Ukraine war – a great opportunity Each new NATO country was a new customer for the weapons industry
“Lockheed began looking at Poland right after the wall came down,” veteran salesman Dick Pawlowski recalled. “There were contractors flooding through all those countries.” Arms makers became the most aggressive lobbyists for NATO expansion. The security umbrella was not simply a formidable alliance but also a tantalizing market.
New alliance members meant new clients. And NATO would literally require them to buy Western military equipment.
Arms Industry Sees Ukraine Conflict as an Opportunity, Not a Crisis, Jonathan Ng, Truthout , 2 Mar 22,In February, a photograph of Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting hunched over a 13-foot table with French President Emmanuel Macron circulated the globe. News about their sprawling table and sumptuous seven-course dinner was reminiscent of a Lewis Carroll story. But their meeting was deadly serious. Macron arrived to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine and threat of war. Ultimately, their talk foundered over expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Yet the meeting was surreal for another reason. Over the past year, Macron, the leading European Union (EU) peace negotiator, has led an ambitious arms sales campaign, exploiting tensions to strengthen French commerce. The trade press even reported that he hoped to sell Rafale fighter jets to Ukraine, breaking into the “former bastion of Russian industry.”
Macron is not alone. NATO contractors openly embrace the crisis in Ukraine as sound business. In January, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes cited “tensions in Europe” as an opportunity, saying, “I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit.” Likewise, CEO Jim Taiclet of Lockheed Martin highlighted the benefits of “great power competition” in Europe to shareholders.
On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, pounding cities with ordnance and dispatching troops across the border. The sonic boom of fighter jets filled the air, as civilians flooded the highways in Kyiv, attempting to flee the capital. And the stock value of arms makers soared.
The spiraling conflict over Ukraine dramatizes the power of militarism and the influence of defense contractors. A ruthless drive for markets — intertwined with imperialism — has propelled NATO expansion, while inflaming wars from Eastern Europe to Yemen.
Selling NATO
The current conflict with Russia began in the wake of the Cold War. Declining military spending throttled the arms industry in the United States and other NATO countries. In 1993, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry convened a solemn meeting with executives. Insiders called it the “Last Supper.” In an atmosphere heavy with misapprehension, Perry informed his guests that impending blows to the U.S. military budget called for industry consolidation. A frantic wave of mergers and takeovers followed, as Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing and Raytheon acquired new muscle and smaller firms expired amid postwar scarcity.
While domestic demand shrunk, defense contractors rushed to secure new foreign markets. In particular, they set their sights on the former Soviet bloc, regarding Eastern Europe as a new frontier for accumulation. “Lockheed began looking at Poland right after the wall came down,” veteran salesman Dick Pawlowski recalled. “There were contractors flooding through all those countries.” Arms makers became the most aggressive lobbyists for NATO expansion. The security umbrella was not simply a formidable alliance but also a tantalizing market.
However, lobbyists faced a major obstacle. In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker had promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he allowed a reunited Germany to join NATO, the organization would move “not one inch eastward.” Yet lobbyists remained hopeful. The Soviet Union had since disintegrated, Cold War triumphalism prevailed, and vested interests now pushed for expansion. “Arms Makers See Bonanza In Selling NATO Expansion,” The New York Times reported in 1997. The newspaper later noted that, “Expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — first to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and then possibly to more than a dozen other countries — would offer arms makers a new and hugely lucrative market.”
New alliance members meant new clients. And NATO would literally require them to buy Western military equipment.
Lobbyists poured into Washington, D.C. fêting legislators in royal style. Vice President Bruce Jackson of Lockheed became the president of the advocacy organization U.S. Committee to Expand NATO. Jackson recounted the extravagant meals that he hosted at the mansion of the Republican luminary Julie Finley, which boasted “an endless wine cellar.”
“Educating the Senate about NATO was our chief mission,” he informed journalist Andrew Cockburn. “We’d have four or five senators over every night, and we’d drink Julie’s wine.”
Lobby pressure was relentless. “The most interested corporations are the defense corporations, because they have a direct interest in the issue,” Romanian Ambassador Mircea Geoană observed. Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, and other firms even funded Romania’s lobbying machine during its bid for NATO membership……………… https://truthout.org/articles/arms-industry-sees-ukraine-conflict-as-an-opportunity-not-a-crisis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=734c56bc-48da-4e66-bea1-f2bedb7d1431
The very perilous situation of Ukraine’s nuclear power stations.
Could the Ukraine conflict cause one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters?
ReNew Economy, Dr. Jim Green 3 March 2022
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
Worst-case scenario
It’s worthwhile comparing a worst-case scenario with the current situation in Ukraine. A worst-case scenario would involve war between two (or more) even-matched nations with a heavy reliance on nuclear power. War would drag on for years between evenly-matched nations. The heavy reliance on nuclear power would make it difficult or impossible to shut down power reactors.
Sooner or later, a deliberate or accidental military strike would likely hit a reactor – or the reactor’s essential power and cooling water supply would be disrupted. Any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to strike nuclear power plants would be voided and multiple Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale disasters could unfold concurrently – in addition to all the non-nuclear horrors of war.
In the current conflict, the nations are not evenly matched and the fighting is limited to one country. There won’t be large-scale warfare dragging on for years – although low-level conflict might persist for years, as has been the case since Russia’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Ukraine does share one component of a worst-case scenario: its heavy reliance on nuclear power. Fifteen reactors at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country’s electricity. It is one of only three countries reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity supply.
A March 1 IAEA update, citing the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), said that all 15 reactors remained under the Ukrainian control and they continued to operate.
But in its daily post dated March 1, SNRIU lists six reactors as ‘disconnected from the power grid’, comprising three reactors at Zaporizhzhia and one each at the Rivno, Khmelnitsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Those disconnections amount to about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total national electricity generation.
In the weeks prior to the February 24 invasion, 0-3 reactors were disconnected. The number rose to five on February 26 and has remained at six since then. It seems likely that the invasion has resulted in decisions to disconnect a number of reactors. Ukraine’s nuclear utility Energoatom cites “operational safety” for the disconnection of two reactors at Zaporizhzhia.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s reactor fleet was ageing, its nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any meaningful national or international oversight or regulation of the country’s ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Deliberate or accidental military strikes on nuclear plants
A deliberate military strike on a power reactor is highly unlikely – but not inconceivable. Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, draws this comparison:
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
It’s worthwhile comparing a worst-case scenario with the current situation in Ukraine. A worst-case scenario would involve war between two (or more) even-matched nations with a heavy reliance on nuclear power. War would drag on for years between evenly-matched nations. The heavy reliance on nuclear power would make it difficult or impossible to shut down power reactors.
Sooner or later, a deliberate or accidental military strike would likely hit a reactor – or the reactor’s essential power and cooling water supply would be disrupted. Any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to strike nuclear power plants would be voided and multiple Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale disasters could unfold concurrently – in addition to all the non-nuclear horrors of war.
In the current conflict, the nations are not evenly matched and the fighting is limited to one country. There won’t be large-scale warfare dragging on for years – although low-level conflict might persist for years, as has been the case since Russia’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Ukraine does share one component of a worst-case scenario: its heavy reliance on nuclear power. Fifteen reactors at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country’s electricity. It is one of only three countries reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity supply.
A March 1 IAEA update, citing the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), said that all 15 reactors remained under the Ukrainian control and they continued to operate.
But in its daily post dated March 1, SNRIU lists six reactors as ‘disconnected from the power grid’, comprising three reactors at Zaporizhzhia and one each at the Rivno, Khmelnitsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Those disconnections amount to about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total national electricity generation.
In the weeks prior to the February 24 invasion, 0-3 reactors were disconnected. The number rose to five on February 26 and has remained at six since then. It seems likely that the invasion has resulted in decisions to disconnect a number of reactors. Ukraine’s nuclear utility Energoatom cites “operational safety” for the disconnection of two reactors at Zaporizhzhia.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s reactor fleet was ageing, its nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any meaningful national or international oversight or regulation of the country’s ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Deliberate or accidental military strikes on nuclear plants
A deliberate military strike on a power reactor is highly unlikely – but not inconceivable. Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, draws this comparison:
“A case in point was the March 26, 2017, bombing of the Islamic State-held Tabqa Dam in Syria. Standing 18 stories high and holding back a 25-mile-long reservoir on the Euphrates River, the dam’s destruction would have drowned tens of thousands of innocent people downstream. Yet, violating strict “no-strike” orders and bypassing safeguards, US airmen struck it anyway. Dumb luck saved the day again: the bunker-busting bomb failed to detonate.”
An accidental strike is a troubling possibility. Or a strike disabling the vital power and cooling water supply systems which are necessary to maintain safety even after reactors are shut down.
Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores are vulnerable – they often contain more radioactivity than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.
And if there is an attack on a reactor or spent fuel store resulting in disaster, response measures would likely be chaotic and woefully inadequate. Forbes senior contributor Craig Hooper writes:
“It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilised trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any ‘liberated’ power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone.”
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is home to six reactors and lies near one of Russia’s main invasion routes, north of Crimea. As noted above, three of the six reactors have been disconnected in recent days.
The plant was contentious long before the recent invasion due to mismanagement and the ageing of the Soviet-era reactors. A 2017 Austrian government assessment of Zaporizhzhia concluded that: “The documents provided and available lead to the conclusion that a high probability exists for accident scenarios to develop into a severe accident that threatens the integrity of the containment and results in a large release.”………………………………
Staffing
A single-reactor nuclear power plant typically employs 600-800 people. Presumably the workforce at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia plant is considerably higher.
If not already, nuclear staff are likely to be killed when not at work, and others will flee and get as far away from the fighting – and the nuclear power plant – as they can.
If Russia’s military takes control of the site – and does so without causing a nuclear disaster – they could repeat what they have done at Chernobyl in recent days: keep Ukrainian staff hostage and force them to work under Russian control……………
The adequacy of backup generators at Zaporizhzhia has long been a concern as detailed in a March 2 Greenpeace International report. In 2020, the Ukrainian NGO EcoAction received information from nuclear industry whistleblowers about problems with the generators at Zaporizhzhia, including a lack of spare parts.
In the same year, the regulator SNRIU reported on a generator malfunction. An upgrade of the generators was due to be complete by 2017 but the completion date has been pushed back to 2023, i.e. it remains incomplete.
Security at Zaporizhzhia was jeopardised in 2014 when an armed confrontation took place between security guards and paramilitaries from Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist ‘right sector’, allied with neo-Nazi groups. The gunmen wanted to ‘protect’ the plant from pro-Russian forces, the Guardian reported, but were stopped by guards at a checkpoint.
The head of SNRIU said in 2015: “I cannot say what could be done to completely protect [nuclear] installations from attack, except to build them on Mars.”
International monitors
Energoatom CEO Petro Kotin called on international monitors to intervene to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear reactors and to create 30km exclusion zones around the four nuclear power plants.
Energoatom noted in a statement that columns of military equipment have been moving near nuclear power plants with “shells exploding near the nuclear power plant – this can lead to highly undesirable threats across the planet”.
The Acting Chief State Inspector of SNRIU has asked the IAEA to provide immediate assistance in coordinating activities in relation to the safety of nuclear facilities. The IAEA noted that Director General Grossi “will be holding consultations and maintain contacts in order to address this request”.
But the request for assistance in establishing an exclusion zone has been rejected by the IAEA. “The IAEA has no power to enforce an exclusion zone,” Grossi said following an emergency IAEA session on March 2………………………
Nuclear waste
The report by Greenpeace International nuclear specialists notes that as of 2017, Zaporizhzhia had 2,204 tons of spent fuel in storage at the site – 855 tonnes in the spent fuel pools within the reactor buildings, and 1,349 tonnes in a dry storage facility.
The spent fuel pools contain far more radioactivity than the dry store. Without active cooling, the pools risk overheating and evaporating to a point where the fuel metal cladding could ignite and release much of the radioactive inventory. Damage to the reservoirs which supply cooling water to Zaporizhzhia could disrupt cooling of reactors and spent fuel.
The Guardian reported in 2015 that the dry store at Zaporizhzhia is sub-standard, with more than 3,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in metal casks within concrete containers in an open-air yard close to a perimeter fence.
Neil Hyatt, a professor of radioactive waste management at Sheffield University, told the Guardian that a dry storage container with a resilient roof and in-house ventilation would offer greater protection from missile bombardment.
Cyber-warfare
Cyber-warfare is another risk which could jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear plants. Russia is one of the growing number of states actively engaged in cyber-warfare. James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that a Russian cyber-attack disrupted power supply in Ukraine in 2015.
Nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targets of cyber-attack, including the Stuxnet computer virus targeted by Israel and the US to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2009.
Reports from the UK-based Chatham House and the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative have identified multiple computer security concerns specific to nuclear power plants.
Waste storage and disposal sites
Missiles hit a radioactive waste storage site near Kyiv on February 27. The IAEA stated in a March 1 update:……………………..
The Kyiv and Kharkiv facilities typically hold disused radioactive sources and other low-level waste from hospitals and industry, the IAEA said, but do not contain high-level nuclear waste. However the Kharkiv site may also store spent nuclear fuel from the research reactor.
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia.
RenewEconomy
”Infinite war” – NATO and U.S. weapons industry found the perfect sales opportunity in Yemen
Arms Industry Sees Ukraine Conflict as an Opportunity, Not a Crisis, Jonathan Ng, Truthout , 2 Mar 22,
In the United States, the industry employs around 700 lobbyists. Nearly three-fourths previously worked for the federal government — the highest percentage for any industry. The lobby spent $108 million in 2020 alone, and its ranks continue to swell. Over the past 30 years, about 530 congressional staffers on military-related committees left office for defense contractors. Industry veterans dominate the Biden administration, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin from Raytheon.
”’………………….Yemen Burning
Arms makers found the perfect sales opportunity in Yemen. In 2011, a popular revolution toppled Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had monopolized power for two decades. His crony, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, became president the next year after easily winning the election: He was the only candidate. Thwarted by elite intrigue, another uprising ejected Mansour Hadi in 2015.
That year, Prince Salman became king of Saudi Arabia, but power concentrated into the hands of his son, Mohammed bin Salman, who feared that the uprising threatened to snatch Yemen from Saudi Arabia’s sphere of influence.
Months later, a Saudi-led coalition invaded, leaving a massive trail of carnage. “There was no plan,” a U.S. intelligence official emphasized. “They just bombed anything and everything that looked like it might be a target.”
The war immediately attracted NATO contractors, which backed the aggressors. They exploit the conflict to sustain industrial capacity, fund weapons development and achieve economies of scale. In essence, the Saudi-led coalition subsidizes the NATO military buildup, while the West inflames the war in Yemen.
Western statesmen pursue sales with perverse enthusiasm. In May 2017, Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia for his first trip abroad as president, in order to flesh out the details of a $110 billion arms bundle. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, arrived beforehand to discuss the package. When Saudi officials complained about the price of a radar system, Kushner immediately called the CEO of Lockheed Martin to ask for a discount. The following year, Mohammed bin Salman visited company headquarters during a whirlwind tour of the United States. Defense contractors, Hollywood moguls and even Oprah Winfrey welcomed the young prince Yet the Americans were not alone. The Saudi-led coalition is also the largest arms market for France and other NATO members. And as the French Ministry of the Armed Forces explains, exports are “necessary for the preservation and development of the French defense technological and industrial base.” In other words, NATO members such as France export war in order to retain their capacity to wage it.
President Macron denies that the coalition — an imposing alliance that includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan and Senegal — uses French weapons. But the statistics are suggestive. Between 2015 and 2019, France awarded €14 billion in arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia and €20 billion in licenses to the United Arab Emirates. CEO Stéphane Mayer of Nexter Systems praised the performance of Leclerc tanks in Yemen, boasting that they “have highly impressed the military leaders of the region.” In short, while Macron denies that the coalition wields French hardware in Yemen, local industrialists cite their use as a selling point. Indeed, Amnesty International reports that his administration has systematically lied about its export policy. Privately, officials have compiled a “very precise list of French materiél deployed in the context of the conflict, including ammunition.”
Recently, Macron became one of the first heads of state to meet Mohammed bin Salman following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Like Trump’s trip, Macron’s diplomatic junket was a sales mission. Eventually, Macron clinched a deal with the United Arab Emirates for 80 Rafale fighters. The CEO of Dassault Aviation called the contract “the most important ever obtained by French military aerospace,” guaranteeing six years of work for a pillar of its industrial base.
French policy is typical of NATO involvement in Yemen. While denouncing the war, every Western producer has outfitted those carrying it out. Spanish authorities massage official documents to conceal the export of lethal hardware. Great Britain has repeatedly violated its own arms embargo. And the United States has not respected export freezes with any consistency.
Even NATO countries in Eastern Europe exploit the war. While these alliance members absorb Western arms, they dump some of their old Soviet hardware into the Middle East. Between 2012 and July 2016 Eastern Europe awarded at least €1.2 billion in military equipment to the region.
Ironically, a leading Eastern European arms exporter is Ukraine. While the West rushes to arm Kyiv, its ruling class has sold weapons on the black market. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that between 1992 and 1998 alone, Ukraine lost a staggering $32 billion in military assets, as oligarchs pillaged their own army. Over the past three decades, they have outfitted Iraq, the Taliban and extremist groups across the Middle East. Even former President Leonid Kuchma, who has led peace talks in the Donbas region, illegally sold weapons while in office. More recently, French authorities investigated Dmytro Peregudov, the former director of the state defense conglomerate, for pocketing $24 million in sales commissions. Peregudov resided in a château with rolling wine fields, while managing the extensive properties that he acquired after his years in public service.
The Warlords
Kuchma and Peregudov are hardly exceptional. Corruption is endemic in an industry that relies on the proverbial revolving door. The revolving door is not simply a metaphor but an institution, converting private profit into public policy. Its perpetual motion signifies the social reproduction of an elite that resides at the commanding heights of a global military-industrial complex. Leading power brokers ranging from the Mitterrands and Chiracs in France, to the Thatchers and Blairs in Britain, and the Gonzálezes and Bourbons in Spain have personally profited from the arms trade.
In the United States, the industry employs around 700 lobbyists. Nearly three-fourths previously worked for the federal government — the highest percentage for any industry. The lobby spent $108 million in 2020 alone, and its ranks continue to swell. Over the past 30 years, about 530 congressional staffers on military-related committees left office for defense contractors. Industry veterans dominate the Biden administration, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin from Raytheon.
The revolving door reinforces the class composition of the state, while undermining its moral legitimacy. As an elite rotates office, members insulate policymaking from democratic input, taint the government with corruption and mistake corporate profit with national interest. By 2005, 80 percent of army generals with three stars or more retired to arms makers despite existing regulations. (The National Defense Authorization Act prohibits top officers from lobbying the government for two years after leaving office or leveraging personal contacts to secure contracts. But compliance is notoriously poor.) More recently, the U.S. Navy initiated investigations against dozens of officers for corrupt ties to the defense contractor Leonard Francis, who clinched contracts with massive bribes, lavish meals and sex parties.
Steeped in this corrosive culture, NATO intellectuals now openly talk about the prospect of “infinite war.” Gen. Mike Holmes insists that it is “not losing. It’s staying in the game and getting a new plan and keeping pursuing your objectives.” Yet those immersed in its brutal reality surely disagree. The United Nations reports that at least 14,000 people have died in the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, and over 377,000 have perished in Yemen.
In truth, the doctrine of infinite war is not so much a strategy as it is a confession — acknowledging the violent metabolism of a system that requires conflict. As a self-selecting elite propounds NATO expansion, military buildup and imperialism, we must embrace what the warlords most fear: the threat of peace.The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article. https://truthout.org/articles/arms-industry-sees-ukraine-conflict-as-an-opportunity-not-a-crisis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=734c56bc-48da-4e66-bea1-f2bedb7d1431
UK government study shows that nuclear test veterans were more likely to have cancer and die
More than 20,000 men, many on National Service, were ordered to take part in 45 nuclear weapons tests and 593 radioactive ‘minor trials’ in America, Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1991.They later reported cancer, blood disease, miscarriages for their wives and 10 times the usual rate of birth defects in their children, but the MoD spent millions denying war pensions and compensation, insisting there was no proof.
Nuclear test veterans were more likely to have cancer and die, government study finds, Mirror, By Susie Boniface 25 Feb 2022
A study found out that nuclear test veterans were more likely to die. There are now cross-party calls for a public inquiry and immediate compensation, as well as a medal, Men ordered to take part in Cold War radiation experiments WERE more likely to die, according to a government study which has blown apart 70 years of official denials.
- Nuclear test veterans told to watch atomic blasts then live, eat, and drink amid the fallout have raised rates of multiple cancers, the research has found.They are nearly four times more likely to die from a bone marrow cancer seen in survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more likely than other servicemen to take their own lives.The shocking research proves:
- HALF the crew of HMS Diana, ordered twice to sail through fallout in 1956, died from tumours;
- Atomic scientists were SEVEN times more likely to kill themselves;
- RAF decontamination crews were FIVE times more likely to die from leukaemia;
- There were more cancers than deaths, meaning some veterans have fought multiple malignancies;
- And despite Ministry of Defence claims servicemen were well-protected, three-quarters were not checked for radiation, while clean-up workers were both unmonitored, and more likely to die from blood cancer.
- There are now cross-party calls for a public inquiry and immediate compensation, as well as a medal.Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “This is all the evidence required to seek a formal inquiry into the issues and injustices that more than 20,000 veterans of nuclear testing have faced. It appears to be incontrovertible proof that their service led to serious health issues.“They need recognition and for the government to give them the respect owed to them by acknowledging what they have known for years: they paid a devastating price for their vital role in protecting our country. We are at a critical moment in this journey for justice and we need to see action now.”
- His call for speed was echoed by Tory grandee Sir John Hayes, patron of the British Nuclear Test Veteran Association, who said: “There can be no doubt and no more excuses. Based on these facts, we need to act with no delay to recognise these exceptional veterans’ extraordinary sacrifice.”
- More than 20,000 men, many on National Service, were ordered to take part in 45 nuclear weapons tests and 593 radioactive ‘minor trials’ in America, Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1991.They later reported cancer, blood disease, miscarriages for their wives and 10 times the usual rate of birth defects in their children, but the MoD spent millions denying war pensions and compensation, insisting there was no proof.
The new research comes eight months before the 70th anniversary of Britain’s first nuclear test, Operation Hurricane, on October 3, 1952. It was published without warning on the morning that Russia invaded Ukraine.
It looked at causes of death among 21,357 veterans compared to a control group of servicemen who were not at the tests. It traced only 85 per cent, but found three per cent more veterans had died from cancer and two per cent more veterans died from other causes.
Test veterans were 20 per cent more likely than controls to die from stomach cancer or pleural cancer, 59 per cent more likely to die from skin cancer, and 26 per cent more likely to die from acute lymphatic leukaemia.
- There were 12 per cent more deaths from suicide, and 377 per cent more deaths from chronic myeloid leukaemia.
- CML is caused by genetic mutations in the bone marrow. By-products of nuclear weapons, including plutonium-239 and strontium-90 are considered “bone-seeking” when absorbed by man, and it is known that they can damage DNA.Stuart Ross, whose dad Archie was a RAF corporal at Christmas Island in 1958 and died in 2015 from aggressive leukaemia, said it was time to released the veterans’ military medical records.
- “My dad suffered for years with a layer of skin growing between his eyelid and eyeball, a daughter born with an outsized arm, and a grandson with Down’s syndrome. Then he died within six weeks of being diagnosed with blood cancer,” said Stuart, 57, of Hertford.“I’ve asked for the blood tests dad and many other veterans had taken when he was on the island, and officials tell me they don’t exist. They’re hidden somewhere. The Defence Secretary must order them to be released to the families. We deserve the truth.”The latest research studied an extra 19 years of data, and found higher rates for many types of death than were in three previous studies, first ordered by Margaret Thatcher in 1983.The report’s authors at the UK Health Security Agency warned that the MoD could no longer rely on dodgy dose records from the 1950s, saying that there should be no raised risk of death or cancer if the records “accurately reflect the broad levels of exposure”. They added that risks they found should be expected “if, in fact, doses… had been much larger than recorded”.
- The Mirror has campaigned for justice for the test veterans since the 1980s………….. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nuclear-test-veterans-were-more-26331008
Plutonium problems won’t go away
Plutonium problems won’t go away, By Chris Edwards, Engineering and Technology, February 15, 2022
Nuclear energy’s environmental image is as low as carbon’s,with its clean fuel potential being tarnished by legacy waste issues. Are we any closer to resolving this?
At the end of 2021, the UK closed the curtain on one part of its nuclear waste legacy and took a few more steps towards a longer-lasting legacy. A reprocessing plant, built at the cost of £9bn in the 1990s to repackage waste plutonium from pressurised water reactors in the UK and around the world for use in new fuel, finally converted the last remaining liquid residue from Germany, Italy and Japan into glass and packed it into steel containers. It will take another six years to ship it and all the other waste that belongs to the reactor owners, who are contractually obliged to take it back.
Even when the foreign-owned waste has headed back home, the UK will still play host to one of the largest hoards of plutonium in the world, standing at more than 110 tonnes. It amounts to a fifth of the world’s total and a third of the global civilian stockpile of 316 tonnes. Despite operating a smaller nuclear fleet than France’s, the UK has 1.5 times more plutonium.
It was never meant to end this way. The long-term dream was for fission-capable fuel to keep going round in a circle, only topped up with virgin uranium when necessary. The plutonium produced during fission could itself sustain further fission in the right conditions. However, fast-breeder reactors that would be needed to close the cycle remain largely experimental, even in countries such as Russia where their development continues. Driven by both safety concerns and worries about nuclear proliferation that might result from easier access to separated and refined plutonium-239, the West abandoned its fast-breeder programmes decades ago.
It is possible to reprocess spent fuel into so-called mixed-oxide fuel, but it is only good for one use in a conventional reactor. Other actinides build up and begin to poison the fission process. The only prospects for change lie in so-called Generation IV reactors, but these designs have yet to be tested and may continue to fall foul of proliferation concerns.
While operators around the world have mulled over the practicality of fuel reuse, containers of both processed and reprocessed fuel have lingered in storage tanks cooled by water despite, in some countries, being earmarked for deep burial for decades. In the late 1980s, the US Department of Energy (DoE) settled on Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the single destination for the country’s spent nuclear fuel, and scheduled it for opening a decade later. By 2005, the earliest possible opening date had slipped by 20 years. It remains unopened and will probably never open. In the interim, much of the fuel has lingered in water-filled cooling tanks while politicians consider more localised deep-storage sites.
Fukushima provided a wake-up call to the industry, not just about the problems of controlling reactors but their spent fuel. After the tsunami, engineers were concerned that without replenishment pumps, the water in the storage tanks for the spent fuel would evaporate. If the fuel then caught fire, it would likely release radioactive tritium and caesium into the atmosphere. In a stroke of luck, water leaked into the damaged ponds. Now the issue for operators of some older reactors is that the fuel canisters are just corroding into the water instead.Experts such as Frank von Hippel, professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University, recommend storage pools should only be used until the fuel is cool enough to be transformed into glass, immersed in concrete or both, and transferred to dry storage, preferably in a deep geological disposal facility (GDF).At a conference last November organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Laurie Swami, president and CEO of Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organisation, claimed “there is scientific consensus on the effectiveness of deep geologic repositories” for highly radioactive waste.
The UK similarly settled 15 years ago on a plan to build its own GDF for high-level waste in tandem with the establishment of a single government-owned body responsible for organising where the waste goes, in the shape of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The GDF took a small step forward at the end of 2021 when two candidate sites were announced, both close to the Cumbrian coast. The local communities have agreed in principle that the NDA can investigate where they are suitable for a set of tunnels that may extend under the Irish Sea. With the project at such an early stage, the country remains years away from opening a GDF. Finland, in contrast, has pressed ahead and expects its GDF to open in 2025, while Sweden is likely to have the second one in the world.
At the same time, there is an enormous volume of other irradiated material that cannot economically be put into deep storage. In a keynote speech at the IAEA’s conference, James McKinney, head of integrated waste management at the NDA, explained that a lot of radioactive waste is contaminated building material. The Low-Level Waste Repository at Drigg in Cumbria was designed for this kind of waste, but McKinney stressed that capacity is “precious” and in danger of running out if all the material is taken there. Over the past decade, the NDA and its subcontractors have been working to divert as much waste as possible from the Drigg site by reprocessing and repackaging it.
By bringing waste management under one umbrella instead of dividing it among power-station operators, the NDA has been able to change procurement strategies to favour the use of much more R&D for waste handling. “The destination of radioactive waste can be changed through interventions,” McKinney adds. “At this moment, we estimate some 95 per cent of potential low-level waste is being diverted away [from Drigg]. Twelve years ago, the opposite would be true.”
A recent example of this in action is the dismantling of pipes that were once installed at the Harwell research centre. More than 1,500 sections of metal pipe were delivered to oil-and-gas specialist Augean, which is using high-pressure water jets to remove radioactive scale so the metal can be recycled instead of needing long-term storage.
Getting less manageable waste away from the storage tanks presents another major challenge, particularly if it comes from the oldest reactors. For example in the UK, when spent Magnox fuel was taken out of the reactors, the magnesium cladding around it was stripped away and moved to Sellafield’s Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS). Though the swarf itself is just intermediate-level waste, Sellafield’s operator regards emptying the silo ready for transfer to long-term dry storage as one of the more hazardous projects on the site. Stored underwater to keep them cool, the packages of swarf gradually corrode and release hydrogen gas and contaminants, which can escape into the ground. Moving the waste for treatment can itself lead to more escapes.
To manoeuvre 11,000 cubic metres of waste out of the 22 chambers of the MSSS, it has taken more than two decades to design, build and install two out of three shielded enclosures and grabbing arms that can lift out pieces of the swarf and prepare it to be immobilised in concrete or glass.
The time it has taken to even begin to clean up the MSSS illustrates the core issue that faces decommissioning and clean-up programmes: the sheer difficulty of trying to handle even moderately radioactive materials in circumstances where access was never considered when these structures were first built and filled. Everything in this kind of decommissioning calls for ungainly long-distance manipulators because there is no other way to protect the clean-up crews.
As engineers struggled to deal with the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, many people in Japan thought the same thing, and expressed surprise that a country that had invested so much in robotics research had none that it could send into the reactors to even perform a survey.
Japan was not alone with this issue: no country had a dedicated nuclear-accident response robot. Work on robots began decades ago but continued only in fits and starts for the most part. After a serious incident in 1999 at an experimental reactor at Tokaimura, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry set aside $36m to develop remote-controlled machines. But the projects ended within a few years.
To help deal with the immediate problems at Fukushima, the US research agency DARPA was quick to repurpose the military and disaster robots to which it had access, originally planning to send them on Navy ships across the Pacific. But it quickly emerged that this would be too slow
At a conference organised by the International Federation of Robotics Research on the 10th anniversary of the accident, Toyota Research chief scientist Gill Pratt said the first robots “got there in the overhead luggage of commercial flights”. For all of them it was a baptism of fire.
(Here this aticle continues with a discussion on robot technology – which must be remotely done and turns out to be very problematic)
………………………………………….Deep burial seems to be the easiest way to deal with long-lived waste, assuming no-one tries to dig it up without heavy protection and good intentions hundreds or thousands of years into the future. But the question of how safe it is if the repository breaches accidentally is extremely hard to answer.
Plutonium is unlikely to be the biggest problem. Although it oxidises readily to dissolve in water, the short-lived fission products such as strontium-90 and caesium-137 could be more troublesome if they escape the confines of a storage site, according to analyses such as one performed by SKB as part of Sweden’s programme to build a deep burial site there.The half-lives of these isotopes are far shorter than those of plutonium, so the risk from them will subside after a couple of hundred years rather than the thousands for plutonium. But what if they could be shortened to days or even seconds? Any radiation could then be contained or used before the waste is repackaged.
This is the promise of laser transmutation, which uses high-energy beams to displace neutrons in donor atoms that then, with luck, smash into those unstable isotopes to produce even more unstable atoms that quickly decay. In one experiment performed by Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, a laser transmuted atoms in a sample of iodine-129, with a half-life measured in millions of years, to iodine-128. A similar experiment at Cambridge converted strontium-90 to the medical labelling chemical strontium-89.
The bad news is that the energy required to perform transmutation at scale is enormous and not all isotopes are cooperative: their neutron-capture volumes are so small the process becomes even less efficient.Nobel laureate Gérard Mourou believes careful control over high-energy pulsed lasers will bring the energy cost of transmutation down significantly. He is working with several groups to build industrial-scale systems that could begin to clean up at least some of the high-activity waste.
Even if lasers can be made more efficient, there are further problems. For one, the waste needs to be separated as otherwise the stray neutrons will transmute other elements in the sample, generating unwanted actinides. This will not only increase the cost of reprocessing, it will increase the risk of proliferation, as it will lead to plutonium that is far easier to handle and move around, the one outcome that deep burial is meant to avoid……………………https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/02/plutonium-problems-won-t-go-away/
Robots used to remove Fukushima’s highly radioactive used nuclear fuel, but they’re still problematic.
Plutonium problems won’t go away, By Chris Edwards, Engineering and Technology, February 15, 2022 ”’………………………………………At a conference organised by the International Federation of Robotics Research on the 10th anniversary of the accident, Toyota Research chief scientist Gill Pratt said the first robots “got there in the overhead luggage of commercial flights”. For all of them it was a baptism of fire.
Narrow staircases and rubble turned into insurmountable obstacles for some. Those that made it further failed after suffering too much radiation damage to key sensors and memories. Finally, some developed by the Chiba Institute of Technology were able to explore the upper floors of Reactor 2. The researchers designed their Quince to work for up to five hours in the presence of a cobalt-60 source that would generate an average dose of 40 grays per hour.
Direct radiation damage was not the only problem for the Fukushima robots. Reactors are protected by thick concrete walls. Wireless signals fade in and out and fibre-optic cabling becomes an impediment in the cluttered space of a damaged building.
To be close enough to the machines, operators had to wear bulky protective clothing that made teleoperation much harder than it would be in other environments. Several robots went into the building only to fail and get stuck, turning into obstacles for other machines.
The risk of these kinds of failure played into the nuclear industry’s long-term resistance to using robots for repair and decommissioning. Plant operators continued to favour mechanical manipulators operated by humans, separated by both protective clothing and thick lead-heavy glass.
Since Fukushima, attitudes to robots in the nuclear industry have changed, but remote control remains the main strategy. Pratt says humans remain generally better at control and are far better at dealing with the unstructured environments within many older and sometimes damaged installations.
The long-term aim of those working on these systems is to provide robots with greater degrees of autonomy over time. For example, surveillance drones will be flown with operator supervision but the machines are acquiring more intelligence to let them avoid obstacles so they need only respond to simpler, high-level commands. This can overcome one of the problems created by intermittent communications. One instance of this approach was shown when UK-based Createc Robotics recently deployed a drone at Chernobyl and Fukushima, choosing in the latter case to survey the partly collapsed turbine hall for a test of its semi-autonomous mapping techniques.
To get more robots into play in the UK, the NDA has focused its procurement more heavily on universities and smaller specialist companies, some of which are adapting technologies from the oil and gas industry.
The NDA expects it will take many years to develop effective robot decommissioning and handling technologies. It has put together a broad roadmap that currently extends to 2040. Radiation susceptibility remains an issue. Visual sensors are highly susceptible to damage by ionising radiation. However, a mixture of smarter control systems and redundancy should make it possible to at least move robots to a safe point for repair should they start to show signs of failure.
Another design strategy being pursued both in the UK and Japan is to build robots as though they are a moving, smart Swiss-army knife: armed with a variety of detachable limbs and subsystems so they can adapt to conditions and possibly even perform some on-the-fly repairs to themselves.
Slowly, the technology is appearing that can handle and at least put the waste out of harm’s way for a long time, though you might wonder why the process has taken decades to get to this stage of development. ……………. (Goes on to laser developments, again, far from a sure thing.) https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/02/plutonium-problems-won-t-go-away/
What You Should REALLY Know About Ukraine
“the United States is standing with missiles on our doorstep.” Putin asked, “How would the Americans react if missiles were placed at the border with Canada or Mexico?”
The US Wants to Expand NATO In addition to integrating Ukraine into the US-dominated economic sphere, Western planners also want to integrate Ukraine militarily. For years, the US has sought the expansion of NATO, an explicitly anti-Russian military alliance. NATO was originally billed as a counterforce to the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, but after the demise of the Soviet Union, the US promised the new Russia that it would not expand NATO east of Germany. Despite this agreement, the US continued building out its military alliance,growing closer and closer to Russia’s borders and ignoring Russia’s objections.
The West Wants Investor-Friendly Policies in Ukraine The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations
The US Helped Overthrow Ukraine’s Elected President……. US Officials Were Caught Picking the New Government …
Washington Used Nazis to Help Overthrow the Government The Washington-backed opposition that toppled the government was fueled by far-right and openly Nazi elements like the Right Sector. One far-right group that grew out of the protests was the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary militia of neo-Nazi extremists.
What You Should Really Know About Ukraine https://fair.org/home/what-you-should-really-know-about-ukraine/, BRYCE GREENE 28 Jan 22, As tensions began to rise over Ukraine, US media produced a stream of articles attempting to explain the situation with headlines like “Ukraine Explained” (New York Times, 12/8/21) and “What You Need to Know About Tensions Between Ukraine and Russia” (Washington Post, 11/26/21). Sidebars would have notes that tried to provide context for the current headlines. But to truly understand this crisis, you would need to know much more than what these articles offered.These “explainer” pieces are emblematic of Ukraine coverage in the rest of corporate media, which almost universally gave a pro-Western view of US/Russia relations and the history behind them. Media echoed the point of view of those who believe the US should have an active role in Ukrainian politics and enforce its perspective through military threats.
The official line goes something like this: Russia is challenging NATO and the “international rules-based order” by threatening to invade Ukraine, and the Biden administration needed to deter Russia by providing more security guarantees to the Zelensky government. The official account seizes on Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as a starting point for US/Russian relations, and as evidence of Putin’s goals of rebuilding Russia’s long-lost empire.
Russia’s demand that NATO cease its expansion to Russia’s borders is viewed as such an obviously impossible demand that it can only be understood as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Therefore, the US should send weapons and troops to Ukraine, and guarantee its security with military threats to Russia (FAIR.org, 1/15/22).
Continue readingElectromagnetic radiation, said by telecom companies to be harmless, could be hurting wildlife.
EMFs’ toxic effects on an animal’s cells, DNA and chromosomes have been observed in laboratory specimens — and thus would apply to wildlife, according to the report.
Many types of wildlife are exposed to EMFs from wireless sources, such as deer, seals, whales, birds, bats, insects, amphibians and reptiles, the report said. Many species have been found more sensitive to EMFs than humans in some ways.
Report says wireless radiation, said by telecom companies to be harmless, could be hurting wildlife Source: Environmental Health TrustSanta Fe New Mexican, By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com, Feb 5, 2022
Health researchers raised concerns in the 1990s about the possible harmful effects of wireless radiation from cellphones and towers, and their warnings met pushback from telecommunications companies on the verge of growing a mega-industry.
Industry-backed researchers assured federal agencies health concerns — especially those centered on the possibility of low-level microwaves causing cancer — lacked conclusive evidence.
Regulators accepted their assessments, and the alarm bells went silent.
Now a trio of researchers have compiled a report saying the widespread installation of cell towers and antennas is generating electromagnetic fields — EMFs for short — that could be physiologically harmful.
The report focuses on potential impacts on wildlife, trees, plants and insects, such as bees, because there are no regulations protecting them from EMFs emanating from wireless antennas. Wildlife protections are becoming more vital as this radiation — known more specifically as radiofrequency EMFs — escalates through 5G technologies, the researchers warn.
“There needs to be regulatory standards to address EMFs affecting wildlife,” said Albert Manville, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and one of the paper’s authors.
Manville also is an adjunct science professor at Johns Hopkins University.
He said he provided the Federal Communications Commission with some research on how the electromagnetic pollution can hurt wildlife and the steps that could be taken to lessen the impacts.
But the FCC has been unresponsive, Manville said, arguing the agency tends to accommodate the industry it’s supposed to regulate.
“That’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way it is,” he said.
The FCC did not respond to questions about whether it would consider making efforts to reduce animals’ EMF exposure.
The three authors drew from 1,200 peer-reviewed studies to compile a three-part, 210-page report titled “Effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on flora and fauna.” It was published in the journal Reviews on Environmental Health.
Science journalist Blake Levitt, who also co-wrote the report, said they dug up overlooked studies that contained compelling research on how living organisms react to low-level EMFs. Their compilation invalidates any claims that the EMFs don’t cause biological effects, she said.
We just blew the whole thing out of the water and took it to the ecosystem level, which is really where it needed to go,” Levitt said. “Nobody had done that before. We need a whole lot more scrutiny put to the low-intensity stuff.”
Ambient EMFs have risen exponentially in the past quarter-century, as cellphones were widely adopted, to become a ubiquitous and continuous environmental pollutant, even in remote areas, the report said, adding studies indicate EMFs can affect animals’ orientation, migration, food finding, reproduction, nest building, territorial defense, vitality, longevity and survival.
EMFs’ toxic effects on an animal’s cells, DNA and chromosomes have been observed in laboratory specimens — and thus would apply to wildlife, according to the report.
Many types of wildlife are exposed to EMFs from wireless sources, such as deer, seals, whales, birds, bats, insects, amphibians and reptiles, the report said. Many species have been found more sensitive to EMFs than humans in some ways.
The report recommends new laws that include the redesign of wireless devices and infrastructure to reduce the rising ambient levels.
It comes several months after a federal court in Washington, D.C., ordered the FCC to review its guidelines for wireless radiation and justify why it should retain them, as the standards haven’t been updated since 1996. This radiation should not be confused with radioactivity, the court noted, adding microwaves used in transmitting signals are low enough to not heat tissues in what are known as “thermal effects.”
But medical studies suggest the lower-level radiation could cause cancer, reproductive problems, impaired learning and motor skills, disrupted sleep and decreased memory.
These studies and others were submitted to the FCC after it opened a notice of inquiry in 2013 under the administration of former President Barack Obama to probe the adequacy of the 1996 guidelines, which were geared toward avoiding thermal effects, the court said.
In 2019, the Trump administration’s FCC deemed the inquiry unnecessary, saying the 1996 rules were sufficient and required no revision.
Two judges called that FCC action “arbitrary and capricious,” saying the FCC made the decision out of hand, ignoring all the science presented and offering no reasonable, fact-based argument to back it up.
The agency also failed to look at the technological developments in the past 25 years and how they’ve changed the degree of exposure, the judges wrote. And they said it refused to examine possible health effects from EMFs that fall below the threshold set in 1996……………………………….. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/report-says-wireless-radiation-said-by-telecom-companies-to-be-harmless-could-be-hurting-wildlife/article_1ae80fc0-7d5d-11ec-8c13-4f3411ea8ea1.html
After the hibakusha: the future of Japan’s anti-nuclear movement
After the hibakusha: the future of Japan’s anti-nuclear movement https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1870/
Yoshida Mayu, NHK World Correspondent, 31 Jan 22, Activists calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons have long relied on the powerful testimonies of atomic bomb survivors, or hibakusha, to grow their movement. But with ever fewer people to offer that testimony, both the hibakusha and activists know those days are running out. NHK World’s Yoshida Mayu speaks to different generations who have a common goal: a world without nuclear weapons.
Hellish memories
Oka Nobuko was in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the day the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city. For most of her life, she avoided talking about her experiences as the memories were too painful.
Last year she finally broke her silence to deliver a speech at the annual ceremony commemorating the date of the bombing.
“When I stood up, I was immediately knocked down and I lost consciousness,” she recounted. “When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. Pieces of shattered glass were lodged in my body.”
Oka was a 16-year-old nursing student at the time and helped treat other victims at a first aid center.
“No treatment was possible in a lot of these cases,” she said. “There was flesh dangling from exposed bone. Some people jumped off buildings to kill themselves because they couldn’t endure the pain any longer.”
She described the scenes as “hellish” and said she suffered severe headaches every time the memories returned. For this reason, she always avoided going to the area where the first aid center was located.
Time to speak
In a letter to a close friend three years ago, Oka wrote of her worries that her memories and those of other hibakusha would soon be gone.
“The hibakusha are getting older and someday all of us will be gone,” she wrote.
Estimates put the number of living hibakusha at around 127,000, with an average age of 83.This sense that time was running out is what motivated Oka to finally share her story last August.
“We, the hibakusha, will continue to share our experiences and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We will fight for peace.”
Last November, three months after giving her speech, Oka died at the age of 93.
Inspiring other hibakusha Fukuda Hakaru, a 90-year-old Nagasaki hibakusha, says hearing Oka speak inspired him to share his own story. He wrote her a letter, saying how much her courage had moved him.
Fukuda had gone to the first aid center Oka was working at to get medicine for his father, who was severely injured in the blast.
“I can still hear the screams of the patients,” he says. “Doctors and nurses were running around to help them. It was a painful sight. It is very hard for me to talk about what I saw. The medical workers were the ones who saw up close the inhumanity of the atomic bombs.”
Fukuda was 14 at the time. He did not suffer any serious injuries, but his father, who was working close to ground zero, died a month later.”I’ll never forget how I felt. I had to pick up his remains after the cremation, but I have no idea how I managed. The world needs to know that this is the kind of pain that an atomic bomb causes. It cannot be allowed to happen again.”
Fukuda says he long felt he had a duty to share his story but avoided doing so because he was worried about the anti-hibakusha discrimination he and his family might face.
Many survivors and their families have had to deal with prejudice and discrimination over the years. Initially, little was known about the effects of radiation exposure, and some people incorrectly regarded it as contagious. The social stigma was especially serious when it came to marriage or work.
“The hibakusha continue to suffer today,” says Fukuda. “That’s yet another reason why we need to make sure this never happens again.”
Preserving Oka’s message
In December, a group of university students from Nagasaki hosted a virtual conference about the experiences of the hibakusha, speaking to high school classes about the stories they had heard from survivors.
One of these students was Kaji Misato, who spent a lot of time with Oka during her final days.
“Oka was with her mother and brother at the time of the bombing,” Kaji said at the event. “As she stood up, she realized she was covered in blood.”Kaji spoke to Oka four times last year and recorded five hours of conversation. She said it was an eye-opening experience.
“The atomic bombing always felt like something in the past,” Kaji says. “But after hearing her story, I started to feel a greater sense of attachment. She told us the war had robbed her of her youth and she wanted peace so the same thing didn’t happen with the youth of today.”Every year on August 9, a siren rings out across the city at 11:02 AM, the exact time the atomic bomb exploded. Residents stop what they are doing to observe a minute of silence. But when Kaji visited the city center last year, she was shocked to see how few people were actually paying their respects.
About a month later, Oka was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Kaji met with her shortly after.
“She told me she was worried that once all the hibakusha are gone, their memories would fade as well,” Kaji says.
She took her words to heart and decided to share what she told her with people even younger. The high school students who attended the virtual session said it was an insightful experience.”Her vivid memories made me feel the horror of the atomic bomb,” said one student.
“We cannot take peace for granted,” said another. “We have to take care of the people who are close to us.”
This year promises to be a crucial one for the abolition movement. State parties to the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty are planning to hold their first meeting to try to agree on specific actions. In the meantime, young campaigners like Kaji are ensuring that the stories from those who witnessed the horrors of 1945 are documented and heard.
In 2022, compensation funds for the nuclear-affected ”Downwinders” are due to expire
Funds for those impacted by nuclear weapons tests set to expire in 2022 https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/funds-for-those-impacted-by-nuclear-weapons-tests-set-to-expire-in-2022 By: Bo Evans, , Feb 01, 2022
Raymond Harbert may not have the words to describe it.
“It is really hard to relay all the feelings you get from one of those megaton tests,”
But he never forgot the details of the detonation of a nuclear bomb well.
“If you can imagine, 40 miles away, and you can feel the heat when it arrives. It arrives at a separate time. It’s a prickly heat, and then the pressure wave coming—the brightness. The feeling when they finally say, you can take your glasses off. Those are memories that will stick with me for the rest of my life,” said Harbert.
In this 2005 interview conducted by the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Harbert lays out an experience shared by thousands of Americans exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and 1962.
The fallout has lasted for decades.
“People don’t realize over 200 above-ground tests were done between 1945 and 1962, and an additional 900+ were done after that below ground. Which exposed Nevadans, people in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, places that were downwind of these tests to fallout,” said Dr. Laura Shaw.
Shaw works with the Nevada Radiation Exposure Screening & Education Program or RESEP at UNLV to provide medical services and cancer screening to people who are known as downwinders.
We review their history, we look at their medications, we offer additional screenings that include colon cancer screening, lung imaging, labs that screen for diabetes, anemia, cholesterol, so we do a lot,” said Shaw.
It’s all paid for by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA. The law was passed in 1990. The fund is set to expire in July 2022.
“These people have another 30, 40 years, hopefully, to live that were potentially exposed, so we need this program much, much longer,” said Shaw.
Some in Congress are attempting to extend and expand the fund.
“Tragically, for some, it is already too late. We’ve lost Idahoans Sheri Garmin, Teresa Valberg, and Srgt. 1st Class Paul Cooper to Cancer,” said Sen. Mark Crapo, (R) Idaho, in a congressional hearing.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2021 have been introduced in both the House and Senate and have been referred to committees.
Dr. Shaw remains hopeful it will pass.
“Cancer is still going to happen. These people are going to develop problems associated with their previous exposure. Cancer can happen years later, and it’s not going to pay any attention to any deadlines,” she said.
Nuclear incidents and meltdowns – far more than we realised
Incidents AND MELTDOWNS AND THERE ARE FAR MORE THAN WE REALISED
FUKUSHIMA
CHERNOBYL SELLAFIELD THE INLAND SANTA SUSANA FIRES SANTA SUSANNA MELTDOWNS. INCIDENTS ANS WILDFIRES AT LOS ALAMOS
WILD FIRES AT HANFORD
THE GREEN RUN
THE NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IN 1969 IN SWITZERLAND
The recent chinese reactor nuclear incident.
INCIDENTS 1957 to 2011
with multiple fatalitIies
September 29, 1957 Mayak, Kyshtym, Soviet Union The Kyshtym disaster was a radiation contamination accident (after a chemical explosion that occurred within a storage tank) at Mayak, a Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union.
October 10, 1957 Sellafield, Cumberland, United Kingdom Windscale fire was a fire at the British atomic bomb project (in a plutonium-production-reactor) damaged the core and released an estimated 740 terabecquerels of iodine-131 into the environment. A rudimentary smoke filter constructed over the main outlet chimney successfully prevented a far worse radiation leak.
March – July 1959 , Santa Susana Field Lab , Western San Fernando Valley, USA. At least four of the ten nuclear reactors suffered accidents incl Partial meltdown, 1964, 1969 further accidents
January 3, 1961 Idaho Falls, Idaho, United States Explosion at SL-1 prototype at the National Reactor Testing Station. All 3 operators were killed when a control rod was removed too far.
October 5, 1966 Frenchtown Charter Township, Michigan, United States Meltdown of some fuel elements in the Fermi 1 Reactor at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. Little radiation leakage into the environment
January 21, 1969 Lucens reactor, Vaud, Switzerland On January 21, 1969, it suffered a loss-of-coolant accident, leading to meltdown of one fuel element and radioactive contamination of the cavern, which before was sealed.
December 7, 1975 Greifswald, East Germany Electrical error in Greifswald Nuclear Power Plant causes fire in the main trough that destroys control lines and five main coolant pumps
January 5, 1976 Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia Malfunction during fuel replacement. Fuel rod ejected from reactor into the reactor hall by coolant
March 28, 1979 Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, United States Loss of coolant and partial core meltdown due to operator errors and technical flaws. There is a small release of radioactive gases.
September 15, 1984 Athens, Alabama, United States Safety violations, operator error and design problems force a six-year outage at Browns Ferry Unit 2
March 9, 1985 Athens, Alabama, United States Instrumentation systems malfunction during startup, which led to suspension of operations at all three Browns Ferry
April 11, 1986 Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Recurring equipment problems force emergency shutdown of Boston Edison’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power
April 26, 1986 Chernobyl, Chernobyl Raion (Now Ivankiv Raion), Kiev Oblast, Ukraininan SSR, Soviet Union A flawed reactor design and inadequate safety procedures led to a power surge that damaged the fuel rods of reactor no. 4 of the Chernobyl power plant. This caused an explosion and meltdown, necessitating the evacuation of 300,000 people and dispersing radioactive material across Europe (see Effects of the Chernobyl disaster).
Around 5% (5200 PBq) of the core was released into the atmosphere and downwind.
May 4, 1986 Hamm-Uentrop, West Germany Experimental THTR-300 reactor releases small amounts of fission products (0.1 GBq Co-60, Cs-137, Pa-233) to surrounding area 0 267
December 9, 1986 Surry, Virginia, United States Feedwater pipe break at Surry Nuclear Power Plant kills 4 workers 4
March 31, 1987 Delta, Pennsylvania, United States Peach Bottom units 2 and 3 shutdown due to cooling malfunctions and unexplained equipment problems 0 400
December 19, 1987 Lycoming, New York, United States Malfunctions force Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation to shut down Nine Mile Point Unit 1 0 150
March 17, 1989 Lusby, Maryland, United States Inspections at Calvert Cliff Units 1 and 2 reveal cracks at pressurized heater sleeves
October 19, 1989 Vandellòs, Spain A fire damaged the cooling system in unit 1 of the Vandellòs nuclear power plant, getting the core close to meltdown. The cooling system was restored before the meltdown but the unit had to be shut down due to the elevated cost of the repair
March 1992 Sosnovyi Bor, Leningrad Oblast, Russia An accident at the Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant leaked radioactive iodine into the air through a ruptured fuel channel.
February 20, 1996 Waterford, Connecticut, United States Leaking valve forces shutdown Millstone Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2, multiple equipment failures found 0 254
September 2, 1996 Crystal River, Florida, United States Balance-of-plant equipment malfunction forces shutdown and extensive repairs at Crystal River
September 30, 1999 Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan Tokaimura nuclear accident killed two workers, and exposed one more to radiation levels above permissible limits.
February 16, 2002 Oak Harbor, Ohio, United States Severe corrosion of reactor vessel head forces 24-month outage of Davis-Besse reactor
April 10, 2003 Paks, Hungary Collapse of fuel rods at Paks Nuclear Power Plant unit 2 during its corrosion cleaning led to leakage of radioactive gases. It remained inactive for 18 months.
August 9, 2004 Fukui Prefecture, Japan Steam explosion at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant kills 4 workers and injures 7
July 25, 2006 Forsmark, Sweden An electrical fault at Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant caused multiple failures in safety systems that had the reactor to cool down
March 11, 2011 3 meltdowns Fukushima, Japan A tsunami flooded and damaged the plant’s 3 active reactors, drowning two workers. Loss of backup electrical power led to overheating, meltdowns, and evacuations.] One man died suddenly while carrying equipment during the clean-up. The plant’s reactors Nr. 4, 5 and 6 were inactive at the time.
September 12, 2011 Marcoule, France One person was killed and four injured, one seriously, in a blast at the Marcoule Nuclear Site. The explosion took place in a furnace used to melt metallic waste.
And this is the tip of the iceberg
Anniversary Of The Night Nuclear Bombs Fell Near Goldsboro
Anniversary Of The Night Nuclear Bombs Fell Near Goldsboro https://www.goldsborodailynews.com/2022/01/24/anniversary-of-the-night-nuclear-bombs-fell-near-goldsboro/January 24, 2022 Ken Conners
It’s the 61st anniversary of the big bang that, fortunately, never happened.
Around midnight on January 24th, 1961, a B-52G aircraft based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base experienced a fuel leak and broke up in midair over Wayne County.
Five crewmen were able to successfully eject or bail out of the aircraft, but three did not survive the crash.
Two Mark 39 nuclear bombs being carried on the bomber plummeted to the earth, landing with the wreckage in the farmlands of Faro, about 12 miles north of Goldsboro.
Declassified information eventually showed one of the bombs came very close to detonating with 3 of 4 arming mechanisms being tripped in the crash. One of the bombs was recovered while portions of the second sank into a muddy field never to be seen again.
France’s Nuclear Safety Authority considers abandoning the reprocessing of nuclear waste.
ASN is considering abandoning the reprocessing of nuclear waste, https://reporterre.net/L-ASN-envisage-l-abandon-du-retraitement-des-dechets-nucleaires The director of the Nuclear Safety Authority ( ASN ) described on January 19 the “ fragilities of the fuel cycle and the nuclear fleet ”. It opened up the possibility of eventually stopping the reprocessing of spent fuel, a particularity of French industry.
For the first time, to the knowledge of Reporterre , a nuclear manager in France is openly considering the end of the reprocessing of spent fuel at La Hague (Manche). On Wednesday January 19, during his back-to-school video press conference, Bernard Doroszczuk, Director of the Nuclear Safety Authority ( ASN ), said that this option had to be considered: ” It will be necessary either to provide for the renovation of the installations current if reprocessing is continued ; or anticipate the implementation of alternative solutions for the management of spent fuel, which should be available by 2040, if reprocessing is stopped. »
For the first time, to the knowledge of Reporterre , a nuclear manager in France is openly considering the end of the reprocessing of spent fuel at La Hague (Manche). On Wednesday January 19, during his back-to-school video press conference, Bernard Doroszczuk, Director of the Nuclear Safety Authority ( ASN ), said that this option had to be considered: ” It will be necessary either to provide for the renovation of the installations current if reprocessing is continued ; or anticipate the implementation of alternative solutions for the management of spent fuel, which should be available by 2040, if reprocessing is stopped. »
spent fuel, it has a whole series. Each poses a difficult management problem: plutonium (we can’t manage to use all the stock), minor actinides, reprocessed uranium, spent Mox, etc. By evoking the end of reprocessing, Mr. Doroszczuk therefore attacks a sacred cow of French nuclearists.
Why this new proposal ? Because, explained the director of the ASN , ” a series of events weakens the entire chain of the fuel cycle ” and several of its links are clogged:
• the pool at the La Hague plant (Manche), in which the spent fuel is currently stored, is reaching saturation point ;
• Orano’s Melox plant, in which part of the plutonium is recycled to make fuel, says Mox, works very poorly: “ We have too many breakdowns. Last year, we produced between 50 and 60 tonnes while the order book shows 120 tonnes per year , ” Régis Faure, spokesperson for the Orano Melox site , told Usine Nouvelle . Thus, the plutonium accumulates at the entrance, while at the exit, explained Mr. Doroszczuk, ” these problems that Orano has not mastered lead to the disposal of waste that contains more plutonium than expected. » ;
• finally, revealed the director of the ASN , “ the faster-than-expected corrosion of the evaporators at the Orano La Hague plant weakens the reprocessing capacities ” .
It therefore recommends anticipating the crisis, and either choosing to continue the reprocessing or to stop it. In both cases, this will involve very substantial investments, which we must think about now.
“ A nuclear accident is always possible ”
More generally, the ASN director underlined “ the absolute need to maintain margins so that there is no competition between production needs and safety decisions ” . Indeed, the nuclear situation is very tense, both currently, with ten reactors shut down, and in the future: it is not at all certain that the reactors will be able to operate beyond fifty years, indicated Mr Doroszczuk. And the sector lacks skills, both to manage the current fleet and its future dismantling and waste management: it would be necessary to “ train 4,000 engineers per year ” . We are far from it.The director of the ASN of course wants to stay out of the political debate. But it is clear that the “ messages ” he formulated on January 19 should be carefully listened to and understood by all presidential candidates who believe that nuclear power is the magic answer to climate change. He also repeated throughout his speech the requirement of security. ” A nuclear accident is always possible , ” he said.
Design flaws in Flamanville EPR nuclear reactor vessel, and attempts to solve this
The EPR reactor vessel is not designed like the previous vessels, and the
water does not follow the flow movements observed on conventional reactors.
EDF engineers therefore had a piece of metal (deflector) installed in each
tank bottom to redirect the water correctly. But that would be
insufficient.
What solutions? The most logical solution would therefore be
to change this deflector “with the key to a work of development as
complex as ruinous, notes the weekly. And no one is sure, given the limited
space available in an EPR tank, that this repair is technically
possible”.
The other solution envisaged would therefore be to “reinforce
the fuel assemblies, reinforce the protective grids so that the blades
resist the flows”, mentioned Julien Collet.
EDF will present its plan to us
in February, so we can see if their proposals can solve the problem.
Another possibility mentioned at the end of the article: “To limit the
pressures of the water, it would be a question of running the EPR at only
60% of its power, Flamanville would then go from a capacity of 1,650
megawatts less than 1,000 and would end up, for a record bill of 13 billion
euros, less efficient than the reactors built 50 years ago.”
La Presse de la Manche 20th Jan 2022
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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