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Possible freeze of North Korea’s strategic weapons programs

Yes, a nuclear freeze is the logical next step with North Korea, WP, By Michael Morell, July 14

Much discussion has occurred about a possible freeze of North Korea’s strategic weapons programs. Is it part of the Trump administration’s strategy in the hopefully soon-to-be-resumed talks with Pyongyang, or not? Is there a debate about it within the administration, or not? Is it a good idea, or not? Unnamed sources in the administration say “yes” to some or all of these questions; national security adviser John Bolton emphatically says “no” to all of them.

But, as it turns out, a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile programs could be a good thing — for two reasons. First, it would build trust that could lead to subsequent deals resulting in cuts and permanent limits to North Korea’s weapons programs. It is difficult to overstate the trust gap that currently exists between the two countries, making a single, one-step agreement that resolves the nuclear issue an impossibility.

Second, with each day that passes without a deal or a freeze, Pyongyang adds to its existing stockpile of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, giving it added leverage in any talks that do happen (that is, more to eventually bargain away and, therefore, to receive in return), not to mention the added security threat to the United States that more weapons would create. Indeed, this is the biggest downside of allowing North Korea to delay the march toward talks.

The Obama administration and its P5+1 negotiating partners — the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (Britain, France, Russia and China) plus Germany — successfully achieved a freeze with the Iranians during the negotiations that resulted in the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. The Iranians agreed to freeze their nuclear program from day one of those negotiations……….

What might we give in return for a freeze? Certainly, some limited sanctions relief, something to show North Korea the potential benefits of a long-term deal with the United States. Perhaps a restart of South Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea — the use of North Korean labor to make South Korean products for export. Perhaps an opening of diplomatic interests sections in Pyongyang and Washington. …….https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/14/yes-nuclear-freeze-is-logical-next-step-with-north-korea/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ce59df415f08

 

July 15, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Praise for Russian sailors who died in nuclear submarine accident. Secrecy on what happened.

July 9, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

India and Pakistan: Two Nations Always At the Brink of Nuclear War

The world’s most dangerous conflict. National Interest. by War Is Boring 7 July 19 in other words, as the Kashmir dispute continues to fester, inducing periodic terrorist attacks on India and fueling the competition between New Delhi and Islamabad to outpace each other in the variety and size of their nuclear arsenals, the peril to South Asia in particular and the world at large only grows.

It’s possible that a small spark from artillery and rocket exchanges across that border might — given the known military doctrines of the two nuclear-armed neighbors — lead inexorably to an all-out nuclear conflagration. In that case the result would be catastrophic. Besides causing the deaths of millions of Indians and Pakistanis, such a war might bring on “nuclear winter” on a planetary scale, leading to levels of suffering and death that would be beyond our comprehension.
Alarmingly, the nuclear competition between India and Pakistan has now entered a spine-chilling phase. That danger stems from Islamabad’s decision to deploy low-yield tactical nuclear arms at its forward operating military bases along its entire frontier with India to deter possible aggression by tank-led invading forces. Most ominously, the decision to fire such a nuclear-armed missile with a range of 35 to 60 miles is to rest with local commanders. This is a perilous departure from the universal practice of investing such authority in the highest official of the nation. Such a situation has no parallel in the Washington-Moscow nuclear arms race of the Cold War era.

When it comes to Pakistan’s strategic nuclear weapons, their parts are stored in different locations to be assembled only upon an order from the country’s leader. By contrast, tactical nukes are pre-assembled at a nuclear facility and shipped to a forward base for instant use. In addition to the perils inherent in this policy, such weapons would be vulnerable to misuse by a rogue base commander or theft by one of the many militant groups in the country…… https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-and-pakistan-two-nations-always-brink-nuclear-war-65696

July 8, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear power – an outdated technology – not needed for UK

Tom Burke 25th June 2019 Tom Burke: We don’t need nuclear power to keep the lights on, which is fortunate as nuclear power stations are unplanned offline about 25% of the time. They are intermittent, as is all energy generation, so it is fortunate that we don’t actually need base load power.

It’s about five years since the then Chief Executive of Wood Mackenzie Steve Halliday, said baseload is an outmoded concept of how you manage an electricity grid, and that’s because we have modern sensors, we have deep data, deep analytics, we have much more sophisticated software, and we are able to manage our electricity system in a way that delivers affordable and reliable electricity, much more efficiently that we were able to do in the past, and we simply don’t need very big base load power stations of any kind any more, and certainly not ones the size of the new Hinkley Station at 3.2 gigawatts.

The cost of renewables has gone down, the cost of storage has gone down, absolutely dramatically, far faster than anybody thought possible, and we are now in a position to deliver all of the electricity that people need over the coming decades, without reliance on nuclear power stations any more than we are reliant on big coal fired power stations. Toward the end of the coming decade we will be able to do it without reliance on gas either. We are moving into a very different kind of electricity system, and the idea that nuclear power, which is essentially a
20th Century technology, is what you need to solve a 21st Century problem is simply wrong.

http://tomburke.co.uk/2019/06/25/do-we-need-some-base-provision-from-nuclear-power-if-we-are-to-keep-the-lights-on-sky-news/

June 27, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Let Congress Intervene on Nuclear Arms

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/opinion/letters/nuclear-arms-john-bolton.html   An antinuclear advocate calls on Congress to stop the Trump administration’s undermining of our nuclear treaties.  Mark Muhich. Jackson, Mich. The writer is chairman of the Sierra Club Nuclear Free Core Team. June 21, 2019  “Will Arms Control Foes Target Another Treaty?,” by Carol Giacomo (Editorial Observer, June 5), chronicles the move to wreck numerous nuclear weapons treaties by John Bolton, the national security adviser, and the Trump administration.

The United States is poised to spend billions of dollars for the upgrade of its nuclear arsenal. The detonation of a few nuclear weapons could destroy most life on earth.

Congress must intervene. The existing nuclear treaties — the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the New Start Treaty, the Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — must be supported by Congress. Legislation outlawing the first use of nuclear weapons and funding for programs that violate existing treaties should be debated and passed.

Mr. Bolton is dangerous. Strengthening our nuclear arms treaties will be an essential antidote for his apocalyptic policies.

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

Nuclear Disarmament’s Lessons for Climate Change

Nuclear Disarmament’s Lessons for Climate Change.   https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/12/nuclear-disarmaments-lessons-for-climate-change/  If we can ban nukes, we can ban carbon emissions. Here’s how.  BY CHARLI CARPENTER, RONALD MITCHELL, JUNE 12, 2019  T hroughout the Cold War, nuclear weapons were the main existential threat to the planet. But they were also considered vital to powerful nations. With no chance of getting those players to give them up, possession and use of the weapons was simply regulated at the margins. But thanks to the concerted work of a coalition of activists, nuclear weapons were banned outright in a 2017 treaty that has been signed by 70 countries and ratified by 23.

Although the treaty is not yet in force, if it ever becomes international law, it will represent a major step forward toward nuclear disarmament. And even states that have not signed the nuclear ban treaty can already feel its stigmatizing effects: British banks and U.S. cities are divesting from the nuclear weapons industry, and nuclear powers are increasingly forced to defend their nuclear stance against social and ethical demands for disarmament.

If nations can come together to ban something as precious to great powers as nuclear weapons, why can’t they at least try to do the same for carbon emissions? Unlike a nuclear war, which represents a terrible but highly unlikely future threat, carbon-induced climate change is a human catastrophe already in motion.

A 2012 report of experts published by the aid organization DARA International calculated that 400,000 people die every year as a direct result of carbon-induced climate change. According to the journalist David Wallace-Wells, writing in New York magazine, scientists project that catastrophic heat waves, food shortages, and warming-induced plagues will hit the earth in only a few decades. The latest—and inherently conservative—report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of extreme weather and the displacement of millions of people.

Like nuclear disarmament, the key problem in global climate governance is not our scientific understanding of the problem. Rather, it is creating the political will to solve it. Political incentives work against action. The states most responsible for the problem are the least likely to feel its immediate effects and are therefore the least willing to make drastic changes.

Meanwhile, because the rest of the global community is so desperate to get the veto players on board, they have reduced climate governance efforts to the lowest common denominator. This is why the Kyoto Protocol and Paris agreement didn’t ban the use of carbon or require switching to carbon-free energy sources (like nuclear power). Rather, such treaties have focused on incremental changes. Yet even if all states met their commitments, it would be too little, too late.

What has a chance of working is to shake the carbon villains out of their cost-benefit thinking by adopting a moral shaming approach. Climate change is an existential threat to vulnerable populations—and, eventually, we will all be vulnerable. Shaming people into sacrificing for the common good is what wins wars, fuels wartime economies, and generally helps populations accept and enforce austerity measures in times of conflict. The same approach will help the global community address climate change, but only if laggard nations are first shamed into cooperating with those who are already feeling the heat.

In this, climate change activists could take a page from nuclear disarmament activists’ playbook. They should stop treating climate change as an economic problem that can be solved through carbon trading, or an environmental issue that requires collective action by the worst offenders on behalf of the planet. Instead, eliminating carbon emissions must be seen as a moral and humanitarian imperative requiring decisive action regardless of whether the United States and China agree. To do so, they will need to build a strong set of global norms prohibiting carbon emissions.

This approach has worked well in solving other global problems, especially in the area of weapons regulation, where the worst offenders are also least interested in change. Research shows that to replace patchwork global governance approaches with solid global prohibition norms, activists must ask states to adopt ambitious goals rather than move in incremental steps. To avoid incrementalism, the activists marginalize the veto players by creating invite-only forums for like-minded powers to solve jointly understood problems. To encourage cooperation among the non-like-minded, they valorize norm leaders and shame (rather than appease) norm laggards. Perhaps most importantly, they articulate issues through a humanitarian and moral lens. This shift in rhetoric has the power to change the entire conversation around an issue—and it can lead to rapid policy innovation.

Consider the case of nuclear weapons. Like climate change, nuclear weapons represent an existential security threat to nations, human beings, and the planet. And like with climate change, in the nuclear arena, a majority coalition of weak states, middle powers, and nonstate actors favored strong action, while a few powerful veto players hobbled progress. The veto players pushed for incremental reforms: better safeguards, gradual reduction of nuclear stockpiles, and bans on testing and technology transfer but not on the weapons themselves.

After decades working unsuccessfully through the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference forum, ban advocates finally changed strategies in 2006. They began to talk about nuclear weapons not as a threat to state security but as a global humanitarian issue. They began calling on states to abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty and ban the weapons altogether. They started organizing their own, separate conferences, inviting states to sign the “Humanitarian Pledge.”  Ultimately, 122 nations did so, and the document has already started to influence how nuclear nations justify their arsenals. As political scientists know, this is the first step in global normative and political change.

June 13, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

British nuclear reactors are a different design, but, yes Britain could have a Chernobyl style accident

Herald 5th June 2019 IT is the chillingly realistic true-life drama gripping audiences on both
sides of the Atlantic. But Chernobyl, the HBO and Sky Atlantic hit series
on the 1986 meltdown, has also got viewers thinking. The show – which ended
its five-episode run last night – has reignited a debate that has, until
recently, been overshadowed by concerns on global warning.

Suddenly, says Edinburgh-based campaigner and consultant Peter Roche, people are talking
about nuclear energy again, and not just as a carbon-neutral power source
to help combat the climate emergency. That, he reckons, is good. Mr Roche
has been riveted by Chernobyl, the TV show. “I am surprised how popular it
is,” he said. “A whole new generation of people are learning about the
hazards of nuclear accidents.”

It released radiation in a plume that fell
across Europe. Everybody in Scotland, The Herald reported in 1989, was
irradiated. People who ate game, we revealed, got 10 times the average
dose. But for campaigners like Mr Roche – back in 1986 a member of Scram, a
group which united around opposition to East Lothian’s Torness nuclear
power plant – it became an object lesson.

But could Scotland or the UK
suffer a Chernobyl? Mr Roche fears so. “That we don’t have this kind of
reactor in the UK was always the get-out clause of the British industry,”
he said. “But that does not mean we cannot have another kind of accident.”
Mr Roche recently warned that Hunterston could cause a Chernobyl. He was
speaking after The Ferret, a Scottish investigative journalism team,
revealed operator EDF had found 350 graphite cracks. That delayed plans to
restart two reactors which were undergoing maintenance.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17684146.is-another-accident-on-the-scale-of-chernobyl-possible-expert-yes/

June 6, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

UK: West Dunbartonshire Council supports the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

NFLA 31st May 2019 , NFLA welcomes West Dunbartonshire Council resolutions to support the Treaty
for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, to deal with the ‘climate
emergency’ and calls for divestment from fossil fuels & nuclear weapons.

http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-welcomes-west-dunbartonshire-council-prohibition-nuclear-weapons-climate-emergency-divestment-fossil-fuels/

June 3, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

73 years ago today – radiation-caused death of nuclear physicist Louis Slotin, in the Manhattan Project

Paul Waldon   Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 30 May 19

Today the 30th of May 2019 marks the 73rd anniversary of the death of nuclear physicist Louis Slotin who was the second worker to succumb to acute radiation poisoning attributed to the Demon Core while working on the Manhattan Project.
The nuclear coterie has continued to orate its safety record as one to be proud of in an industry that continues to have shortcomings to the abandonment of the radioactive material it produces. “You can not throw out waste when there is no out.”  more  https://www.facebook.com/groups/941313402573199/

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

Another Chernobyl could happen, by accident, or by sabotage

The Tricky Question About Nuclear Even Experts Can’t Answer, Oil Price , By Robert Rapier – May 26, 2019“……….There are still 11 operating RBMK reactors of the type involved in the Chernobyl accident. All of them are in Russia. Since Chernobyl, there have been significant design modifications that were recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).In 2006, IAEA deputy director Tomihiro Taniguchi told The Associated Press “Very significant changes have been made in the technology. The IAEA is firmly committed that such an accident not happen again.”

There’s no doubt that the potential for a Chernobyl-type event has been greatly reduced as a result of design changes and additional training, but has it been reduced to zero? Hold that thought for a moment.

While there are no RBMK reactors in the U.S., around 30% of U.S. nuclear power plants use General Electric-designed boiling water reactors (BWR). This was the type involved in the core meltdowns in Fukushima following the 2011 tsunami off the coast of Japan……….

Preventing Another Chernobyl

When someone asks if a Chernobyl could happen again, the engineer in me pauses and thinks about the unknown unknowns. By definition, we don’t know what they are. Thus, the completely honest answer when someone asks me this question is “I don’t think so, but I can’t guarantee it.”

Further, we have seen people deliberately crash airplanes. Could a disgruntled operator deliberately sabotage a nuclear plant and cause a catastrophic outcome?.……https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/The-Tricky-Question-About-Nuclear-Even-Experts-Cant-Answer.html

May 27, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Link between global warming and war

May 25, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Feds say San Onofre nuclear fuel transfers can resume

May 21, 2019   SAN ONOFRE, Calif. (AP) — Federal regulators are allowing operators of a closed Southern California nuclear power plant to resume transferring nuclear waste to a storage facility….. (subscribers only) https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Feds-say-San-Onofre-nuclear-fuel-transfers-can-13869868.php

May 23, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

In Malaysia renewables are replacing nuclear energy

Malaysia – renewables replacing nuclear, but coal still on the cards, Smart Energy, 20 May 19, Malaysia will continue to embrace and develop thermal power capacity for the next decade and beyond, which will see an increase of 5 GW of coal and gas capacity.

And renewables, particularly wind and solar, will also rise by 2.8 GW, according to a new report which explores the make-up of the country’s energy mix to 2030.

However, the study by analytics company GlobalData points out that rise of renewables will come at the expense of nuclear, which has seen new build plans stall because of strong public opposition……… https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finance-regulation/malaysia-renewables-replacing-nuclear-but-coal-still-on-the-cards/

May 20, 2019

May 21, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

UK: climate change can only be constrained by systems change.

Morning Star 16th May 2019, Alan Simpson: The unthinkable is happening. Parliament, public institutions and the press are waking to the fact that climate change can only be
constrained by systems change. This recognition is still in its infancy,
but it is already unstoppable.

Since the 2017 general election, there have
been ample opportunities for MPs to show real political leadership on the
climate crisis. They never did. Instead, Parliament has preferred to play
Trivial Pursuit with Brexit absurdities. Social movements had to step into
the vacuum; addressing the big picture issues politicians had been choosing
to ignore.

Britain’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) would not have had
the political space to bring forward their own “pull your finger out”
report without the occupations that brought London streets to a halt. Nor
would they have been listened to.

The latest UN report on species extinctions now gets treated as evidence, not argument. Politicians of all shades queue up, calling for a programme to deliver the CCC rescue plan.

Few grasp the upheavals involved (or that, in itself, this will still not
be enough). Over 60 per cent of what the CCC calls for involves behaviour
change; all of which is doable. What they duck is that you won’t get
behaviour change without systems change.

How can Labour deliver climate stability if large parts of the party are still locked into airport
expansions, fossil fuel subsidies, expanding road programmes and the
illusion of a new era of global free-trade deals? Physics tells us there
are no “slow track’ survival options left.

A better starting point lies
somewhere between Extinction Rebellion and the CCC. To join in, Labour may
need to tear up whatever has been its draft manifesto for the next
election, replacing it with a new “climate emergency” one. Former
Labour leader Ed Miliband was right in telling Radio 4 that the British
economy must be “put on a war footing to tackle climate change.”

The answer isn’t to go building more runways, motorways or shopping malls.
What we need is to replant forests, green our cities, and give pollinators
places to feed, breed and shelter in. And for the public, we need a
national programme to green the nation’s habitat too; delivering warm
homes that also produce more energy than they consume.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/climate-jesus-versus-pharisees

May 18, 2019 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Drones find new radiation hotspots near site of Chernobyl nuclear disaster

New RADIATION HOTSPOTS Exposed Near Chernobyl Site 33 Years After Disaster Sputnik News, 12 May 19 Following the Chernobyl accident, authorities officially designated an exclusion zone around the plant where restrictions on public access and inhabitation are in place. This is where specially equipped unmanned aerial vehicles have spotted previously unknown areas with significantly greater levels of radiation.

A British research team claims to have discovered unexpected radioactive hotspots near the Chernobyl ground zero, three decades after the worst nuclear accident in history.

The hotspots were identified by a suite of drones capable of detecting radioactive gamma particles and neutrons, the University of Bristol announced……

According to UN estimates, 134 Chernobyl plant workers out of those 600 present during the accident received high doses of radiation and suffered from radiation sickness; 28 of them died in the first three months following the accident and another 19 died in the following years of various causes, not necessarily associated with radiation exposure.

Over 110,000 inhabitants of the polluted areas near Chernobyl were evacuated, coupled with another 220,000 people living in Ukraine as well as in the adjacent areas of neighbouring Belarus and Russia. Two weeks after the disaster, Soviet officials decided to confine the remains of the doomed reactor into a special steel and concrete tomb, often referred to as a sarcophagus, to prevent further radiation leaks.

It soon emerged that it would only last for about 20 years, and in November 2016, a new movable steel structure was deployed to cover the crumbling original sarcophagus. https://sputniknews.com/science/201905121074941281-chernobyl-new-radiation-hotspots/

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

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