UK’s Ministry of Defence called out for lobbying MPs on nuclear weapons

MoD under fire for lobbying MPs on nuclear weapons, The Ferret, Rob Edwards. March 13, 2022

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing criticism for lobbying up to 27 Westminster politicians on the “benefits” of nuclear weapons for “UK industry, economy and the union”

Four lords and 23 MPs were invited to two briefings by senior MoD officials at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Clyde in 2021. According to the MoD, the aim was to “educate” them on the “continued relevance” of the Trident nuclear weapons system, and how replacing it was “value for money”.

According to experts, it is “highly unusual” for a government department to lobby politicians in this way. Campaigners questioned whether it was an “appropriate” use of public money and accused the MoD of acting as an “influencer” for nuclear vested interests………………………

One lobbying expert disputed the MoD’s suggestion it was not trying to influence politicians. “This is clearly a lobbying and influencing strategy, thinly disguised as a briefing to promote dialogue about defence policy,” said Dr Will Dinan, a senior lecturer in political communications at the University of Stirling.

“It is highly unusual for a government department to lobby UK politicians in this way. While the rationale offered is that these briefings are simply educational, it is clear that the overall strategic aim is to increase support among parliamentarians for maintaining nuclear capability.”

Dinan maintained that the nuclear briefings were “hardly neutral, informational or apolitical”. The need for nuclear weapons was “highly political” and MoD officials appeared to have “strayed some way from offering neutral and balanced advice to inform decision makers”, he said.

The Nuclear Information Service, which researches nuclear weapons, was also critical of the MoD. “These documents make it clear that the purpose of this exercise is to bolster support for the UK’s nuclear weapons programme,” said the group’s director, David Cullen.

“Lobbying in this fashion is not an appropriate use of public funds and diminishes the prospects for meaningful parliamentary oversight.”

The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament pointed out that retired military commanders had spoken out against nuclear weapons. “The MoD is acting as an influencer for the nuclear-military-industrial complex with vested interests in them being constantly modernised and never given up,” said the campaign’s chair, Lynn Jamieson.

“If the MoD had a genuinely educational agenda it would include consideration of how to move towards signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. But then their job isn’t education, it’s defence and security — and Scottish CND’s view is that nuclear weapons put that at risk

The SNP MSP, Bill Kidd, is co-president of the international group of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He pointed out that MSPs from the Scottish Parliament had not been invited to MoD nuclear briefings.

He said: “Will this be because we, at Holyrood, have voted time and again against the maintenance of these weapons of mass murder being stationed in our midst and looking for their removal? Or could it be that it’s Westminster that votes on the budget and long-term future of nuclear weapons and therefore it’s MPs who need to be influenced?”

Kidd also criticised the House of Commons and Lords for voting through upgrades and increases in nuclear warheads. This breached article six of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty committing countries to nuclear disarmament, he claimed…………….. https://theferret.scot/mod-lobbying-mps-nuclear-weapons/

March 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear threat: Faslane, home to Trident, symbol of humanity’s power and folly

Nuclear weapons are often described as a deterrent. But do they really deter? That they have “kept the peace” is just a story, “a myth”, not backed by evidence of cause and effect, as New York Times writer Ward Wilson has put it. He observed, “We don’t accept proof by absence in any circumstance where there is real risk.”

Nuclear threat: Faslane, home to Trident, symbol of humanity’s power and folly, https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/nuclear-threat-faslane-home-trident-110835394.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG3X514QPdgktFOrKbKPrnzoSz6joD3PVpI6uSj2DBv3oIZTOIzUDZWnifcsw_SXXPYtt3h1orA3QYlShoI_rlgBn5o675_PqDys5-xmgpGOEFmBJ1ooQWfTzK9RMofsPeZk-CfshnVXybppn5h7kGhpqKtNAaeAVwv0YCeavNKnVicky Allan
Sun, 13 March 2022, On the northern shore of Gare Loch, washed by salt waters that merge into the Firth of Clyde, is the naval base, Faslane, home to Vanguard-class submarines. The UK has four such Trident-carrying submarines, each armed with eight missiles, each of which carries three warheads. All together, currently, the UK holds a stockpile of 225 such warheads. This sea loch, and the wildlife it sustains, knows little of the destructive capacity contained within it.

Each warhead is said to be eight times as destructive as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, which killed over 140,000 civilians. They are dark pearls of latent horror; symbols of humanity’s power and folly.

This stretch of shoreline has, for this reason, been one of the most controversial sites in Britain since the 1960s – first home to Polaris, more recently Trident. Concern over the threat of nuclear weaponry, has waxed and waned with the changes in global politics.

The SNP’s calls to scrap it were a key message of the Independence referendum, and one still repeated now. 2016 saw debate around whether the programme should be renewed at an enormous cost of £31 million for just the replacement submarines – CND estimated the overall cost would be more like £205 million. The House of Commons backed it, though only one Scottish MP voted in favour. Then, just last year, Boris Johnson announced a lift on the cap on the the number of Trident nuclear warheads it can stockpile by more than 40 percent by the middle of this decade. This ended thirty years of gradual disarmament.

UN Elder Mary Robinson’s view on this was clear, “While the UK cites increased security threats as justification for this move, the appropriate response to these challenges should be to work multilaterally to strengthen international arms control agreements and to reduce – not increase – the number of nuclear weapons in existence.”

We are now in another chilling moment. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his threats of “consequences you have never seen”, have meant that the word nuclear is on our lips again. The threat, which not long ago had seemed half-forgotten, a childhood nightmare demoted down the current list of existential threats, was there again: “the nuclear option”. Might the Russian leader be mad and power-hungry enough to use it?

Ian Blackford recently confirmed the continuing support of SNP for getting rid of Trident, saying, “The idea that having nuclear weapons provides a deterrence that removes that threat is far-fetched, to say the least.”

Above all Faslane is a reminder of the ridiculous nuclear arsenal the world has built. We may have already clambered down from the global peak stockpile of nuclear weapons which existed in 1986, but there is a long way to go. Approximately 13,080 nuclear warheads exist worldwide and almost 90 percent of them belong to two countries: the United States and Russia. There are more than enough, if such maths made any sense, to kill every human on the planet, one hundred times over.

That fact, and Putin’s terrifying recent posturings, should be a reminder that global nuclear disarmament must remain a key goal of our times.

March 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Court rejects bid to suspend nuclear reactors in Takahama

After the Nagoya District Court dismissed their request to halt the reactors at the Takahama nuclear power plant, the head attorney for the plaintiffs explains the ruling to supporters outside the court in Nagoya on March 10.

March 11, 2022

NAGOYA–The Nagoya District Court on March 10 dismissed a citizens’ request that the government order Kansai Electric Power Co. to halt two reactors at its Takahama nuclear power plant as a safety precaution.

Nine plaintiffs from Fukui, Aichi and three other prefectures filed a lawsuit against the government seeking to suspend the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the facility in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture.

They argued that the nuclear power plant’s disaster-prevention countermeasures for dealing with ash from volcanic eruptions are insufficient.

“(The government) did not deviate from its discretion for not having ordered the suspension,” said Presiding Judge Tomohiro Hioki.

After the 2011 triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government’s regulatory authority introduced a new “backfit” provision.

That requires utilities to prepare countermeasures for issues that have emerged after new findings, such as the effects natural disasters can have on their existing nuclear power plants. It also allows the regulator to halt reactors if they do not meet its standards.

This marks the first judicial ruling over the backfit provision.

In June 2019, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority issued backfit orders for seven reactors at three Kansai Electric nuclear power plants, including the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors in Takahama.

The regulator contended that Kansai Electric had not taken sufficient measures against volcanic ash in the event of an eruption at Mount Daisen in Tottori Prefecture.

But it did not order Kansai Electric to halt its reactors on the grounds that there is no imminent risk of eruption.

“Mount Daisen is not categorized as an active volcano, so the NRA’s decision not to order the suspension was not a deviation from or abuse of discretion,” the district court ruling said.

The regulator had decided on its response after it was briefed by Kansai Electric, and did not establish a deadline for completing the countermeasures. On both points, the court ruled that the regulator’s actions were legal.

But on the other hand, the court also accepted some of the arguments made by the plaintiffs.

The presiding judge said that in the current situation, with the anti-volcanic measures not yet completed, the plant “holds realistic possibilities of safety deficiencies” and also “has some risk of receiving significant damage.”

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14569930

March 13, 2022 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | court ruling, Takahama NPP | Leave a comment

Umm….. Are we the baddies?

Umm… Are We The Baddies? https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/03/11/umm-are-we-the-baddies/

Reuters reports that Facebook and Instagram are now allowing calls for the death of Russians and Russian leaders in exemption from the platforms’ hate speech terms of service due to the war in Ukraine:

“Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.”

Twitter has also altered its rules against incitement and death threats in the case of Russian leaders and military personnel, as Ben Norton explains here for Multipolarista.

Last month we also learned that Facebook is now allowing users to praise the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion because of the war, a move that is arguably the most liberal thing that has ever happened.

Western institutions everywhere are rejecting all things Russia with such a savage degree of xenophobia it really ought to shock anyone who was born after the 1800s. Everything from Russian athletes to Russian musicians to Russian-made films to Russian composers to Russian Netflix shows to lectures about Russian authors to Russian restaurants to Russian vodka to Russian-bred cats to Russian trees to dishes that sound a little too much like “Putin” have been cancelled to varying degrees around the western world.

Normally when the US and its allies are involved in a war they’ll at least pay lip service to the notion that they have nothing but good will for the people of the enemy nation, claiming they only oppose their oppressive rulers. With Russia it’s just a complete rejection of the entire culture, the entire ethnicity. It’s a widespread promotion of hatred for the actual people because of who they are.

These are the people who are being smashed with crushing economic sanctions while western pundits proclaim that “There are no more ‘innocent’ ‘neutral’ Russians anymore” and ask “At what point do you hold a people responsible for putting an evil despot in power?” This even as the Russian people are being arrested by the thousands in anti-war protests, putting to shame our own western society that has generally slept through war after war in the years since 9/11 while our militaries have been killing of millions of people.

And this is all over a war that the western empire knowingly provoked, almost certainly planned in advance, and appears to be doing everything possible to ensure that it continues. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports that Washington is still to this day not engaging in any serious diplomacy with Moscow over this conflict, preferring to strangle Russia economically and pour weapons into Ukraine to make the war as painful and costly as possible. Both of these preferences just so happen to nicely complement the US empire’s goal of unipolar planetary hegemony.

Meanwhile the entire western political/media class seems to be doing everything it can to turn this from a regional proxy war into a very fast and radioactive World War 3. Calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would require directly attacking the Russian military and risking a nuclear exchange in the resulting escalations, are now ubiquitous. Claims that more directly confrontational military aggressions against Russia won’t start a nuclear war (or that it’s worth the risk anyway) are becoming more and more common in western punditry. Democrats are braying for Russian blood while Republicans like Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney are attacking Democrats for being insufficiently hawkish and escalatory in this conflict, creating a horrifying dynamic where both parties are trying to out-hawk each other to score political points and nobody is calling for de-escalation and detente.

As luck would have it, US officials have also selected this precarious nuclear tightrope walk as the perfect time to begin hurling accusations that Russia is preparing a biological attack, potentially as a false flag blamed on Ukraine or the United States. This coincides with Victoria Nuland’s admission before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Ukraine has “biological research facilities” that the US is “quite concerned” might end up “falling into the hands of Russian forces”.

All of this on top of the unprecedented wave of authoritarian censorship that has been tearing through the US-centralized empire as our rulers work to quash dissident voices around the world. It certainly is interesting that the fight for freedom and democracy requires so much censorship, warmongering, xenophobia, propaganda and bloodlust.

It’s almost enough to make you wonder: are we the baddies?

I am of course only trying to make a point here. Geopolitical power struggles are not contested by opposing sides of heroes and baddies like a Marvel superhero movie, though you’d never know it from all the hero worship of Volodymyr Zelensky and the self-righteous posturing of mainstream westerners over this war. Vladimir Putin is no Peter Parker, but neither is Zelensky or Biden or any of the other empire managers overseeing this campaign to overwhelm all challengers to US global domination.

The power structure loosely centralized around the United States is without question the single most depraved and destructive on earth. No one else has spent the 21st century waging wars that have killed millions and displaced tens of millions. No one else is circling the planet with military bases and working to destroy any nation on earth which disobeys it. Not Russia. Not China. Nobody.

The hypocrisy, dishonesty and phoniness of this whole song and dance about Ukraine is one of the most distasteful things that I have ever witnessed. Rather than engaging in click-friendly Instagram activism with blue and yellow profile pics making risk-free criticisms of a foreign leader in a far off country who has nothing to do with us, perhaps we would be better served by a bit more introspection, and by a somewhat more difficult stance: intense scrutiny of the corruption and abuses running rampant in our own society.

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Ukraine war fills Pentagon’s, NATO allies’ war chests

“Over multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, we have tried to minimize friction with Putin and with Russia, in the hopes that it wouldn’t exacerbate a problem….And I feel like that era is over,” said Slotkin, a former Pentagon official. “I think it’s a sea change for how both the Defense Department and the State Department should think about our presence in Europe.”

[N]ow there is a unique moment of bipartisanship that will allow the Pentagon to request and receive just about anything it wants, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said last week during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Congress is poised to approve $14 billion for Ukraine aid this week, including nearly $5 billion for additional troops in Europe and replenishing U.S. weapons already sent to Ukraine. The House passed the package Wednesday and the Senate is expected to vote on the bill by Friday.

Ukraine war fills Pentagon’s, NATO allies’ war chests https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/113283937/posts/3880404511, Rick Rozoff, Anti-bellum

Stars and Stripes, March 10, 2022,

Congressional support for larger defense budget grows amid Ukraine invasion The changing security landscape in Eastern Europe will “no doubt” increase next year’s defense budget, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said at an event last week. Other Capitol Hill lawmakers say they are also prepared to funnel more money to the Pentagon as the U.S. rethinks its national security and defense posture.

“President [Joe] Biden needs to put a serious budget proposal forward to confront the real threats we face,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in a statement. “Russia is just one reason why defense spending needs to be higher. China and other nations are watching the seriousness and resolve of freedom-loving nations.”

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine has prompted other NATO countries to pledge additional funding for their armed services.

In a reversal of decades of post-Cold War policy, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last month that his country would embark on a $110 billion rearming program. Poland announced last week that it will raise its spending on defense from 2% to 3% of the country’s gross domestic product. Leaders of France, Italy, Latvia and Romania have all vowed in recent days to boost their commitment to defense.

U.S. lawmakers authorized nearly $778 billion for defense spending for the 2022 fiscal year – $25 billion more than requested by the White House. The Biden administration has yet to submit its budget request for fiscal year 2023, which starts Oct. 1, but Smith said last week that the eventual spending plan will be “the most impactful and important budget that we’ve seen in the 25 years I’ve been in Congress.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wants to see defense expenditures grow by at least 3% to 5%, adjusted for inflation….

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Video analysis reveals Russian attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant veered near disaster.

NPR, March 11, 2022: Last week’s assault by Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was far more dangerous than initial assessments suggested, according to an analysis by NPR of video and photographs of the attack and its aftermath.

A thorough review of a four-hour, 21-minute security camera video of the attack reveals that Russian forces repeatedly fired heavy weapons in the direction of the plant’s massive reactor buildings, which housed dangerous nuclear fuel. Photos show that an administrative building directly in front of the reactor complex was shredded by Russian fire. And a video from inside the plant shows damage and a possible Russian shell that landed less than 250 feet from the Unit 2 reactor building.

The security camera footage also shows Russian troops haphazardly firing rocket-propelled grenades into the main administrative building at the plant and turning away Ukrainian firefighters even as a fire raged out of control in a nearby training building.

The evidence stands in stark contrast to early comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which while acknowledging the seriousness of the assault, emphasized that the action took place away from the reactors. In a news conference immediately after the attack, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi made reference to only a single projectile hitting a training building adjacent to the reactor complex.

“All the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all,” Grossi told reporters at the March 4 briefing.

In fact, the training building took multiple strikes, and it was hardly the only part of the site to take fire from Russian forces. The security footage supports claims by Ukraine’s nuclear regulator of damage at three other locations: the Unit 1 reactor building, the transformer at the Unit 6 reactor and the spent fuel pad, which is used to store nuclear waste. It also shows ordnance striking a high-voltage line outside the plant. The IAEA says two such lines were damaged in the attack.

“This video is very disturbing,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. While the types of reactors used at the plant are far safer than the one that exploded

n Chernobyl in 1986, the Russian attack could have triggered a meltdown similar to the kind that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, he warns.”It’s completely insane to subject a nuclear plant to this kind of an assault,” Lyman says.

In a news conference on Thursday, Grossi said that he had met with Ukrainian and Russian officials but failed to reach an agreement to avoid future attacks on Ukraine’s other nuclear plants. “I’m aiming at having something relatively soon,” he told reporters in Vienna.

The assault

On March 3, the nuclear plant was preparing for a fight. A news release posted to its website just hours before the assault described the facility as operating normally, with its assigned Ukrainian military unit ready for combat.

The Russian decision to move on the plant was clearly premeditated, according to Leone Hadavi, an open-source analyst with the Centre for Information Resilience, who helped NPR review the video.”It was planned,” Hadavi says, and it involved around 10 armored vehicles as well as two tanks. That is far more firepower than would have been carried by, say, a reconnaissance mission that might have stumbled across the plant by chance.

Just before 11:30 p.m. local time, someone began livestreaming the plant’s security footage on its YouTube channel. The livestream rolled on as Russian forces began a slow and methodical advance on the plant. The column of armored vehicles, led by the tanks, used spotlights to cautiously approach the plant from the southeast along the main service road to the facility.

Around an hour and 20 minutes later, one of the two tanks that led the column was struck by a missile from Ukrainian forces and was disabled.

That marked the beginning of a fierce firefight that lasted for roughly two hours at the plant. Immediately after the tank was disabled, Russian forces returning fire appeared to hit a transmission line connected to the plant’s main electrical substation. The IAEA says two of four high-voltage lines were damaged in the attack. Lyman says that these lines are essential to safe operations at the plant……..

Based on photos and damage assessments by Ukrainian officials and the IAEA, Lyman says that the damage appears to have been to some of the less hardened points within the nuclear plant. Unlike office buildings and elevated walkways, the reactors themselves and their spent fuel are sealed within a thick steel containment vessel that would withstand a great deal of damage.

But he also says that the host of systems required to keep the reactors safe are not hardened against attack. Cooling systems rely on exterior pipework; backup generators are kept in relatively ordinary buildings; vital electrical yards are out in the open; and the plant’s control rooms are not designed to operate in a war zone……………. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085427380/ukraine-nuclear-power-plant-zaporizhzhia

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

IAEA doubts that the attack on Kharkiv Institute was a serious radiation hazard.

Russia has reportedly bombed a site in Ukraine which houses an
“experimental nuclear reactor”. The attack on the National Science Centre
Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology was reported in the early hours
of this morning. “

The State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine
announced that the facility was struck, damaging the exterior and possibly
numerous labs throughout the building,” reported the Kyiv Independent via
Twitter. The Kyiv Independent is an English language media outlet created
by journalists who say they were “fired from the Kyiv Post for defending
editorial independence”.

However, doubts have been expressed about the
amount of nuclear materials at the site. The International Atomic Energy
Agency IAEE has previously said the site’s “inventory of radioactive
material is very low” and kept at a “subcritical” state.

Lincolnshire Live 11th March 2022

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/ukraine-morning-briefing-russia-bombs-6785872.wordpress.com/

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Eleven years on and impact of Fukushima still felt in Japan.Eleven years on and impact of Fukushima still felt in Japan.

Eleven years on and impact of Fukushima still felt in Japan.

The 11 March marks the eleventh anniversary of the terrible accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. With the world’s attention now focused on the dangers posed to nuclear plants by the conflict in Ukraine, Nuclear Free Local Authorities also want to highlight the dangers posed to coastal nuclear plants by the sea.

Operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was hit by two natural disasters, an earthquake closely followed by a tsunami, on 11 March 2011. When the earthquake was detected, the reactors automatically shut down, cutting off the electricity supply; this in turn caused diesel electric generators to kick in to provide power to the essential coolant system. However, the 46-feet high tsunami which followed overwhelmed the sea defences, shutting off the generators and flooding reactors 1 to 4. Without coolant, a disaster unfolded with three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions and a release of radiation from reactors 1, 2, and 3.

Atmospheric radiation forced government authorities to evacuate 154,000 people from the surrounding area over a 20-mile radius; the accident was classed as a Level 7 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scale for its overall impact on neighbouring communities – the same designation given to the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. Radiation was carried in the air and in the oceans for many miles, and fishing in contaminated water remains prohibited to this day.

In a 2018 report, written for the NFLA by renowned independent radiation expert Dr Ian Fairlie, it was revealed that Japanese authorities attributed the deaths of nearly 2,000 people to the effects of the evacuations necessary to avoid high radiation exposures from the Fukushima disaster, including at least 56 from related suicides, and evidenced the significantly increased rates of diseases, mental illness, despair and societal detachment amongst evacuees.

Many Japanese remain displaced from their original communities and are still fearful of the long-term health impact of radiation exposure, with a recent compensation case filed against TEPCO by six young adults who have suffered from thyroid cancer.

There is also the costly and problematic legacy of clean-up, including the millions of tons of seawater, used to cool the irreparable reactors and now contaminated and stored in barrels. The Japanese government now intends to build an underwater pipe out to sea and discharge the radioactive water there. The NFLA stands in solidarity with the many Japanese who are bitterly opposed to the plans, especially the local fishing community.

NFLA Steering Committee Chair, Councillor David Blackburn, said: “British anti-nuclear activists will I am sure mark this anniversary sombrely. Although we see in Ukraine, nuclear power plants threatened by the conflict, we ignore at our peril the dangers posed to such facilities by our natural environment.

“As at Fukushima, most British nuclear power plants have also been located on the coast. Building is now underway at Hinkley Point C, and there are plans to develop further new large and smaller plants at various other sites by the sea, most notably at Sizewell and Bradwell.

The NFLA remains implacably opposed to any new nuclear plants, on grounds of cost and safety, and because of the toxic legacy of decommissioning and waste they bring. However, we must also oppose them because, although they damage our environment, in coming decades these plants might in turn be threatened by the sea. Nuclear sites are being impacted by coastal erosion and rising sea levels caused by global heating, and military nuclear bases, including those where Trident missile submarines are based, are also under threat.”

“There has been recent excellent research on this subject and the NFLA is inviting all of those interested in the subject, particularly Councillors and anti-nuclear campaigners from coastal communities, to join us for a special webinar in April.”

Councillor Blackburn will be chairing the NFLA webinar ‘Might the sea have them? Climate change and coastal nuclear infrastructure’ on Wednesday 6 April, 6-7pm with Dr Sally Brown from Bournemouth University and NFLA Policy Advisor Pete Roche.

The link to book a place on the webinar can be found at:

VIDEO: Climate change and coastal nuclear infrastructure

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) very anxious about Chernobyl nuclear situation

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is extremely
concerned by recent developments at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
(ChNPP) in Ukraine. The EBRD, which has been managing over €2.5 billion
in international funds to transform Chernobyl since 1995, believes that
recent events are putting in jeopardy the achievements of decades of
successful international collaboration to secure the site.

The Bank’s position on ChNPP is fully aligned with the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and is based on the following safety and security
considerations: Uninterrupted power supply must be maintained for the
Chernobyl facilities.

Any loss of power is potentially a serious threat to
their nuclear safety. Since monitoring and control systems on site do not
work, operators will not be aware of possible risks. They must stay in
operation. The Chernobyl facilities have been operated by the same depleted
shift of employees for more than two weeks. Normal shift rotation as well
as supplies to operating staff must be ensured.

Any military action on site
is extremely dangerous for the old spent fuel storage facility housing
around 20000 RBMK fuel assemblies. Inspections by the Ukrainian regulator
and the IAEA must be allowed. Beyond Chernobyl, there are 15 VVER-type
units across Ukraine. They have a relatively weak containment and will not
withstand a direct hit, which may result in irreversible consequences. EBRD 11th March 2022https://www.ebrd.com/news/2022/ebrd-very-concerned-by-situation-at-chernobyl-nuclear-power-plant-.html

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Afghanistan, business and costs | Leave a comment

I was a nuclear missile operator. There have been more near-misses than the world knows

I was a nuclear missile operator. There have been more near-misses than the world knows https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/10/i-was-a-nuclear-missile-operator-there-have-been-more-near-misses-than-the-world-knows, Cole Smith

As a 22-year-old I controlled a warhead that could vaporize a metropolis. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the public is waking up again to the existential dangers of nuclear weapons

rom 2012 to 2017, I worked as a US air force nuclear missile operator. I was 22 when I started. Each time I descended into the missile silo, I had to be ready to launch, at a moment’s notice, a nuclear weapon that could wipe a city the size of New York off the face of the earth.

On the massive blast door of the launch control center, someone had painted a mural of a Domino’s pizza logo with the macabre caption, “World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less or your next one is free.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, I’ve heard more discussions of nuclear war than I did in the entire nine years that I wore an air force uniform. I’m glad that people are finally discussing the existential dangers of nuclear weapons. There have been more near-misses than the world knows.

Greg Devlin was an airman assigned to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) team in Arkansas in 1980. One night he responded to a leak in the missile’s fuel tank. A young airman working in an ICBM launch tube had accidentally dropped a socket from his toolkit; the socket fell down the silo, ricocheted, and pierced a hole in the stage-one fuel tank. The missile’s liquid fuel exploded. Devlin was thrown 60ft down an asphalt road and watched as a massive fireball rose overhead.

The ICBM had a nine-megaton warhead – the most powerful single nuclear weapon in American history – on top. When the missile exploded, the warhead was thrown into the woods, disappearing into the night.

“I was stunned and in pain but I knew the nuke hadn’t gone off,” Devlin told me, “because I remembered those stories from Hiroshima where people had been turned into little charcoal briquettes. I was alive. That’s how I knew the nuke didn’t detonate.” Although the nuclear warhead didn’t explode, the accident still claimed the life of one airman and injured 21 others, including Devlin.

When I was training as a nuclear missile operator, my instructor told me the story of what happened in Arkansas that night in 1980. It’s a famous story within the missile community. Stories like these were a way of impressing upon young officers the integrity required to be a good steward of these weapons and a warning of how quickly things can go wrong. That warning was very much on my mind as I began my first “alert” down in the claustrophobic underground missile silo that housed the launch control center.

But somewhere along my way to nearly 300 nuclear “alerts” – 24-hour shifts in command of a launch crew – I began to brush the story off as a scare tactic for rookies. Similarly, I think that after the end of the cold war, the general public allowed the threat of nuclear warfare to recede into the background. The threat simply didn’t feel real to new generations like it did to those who grew up huddling under their desks during nuclear attack drills in elementary school.

And the young crews who steward this nuclear arsenal today aren’t immune from the post-cold war malaise. In 2013, during my first year on crew, 11 ICBM officers were implicated in a drug scandal. The following year, 34 ICBM launch officers were implicated in a cheating scandal on their monthly proficiency exams.

Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the air force at the time, said, “This was a failure of integrity on the part of some of our airmen. It was not a failure of our nuclear mission.”

In this attempt to save face, Secretary James revealed a state of dissonance that every nuclear missile operator lives with. We are told, day in and day out, that our integrity is crucial to the deterrent value of nuclear weapons and helps make the world a safer place. But what man or woman of integrity could possibly launch a nuclear weapon?

As the war in Ukraine is reminding us, life with nuclear weapons is not safer or more peaceful. If you study nuclear warfare, you’ll learn about “megatons” and nuclear yields, stockpiles and budget expenditures. These numbers quantify the enormous danger of nuclear weapons but also, in rendering that danger abstract, obfuscate it.

Greg Devlin has a different set of numbers from his experience with missiles. “Since that explosion I’ve had 13 spine surgeries and two spinal stimulators. I lived the last decade of my life on morphine,” said Devlin.

Nuclear weapons turn the most important parts of life into nothing more than numbers – which is exactly the thought process needed for a society that believes that launching a nuclear missile is a viable solution to conflict. Because in the wake of a nuclear attack there will be no individuals, only numbers.

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, incidents, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

UK love-in between Tories and Labour, on wasting billions of pounds on new nuclear reactors

Leslie Riddoch: THEY can melt down, contaminate a country and threaten air
and water resources across a continent. They are vulnerable to earthquake,
tsunami and war. Their energy is more expensive per unit than almost any
other kind.

Yet, listening to the love-in during Prime Ministers Questions,
it’s clear that nuclear energy is back and Johnson and Starmer are hooked
on the power of the atom to tackle the escalating energy crisis. Boris
Johnson blamed Labour for cancelling nuclear plants. Starmer
counter-claimed that Tory plants had more starts than a dodgy apprentice
(in so many words) but then listed nuclear in his own preferred energy mix.

Johnson pounced on this, proclaiming there is “more joy in heaven over
one sinner that repents” … no he couldn’t quite remember the whole
quote either. But his point was clear. Nuclear is supported by both main
Westminster parties and fresh billions will be wasted in a bid to build new
plants.

Even though no British money has gone into building nuclear power
plants for decades. Even though Hinkley C nuclear power station is a decade
late, wildly over-budget and won’t come into service till 2027 – if the
British Government finds new investors to “ease out” Chinese
state-backed group CGN.

Even though Sizewell C, if it’s ever built,
won’t produce electricity until the 2030s. Even though the average
nuclear plant can take 18 years in planning and construction, against a
tenth of that time for renewables.

And even though the unthinkable has
happened again – Chernobyl is at risk of meltdown because of a power cut.
Despite all this, Westminster hails nuclear energy as the green salvation
of the world as it struggles to make up for decades without an energy
policy or a care for this country’s energy security.

It’s the same old story. Any threat to the status quo justifies more investment in the status
quo.

But does Scotland need new nuclear? No, we emphatically do not. The
Forth/Tay offshore wind project alone significantly exceeds Scotland’s
entire electricity demand and if some of that energy can be converted into
use for transport, it could satisfy nearly all of Scotland’s entire
energy needs. And supply England. Even when Scotland becomes independent,
we will continue to green England with renewable energy at the best price
they’ll get anywhere.

With tidal and wave energy, heat pumps, local
community grids and district heating for home energy also in the mix,
Scotland should be laughing all the way to the Green Bank. The German
Institute for Economic Research examined 674 nuclear power plants built
across the world since 1951 and found the average plant made a loss of
€4.8 billion. Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science at
Harvard University and wrote recently in Scientific American: “The most
recent US nuclear power reactors were started in 2013 and are still not
finished.

What about small modular reactors (SMRs)? Rolls Royce says
smaller reactors can be constructed more cheaply, built in a factory,
transported in modules and fitted together “like meccano”. Neither
Johnson nor Starmer championed plans – also announced yesterday – for a
new Severn Tidal Barrage. Local councils are working together to get
electricity from the second biggest tidal range in the world which, if
successfully harnessed, could generate 7% of the UK’s total energy needs.
And yet, this is the 15th attempt in the past 200 years. What’s the
problem? According to Councillor Huw Thomas, the leader of Cardiff City
Council: “The UK Government has so far not lent its support … due to a
perceived requirement for high levels of public investment and concerns
over the environmental impact … in the Severn Estuary.”

The National 10th March 2022

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/19981712.nuclear-energy-wont-work-scotland/

March 12, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Court rejects bid to suspend nuclear reactors in Takahama

Court rejects bid to suspend nuclear reactors in Takahama https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14569930

By HARUKA ONO/ Staff Writer, March 11, 2022 NAGOYA–The Nagoya District Court on March 10 dismissed a citizens’ request that the government order Kansai Electric Power Co. to halt two reactors at its Takahama nuclear power plant as a safety precaution.