Nuclear waste to be buried 650ft under the English countryside.
Swathes of nuclear waste are set to be buried in the English countryside
after ministers agreed to dig a 650ft pit starting this decade. The
facility, which has yet to be allocated a site, will hold some of the 5m
tonnes of waste that was generated by nuclear power stations over the past
seven decades.
This will ease pressure on the 17 nuclear waste disposal
plants currently in operation around the country, which consist of giant
sheds and cooling ponds. The largest facility is the Sellafield site in
Cumbria.
Plans for the 650ft pit will see it house so-called
intermediate-level waste, possibly in a mine on a pre-existing nuclear site
to minimise planning objections. The facility will be separate from the
much deeper geological disposal site that will hold the UK’s most
dangerous waste, such as plutonium, which is unlikely to be built until
after 2050.
The proposals come amid fears Britain’s stockpile of nuclear
waste will grow in the coming decades with nowhere to put it. Concerns are
particularly acute as the Government is currently planning to build at
least three new nuclear power stations. This will put the country at odds
with the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was accumulating nuclear waste
so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.
Ministers want to brand nuclear energy as a “green” and
“sustainable” fuel. However, experts on the Government’s own advisory
body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, have said such terms
are misleading if there is no safe place to store radioactive waste.
A government spokesman said: “In addition to long-term plans to dispose of
the most hazardous radioactive waste in a geological disposal facility
hundreds of metres underground, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will
explore a facility closer to the surface for less hazardous radioactive
waste. “While a geological disposal facility is not expected to be ready
until the 2050s, a shallower disposal facility – which is up to 200m
below ground – could be available within 10 years.”
Telegraph 16th May 2024
The US a Direct Partner in the Israeli War
By Ramzy Baroud, https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/05/us-direct-partner-israeli-war/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=us-direct-partner-israeli-war
SEATTLE, Washington, May 16 2024 (IPS) – A major mistake we often commit in our analysis of the US political discourse on the Gaza war is that we assume that the US and Israel behave as if they are two political entities with separate agendas and sets of priorities.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From the start of the war, top US officials including President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken saw themselves as the guardians of Israeli interests. Blinken attended Israel’s first War Council meeting as if an Israel official, and Biden carried on reiterating that he is a Zionist.
Despite purported difference on various matters between Tel Aviv and Washington, for example, the nature and size of Israel’s military operation in Rafah, their interests remain identical: defeating Palestinians, restoring Israeli so-called deterrence, returning to the status quo in the region, and reigning in Israel’s enemies, including Iran, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansarullah.
The US is a direct partner in the Israeli war: defeating any UN attempt at calling for immediate, unconditional, and binding ceasefire, arming Israel with billions of dollars of the deadliest weapons and fighting, directly – as in the case of Yemen – or indirectly against Israel’s regional enemies who are showing solidarity with the Palestinians.
That context in mind, the dangerous comments by Senator Graham are consistent with the Biden’s administration actions regarding Gaza.
Sure, Israel is yet to drop a nuclear bomb, but it has dropped enough US bombs over the besieged Strip to create the impact of nuclear weapons. 75 percent of Gaza has been destroyed, and about 5 percent of the population have been killed or wounded. This was done by Biden and his supposedly softer approach, if compared to Graham, to the war.
This is indeed madness, but, in a sense, it also reflects a degree of desperation.
Israel is losing in Gaza. Not ‘losing’ as in failing to achieve its objectives, but losing militarily against Palestinian groups who are employing successful guerrilla warfare tactics.
After over 7 months of war, the fighting is back exactly where it started; and while Palestinians are perfecting their resistance craft, Israel is losing more soldiers at a much higher rate.
Comments about nuclear bombing Gaza comes within this context, that of Israel’s failure, if not desperation. US and Israeli officials know well that the war has been lost, or, at best, cannot be won.
But also losing the war means a fundamental shift in the power paradigm in the Middle East, the kind of change that neither Netanyahu, Graham nor their ilk can afford.
On November 5, Israel’s minister of heritage also spoke about the possibility of nuking Gaza, using Israeli mainstream media to communicate his ideas. Graham is now saying the same thing, using US mainstream media as an outlet to convey the same notion.
There is much to learn here about the nature of the relationship between both countries, but also this language teaches us that top politicians in Tel Aviv and Washington realize that the limits of traditional warfare have been reached yet failed to alter the reality on the ground in any way, aside from massacring tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). The link to his website follows: www.ramzybaroud.net
IPS UN Bureaur
Promising the Impossible: Blinken’s Out of Tune Performance in Kyiv
On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage…….. This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.
The gong of deceit and delusion must.. go to Blinken.
May 18, 2024, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/promising-the-impossible-blinkens-out-of-tune-performance-in-kyiv/
Things are looking dire for the Ukrainian war effort. Promises of victory are becoming even hollower than they were last summer, when US President Joe Biden could state with breathtaking obliviousness that Russia had “already lost the war.” The worst offender in this regard remains the United States, which has been the most vocal proponent of fanciful victory over Russia, a message which reads increasingly as one of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
Such a victory is nigh fantasy, almost impossible to envisage. For one thing, domestic considerations about continued support for Kyiv have played a stalling part. In the US Congress, a large military aid package was stalled for six months. Among some Republicans, in particular, Ukraine was not a freedom loving despoiled figure needing props and crutches. “From our perspective,” opines Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, “Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve. It is not our place to defend them in a struggle with their longtime adversary, Russia.” The assessment, in this regard, was a matter of some clarity for Paul. “There is no national security interest for the United States.”
Despite this, the Washington foreign policy and military elite continue to make siren calls of seduction in Kyiv’s direction. On April 23, the Senate finally approved a $US95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with the lion’s share – some US$61 billion – intended for Ukraine’s war effort.
On April 24, a press release from US Secretary State Antony Blinken announced a further US$1 billion package packed with “urgently needed capabilities including air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, precision aerial munitions, anti-armor weapons, and small arms, equipment, and spare parts to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people.”
On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage. “Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success. And to set out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their vision for the near future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy – fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community – and fully in control of its own destiny.” This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made the prevention of that vision an article of faith. While Russian forces, in men and material, have suffered horrendous losses, the attritive nature of the conflict is starting to tell. While Blinken was gulling his audience, the military realities show significant Russian advances, including a threatening push towards Kharkiv, reversing Ukrainian gains made in 2022.
There are also wounding advances being made in other areas of the conflict. US and NATO artillery and drones supplied to Ukraine’s military forces have been countered by Russian electronic warfare methods. GPS receivers, for instance, have been sufficiently deceived to misdirect missiles shot from HIMARS launchers. In a number of cases, the Russian forces have also identified and destroyed the launchers.
Russian airpower has been brought to bear on critical infrastructure. Radar defying glide bombs have been used with considerable effect. On the production and deployment front, Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, chief of EW and cyber warfare at Ukraine’s general staff, lamented in February that Russia’s use of drones was also “becoming a huge threat”. Depleted stocks of weaponry are being replenished, and more soldiers are being called to the front.
Despite concerns, one need not scour far to find pundits who insist that such advances and gains can be neutralised. Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace admits to current Russian “material advantage” and holding “the strategic initiative,” though goes on to speculate that this “may not prove decisive.”
The gong of deceit and delusion must, however, go to Blinken. Americans, he claimed, understood “that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.” Were Putin to win – and here, that old nag of appeasement makes an undesirable appearance – “he won’t stop with Ukraine; he’ll keep going. For when in history has an autocrat been satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country?”
Towards that end, “we do have a plan,” he coyly insisted. This entailed ensuring Ukraine had “the military that it needs to succeed on the battlefield.” Biden was encouraged by Ukrainian mobilisation efforts, skipping around the logistical delays that had marred it. Washington’s “joint task” was to “secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic advantage”, enabling it to win the current battles and “defend against future attacks. As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win – and we’re committed to helping you do it.”
Even by the standards of US Secretaries of States, Blinken’s conduct in Kyiv proved brazen and shameless. A perfect illustration of this came with his musical effort alongside local band, 19.99, involving a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Local indignation was quick to follow. “Six months of waiting for the decision of the American Congress” had, fumed Bohdan Yaremenko, legislator and former diplomat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, “taken the lives of very, very many defenders of the free world.” What the US was performing “for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson.”
As for the performance itself, the crowd at Barman Dictat witnessed yet another misreading – naturally by a US politician – of an anthem intended to excoriate American failings, from homelessness to “a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.” Appropriately, the guitar, much like the performer, was out of tune.
UK government about to overrule Scotland and impose nuclear stations?
Don’t get above your nuclear power station, Scotland
17th May, By Wee Ginger Dug, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24325966.dont-get-nuclear-power-station-scotland/—
Scotland, know your place. Our exalted Viceroy General Alister Jack – He Who Must Be Obeyed – has said that the UK Government is considering plans to build a nuclear reactor in Scotland, despite fierce opposition from the Scottish Government and even though planning is a devolved matter.
Jack told a committee in the Lords that he expected a “Unionist regime” to gain power in Holyrood after 2026 and said that he has asked ministers at the Department for Energy and Net Zero to plan for a nuclear reactor to be built in Scotland as part of a UK-wide programme.
Although planning is devolved to Holyrood, energy policy is reserved to Westminster. This means that even though Westminster is committed to an expansion of nuclear energy generation, the Scottish Government has a de facto means of blocking the development of nuclear energy in Scotland as it can refuse planning permission for new nuclear power plants.
Jack’s remarks suggest that the UK Government is preparing to overrule Holyrood and impose new nuclear power plants on Scotland against the will of Scotland’s elected representatives.
The Scottish Government is strongly opposed to new nuclear power plants in Scotland, favouring instead a greater development of Scotland’s vast renewable energy potential which is already capable of supplying more energy than Scotland requires for domestic consumption.
Any new nuclear power stations which the UK Government builds in Scotland will not be built because Scotland needs them, they will be built in order to meet the energy needs of the rest of the UK, but these needs could also be met by greater investment in and development of Scotland’s renewable energy potential.
Moreover, given the years long timescale that is required from the commissioning of a new nuclear power plant, any new nuclear reactor that the UK commissions in Scotland would not be on stream until 2033 at the very earliest. New renewable projects can be brought in stream and contributing power to the grid much quicker.
Hinkley Point C, the UK’s first nuclear plant in more than two decades, was estimated to cost between £25bn and £26bn in 2015. The first reactor will not be in use until at least 2029, two years later than the most recent 2027 goal, and could take until 2031 if electromechanical work runs into problems.
The projected cost is now between £31bn and £35bn in 2015 figures and up to £46bn in today’s money.
This dwarfs the cost of a new wind farm. The British Government has allocated just £800m for investment in offshore wind farms. The massive onshore Whitelee wind farm south of Glasgow cost £1.5bn to construct. It has a total capacity of 539 megawatts and can power over 350,000 homes annually.
Jack’s behaviour is ‘menacing’
Jack has been condemned by John Swinney for keeping his plans for new nuclear plants in Scotland a secret from the Scottish Government.
The First Minister was asked about Jack’s comments by SNP MSP Rona Mackay at FMQs. She said: “This week, the Secretary of State for Scotland confirmed that planning is underway to develop new nuclear reactors in Scotland despite opposition …”
She was interrupted by the boors on the Tory benches cheering at the prospect of the democratically elected government of Scotland being overruled.
After the Presiding Officer hushed the adolescents, she went on: “Despite opposition from the democratically elected Scottish Government. Scotland doesn’t need expensive nuclear power. We already have abundant natural energy resources. Can the First Minister advise if the UK Government has approached Scottish ministers about these apparent plans?”
The First Minister replied: said: “I’m often lectured in this parliament about the importance of good intergovernmental relations. The Secretary of State for Scotland has made no mention of this proposal to the Scottish Government.
“This is utterly and completely incompatible with good intergovernmental working and is illustrative of the damaging behaviour, the menacing behaviour, of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Government will not support new nuclear power stations in Scotland.”
He added that “supporting the announcements of formidable investments in the renewable energy potential of Scotland” was “the policy agenda of this government, and we have nothing to do with nuclear power”.
But Jack says – don’t get above your nuclear power station, Scotland.
We’re all right Jack: No need for nuclear in Scotland
Contrary to the call of an out-of-touch, and increasingly out-of-time, Conservative Secretary of State that nuclear must be included in Scotland’s energy mix, the Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities remain convinced that renewables represent the only way forward to achieve a sustainable, Net Zero future for the nation.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, appearing before the House of Lords Constitution Committee on Wednesday, confirmed that he has approached fellow Scot and Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie MP to plan for a new so-called Small Modular Reactor north of the border.
The sole operational nuclear plant in Scotland is at Torness, but this will cease generating before the end of the decade. Other reactors at Chapelcross, Dounreay, and Hunterston are in the process of being decommissioned.
Such a plan would put the UK Government at odds with that of Scotland, as the SNP-led Administration has affirmed to the NFLAs that it remains implacably opposed to the construction of any new nuclear fission plants in Scotland. Whilst energy policy is determined by Whitehall, the SNP Government can veto any development as planning authority has been devolved. The Minister is then clearly banking on regime change in 2026 at Edinburgh as both the Conservative and Labour Parties have both expressed support for new nuclear in Scotland.
To the NFLAs, an investment in any nuclear would not only be folly, but a lamentable diversion of effort from achieving the credible goal of supplying 100% of Scotland’s electricity from renewables.
Nuclear power plants are enormously expensive to build and notorious for their cost and delivery overruns. The sole UK gigawatt plant under construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset is now expected to cost up to £47 billion at current prices, approaching triple its original estimate, whilst wildly optimistic claims by operator EDF Energy that the plant would be generating power ‘to cook British turkeys by Christmas 2017’ have been dampened by a series of damaging delays, with the first reactor expected now to become operational in 2031.
Secretary of State Alister Jack appears to be focused on bringing one of the so-called Small Modular Reactors (or SMRs) to Scotland. There has been previous talk of an SMR being co-located with the Grangemouth chemical plant, a prospect nipped in the bud by an NFLA intercession to the Scottish Minister. However, none of the competing SMR designs has yet received the required approvals from the nuclear regulator to even be deployed in the UK; none have been built; no sites have yet been permissioned for their deployment; the facilities to fabricate the parts have yet to be constructed; the necessary finance has yet to be put in place; and the procedures for their onsite assembly have yet to be perfected. SMRs are estimated to cost £3 billion each, but cost overruns are notorious in the nuclear industry, and the earliest any approved and financed SMR would come onstream would be in the early 2030’s.
Nuclear plants are also incredibly expensive to decommission, and the resultant radioactive waste must be managed at vast expense for millennia. There has been research published that suggests that SMRs will produce more radioactive waste per unit of electricity produced that gigawatt reactors.
Instead of wasting cash and time on nuclear, the Scottish NFLAs believe the money and effort would first be far better spent insulating all domestic properties and public buildings to the highest standard to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and minimise or eliminate fuel poverty, as well as investing in more renewable energy generating capacity and battery storage capacity.
Not only does Scotland possess more than sufficient natural resources, in the forms of wind, wave, hydro and geothermal energy to meet its own needs, but it can become a powerhouse where the surplus renewable energy can be exported to its neighbour England and to states in Europe, via interconnectors, generating income for the nation.
To realise this, the Scottish NFLAs would like to see the Scottish Government recommit to establishing a state-owned renewable energy company to invest in this potential and to generate an income for the nation, mirroring the commendable action of the Welsh Government. Maximum pressure needs to be applied to the UK Government to boost the capacity of the National Grid to take Scottish renewable energy from wind turbines to England. At present, constraints mean that the network is often incapable of accepting and transmitting the vast amounts of electricity generated by Scottish wind turbines, leading to them being shut off and generators being awarded huge compensation at taxpayers’ expense for lost revenue.
The NFLAs have also called on the UK Government to back the development of stored pumped hydro projects in Scotland. A report from BiGGAR Economics, commissioned by Scottish Renewables, identified six ‘shovel-ready’ pumped-hydro projects in Scotland which could deliver £5.8 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) and almost 15,000 jobs by 2035.
Scotland has some world leading renewable energy companies, such as the O2 Orbital wave power project based in the Orkney Islands and the Gravitricity gravity storage project born in Edinburgh.
The Scottish NFLAs believe that if the Secretary of State for Scotland genuinely wants to see a sustainable, Net Zero future for Scotland that he should call for the British Government to get behind the Scottish Government in backing this strategy, instead of maintaining his mad delusion for nuclear.
Japan starts 6th discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater
CGTN, 17-May-2024
Japan on Friday started the sixth round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean.
Despite opposition among local fishermen, residents as well as backlash from the international community, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant’s operator, started releasing the radioactive wastewater in the morning, the second round in fiscal 2024.
The same as the previous rounds, about 7,800 tonnes of wastewater are being discharged from about a kilometer off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture via an underwater tunnel until June 4.
According to the TEPCO, the concentrations of all radioactive substances other than tritium in the water stored in the tank scheduled for release were below the national release standards, while the concentration of tritium that cannot be removed will be diluted with seawater.
The Chinese Embassy in Japan expressed firm opposition to this unilateral move of ocean discharge. While safety and reliability have yet to be ensured, Japan’s dumping of nuclear-contaminated water has repeatedly raised risks to neighboring countries and marine ecology, a spokesperson for the embassy said.
The spokesperson called on the Japanese side to attach great importance to the concerns at home and abroad and to fully cooperate in setting up an independent international monitoring arrangement that remains effective in the long haul and has the substantive participation of stakeholders.
………………………….. In fiscal 2024, the TEPCO plans to discharge a total of 54,600 tonnes of contaminated water in seven rounds, which contains approximately 14 trillion becquerels of tritium. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-05-17/news-1tFIzr3u9Da/p.html
Scotland’s First Minister Swinney condemns Jack’s menacing idea for nuclear plant in Scotland
The First Minister was clear that the Scottish Government will not back the construction of such a facility north of the border.
John Swinney has insisted the Scottish Government will have “nothing to do” with a suggested new nuclear power station – as he hit out at the “menacing” behaviour of the Scottish Secretary.
The First Minister reacted angrily after Alister Jack revealed he has instructed UK ministers to start planning work for a nuclear plant in Scotland.
It comes despite the longstanding opposition from the SNP to the construction of such facilities north of the border.
Jack told a Lords committee on Wednesday he believes there will be a “unionist regime again in Holyrood” in 2026, and with the SNP out of power it will be possible to “move forward” with the construction plan.
Speaking about the prospect of a small nuclear reactor, Jack said he has asked the UK energy minister to “plan for one in Scotland”.
But Swinney told MSPs on Thursday that Jack has “made no mention of this proposal to the Scottish Government” – which has powers over planning north of the border.
The First Minister added: “This is utterly and completely incompatible with good intergovernmental working and is illustrative of the damaging behaviour, the menacing behaviour, of the Secretary of State for Scotland.”
He was asked about Jack’s comments by SNP backbencher Rona Mackay, who noted the UK minister’s suggestion came despite “opposition from the democratically-elected Scottish Government” to new nuclear power.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Swinney was clear: “The Scottish Government will not support new nuclear power stations in Scotland.”
He said his Government instead supports investment in “the renewable energy potential in Scotland”, adding “massive investments” in this sector could “bring jobs and opportunities to the Highlands and islands and deliver green, clean energy for the people of Scotland”.
Swinney said: “That’s the policy agenda of this Government and we will have nothing to do with nuclear power.”
Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome Traws abandonment from New Nuclear plans
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/welsh-nflas-welcome-traws-abandonment-from-new-nuclear-plans/
The Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum hope that the decision made by Great British Nuclear to temporarily postpone plans for new nuclear at Trawsfynydd at this time might become a permanent one.
In March, responding to the UK Government consultation on the siting of new nuclear plants after 2025, the Welsh NFLAs said that the Trawsfynydd site was wholly inappropriate for redevelopment as it lies within the beautiful Eryri National Park. Ministers have previously agreed that any Geological Disposal Facility will not be in the Lake District National Park, and the NFLAs have called for this principal to be applied as a blanket ban on new nuclear plants in National Parks, at World Heritage Sites and in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Great British Nuclear has just announced that the site ‘may not be able to deploy quite as quickly as some other sites’, with reports that site was too small and lacked sufficient cooling water to support the deployment of so-called Small Modular Reactors for the foreseeable future.
Trawsfynydd had an operating Magnox nuclear reactor on site until 1991. It was unique in being inland and cooled by the water of an artificial lake, but it is also a brutalist eyesore standing out stark and ugly against the idyllic backdrop of mountains and forest. The plant is now being dismantled by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a British taxpayer funded body responsible for decommissioning redundant nuclear plant and for managing Britain’s radioactive waste inventory.
To the NFLAs, locating a new nuclear power plant in any National Park would be entirely incompatible with the Sandford Principal. From 1971 until 1974, Lord Sandford chaired a committee which examined the future management of National Parks in England and Wales:
‘National Park Authorities can do much to reconcile public enjoyment with the preservation of natural beauty by good planning and management and the main emphasis must continue to be on this approach wherever possible. But even so, there will be situations where the two purposes are irreconcilable… Where this happens, priority must be given to the conservation of natural beauty’.
We want to see the old Trawsfynydd plant decommissioned, and the site cleared and landscaped, as soon as practicable. n our view, any proposed new medical isotope facility would be better located at Bangor University, which has an established academic nuclear faculty and has much better transport links. The activities of the Welsh taxpayer funded Cwmni Egino, which was established to pursue new nuclear at the site, are entirely at variance with the stated ambition of the Welsh Government to source the nation’s domestically consumed electricity from truly ‘green’ sources. The body should be abolished, and its resources used to support the development of Welsh renewable energy projects.
U.S. rejects China’s proposal to ban first use of nuclear weapons.
People’s World May 16, 2024 BY JOHN WOJCIK, MARK GRUENBERG AND BEN CHACKO
The U.S. has dismissed Chinese calls for a no-first-use treaty between nuclear weapons states, saying it has questions about China’s “sincerity.”
The outright dismissal of China’s proposal followed a major speech in which Biden announced radical tariffs of up to 100 percent, on steel imports from China. That speech follows months of U.S. military buildup in the waters off the coast of China, including the placement of additional nuclear submarines around the Korean peninsula, all in the name of “protecting” Taiwan, which is, of course, a part of China itself.
Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins, the country’s top arms control official, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last night that the U.S. worried China had increased its number of nuclear warheads to over 500, might have 1,000 by 2030, and that this was proof that the country was not “sincere” about its proposal to ban first use of the apocalypse-engendering weapons.
The Biden administration’s claim that China had increased the number of its warheads to 500 is just that – an unverified claim. In addition, the U.S. has 12 times that number with an admitted 3,700 of such warheads.
The U.S. says China refuses to engage in nuclear disarmament talks with it. China actually has engaged in talks, first by discussing with the U.S. the need for the U.S. to reduce its outrageously large number of missiles, as compared to China’s number, to show it is serious about fairness. And now it has added to those talks with its proposal to ban the first use of the weapons.
China’s position is that it has an arsenal that is tiny in comparison with that of the United States and that the size of the arsenals has to be part of serious talks. China has also gotten India to sign a no-first-use deal between those two countries. While all these initiatives by China were underway the U.S. was busy unilaterally canceling nuclear arms deals between the U.S. and Russia and continuing to push expansion of NATO not just up to the borders of Russia but into the Pacific regions near China.
China also stores its warheads and delivery systems separately, to avoid the risk of launches by accident or misunderstanding, as almost happened in 1983, when Soviet lieutenant Stanislav Petrov recognized reports of incoming U.S. missiles as a system malfunction and prevented a retaliatory strike which could have begun World War III.
The new, highest-ever U.S. tariffs on Chinese products were announced by President Biden shortly before the Chinese peace initiatives were rejected by his administration. The tariffs would apply to government-subsidized Chinese steel, aluminum, solar cells, electric vehicles—rising to 100% tariffs this year—and their batteries, semiconductors, and some raw materials.
The Biden tariffs are much higher than the Trump tariffs that Biden opposed when Trump was president……………………………… more https://peoplesworld.org/article/u-s-rejects-chinas-proposal-to-ban-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons/—
The Arsenal of Genocide: the U.S. Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza
the Biden administration has given itself a green light to keep sending weapons and Israel a flashing one to keep committing war crimes with them.
During the Second World War, the United States proudly called itself the “Arsenal of Democracy,” as its munitions factories and shipyards produced an endless supply of weapons to fight the genocidal government of Germany. Today, the United States is instead, shamefully, the Arsenal of Genocide, providing 70% of the imported weapons Israel is using to obliterate Gaza and massacre its people.
By Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies May 14, 2024, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-arsenal-of-genocide-the-u-s-weapons-that-are-destroying-gaza/—
On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had “paused” a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah.
The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted “Hamas loves Biden”), as well as Republicans, staunch anti-Palestinian Democrats and pro-Israel donors. Republicans immediately prepared a bill entitled the Israel Security Assistance Support Act to prohibit the administration from withholding military aid to Israel.
Many people have been asking the U.S. to halt weapons to Israel for seven months, and of course Biden’s move comes too late for 35,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza, mainly by American weapons.
Lest one think the administration is truly changing its position, two days after announcing the pause, the State Department released a convoluted report saying that, although it is reasonable to “assess” that U.S. weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, and although Israel has indeed delayed or had a negative effect on the delivery of aid to Gaza (which is illegal under U.S. law), Israel’s assurances regarding humanitarian aid and compliance with international humanitarian law are “credible and reliable.”
By this absurd conclusion, the Biden administration has given itself a green light to keep sending weapons and Israel a flashing one to keep committing war crimes with them.
In any event, as Colonel Joe Bicino, a retired U.S. artillery officer, told the BBC, Israel can “level” Rafah with the weapons it already has. The paused shipment is “somewhat inconsequential,” Bicino said, “a little bit of a political play for people in the United States who are… concerned about this.” A U.S. official confirmed to the Washington Post that Israel has enough weapons already supplied by the U.S. and other allies to go ahead with the Rafah operation if it chooses to ignore U.S. qualms.
The paused shipment really has to be seen in the context of the arsenal with which the U.S. has equipped its Middle Eastern proxy over many decades.
A Deluge of American Bombs
During the Second World War, the United States proudly called itself the “Arsenal of Democracy,” as its munitions factories and shipyards produced an endless supply of weapons to fight the genocidal government of Germany. Today, the United States is instead, shamefully, the Arsenal of Genocide, providing 70% of the imported weapons Israel is using to obliterate Gaza and massacre its people.
As Israel assaults Rafah, home to 1.4 million displaced people, including at least 600,000 children, most of the warplanes dropping bombs on them are F-16s, originally designed and manufactured by General Dynamics, but now produced by Lockheed Martin in Greenville, South Carolina. Israel’s 224 F-16s have long been its weapon of choice for bombing militants and civilians in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Israel also has 86 Boeing F-15s, which can drop heavier bombs, and 39 of the latest, most wastefully expensive fighter-bombers ever, Lockheed Martin’s nuclear-capable F-35s, with another 36 on order. The F-35 is built in Fort Worth, Texas, but components are manufactured all over the U.S. and in allied countries, including Israel. Israel was the first country to attack other countries with F-35s, in violation of U.S. arms export control laws, reportedly using them to bomb Syria, Egypt and Sudan.
As these fleets of U.S.-made warplanes began bombing Gaza in October 2023, their fifth major assault since 2008, the U.S. began rushing in new weapons. By December 1, 2023, it had delivered 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.
The U.S. supplies Israel with all sizes and types of bombs, including 285-pound GBU-39 small diameter glide bombs, 500-pound Mk 82s, 2,000-pound Mk 84s and BLU-109 “bunker busters,” and even massive 5,000-pound GBU-28 bunker-busters, which Israel reportedly used in Gaza in 2009.
General Dynamics is the largest U.S. bomb manufacturer, making all these models of bombs. Most of them can be used as “precision” guided bombs by attaching Raytheon and Lockheed Martin’s Paveway laser guidance system or Boeing’s JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) GPS-based targeting system.
Little more than half of the bombs Israel has dropped on Gaza have been “precision” ones, because, as targeting officers explained to +972 magazine, their Lavender AI system generates thousands of targets who are just suspected rank-and-file militants, not senior commanders. Israel does not consider it worth “wasting” expensive precision munitions to kill these people, so it uses only “dumb” bombs to kill them in their homes—obliterating their families and neighbors in the process.
In order to threaten and bomb its more distant neighbors, such as Iran, Israel depends on its seven Lockheed Martin KC-130H and seven Boeing 707 in-air refueling tankers, with four new, state-of-the-art Boeing KC46A tankers to be delivered in late 2025 for over $220 million each.
Ground force weapons
Another weapon of choice for killing Palestinians are Israel’s 48 Boeing Apache AH64 attack helicopters, armed with Lockheed Martin’s infamous Hellfire missiles, General Dynamics’ Hydra 70 rockets and Northrop Grumman’s 30 mm machine guns. Israel also used its Apaches to kill and incinerate a still unknown number of Israelis on October 7, 2023—a tragic day that Israel and the U.S. continue to exploit as a false pretext for their own violations of international humanitarian law and of the Genocide Convention.
Israel’s main artillery weapons are its 600 Paladin M109A5 155 mm self-propelled howitzers, which are manufactured by BAE Systems in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. To the layman, a self-propelled howitzer looks like a tank, but it has a bigger, 155 mm gun to fire at longer range.
Israel assembles its 155 mm artillery shells from U.S.-made components. One of the first two U.S. arms shipments that the administration notified Congress about after October 7 was to resupply Israel with artillery shell components valued at $147.5 million.
Israel also has 48 M270 multiple rocket launchers. They are a tracked version of the HIMARS rocket launchers the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, and they fire the same rockets, made by Lockheed Martin. U.S. Marines used the same rockets in coordination with U.S. airstrikes to devastate Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, in 2017. M270 launchers are no longer in production, but BEA Systems still has the facilities to produce them.
Israel makes its own Merkava tanks, which fire U.S.-made tank shells, and the State Department announced on December 9, 2023, that it had notified Congress of an “emergency” shipment of 14,000 120 mm tank shells worth $106 million to Israel.
U.S. shipments of artillery and tank shells, and dozens of smaller shipments that it did not report to Congress (because each shipment was carefully calibrated to fall below the statutory reporting limit of $100 million), were paid for out of the $3.8 billion in military aid that the United States gives Israel each year.
In April, Congress passed a new war-funding bill that includes about $14 billion for additional weapons. Israel could afford to pay for these weapons itself, but then it could shop around for them, which might erode the U.S. monopoly on supplying so much of its war machine. That lucrative monopoly for U.S. merchants of death is clearly more important to Members of Congress than fully funding Head Start or other domestic anti-poverty programs, which they routinely underfund to pay for weapons and wars.
The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted “Hamas loves Biden”), as well as Republicans, staunch anti-Palestinian Democrats and pro-Israel donors. Republicans immediately prepared a bill entitled the Israel Security Assistance Support Act to prohibit the administration from withholding military aid to Israel.
Israel has 500 FMC-built M113 armored personnel carriers and over 2,000 Humvees, manufactured by AM General in Mishawaka, Indiana. Its ground forces are armed with several different types of U.S. grenade launchers, Browning machine-guns, AR-15 assault rifles, and SR-25 and M24 SWS sniper rifles, all made in the USA, as is the ammunition for them.
For many years, Israel’s three Sa’ar 5 corvettes were its largest warships, about the size of frigates. They were built in the 1990s by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, but Israel has recently taken delivery of four larger, more heavily-armed, German-built Sa’ar 6 corvettes, with 76 mm main guns and new surface-to-surface missiles.
Gaza Encampments Take On the Merchants of Death
The United States has a long and horrific record of providing weapons to repressive regimes that use them to kill their own people or attack their neighbors. Martin Luther King called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and that has not changed since he said it in 1967, a year to the day before his assassination.
Many of the huge U.S. factories that produce all these weapons are the largest employers in their regions or even their states. As President Eisenhower warned the public in his farewell address in 1960, “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” has led to “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
So, in addition to demanding a ceasefire, an end to U.S. military aid and weapons sales to Israel, and a restoration of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the students occupying college campuses across our country are right to call on their institutions to divest from these merchants of death, as well as from Israeli companies.
The corporate media has adopted the line that divestment would be too complicated and costly for the universities to do. But when students set up an encampment at Trinity College in Dublin, in Ireland, and called on it to divest from Israeli companies, the college quickly agreed to their demands. Problem solved, without police violence or trying to muzzle free speech. Students have also won commitments to consider divestment from U.S. institutions, including Brown, Northwestern, Evergreen State, Rutgers and the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
While decades of even deadlier U.S. war-making in the greater Middle East failed to provoke a sustained mass protest movement, the genocide in Gaza has opened the eyes of many thousands of young people to the need to rise up against the U.S. war machine.
The gradual expulsion and emigration of Palestinians from their homeland has created a huge diaspora of young Palestinians who have played a leading role in organizing solidarity campaigns on college campuses through groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Their close links with extended families in Palestine have given them a visceral grasp of the U.S. role in this genocide and an authentic voice that is persuasive and inspiring to other young Americans.
Now it is up to Americans of all ages to follow our young leaders and demand not just an end to the genocide in Palestine, but also a path out of our country’s military madness and the clutches of its deeply entrenched MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media- academia-think-tank) complex, which has inflicted so much death, pain and desolation on so many of our neighbors for so long, from Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan to Vietnam and Latin America.
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.
Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
The plutonium connection: Why I no longer conduct my research at the University of New Brunswick
I had already learned enough about the power and influence of the nuclear industry to know that I would be fighting a losing battle if I kept my research at UNB
Once during my 13 years at the NRC I was asked to work on a military technology project, and I refused. I had a visceral negative reaction to doing research that could potentially be implicated in mass killing.
by Susan O’Donnell, May 17, 2024, https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/05/17/the-plutonium-connection-why-i-no-longer-conduct-my-research-at-the-university-of-new-brunswick/
On Thursday this week, two very different emails landed in my inbox minutes apart. The juxtaposition jolted me, and I thought: it’s time to share my story about my departure from the University of New Brunswick.
The first email, from the NB Media Co-op, informed me that my commentary written with Gordon Edwards was just published. Our article marked the 50th anniversary of an event that had shocked the world: India’s test nuclear explosion made with plutonium extracted from a ‘peaceful’ nuclear reactor, a gift from Canada. We questioned if Canada was making the same mistake by backing the Moltex project to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel at the Point Lepreau site on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.
A UNB professor friend sent the second email. He wrote: ‘This will be aggravating to read, but I thought you’d want to see it. I’m attaching the announcement about Arthur Irving’s death coming from UNB’s President. Arthur Irving is celebrated for his commitment and dedication to the environment. Meanwhile, people who are actually committed to the environment (e.g., you) are blacklisted.’
The two emails had this connection: My research and writing about plutonium and Moltex is the main reason why in 2023 I moved my research program from the University of New Brunswick, the largest university in the province, over to St. Thomas University, a small liberal arts undergraduate institution that shares the campus with UNB in Fredericton.
My journey from UNB to STU began in 2020. At that point, I had been with the UNB Sociology department for almost 16 years as an adjunct professor, on faculty but not on staff and so not in the faculty union. During those years, I brought considerable federal research funding into UNB and hired and trained more than a dozen UNB graduate students. My research expertise includes technology adoption: analyzing the social, political, environmental and economic contexts in which people deploy technologies. I joined UNB in 2004 while employed at the National Research Council of Canada on the Fredericton UNB campus, as a senior researcher and vice-chair of the NRC’s research ethics board. Once during my 13 years at the NRC I was asked to work on a military technology project, and I refused. I had a visceral negative reaction to doing research that could potentially be implicated in mass killing.
At the start of 2020, I could not have imagined a connection between NB Power’s Point Lepreau nuclear reactor and weapons of mass destruction. That February, my UNB research project RAVEN was invited to partner with local groups to bring nuclear expert Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, to New Brunswick to give public talks in Saint John and Fredericton. I readily agreed. Several months previously, I had read Gordon’s article in the NB Media Co-op about ‘small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)’ and wanted to learn more. I put up posters around the UNB campus promoting Gordon’s upcoming talk. I asked the UNB communications office to help me promote Gordon’s visit, but they never came through, and I assumed they were too busy to help.
Gordon Edward’s talk, moved online when the pandemic hit in March 2020, sparked my research interest in the adoption of nuclear technology. I began looking into the two small nuclear reactor projects planned for New Brunswick, Moltex and ARC. In July that year, I co-wrote my first commentary with Gordon that mentioned our concerns about the Moltex project and plutonium extraction from used nuclear fuel. The same day that our piece was published in The Hill Times, the newspaper on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the CEO of Moltex emailed, asking to meet with me. I agreed, and during a break in the pandemic that month, we met outside at Picaroons Roundhouse along with Janice Harvey, the coordinator of the Environment & Society program at St. Thomas University and a co-investigator on my RAVEN project. At the meeting, Janice and I disagreed with the Moltex CEO about the wisdom of his project to extract plutonium from the used nuclear fuel at Point Lepreau.
I continued my research into small nuclear reactors and plutonium extraction by reading research articles and consulting with Gordon and other experts across Canada and internationally. In May 2021, the federal government gave Moltex a $50.5 million grant to develop its technology that could be exported globally. Shortly after, nine U.S. non-proliferation experts wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau expressing concern about the Moltex project, writing that by ‘backing spent-fuel reprocessing and plutonium extraction, the Government of Canada will undermine the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime that Canada has done so much to strengthen.’ The Globe and Mail published an article about the nuclear weapons proliferation concerns with the Moltex project, and Gordon and I published commentaries in The Hill Times, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the NB Media Co-op.
During this time, I co-founded a public interest group with local activists, the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB), to advocate for a nuclear-free renewable energy future. Janice Harvey invited me to join her in the STU Environment & Society program as an adjunct research professor, and in June 2021 I was appointed to the STU faculty in addition to my UNB faculty appointment.
In August 2021, I received a phone call that augured the end of my research program at UNB. On the phone, a friend told me about overhearing the UNB president say: ‘Susan O’Donnell is spreading misinformation about nuclear energy.’ That shocked me for several reasons. First, I would never knowingly spread misinformation. Second, I’d never met the UNB president and didn’t know he knew I existed. Third, why the heck would he say such a thing? To find out, I filed a Right to Information request with UNB, asking for all communications received by the UNB President and the Vice-President Research that mentioned me or my research project RAVEN.
UNB released the information to me in November 2021. The release package, HERE, is dozens of pages, almost all of it redacted. Just enough information was left for me to know that the UNB senior administration’s concern about me began in February 2020, while I was putting up posters around UNB for Gordon Edwards’ talk about small nuclear reactors. Over the weeks leading up to Gordon’s event, a flurry of emails – involving the UNB president, his chief of staff, several vice-presidents, the UNB secretary, two UNB professors I’ve never met, numerous people in UNB communications, and the Atlantica Centre for Energy, a lobby group funded by the energy industry – fretted about the upcoming ‘anti-nuclear event,’ imagining that it was linked to the Green Party and would jeopardize funding for nuclear research at UNB. I finally realized why the UNB communications office had not responded to my request to help publicize Gordon’s talk.
Most interesting to me in the package was an email from the CEO of Moltex to the UNB vice-president research on July 6, 2020, the same day the CEO wrote to me requesting a meeting. To the VP research, the CEO wrote:
‘You may have seen the article recently written by Dr Susan O’Donnell and her group in NB media coop. It was today issued in the Hill Times which gives it significant exposure and credibility. I understand she is a lecturer at UNB. I have emailed her to request a meeting… I do have concerns that her group RAVEN is supported by SSHRC and yet it is being used as an advocacy group and she is using her Academic Freedom to express views without scientific credibility and in conjunction with political parties but I don’t plan on bringing that up with her. I greatly appreciate debate around nuclear and clean energy (I used to be anti nuclear) but it is hard to compete with misinformation backed by a university.’
There it was: the accusation that I was spreading ‘misinformation’ – the same accusation repeated later by the UNB president that my friend had overheard. Finally, I understood why the heck the president had said that: Moltex had stated it as a fact. I knew that Moltex was collaborating with UNB’s Centre for Nuclear Energy Research, and that in addition to the federal grant to Moltex of $50.5 million, UNB received more than $560,000. The Right to Information request showed me that half a million bucks buys a lot at UNB.
To learn more, I filed a complaint in December 2021 with the New Brunswick Ombuds office, asking UNB to release the redacted information. In April 2022, my complaint was dismissed, and I decided to drop it there.
I had already learned enough about the power and influence of the nuclear industry to know that I would be fighting a losing battle if I kept my research at UNB. I was due to write another application for federal research funding. My main concern was that the UNB VP research – who had written many emails about me (that had been redacted) and who would need to sign off on my future requests for federal research funding – was also on the advisory board of the UNB Centre for Nuclear Energy Research. An application for federal research funding takes months of work, and I was not willing to take the risk that after preparing the application, it could be vetoed at the final stage. I asked my UNB Sociology chair not to renew my faculty appointment when it expired in 2023, and I submitted my funding application via the research office at St. Thomas University.
When my UNB appointment ended, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded me a five-year research grant at STU for the CEDAR project – Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research. CEDAR has excellent co-investigators, collaborators and research assistants. We research the energy transition – focusing on nuclear energy – with the support of my new university administration.
As a bonus, my experience with the Right to Information system raised my awareness of how access to information requests could be useful for research. I’ve since filed more than two dozen requests with different federal and provincial government departments and agencies to learn what goes on behind the scenes between the nuclear industry and governments related to plutonium extraction from used nuclear fuel. As the release packages arrive, many heavily redacted, I’m making them available to other researchers, journalists, and anyone interested, via a page on the CEDAR project website, HERE. Using that information, The Globe and Mail published an article last September, and Gordon Edwards and I published another in March this year in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about the collusion between the nuclear industry and the federal government to develop a policy on nuclear fuel reprocessing. My research continues.
Susan O’Donnell is the primary investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University.
Canada’s plutonium mishap in India was 50 years ago this week – is history repeating itself now?
the International Panel on Fissile Materials states: ‘the most important reason to be concerned about the practice of reprocessing is that plutonium can be used to make weapons.’
Canada’s support for the Moltex technology could be used by other countries to justify their own plutonium acquisition programs
by Susan O’Donnell and Gordon Edwards, May 16, 2024, https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/05/16/canadas-plutonium-mishap-in-india-was-50-years-ago-this-week-is-history-repeating-itself-now/
In the public imagination, nuclear power for electricity and nuclear weapons are entirely separate issues. Because Canada is not a nuclear weapons state, Canada’s nuclear power reactors are thought to be unrelated to weapons of mass destruction, and its nuclear technology exports are considered ‘peaceful.’
Yet this week marks the 50-year anniversary of one day in May when Canada’s ‘peaceful’ nuclear image was shattered. On May 18, 1974, India shocked the world by conducting a test A-Bomb explosion it called ‘Smiling Buddha.’ The nuclear explosive was plutonium, obtained from a ‘peaceful’ research reactor – a gift from the Canadian government in 1954.
Plutonium is not found in nature but nuclear reactors create it as a by-product. Plutonium was the explosive used in the A-Bomb that the U.S. military dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945, killing 70,000 civilians, half of them on the first day.
The story of India’s first A-Bomb shows that ‘intent’ is all that separates military from civilian use of nuclear technology. On that fateful day in 1974, it suddenly became clear that any country with a nuclear reactor can choose to extract plutonium from the fiercely radioactive used fuel and secretly make a nuclear bomb.
Plutonium extraction is a sensitive procedure called ‘reprocessing.’ Plutonium can also be used as a nuclear fuel. But this can only be done by first reprocessing used nuclear fuel, and this increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. As the International Panel on Fissile Materials states: ‘the most important reason to be concerned about the practice of reprocessing is that plutonium can be used to make weapons.’
India’s nuclear explosion deeply traumatized Ottawa and shocked the world. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger publicly shamed Canada when he told the media that: ‘The Indian nuclear explosion occurred with material that was diverted not from an American reactor under American safeguards, but from a Canadian reactor that did not have appropriate safeguards.’ His statement conveniently ignored the fact that the U.S. encouraged India in its reprocessing technology.
India’s nuclear explosion led to a de-facto ban on commercial reprocessing in Canada by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau following an explicit ban on reprocessing by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The de-facto ban in Canada remains today, despite industry efforts to overturn it.
In 2022, Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, delivered ‘Canada’s National Statement on Nuclear Energy’ in Washington, emphasizing just one word, ‘peaceful’: ‘Canada began a legacy of nuclear excellence as the second country ever to produce nuclear power. Since that time, we have been actively involved in promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy around the world.’
In 2023, Canada signed the G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament, committing the country to ‘prioritizing efforts to reduce the production and accumulation of weapons-usable nuclear material for civil purposes around the world.’
India’s nuclear explosion led to a de-facto ban on commercial reprocessing in Canada by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau following an explicit ban on reprocessing by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The de-facto ban in Canada remains today, despite industry efforts to overturn it.
In 2022, Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, delivered ‘Canada’s National Statement on Nuclear Energy’ in Washington, emphasizing just one word, ‘peaceful’: ‘Canada began a legacy of nuclear excellence as the second country ever to produce nuclear power. Since that time, we have been actively involved in promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy around the world.’
In 2023, Canada signed the G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament, committing the country to ‘prioritizing efforts to reduce the production and accumulation of weapons-usable nuclear material for civil purposes around the world.’
The U.S. experts stated that Canada’s support for the Moltex technology could be used by other countries to justify their own plutonium acquisition programs and undo decades of efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of countries that might want to join the ranks of unofficial nuclear weapons states: India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
In subsequent letters, the experts expressed concern that the Canadian government has forgotten the lessons learned 50 years ago with the launch of India’s nuclear-weapon program. They reminded the Prime Minister that the experience led Prime Minister P.E. Trudeau and U.S. President Jimmy Carter to oppose the separation of plutonium from spent fuel.
After India’s nuclear explosion in 1974, Canada and the United States became founding members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group that helped to ensure there has been no export of reprocessing technology to non-nuclear weapons states since. The U.S. experts stated: “It is imperative to uphold this decades-long norm of not reprocessing, lest we find ourselves in a world of many states with latent nuclear-weapon capabilities.”
Canada’s support for reprocessing now is sending the wrong signal to the world and threatening the already fragile global non-proliferation regime. Will history repeat itself?
An earlier version of this story was published by The Hill Times.
Susan O’Donnell, PhD, is the lead investigator of the CEDAR project in the Environment & Society program at St. Thomas University. Gordon Edwards, PhD, is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility in Montreal.
Top Labour donor joins campaign to stop Hinkley nuclear plant
Government wasting billions of taxpayers’ money on power station, warns Dale Vince
Jonathan Leake 16 May 2024
Millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince has joined a campaign to block
Britain’s biggest nuclear power station project. The entrepreneur, who
founded green energy company Ecotricity, has emerged as a patron to Stop
Hinkley after accusing the Government of wasting billions of pounds.
He said the decision to use taxpayer money to fund Hinkley Point C, which is
under construction in Somerset, was flawed because nuclear technology is
“hugely expensive and slow to develop”. His comments will be sure to
raise questions for Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, who
has vowed to invest in nuclear energy.
The Opposition has accepted around
£1.5m in donations over the past decade from Mr Vince, who severed ties
with Just Stop Oil last year as part of his commitment to Labour. A
spokesman for Stop Hinkley said: “At a time when nuclear power is rapidly
losing ground to the astonishing growth in renewables, it’s great to have
someone onboard who founded a company which allows ordinary members of the
public to actually vote on the nuclear question with their electricity
bill.”
Telegraph 16th May 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/16/top-labour-donor-joins-campaign-stop-hinkley/
Pension funds need ‘compelling’ returns from UK nuclear projects to invest
Ft. com 17 May 24
Potential investors tell Jeremy Hunt regulatory clarity also essential before backing new power plants.
Local authority pension funds managing hundreds of billions of pounds have told UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt that returns from new nuclear power plants need to be “compelling” to attract their cash. The chancellor is looking to pension funds to help finance the government’s ambition for nuclear power to meet a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs by 2050. Several town hall pension funds, managing more than £100bn in assets between them, were called to a meeting with Hunt this week, where the role of large retirement plans as potential investors in the Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk was discussed.
The head of the Sizewell C project spoke at the meeting, according to sources close to those who attended. London CIV, which manages £17bn of pension assets for local authorities in the capital and attended the meeting, outlined the criteria needed for it to invest. “Any infrastructure solution, including nuclear power, will need to provide regulatory clarity, a solid business model and a compelling inflation-linked return stream,” said London CIV. “This is ultimately about what our partner funds need. As they are our shareholders, we’ll collaborate with them to identify whether this area is worth exploring.”
Laura Chappell, chief executive of the Brunel Pension Partnership, which manages about £35bn in assets for eight local authority pension funds, attended the meeting and with other funds offered views to Hunt on the “problems, pitfalls and potential of investing in nuclear in the UK”. “Any infrastructure solution, including nuclear power, will need to provide regulatory clarity,” said Chappell in a statement to the FT. Chappell echoed that potential infrastructure projects would need to have a “solid business model, consistent policy, and a compelling investment proposition”. The pitch to pension funds comes against a backdrop of high-profile challenges for the nuclear sector in the UK.
France’s EDF said in January that the Hinkley Point C 3.2GW nuclear plant it is building in Somerset was on course to cost up to £46bn in today’s prices and would be delayed by two more years to 2029 — compared with an initial budget of £18bn and completion by 2025.
………………………………………………. Hunt’s meeting with pension leaders came more than a year after the government flagged its intention to consult on reforms that would make nuclear a more attractive investment for UK pension funds.
However, the government is yet to consult on these reforms, which would pave the way for nuclear power to be classified as “environmentally sustainable” under the UK’s upcoming “green taxonomy”
The Treasury declined to comment on the pension meeting, including who attended, but said: “We want to incentivise private investment in nuclear as a crucial source of reliable low-carbon energy and a driver of economic growth.
“We have already begun to engage with industry on the topic and will consult on a UK green taxonomy in due course.” The meeting was held in the same week ministers showed signs of losing patience with pension funds over low levels of investment in domestic listed and unlisted markets. In a speech this week, Bim Afolami, City minister, said “We have a challenge with pension funds.” He said if there was “no improvement” in levels of investment in the UK by pension funds then the government would “consider what further action can be taken”. https://www.ft.com/content/70cd278f-8ef5-4904-9535-305fe1095768
Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome commitment to recruit new Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership Chair at less cost who is local
After a prolonged period of paid tenure, the Interim Chair of the Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership is finally making way for a successor – and the Nuclear Free Local Authorities have welcomed the commitments made to appoint a local person to the post at a significantly lower cost to the taxpayer.
Jon Collins has acted as Chair since being appointed by Nuclear Waste Services at the inception of the Theddlethorpe GDF Working Party. Mr Collins is the former leader of Nottingham City Council without strong roots within the Theddlethorpe Search Area. The NFLAs have been especially critical of the renumeration package attached to the post, which initially comprised a payment of £1,000 a day for two days per week, since reduced to £750. This day rate is many times higher than the average salary received in the local community.
Now the Community Partnership is recruiting a candidate for the ‘challenging but rewarding role’ to manage the meetings and business of the partnership. Although the NFLAs reject the hyperbole that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’, creditably the advertisement states that members of the partnership ‘have expressed a preference to recruit a Chair who lives or works in the Search Area’ and that renumeration has now been reduced to a more modest annual honorarium of £10,000.
By contrast, in West Cumbria, both Community Partnership Chairs have always been local Councillors and worked solely for expenses rather than salary.
With the Theddlethorpe Community Partnership now moving to public meetings, the appointment of a new independent and impartial Chair at this time will be a welcome move, but it remains to be seen whether a local person is in fact appointed to the role or if the appointee will ‘act independently and not represent either themselves or any organisation of which they are a member’.
The advert also states that the Independent Chair must ensure ‘the work of the Partnership is fair, unbiased and reflects the needs of the community’. This must pose the appointee with a dilemma for clearly the local community does not share the belief of Nuclear Waste Services that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’.
By contrast, in West Cumbria, both Community Partnership Chairs have always been local Councillors and worked solely for expenses rather than salary.
With the Theddlethorpe Community Partnership now moving to public meetings, the appointment of a new independent and impartial Chair at this time will be a welcome move, but it remains to be seen whether a local person is in fact appointed to the role or if the appointee will ‘act independently and not represent either themselves or any organisation of which they are a member’.
The advert also states that the Independent Chair must ensure ‘the work of the Partnership is fair, unbiased and reflects the needs of the community’. This must pose the appointee with a dilemma for clearly the local community does not share the belief of Nuclear Waste Services that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’.
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