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Britain’s nuclear white elephant – Hinkley Point costs – $28 billion and rising

This Is What Britain’s Biggest Construction Project Looks Like  EDF’s Hinkley Point nuclear project has already racked a $28 billion bill and a string of superlatives. By Jeremy Hodges and Rob Dawson, September 28, 2019

Britain’s biggest construction project is emerging from the ancient flatlands in the west, overlooking the sea where humans have lived for more than 10,000 years.

Over an area covering 245 soccer fields, Electricite de France SA is building the U.K.’s first new nuclear power plant in more than 20 years. The project employs 4,500 people and will cost up to 22.5 billion pounds ($28 billion), a sum the French utility boosted this week after discovering more difficult conditions on the ground. …... (subscribers only) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-28/uk-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant-what-it-costs-when-it-starts

September 30, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

The catastrophe that would be a “limited nuclear war”

PLAN A
So-Called “Limited” Nuclear War Would Actually Be Very Bad and Kill Tens of Millions, Warns New Report https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/17/so-called-limited-nuclear-war-would-actually-be-very-bad-and-kill-tens-millions

“We urgently need sensible action to reduce and eliminate nuclear risk.” by Eoin Higgins, staff writer

Even a limited nuclear war would be catastrophic and kill millions, a new study finds, despite the belief of the Pentagon that the U.S. military could effectively and safely use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

The report, which Princeton University’s Science and Global Security Lab presents in video form, affirms the position of anti-nuclear war activists that no use of nuclear weapons is sensible—or safe.

“This terrifying new video shows how just one tactical nuke can trigger a U.S.-Russian war that kills tens of millions,” Daryl G. Kimball, the director of the Arms Control Association, said in a tweet. “We urgently need sensible action to reduce and eliminate nuclear risk.”

Reaction to the video of the lab’s findings emphasized the importance of the information, especially in a world where the U.S. military is considering using nuclear weapons as part of its conventional war strategy.

“The whole world needs to see this video,” tweeted John Hallam, a campaigner at Australia’s People for Nuclear Disarmament.

Even a limited nuclear war would be catastrophic and kill millions, a new study finds, despite the belief of the Pentagon that the U.S. military could effectively and safely use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

The report, which Princeton University’s Science and Global Security Lab presents in video form, affirms the position of anti-nuclear war activists that no use of nuclear weapons is sensible—or safe.

“This terrifying new video shows how just one tactical nuke can trigger a U.S.-Russian war that kills tens of millions,” Daryl G. Kimball, the director of the Arms Control Association, said in a tweet. “We urgently need sensible action to reduce and eliminate nuclear risk.”

Reaction to the video of the lab’s findings emphasized the importance of the information, especially in a world where the U.S. military is considering using nuclear weapons as part of its conventional war strategy.

“The whole world needs to see this video,” tweeted John Hallam, a campaigner at Australia’s People for Nuclear Disarmament.

The study is “based on independent assessments of current U.S. and Russian force postures, nuclear war plans, and nuclear weapons targets,” according to the lab.

“It uses extensive data sets of the nuclear weapons currently deployed, weapon yields, and possible targets for particular weapons, as well as the order of battle estimating which weapons go to which targets in which order in which phase of the war to show the evolution of the nuclear conflict from tactical, to strategic to city-targeting phases,” the lab’s summary reads.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

France to give more people iodine tablets after expanding nuclear security cordon 

By Euronews with Reuters  18/09/2019 – “……….. Previously, France distributed iodine tablets to people living within a 10 kilometre radius from a nuclear plant but has now decided to widen the radius…….. https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/17/france-to-give-more-people-iodine-tablets-after-expanding-nuclear-security-cordon

September 19, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear freighter’s Arctic voyage sparks fear in Norway

September 17, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

During the Cold War, America Almost Had Its Battleships Carry Nuclear Weapons – A crazy idea.

by Kyle Mizokami  16 Sept 19,  Key point: Although eventually abandoned, plans in the 1980s called for nuclear-armed battleships that would also carry U.S. Marines and Harrier jets……. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/during-cold-war-america-almost-had-its-battleships-carry-nuclear-weapons-80936

September 17, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Decoding the US “secret authorizations” to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia

By Viet Phuong Nguyen, September 10, 2019 US Energy Secretary Rick Perry granted “secret authorizations” for six American companies to provide nuclear technology and technical support for Saudi Arabia. Such approvals are granted through Part 810 authorizations and allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of a US nuclear cooperation agreement with another country, but no equipment that would go into a nuclear power plant can be shipped. What does the Part 810 authorization mean? Is it the right choice for the Saudi case? And how does Perry’s authorization affect prospects for American nuclear business and nonproliferation policy in the Middle East?….. https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/decoding-the-us-secret-authorizations-to-sell-nuclear-technology-to-saudi-arabia/

September 16, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Would Japan Dump Radioactive Water Into the Pacific Ocean?

Ever since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the country has struggled with containing its contaminated water. But it’s running out of room⁠—and time.  Popular Mechanics , By David Grossman, Sep 12, 2019

  • Ever since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japanese authorities have struggled to deal with radioactive water within the destroyed plant.
  • Since 2011, there have been 850 containers of water placed at the facility. They’re running out of space.
  • The suggestion to dump the water, made by a cabinet official, is getting criticized by local fishing groups and is viewed skeptically by Japan’s neighbors
  • ………. Takayuki Yanai, an official of a fishery cooperative that’s involved in the operation of the Onahama fish market in the city of Iwaki in Fukushima, says the trust that the fishing industry has tried to build up would disappear because of the action. Yanai told the Times that “any safety measures we have taken and our sales promotion efforts would be shattered instantly, and our businesses will be destroyed.”

    Dumping the water could also have international implications. Namely, it could infuriate Japan’s neighbors in South Korea.

    “We’re just hoping to hear more details of the discussions that are under way in Tokyo so that there won’t be a surprise announcement,” a South Korean diplomat told Reuters.  https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a28984230/japan-dump-radioactive-water-fukushima/

September 14, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear power? the costs and the risks are too great

Nuclear power is too costly and too risky,   https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/nuclear-power-too-costly-and-too-risky-editorials-debates/2293786001/

Todd Larsen,  Sept. 11, 2019
Nuclear power is not the solution to climate change. Those who tuned into CNN’s town hall on climate change may have been surprised to hear nuclear power come up repeatedly. Nuclear power is often proposed as a solution because, unlike fossil fuels, it does not emit climate changing gases. But, unlike other zero emissions technologies such as solar and wind, nuclear poses enormous risks to the environment and communities, and it’s too costly to boot.

Nuclear power raises all the dangers inherent in working with radioactive materials. Mining uranium produces tailings that create radon emissions and also pollutes soil and water with sulfuric acids and cyanic salts. Spent nuclear fuel can remain radioactive for thousands of years.

And there is always the risk of a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack that can release enormous amounts of radiation. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima all offer potent warnings of just how much can go wrong. There are already 448 operable nuclear power plants in the world, with 53 under construction. These plants pose significant risks, and adding more would be irresponsible.
Some people acknowledge the risks of nuclear but then argue that because the impacts of climate change are so much greater, we need to adopt nuclear power despite the risks. But that argument overlooks the fact that we don’t need nuclear to get to zero emissions energy. Studies, including a recent one from Energy Watch Group of Germany and LUT University in Finland, demonstrate that we can meet 100% of our energy needs with renewable energy.

These renewable technologies are already cost competitive with fossil fuels, unlike nuclear power, where plants under construction regularly experience multiple delays and cost overruns, making them prohibitively expensive.

It’s time we gave up on the delusion of nuclear power as a solution to climate change and scaled up the proven winners of solar and wind, along with increased energy efficiency.

September 12, 2019 Posted by | general | 1 Comment

Haunting photos reveal what nuclear-disaster ghost towns look like years after being abandoned

 Insider , Aria Bendix, Sep. 4, 2019   

September 10, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear Bomb or Earthquake? Explosions Reveal the Differences

A series of controlled chemical detonations in the Nevada desert is helping researchers discern between ground shaking caused by nuclear explosions and earthquakes.  EOS, By Katherine Kornei, 8 Sept 19

Earthquakes send energy rippling through the planet, but so does something decidedly human caused: an underground nuclear explosion. With the goal of monitoring the proliferation of nuclear weapons, scientists and engineers have been tasked with differentiating between these two types of energetic events. By collecting geophysical data from controlled detonations in the Nevada desert, researchers aim to do just that.

Rob Abbott, a seismologist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., sums up the motivation for the project, known as the Source Physics Experiment: “Sometimes an explosion can look very earthquake-like, and sometimes an earthquake can look very explosion-like.”

Going Boom in the Desert

The Source Physics Experiment, which began in 2010, has conducted 10 controlled underground explosions at the Nevada National Security Site, a Rhode Island–sized facility roughly 105 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas. The detonations mimicked underground nuclear explosions, but the researchers used chemical explosives such as nitromethane rather than fission- or fusion-based bombs. ……. https://eos.org/articles/nuclear-bomb-or-earthquake-explosions-reveal-the-differences

September 10, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Is the Floating Nuclear Power Plant Safe? Russia is too secretive on nuclear incidents

After a String of Nuclear Incidents, Russia Just Launched a Floating Nuclear Power Plant. Is It Safe?  TARA LAW  AUGUST 25, 2019

On Friday, an unusual kind of vessel set sail from the Arctic city of Murmansk, Russia, for a destination in the country’s far east––a floating nuclear power plant equipped with two reactors.

The vessel, dubbed the Akademik Lomonosov, is set to travel about 2,900 miles to the Arctic port town of Pevek, which has a population of about 4,000 people, where it will be loaded with nuclear fuel and put in place to provide power to the region, according to Russia’s state nuclear corporation, ROSATOM.

Russia’s far east may just be the beginning. ROSATOM has said that it’s in talks with potential customers for the floating power unit, and sees “significant market potential” in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. The vessel’s reactors can generate 70 megawatts of electric energy and 50 gigacalories an hour of heat energy, according to ROSATOM––enough to support a city of up to 100,00 people.

Why are people worried about the floating nuclear power plant?

However, the vessel has sparked concerns about safety as a result of Russia’s tarnished nuclear record. Just this summer, there were two deadly accidents involving Russian nuclear power. On July 1, 14 sailors were killed in a fire on the secretive Losharik nuclear submarine; then on Aug. 8, five scientists were killed when a missile test on Russia’s White Sea failed.

The Kursk nuclear submarine sank on the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, 2000, killing 118 people on board, and scientists have recent found that an nuclear sub that sank in the Barents Sea, the Komsomolets––which was lost in 1989––is emitting high levels of radiation.

Then there’s Chernobyl, the 1986 nuclear power station meltdown in the former Soviet Union that is perhaps the biggest and most famous civil nuclear disaster in history. It exposed potentially hundreds of thousands of people to radiation.

nvironmental activist group Greenpeace has publicly raised concerns about the Russian nuclear power vessel. In an April blog post titled, “The next Chernobyl may happen in the Arctic,” Konstantin Fomin of Greenpeace called for the program to be brought to a halt.

“This is an example of how new technologies are put into use without reflection on their safety,” Fomin wrote, adding, “Greenpeace demands the abandonment of expensive and dangerous atomic energy.”…..

Robert Bean, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at Purdue University, tells TIME that there is a different set of concerns for nuclear reactors at sea than for reactors on land. Reactors at sea must be protected from storms, and have differing security concerns because they can be approached by other ships.

However, says Bean, the Russians are employing a type of reactor that has been used for a long time on its ice-breaking ships––the KLT-40S––and will be similar to the design of reactors the Russians use in submarines. Bean says that the design is very similar other reactors used around the world……

if there’s a reason to be concerned about the reactor, it’s because Russia hasn’t been open about its nuclear program and past accidents. …..https://time.com/5659769/russia-floating-nuclear-power/

August 26, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Pentagon conducts test of banned missile after leaving INF Treaty

August 22, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Trump on trade war with China – “I am the Chosen One.”

August 22, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

No, Mr. Stephens, the United States doesn’t need more nuclear weapons

No, Mr. Stephens, the United States doesn’t need more nuclear weapons, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Matt Korda, August 17, 2019 Last week, on the 74th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, many took time to reflect upon the destruction caused by the only uses of nuclear weapons in wartime. But not the New York Times’ Bret Stephens, who took the opportunity to argue in favor of building more nuclear weapons.

In an op-ed entitled “The U.S. Needs More Nukes,” Stephens laid out his case against arms control.…….Contrary to the title of Stephens’ piece, the United States doesn’t need more nukes. As we explain in our latest US Nuclear Notebook, the Trump administration wants to develop two new ones––a low-yield warhead and a sea-launched cruise missile––both of which are dangerous, and neither of which are necessary. Aside from lowering the threshold for nuclear use, the “low-yield” aspect of the low-yield warhead is a misnomer; it’s roughly one-third the yield of the Hiroshima bomb that killed 100,000 people. And the new sea-launched cruise missile is a concept brought back from the dead: the United States had one until 2013, when the Obama administration retired it because it was pointless, wasteful, and politically controversial……

Stephens’ columns are clearly emphasizing ideology over accuracy. And publishing a pro-nukes article on the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing––without acknowledging the human cost of nuclear weapons, or even the anniversary itself––demonstrates that he is clearly not guided by empathy.

But perhaps most evidently, Stephens’ piece is driven by fear. And understandably so: we’re currently locked into an ever-increasing nuclear arms race with no signs of it slowing down. If you’re not afraid, you’re probably not paying attention. However, crying “more nukes” without articulating any kind of strategic vision isn’t going to get us out of this mess. 

In reality, the best way to get out of an arms race is by refusing to play. The United States shouldn’t base the size of its nuclear arsenal in response to how other countries are tweaking theirs––this only makes sense if you believe that nuclear weapons are for fighting wars. But to quote Reagan’s old adage, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Instead, as explained in Global Zero’s Alternative Nuclear Posture Review, the United States should move towards a “deterrence-only” nuclear posture, which would allow for sizable cuts to the US nuclear arsenal without changing the strategic balance.

Very simply, we need to start enacting ambitious solutions that are equal to the problems that we face. Not just reflexively demanding more nukes. https://thebulletin.org/2019/08/no-mr-stephens-the-united-states-doesnt-need-more-nuclear-weapons/

August 19, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Pakistan’s “triad” of nuclear weaponry

August 19, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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