (and maybe of interest to you in context of this press release) is recent written evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee by China expert Martin Thorley.
This evidence throws a troubling light on how cronyism and big money interests led to the decision to allow CGN to invest in our nuclear energy in the first place, despite security service concerns being raised at the time.  Martin’s written evidence submission makes for interesting reading, exposing as it does both high profile individuals and commercial organisations with serious conflicts of interest in this matter.
As always, it pays to follow the money! Among the concerns raised in the email are the proximity of major infrastructure and strategic assets to the planned plant, which the Chinese
State owned CGN are planning to build and operate. The site, at Bradwell on Sea, Essex is also within 30km range of large urban populations to the North, West and South. Despite UK security services raising concerns over the plans, consecutive Conservative governments have chosen to ignore the threats and allow CGN to pursue this ill-conceived project.

https://bradwellban.com/

January 26, 2021 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

EDF collapses on the stock market amid difficult negotiations in Brussels.

Le Monde 25th Jan 2021, EDF collapses on the stock market amid difficult negotiations in Brussels.
The French group is engaged in a vast reorganization project, contested by the company’s unions. EDF is the largest nuclear operator in Europe and one of the main electricity producers in the world, but a few lines were enough to make its value skid on the stock market on Monday January 25.

In an article published on the BFM Business website on Monday morning, the channel said that negotiations between Paris and Brussels on one of the key points of the French nuclear reform are failing. In a few minutes, the group’s action collapsed and lost up to 18% in the afternoon to close at -15%.

A day of tumbling stopped at the last minute by an intervention from Bercy, who did everything to deny the failure of the negotiations. To understand this dark day for the company, we must return to the very subject of negotiations. For months, France has been pleading with the
European Commission for a reform of the complex system which requires EDF to resell part of its production to its competitors. Set up in 2011, this mechanism called “regulated access to historic nuclear electricity” (Arenh) forces the energy company to resell a quarter of its nuclear
production at a fixed price – this tariff is set at 42 euros per megawatt hour.

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2021/01/25/edf-s-effondre-en-bourse-sur-fond-de-negociations-difficiles-a-bruxelles_6067571_3234.html

January 26, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Nuclear Ban Treaty obligates countries to assist nuclear victims and remediate environments

Policy Approaches Addressing the Ongoing Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: A Commentary, Wiley Online Library Nate Van Duzer Alicia Sanders‐Zakre 20 January 2021  https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12870

Abstract

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) not only bans nuclear weapons, it obligates its states parties to engage in assisting victims and remediating contaminated environments (Articles 6 and 7). As states and civil society consider the best methods to implement these provisions, it is important to take stock and review existing policy approaches addressing the ongoing humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons. This practitioner commentary, written by members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its advocacy for the TPNW, reviews existing programs of victim assistance and environmental remediation. It highlights key considerations for policy makers seeking to improve on the existing mechanisms.

……….. Key takeaways

Dozens of identified sites around the world remain contaminated by nuclear weapons use, production and testing, and there is no one standard for their remediation. Notably, there is no widely accepted standard to determine how clean is clean, or how to monitor radiation levels over time. Speed and thoroughness of cleanup vary widely as well, and the cost to remediate each site ranges from millions of US$ to billions. Even remediated sites are often still somewhat closed to the public. The nuclear‐armed states have historically done the most to direct and carry out the cleanup of sites, even if the test site is not under those states’ jurisdiction. However, nuclear‐armed states do not always respond to local requests for action.   https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12870

January 25, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Uranium mining plunder of Greenland, and the threat to the sub-arctic environment

January 25, 2021 Posted by | ARCTIC, environment | Leave a comment

Protest rally against University of Arkansas’ involvement with nuclear weapons corporation

Group protests UA involvement with nuclear corporation, https://www.nwahomepage.com/news/group-protests-ua-involvement-with-nuclear-corporation/ by: Megan Wilson, Jan 22, 2021, FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) – Northwest Arkansans join peace groups around the world celebrating an international treaty on prohibiting nuclear weapons.

While 86 countries signed the treaty, the U.S. was not one of them.

A group gathered at the University of Arkansas to protest its contract with the nuclear weapons corporation Honeywell International.

Abel Tomlinson is the founder of Arkansas Non-Violence Alliance.

He said the University contradicts its mission statement by building non-nuclear components for the bombs.

“Its mission statement says that they’re ‘determined to build a better world.’ and we belive that building nuclear bombs is the complete opposite of that. Nobody should be having them. They’re endangering everyone, it’s unacceptable,” Tomlinson said.

The University of Arkansas was aware of today’s protest, but did not wish to comment.

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Education, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Arab League hails passing of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Arab League hails passing of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Business Standard, 24 Jan 21, The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted in July 2017 and was opened for signature in September 2017

The Arab League has welcomed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty’s coming into force and urged for intensifying international efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

In a statement on Friday, AL Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit descibed the move as an important step towards the disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world, reports Xinhua news agency.

Aboul-Gheit stressed that this development would help commence a new phase that would be a motivation for intensifying international efforts to achieve the final and irreversible disposal of nuclear weapons worldwide.

He explained that the Arab countries were supportive of international efforts during the negotiation process for this treaty, “despite Israel’s boycott of this path as an extension of its anti-nuclear disarmament policies and its stances opposing international efforts aimed at getting rid of nuclear weapons, especially in the Middle East”.

“It is time to intensify efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, which is fully consistent with the objectives of this treaty,” the AL chief said… https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/arab-league-hails-passing-of-treaty-on-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-121012300306_1.html

January 25, 2021 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Local governments growing more reliant on nuclear taxes

Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama nuclear power plant in Mihama, Fukui Prefecture

January 20, 2021

Local governments are increasingly depending on tax revenues from the nuclear plants they host, a relationship that has deepened over the 10 years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, an analysis by The Asahi Shimbun shows.

That follows the introduction of new tax regimes that ensure a steady flow of nuclear-related tax yields–even when reactors are idle or in the process of being decommissioned. They were brought about largely through increasing existing taxes on nuclear fuels and levying new taxes on spent nuclear fuels kept at the plants.

In fiscal 2011, right after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, jurisdictions home to nuclear plants and related facilities yielded some 20.1 billion yen ($193.7 million) in taxes. The bulk of that came from taxes on nuclear fuel; many local governments only began collecting spent fuel taxes years after the accident.

But then the figure more than doubled to an estimated 46.7 billion yen in fiscal 2020, ending in March, despite the nuclear plants being offline.

The Asahi Shimbun studied nuclear-related tax revenues received by host municipalities and the 13 prefectures where those municipalities are located.

Local governments can impose taxes on nuclear fuel and spent nuclear fuel at plants and related facilities through approving ordinances to do so.

Of all the jurisdictions examined, Aomori Prefecture, where nuclear fuel cycle facilities are concentrated, and Fukui Prefecture, which hosts 15 reactors, the most in Japan, account for more than 60 percent earned through those taxes.

The amount for fiscal 2020 is larger than the 40.3 billion yen brought in during fiscal 2010, when the plants were operating.

Nuclear fuel taxes were originally based on the value of reactor fuel.
But all the nuclear plants went offline following the Fukushima disaster in March 2011.

As a result, six prefectures housing nuclear plants reported no tax revenues from nuclear fuel taxes in fiscal 2011.

Desperate to secure income sources even during plant closures, Fukui Prefecture introduced in autumn 2011 a new fuel-tax system based on reactor output capacity–meaning the reactors can be taxed even when shut down.

Other jurisdictions home to nuclear plants followed suit.

In 2014, Ehime Prefecture devised a tax on output capacity that can still be applied when the reactor is undergoing decommissioning. Soon after, Saga Prefecture introduced a similar system.

Nuclear plant operators must pay taxes on spent nuclear fuel to the local government as well as to the prefectural government if ordinances requiring the payment were enacted at both levels. 

Ehime and Saga prefectures began taxing spent nuclear fuel in 2019.

Ikata, home to the Ikata nuclear plant in Ehime Prefecture, introduced a tax on spent nuclear fuels in fiscal 2018, after Genakai, which hosts the Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Prefecture, did the same in fiscal 2017.

Mutsu, located in Aomori Prefecture, is ready to capitalize on playing host to an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, which is expected to go into operation in fiscal 2021.

The Mutsu city government established new rules in March last year so it can levy tax on spent nuclear fuels. The tax is projected to bring 9.3 billion yen to the city over five years.

Fukui Prefecture introduced a tax regime for nuclear fuels in 1976, ahead of any other local governments with nuclear facilities in the country.

Since then, tax revenues from nuclear fuels and spent fuels brought in by all jurisdictions totaled more than 1 trillion yen through fiscal 2020. And the figure is projected to grow in the years to come.

The driving force behind these local governments expanding their nuclear taxes in new and creative ways is a decline in tax revenues from fixed assets on nuclear facilities, and fewer grants and subsidies coming in from the national coffers to promote nuclear energy.

Many host communities have underlined the need to secure income from hosting nuclear plants, operating or not, to finance new roads and other infrastructure that would be used to evacuate residents in the event of a serious accident.

But a significant number of local governments used tax revenues derived from nuclear plants to cover upkeep of hot spring resorts and other seemingly unrelated facilities, the study shows.

Regional utilities added the amount of taxes on nuclear fuels and spent nuclear fuels they will pay into the electricity rates that consumers paid until 2016, when the retail electricity market became fully liberalized.

Even after the market liberalization, they can do the same to come up with funds to pay nuclear fuel and spent nuclear fuel taxes.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14121969?fbclid=IwAR3xTUC90yKJXnA3wd3RmnSW2dxkEHf_6Efrep7bBSXxUDcZd7iZ_u821yk

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment

The nuclear weapons ban treaty is groundbreaking, even if the nuclear powers haven’t signed

January 23, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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