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Nuclear power for AI: what it will take to reopen Three Mile Island safely

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at the notorious power station, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about the unprecedented process.

Michael Greshko,  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03162-2 30 Sept 24

Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of its reactors occurred in 1979.

The move, which symbolizes technology giants’ need to power their growing artificial-intelligence (AI) efforts, raises questions over how shuttered nuclear plants can be restarted safely — not least because Three Mile Island isn’t the only plant being brought out of retirement.

Palisades Nuclear Plant, an 805-megawatt facility in Covert, Michigan, was shut down in May 2022. But the energy company that owns it, Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida, plans to reopen it. This reversal in the facility’s fortunes has been bolstered by a US$1.5-billion conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DoE), which sees nuclear plants — a source of low-carbon electricity — as a way of helping the country to meet its ambitious climate goals. The Palisades plant is on track to reopen in late 2025.


“It’s the first time something like this has been attempted, that we’re aware of, worldwide,” says Jason Kozal, director of the reactor safety division at a regional office of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Naperville, Illinois, and the co-chair of a regulatory panel overseeing the restart of Palisades.

Here, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about what it will take to restart these plants and whether more are on the way as the world’s demand for AI grows.

A change in fortunes

Since 2012, more than a dozen nuclear plants have been shut down in the United States, in some cases as a result of unfavourable economics. Less cost-effective plants — such as those with only a single working reactor — struggled to remain profitable in states with deregulated electricity markets and widely varying prices. Three Mile Island, owned by the utility company Constellation Energy in Baltimore, Maryland, is a prime example. Today, 54 US plants remain in operation, running a total of 94 reactors.


Nuclear energy, which accounts for about 9% of the world’s electricity, has seen some resurgence internationally, but is also competing with other energy sources, including renewables. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan suspended operations at all of its 48 remaining nuclear plants, but these are gradually being brought back online, in part to cut dependence on gas imports. By contrast, Germany announced a phase-out of its nuclear plants in 2011, and shut down its last three in 2023.

In the United States, nuclear energy’s fortunes might be turning as technology companies race to build enormous, energy-gobbling data centres to support their AI systems and other applications while somehow fulfilling their climate pledges. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.

It’s further confirmation of the value of nuclear, and, if the deal is right — if the price is right — then it makes business sense, as well,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

A new start

This isn’t the first time that the United States has brought a powered-down reactor back online. In 1985, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility company, took the reactors at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Athens, Alabama, offline. After years of refurbishment, they were brought back online, with the final reactor restarted in 2007.

The cases of Palisades and Three Mile Island are different, however. When those plants closed, their then-owners made legal statements that the facilities would be shut down, even though their operating licenses were still active. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center under the proposed restart, shut down its single remaining functional reactor in 2019.

Because the plants were slated for shutdown and safety checks were therefore stopped, regulators and companies must now navigate a complex licensing, oversight and environmental-assessment process to reverse the plants’ decommissioning.

Safety checks will be needed to ensure, among other things, that the plants can operate securely once uranium fuel rods have been replaced in their reactors. When these plants were decommissioned, their radioactive fuel was removed and stored, so the facilities no longer needed to adhere to many exacting technical specifications, says Jamie Pelton, also a co-chair of the Palisades restart panel, and a deputy director at the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland.

It will be no small feat to reinstate those safety regulations: to meet the standards, infrastructure will need to be inspected carefully. According to Buongiorno, any metallic components in the plants that have corroded since the shutdowns, including wires and cables used in instrumentation and controls, will need to be replaced.

The plants’ turbine generators, which make electricity from the steam produced as the plants’ fuel rods heat up water, will also get a close look. After sitting dormant for years, a turbine could develop defects within its shaft or corrosion along its blades that would require refurbishment. In the case of Palisades, the NRC announced on 18 September that the plant’s steam generators would need further testing and repair, following inspections conducted by Holtec.

Nuclear’s prospects

As the plants near their restart dates, their operators will also have to contend with a challenge faced by even fully operational plants: the need to source fresh nuclear fuel. US nuclear utility companies have long counted on the international market to buy much of the necessary raw yellowcake uranium and the services that separate and enrich uranium-235, the isotope used in nuclear reactors’ fuel rods. Russia has been a major international supplier of these services, even after the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, because US and European sanctions have not targeted nuclear fuel. But to minimize its reliance on Russia, the United States is building up its own supply chain, with the DoE offering $3.4 billion to buy domestically enriched uranium.

There probably won’t be too many other restarts of mothballed nuclear plants in the United States, however, even as demand for low-carbon electricity grows. Not every US plant that has been shut down is necessarily in good enough condition to be easily refurbished — and the idea of reopening some of those would meet with too much resistance. As an example, Buongiorno points to New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which was closed in 2021. The plant’s proximity to New York City had long provoked criticism from nuclear-safety advocates.

But that doesn’t mean that all of these sites will remain unused. One option is to build advanced reactors — including large reactors with upgraded safety features and small modular reactors with innovative designs — on sites where old nuclear plants once stood, to take advantage of existing transmission lines and infrastructure. “We might see interest in the US in building more of these large reactors, whether that’s fuelled by data centres or some other applications,” Buongiorno adds. “Utilities and customers are exploring this at the moment.”

October 1, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Julian Assange’s Interview with the Late Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah

19 Jan 2017, The Julian Assange Show Episode 1: Nasrallah (2012): A freedom fighter to some, a terrorist to others, this is Hassan Nasrallah’s his first interview in the West since 2006. From a secret location in Lebanon, Nasrallah gives Assange a rare and frank insight into his vision for the future of the Middle East.

“This is exactly what America and Israel want for Syria”, Nasrallah insists. He also blames Al Qaeda for “trying to turn Syria into a battleground”. He’s certainly not holding back, and with Assange throwing the questions the revelations keep on coming. He believes in Bashar al Assad: “I personally found that President Assad was very willing to carry out radical and important reforms. But the opposition needs to agree to dialogue.” But it’s not only Syria that’s on the agenda. He vehemently denies allegations of corruption pointed at Hezbollah. “This is part of the rumours that they wanted to use to discredit Hezbollah and distort its image. It’s part of the media war against us.” What about Hezbollah’s violent past? “Hezbollah resorted to bombing civilians only to prevent Israel from shelling our civilians” he says. So what is next for Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel? And what does Nasrallah really want for the future of the region?

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear Priesthood, and Police Repression: Feminist Confrontations of Violent Industries, and Movements to Abolish Them

This report investigates the nexus between the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, and state repression of activism against these industries.

‘Petrobromance,’ Nuclear Priesthood, and Police Repression: Feminist Confrontations of Violent Industries, and Movements to Abolish Them analyses, from a feminist and gender-transformative perspective, trends and parallels in how the nuclear and fossil fuel industries operate and entrench their power; their impacts on communities, including gendered impacts; and the ways in which resistance against these industries is suppressed by police, militaries, and private military and security companies. Drawn from research and consultation with activists, organisers, academics, and members of impacted communities, this research aims to create a shared knowledge base and illuminate paths forward for deeper collaboration across movements, including, but not limited to, among antinuclear, environmental, and land and water defence movements.

Authors: Ray Acheson, Katrin Geyer, Genevieve Riccoboni, Laura Varella
Editor: Ray Acheson
Research support: Emma Murray and Michelle Benzing
Copy review: Genevieve Riccoboni and Zarin Hamid
Design: Nadia Joubert

Credit: The term “petrobromance” was coined by Joni Seager

This report was made possible with support from the Ploughshares Fund.

We are delighted to offer the online version for free, but please consider making a donation to Reaching Critical Will to help us cover the costs the other materials and information services that Reaching Critical Will provides.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | media, resources - print | Leave a comment

Huge Arctic wildfires release 100m tonnes of greenhouse gas in a year

Scientists are alarmed at how extreme the blazes have become as the climate
changes, and 2024 ranks as the fourth worst year for emissions from Arctic
fires. Huge wildfires have blazed across the Arctic this summer, releasing
almost as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the petrostate Kuwait
emits annually.

Fires in the carbon-rich frozen soils in the north of
Russia, Canada and other countries occur naturally as a result of lightning
strikes. Sometimes they spread south into the ring of boreal forests.
Scientists are alarmed at how extreme the blazes have become in recent
years as the climate changes. The Arctic’s worst year on record was 2020,
followed by 2019 and 2004.

 Times 30th Sept 2024, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/huge-arctic-wildfires-release-100m-tonnes-of-greenhouse-gas-in-a-year-ncb8cmdfq

October 1, 2024 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

In the Woomera Manual, International Law Meets Military Space Activities

by David A. Koplow, September 12, 2024,  https://www.justsecurity.org/100043/woomera-manual-international-law-military-space/

The law of outer space, like so much else about the exoatmospheric realm, is under stress. The prodigious growth in private-sector space activities (exemplified by SpaceX’s proliferating Starlink constellation, and other corporations following only shortly behind) is matched by an ominous surge in military space activities – most vividly, the creation of the U.S. Space Force and counterpart combat entities in rival States, the threat of Russia placing a nuclear weapon in orbit, and China and others continuing to experiment with anti-satellite weapons and potential techniques. The world is on the precipice of several new types of space races, as countries and companies bid for first-mover advantages in the highest of high ground.

The law of outer space, in contrast, is old, incomplete, and untested. A family of foundational treaties dating to the 1960s and 1970s retains vitality, but provides only partial guidance. Space is decidedly not a “law-free zone,” but many of the necessary guard rails are obscure, and few analysts or operators have ventured into this sector.

A new treatise, the Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Activities and Operations, has just been published by Oxford University Press to provide the first comprehensive, detailed analysis of the existing legal regime of space. As one of the editors of the Manual, I can testify to the long, winding, and arduous – but fascinating – journey to produce it, and the hope that it will provide much-needed clarity and precision about this fast-moving legal domain.

Military Manuals

This Manual follows a grand tradition of prior efforts to articulate the applicable international military law in contested realms, including the 1994 San Remo Manual on Naval Warfare, Harvard’s 2013 Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research Manual on Air and Missile Warfare, and the 2013 and 2017 Tallinn Manuals on Cyber Operations. The Woomera Manual was produced by a diverse team of legal and technical experts drawn from academia, practice, government, and other sectors in several countries (all acting in their personal capacities, not as representatives of their home governments or organizations). The process consumed six years (slowed considerably by the Covid-19 pandemic, which arrested the sequence of face-to-face drafting sessions).

The Manual is co-sponsored by four universities, among other participants: the University of Nebraska College of Law (home of Professor Jack Beard, the editor-in-chief), the University of Adelaide (with Professor Dale Stephens on the editorial board), the University of New South Wales—Canberra, and the University of Exeter (U.K.) The name “Woomera” was chosen in recognition of the small town of Woomera, South Australia, which was the site of the country’s first space missions, and in acknowledgement of the Aboriginal word for a remarkable spear-throwing device that enables greater accuracy and distance.

Comprehensive Coverage of a Broad Field

Three features of the Woomera Manual stand out. The first is the comprehensive nature of the undertaking. The Manual presents 48 rules, spanning the three critical time frames: ordinary peace time, periods of tension and crisis, and during an armed conflict. There may be a natural tendency to focus on that last frame, given the high stakes and the inherent drama of warfare, but the editors were keen to address the full spectrum, devoting due attention and analysis to the background rules that apply both to quotidian military space activities and to everyone else in space.

Complicating the legal analysis is the fragmentation of the international legal regime. In addition to “general” international law – which article III of the Outer Space Treaty declares is fully applicable in space – two “special” areas of law are implicated here. One, the law of armed conflict (also known as international humanitarian law) provides particularized jus in bello rules applicable between States engaged in war, including wars that begin in, or extend to, space. But the law of outer space is also recognized as another lex specialis, and it accordingly provides unique rules that supersede at least some aspects of the general international law regime. What should be done when two “special” areas of international law overlap and provide incompatible rules? The Woomera Manual is the first comprehensive effort to unravel that riddle.

The Law as It Is

A second defining characteristic of this Manual is the persistent, rigid focus on lex lata, the law as it currently is, rather than lex ferenda, the law as it may (or should) become. The authors, of course, each have their own policy preferences, and in their other works they freely opine about how the international space law regime should evolve (or be abruptly changed) to accommodate modern dangers and opportunities. But in this Manual, they have focused exclusively on describing the current legal structure, concentrating on treaties, customary international law, and other indicia of State practice. This is not the sort of manual in which the assembled experts “vote” on their competing concepts of the legal regime; instead, Woomera addresses what States (the sources and subjects of international law) say, do, and write. The authors have assembled a monumental library of State behaviors (including words as well as deeds, and silences as well as public pronouncements), while recognizing that diplomacy (and national security classification restrictions) often impede States explaining exactly why they did, or did not, act in a particular way in response to some other State’s provocations.

One feature that enormously facilitated the work on the Manual was a phase of “State engagement.” In early 2022, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the government of the Netherlands circulated a preliminary draft of the Woomera Manual to interested national governments and invited them to a June 2022 conference in The Hague to discuss it. Remarkably, two dozen of the States most active in space attended, providing two days of sustained, thoughtful, constructive commentary. The States were not asked to “approve” the document, but their input was enormously valuable (and resulted in an additional several months of painstaking work in finalizing the manuscript, as the editors scrambled to take into account the States’ voluminous comments and the new information they provided).

Space as a Dynamic Domain

Third, a manual on space law must acknowledge the rapidly-changing nature and scope of human activities in this environment, and the great likelihood that even more dramatic alterations are likely in the future. Existing patterns of behavior may alter abruptly, as new technologies and new economic opportunities emerge. The Manual attempts to peer into the future, addressing plausible scenarios that might foreseeably arise, but it resists the temptation to play with far-distant “Star Wars” fantasies.

The unfortunate reality here is that although the early years of the Space Age were remarkably productive for space law, the process stultified shortly thereafter. Within only a decade after Sputnik’s first orbit, the world had negotiated and put into place the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which still provides the cardinal principles guiding space operations today. And within only another decade, three additional widely-accepted treaties were crafted: the 1968 astronaut Rescue Agreement, the 1971 Liability Convention, and the 1975 Registration Convention, as well as the 1979 Moon Convention (which has not attracted nearly the same level of global support and participation). But the articulation of additional necessary increments of international space law has been constipated since then – no new multilateral space-specific treaties have been implemented in the past four decades, and none is on the horizon today.

Sources and Shortcomings of International Space Law

The corpus of international space law is not obsolete, but it is under-developed. We have the essential principles and some of the specific corollaries, but we are lacking the detailed infrastructure that would completely flesh out all those general principles. Some important guidance may, however, be found in State practice, including the understudied negotiating history of the framework treaties for space law, particularly the Outer Space Treaty. The Manual provides important insights in this area, notably with respect to several ambiguous terms embedded in the treaties.

The authors of the Woomera Manual, therefore, were able to start their legal analysis with the framework treaties – unlike, for example, the authors of the Tallinn Manuals, covering international law applicable to cyber warfare, who had to begin without such a structured starting point. Still, the Woomera analysis confronted numerous lacunae, where the existing law and practice leave puzzling gaps. The persistent failure of the usual law-making institutions to craft additional increments of space arms control is all the more alarming as the United States, NATO, and others have declared space to be an operational or war-fighting domain.

Conclusion

It is hoped that the process of articulating the existing rules – and identifying the interstices between them – can provide useful day-to-day guidance for space law practitioners in government, academia, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and elsewhere. The prospect of arms races and armed conflict in space unfortunately appears to be growing, and clarity about the prevailing rules has never been more important. It is a fascinating, dynamic, and fraught field.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Legal, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden would rather defend Israeli impunity than stop a regional war

As Israel intensified its deadly attacks on Lebanon, the U.S. moved more troops to the Middle East. The move shows Joe Biden’s priority is not to avoid escalation but to ensure that Israel has full impunity.

Mondoweiss. By Mitchell Plitnick  September 27, 2024 

As Israel was intensifying its deadly attacks on Lebanon, the United States decided to move more troops to the Middle East. The number of soldiers was not announced, but the force was said to be small. 

The stated purpose was to protect Americans stationed in the region, but the more likely reason was to send a message to Iran, Ansarallah, and other allies of Hezbollah that the United States would protect Israel in the event of escalation, regardless of who was responsible for that escalation. 

U.S. President Joe Biden might hope that such a message would deter escalation, but his decision to communicate it by increasing the U.S. military presence rather than acting to restrain Israel demonstrates that, just as with Gaza, Biden’s priority is not to avoid escalation, but to ensure that Israel has full impunity to act as it wants.

Confronting Iran is Israel’s endgame

In fact, this response plays right into the tactics Israel is pursuing in its attack on Lebanon. The Israeli right doesn’t have a real strategy, but it has long clung to an ideological belief that Israel should throw off the “restraints” placed on it by the United States and Europe and fully exercise its military might to utterly destroy its enemies. 

This is what has played out in Gaza since last October. The genocidal campaign is meant not to destroy Hamas, but rather to destroy the Palestinian national movement. That’s why it was inevitable that the genocide would expand to the West Bank, despite the fact that there were virtually no Palestinian actions there in response to the horror in Gaza. 

The Israeli right believes it must decisively defeat Iran, not merely deter it. Israel’s provocative actions such as its bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria and assassinating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran were meant to force a response from Iran that would escalate regional tensions. Iran didn’t take the bait, despite the fact that its lack of response to Israel’s activities invites more and greater provocative Israeli actions. 

The latest Israeli escalation indicates that Israel is making good on its promise to shift its attention from Gaza to Lebanon. That won’t mean the slaughter in Gaza will stop, but it will mean that Israel will focus its forces more in the north once it feels it is ready to engage Hezbollah on the ground, an eventuality its current activities are an attempt at paving the path toward.  

Both Israeli and American military leaders are less enthusiastic about escalation with Lebanon……………………………………………………………………

A potential Iranian diplomatic response

Iran has been an obsession for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his earliest days in the public eye. Few in Israel disagree with that obsession, but past governments had significant internal dissent from the idea of provoking a conflict with the Islamic Republic. 

This government is much more willing to take bold steps to provoke that confrontation. Worse, successive American administrations have raised Israeli hopes that they can get the support from Washington that they would need to effectively fight Iran. ……………………………………………………………………………………… more https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/biden-would-rather-defend-israeli-impunity-than-stop-a-regional-war/

October 1, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Cardinal Parolin: ‘World threatened by irreversible nuclear destruction’

The Vatican Secretary of State reiterates the moral imperative of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the Holy See’s condemnation of the use or threat of use of such weapons.

By Lisa Zengarini,  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2024-09/parolin-world-threatened-by-irreversible-nuclear-destruction.html

“The only way to avoid a nuclear war is the total elimination of nuclear weapons.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin strongly reaffirmed this point in a statement he addressed on 26 September at a High-Level UN Meeting in New York commemorating the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Wars and arms race dangerously increasing risk of nuclear conflict

The Vatican Secretary of State grounded his speech on the current state of global affairs and the relentless arms race which is dramatically increasing the risk of nuclear conflict. He, again, decried that States are strengthening their nucleararsenals with resources that, as Pope Francis has emphasized several times, “could be more effectively used to address pressing development needs.”

This trend he said “underscores a troubling reliance by nuclear-weapons States on nuclear deterrence, rather than on fulfilling their obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”

Nuclear deterrence does’t work

Echoing Pope Francis’ tireless appeals on this crucial issue, Cardinal Parolin insisted on the need to “go beyond nuclear deterrence” thus reiterating the Holy See’s call on all States to accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

States, he added, must also renew their commitment to other disarmament measures, such as the revitalization of bilateral arms control processes, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the opening of negotiations on fissile material and negative security assurance treaties.

Holy See committed to building bridges of trust to free world from nuclear weapons

Concluding, Cardinal Parolin reaffirmed that the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons can only be achieved through discussions based on mutual trust. For its part, he said, the Holy See will continue to build bridges of dialogue with every State, “with the aim of safeguarding the common good rather than individual interests.”

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

South Australia sets spectacular new records for wind, solar and negative demand

Giles Parkinson, Sep 30, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-sets-spectacular-new-records-for-wind-solar-and-negative-demand/

Records continue to tumble across Australia’s main grids as the spring weather boosts the output of wind and solar and mild weather moderates demand, but none are as spectacular as those being set in South Australia.

The state’s unique end-of-the-line grid already leads the country, and arguably the globe, in the integration of variable wind and solar, with an average of more than 70 per cent of its demand over the last year and a world-first target of 100 per cent net renewables by 2027.

On Sunday, at 9.35 am, the state set a new milestone, setting a new record share of wind and solar (as a percentage of state electricity demand) of 150.7 per cent, beating a record set on Christmas Day last year, when – for obvious reasons – there was little electricity demand.

As Geoff Eldridge, from GPE NEMLog, notes, this means that the rooftop PV, along with large scale wind and solar farms, were generating 50.7 per cent more power than the state’s total electricity demand at the time.

The scale of excess output was further crystallised later in the day with a new minimum record for instantaneous residual demand, which hit minus 927 megawatts at 12.35pm.

Eldridge says residual demand is what’s left for other generators to supply after wind and solar have met a share of the demand. A negative residual demand means wind and solar were producing more electricity than SA needed, resulting in excess renewable generation which can be managed by exporting and battery charging. The remainder is curtailed.

Of the surplus 927 MW, the state was exporting 685 MW to Victoria, while another 163 MW was being soaked up by the state’s growing fleet of battery storage projects, and 730 MW of output was curtailed. Prices at the time were minus $47/MWh, a good opportunity for batteries to charge.

A further 84 MW was being produced by a couple of gas generators – not because their power output was needed, but because the state, at least for the moment, relies on them for essential grid services such as system strength and fault current.

That will be reduced considerably when the new link to NSW is completed in a few years, and it will allow the state to both export more, and import more when needs be.

“Balancing the system with such high renewable penetration is challenging but necessary as the energy transition progresses,” Eldridge says. “Managing excess generation through exports, storage, and curtailment is critical to keeping the grid stable and efficient.”

It wasn’t the only record to fall over the weekend. In Queensland, the country’s most coal dependent state in terms of annual share of demand and generation, large scale solar hit a record share of 34 per cent, and coal output – in megawatt terms – hit a record low of 2,882 MW.

The Queensland coal fleet capacity is more than 8,000 MW, so that is about as low as it can run until more units are closed down.

In Victoria on Saturday, just before the AFL grand final, rooftop solar also hit a new record output of 3,164 MW – although it did not push operational demand down low enough for the market operator to enact Minimum System Load protocols and possibly switch off some rooftop solar panels to maintain grid stability.

It had flagged a potential MSL event on Friday but cancelled it in the morning. Those events will likely occur at other times in spring and over the summer holidays, although the market operator is now working on new rules for big batteries to avoid a potentially unpopular and unwieldy solar switch off.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year, says senior US defence official

ABC News, 27 Sept 24

In short:

China’s newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year, according to a senior US defence official.

A series of satellite images from Planet Labs from June appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard, where the submarine would have been docked.

What’s next?

China’s submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035, the US Department of Defense has said.

A senior US defence official has said that China’s newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year, marking a potential embarrassment for Beijing as it seeks to expand its military capabilities.

China already has the largest navy in the world, with over 370 ships, and it has embarked on production of a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines.

The US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity on Thursday, local time, said China’s new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank alongside a pier sometime between May and June.

A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said they had no information to provide.

“In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA’s internal accountability and oversight of China’s defence industry — which has long been plagued by corruption,” the official said, using an acronym for the People’s Liberation Army.

“It’s not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the sinking,” the official added………………………………………………. more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-27/one-of-china-submarine-sank-says-us-defence-official/104406362

October 1, 2024 Posted by | China, incidents | Leave a comment

Questions still remain on the suspicious death of nuclear worker Karen Silkwood

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Silkwood,K

Karen Gay Silkwood (February 19, 1946 – November 13, 1974) was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for raising concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety of workers in a nuclear facility. Following her mysterious death, which received extensive coverage, her estate filed a lawsuit against chemical company Kerr-McGee, which was eventually settled for $1.38 million. Silkwood was portrayed by Meryl Streep in Mike Nichols‘ 1983 Academy Award-nominated film Silkwood.

She worked at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, United States. Silkwood’s job was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. This plant experienced theft of plutonium by workers during this era. She joined the union and became an activist on behalf of issues of health and safety at the plant as a member of the union’s negotiating team, the first woman to have that position at Kerr-McGee. In the summer of 1974, she testified to the Atomic Energy Commission about her concerns.

For three days in November, she was found to have plutonium contamination on her person and in her home. That month, while driving to meet with David Burnham, a New York Times journalist, and Steve Wodka, an official of her union’s national office, she died in a car crash under unclear circumstances.

Her family sued Kerr-McGee on behalf of her estate. In what was the longest trial up until then in Oklahoma history, the jury found Kerr-McGee liable for the plutonium contamination of Silkwood, and awarded substantial damages. These were reduced on appeal, but the case reached the United States Supreme Court in 1979, which upheld the damages verdict. Before another trial took place, Kerr-McGee settled with the estate out of court for US $1.38 million, while not admitting liability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

Questions Still Remain In Suspicious Death Of Karen Silkwood

September 30, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

TODAY. Hurricane Helene : when global heating collides with our dependence on digital systems

It’s going to happen more often – extreme weather events paralysing our digital systems. We had a taste of this with the global digital outage in July.

When digital fails – analogue radio still works, and real money – coins and paper cash still work.

From Thursday, 26 September Millions were without electricity as Hurricane Helene lashed parts of Florida, Georgia , Tennessee, and North Carolina. Many people in Florida were left stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, and without communication, even after the hurricane had swept through.

Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams. Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that closed the Interstate 40 and other roads. Additional heavy rains are likely across portions of the Central Appalachians,

At least 88 people died, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been made homeless. Business, education, all organisations and services are disrupted.

If there’s one thing that Americans are good at, it’s helping each other out in times of crisis. And there have been so much on-the ground help from neighbours, and heroic rescues.

But to add to the suffering, is the dreadful loneliness of people in need, but cut off from all communication – no TV, no Internet, no email, no mobile phone, – electricity being cut off, and mobile phone towers downed.

By Sunday, more than 2.1 million customers remained without electricity across several states. Apart from those desperate cases of need, there would be so many situations, even where businesses, shops were safe – but could not function, because of digital systems not working.

It’s not surprising that the tech squillionaires have been rather silent about this, because they like their technology to be in charge of everything

After all – people are so resilient – with repairs swinging into action, and everything digital will be back in function – soon. All can use their apps, their mobile phones, their credit cards

Until next time.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

How civilisation could end – an all-too-possible nuclear scenario

By Richard Broinowski, Sep 30, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/how-civilisation-could-end-an-all-too-possible-nuclear-scenario/
On 12 September, Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation, not excluding nuclear, against NATO countries if Washington allows Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia with US missiles. President Joe Biden backed off – for the moment. But the doomsday clock of the Atomic Scientists now stands at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to signalling Armageddon.

In a chillingly relevant book Nuclear War – A Scenario, (Transworld Publishers 2024), New York Times journalist Annie Jacobsen predicts what could occur. Interviews with nearly 40 US authorities, all having held positions in the US Nuclear Command and Control structure, add authority to her narrative.

Jacobsen names North Korea as the ignition point of a nuclear war. Without warning, Kim Jong-un launches a Hwasong-17 ICBM at Washington. Within four minutes, it is identified and tracked in Washington. But contrary to repeated public assurances that an ICBM can be intercepted, it is almost impossible to do so after the initial boost phase.

There is massive confusion in Washington between protocol and speed of action. While a national security adviser tries unsuccessfully to get a North Korean official on the phone, the president, in the White House dining room, is hustled by his security detail to a bunker under the West Wing. After several panicked relocations, and only after he has authorised nuclear retaliation against Pyongyang, he ends up bleeding and broken in a field somewhere in Maryland after the electronics on his fleeing helicopter, Marine One, are fried by a massive electro-magnetic pulse from a nuclear device detonated on a North Korean geo-stationary satellite hovering over the US.

Meanwhile, the North Korean ICBM hits the Pentagon. The explosion creates soft X-ray light with a very short wavelength, superheating the air to millions of degrees, instantly carbonising most of Washington’s inhabitants. In the aftermath, just as in Hiroshima 79 years earlier, decomposing bodies soon choke Washington waterways and any hospital that still functions after the atomic blast is completely overwhelmed by burned supplicants seeking relief or merciful death.

Kim follows up with a second nuclear strike – on the existing nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon on the Californian coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The strike melts down fuel rods in the twin 1100MW pressurised water reactors, rendering a vast area of California uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

Things get rapidly out of control. Under America’s highly classified Operational Plan, 1,770 US nuclear weapons are cleared for launch, including single hydrogen bombs on land-based Minutemen missiles buried in silos around the US mid-west, multiple-headed sea-launched ballistic missiles aboard Ohio-class “boomer” submarines under the Pacific, and on piloted B-52 and B-2 bombers, the third leg of America’s nuclear triad.

A disproportionately extravagant nuclear salvo (use ‘em or lose ‘em) aimed at North Korea must fly over eastern Russia before entering Korean air space. It is mistakenly assumed by Moscow to be targeting Russia. In the absence of any urgent correcting phone call from Washington (which has ceased to exist), Russia launches its own onslaught against the US, as well as against NATO bases in Europe known to keep US nuclear weapons and delivery systems on standby. Too late for a pre-emptive strike, US commanders in military bases strung around the US mid-west give nuclear launching codes to commanding officers at all US nuclear bases including submarines, to strike hundreds of designated targets in Russia.

The dreadful situation worsens as China, seeing nuclear death and destruction engulf cities near its border with North Korea, launches its own nuclear weapons on the United States.

Jacobsen doesn’t spare us the details of what happens after the bombing stops. Across the northern hemisphere everything burns unchecked – cities, towns, suburbs, villages, roads and forests. Black powdery soot blocks the sun, first across the northern hemisphere, then the south. As predicted as early as October 1983 by Carl Sagan, one of the world’s most respected scientists, nuclear winter steps in. Crops can’t grow without sun. Nor can life. Mass extinction of humans and animals from radiation, and then starvation, follows.

Sagan’s theory was initially scorned as Soviet propaganda, but as computers developed, his theory gained validity, then acceptance. Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid struck Earth and 70% of all species perished. Jacobsen correctly says that nuclear war would cause many of the same phenomena.

Where Jacobsen can be questioned, however, is on her assumptions that Kim Jong-un would ignite the war. Why he would do such a reckless and foolish thing, she claims she simply “doesn’t know”. But she apparently doesn’t remember how in 1945 the United States, without seeking any opinion from Koreans, divided Korea at the 38th parallel to stop the Soviet Union occupying the whole peninsula; and how General Curtis LeMay saturation bombed North Korea during the Korean War as revenge for Chinese troops comprehensively defeating panicking American forces and forcing them back across the 38th parallel in 1950. So the animus is there.

But Kim Jong-un is neither mad nor stupid. Why would he court certain nuclear destruction of his small country by the United States? A much more likely ignition point is currently unfurling in the Middle East, where Israel seems to be bent on provoking a war with Iran, into which US forces would inevitably be drawn with uncertain, but highly dangerous consequences.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hurricane Helene Floods Closed Duke Nuclear Plant in Florida

By Ari Natter, September 28, 2024 , https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2024/09/28/hurricane-helene-floods-retired-duke-nuclear-plant-in-florida/

(Bloomberg) — Floodwaters from Hurricane Helene have swamped a retired Duke Energy Corp. nuclear power plant, according to a filing with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, though an escape of contaminated fuel appears unlikely. 

The Crystal River plant, which has been shuttered since 2013, experienced a storm surge of as much as 12 feet, according to the filing, which was posted online. 

“The whole site was flooded, including buildings, sumps, and lift stations. Industrial Wastewater Pond #5 was observed overflowing to the ground due to the surge,” according to the report, which was filed Friday, the day after Helene roared ashore. 

“We are still in the process of obtaining access and assessing the damage, but due to the nature of this event we anticipate difficulty with estimating the total discharge amount of wastewater, and impacts are unknown at this time,” the report said. 

The used nuclear fuel at the site remains secure, Duke Energy said in a statement Sunday. “All radioactive material has been segmented and permanently packaged in shielded containers impervious to the effects of extreme weather,” the company said.

The facility, just south of Cedar Key, is still in the process of being dismantled. It’s likely that the spent fuel, which is kept onsite in dry storage, is safe, Edwin Lyman, a nuclear specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an email before Duke Energy commented. 

“There is probably still quite a bit of low-level radioactive waste awaiting shipment, and it’s likely the site wastewater has low levels of radioactive contamination,” Lyman said in an email. “Although anything is possible, based on the Fukushima experience, if the storage area were immersed in water for a short period of time, there is unlikely to be significant damage or leakage from the canisters.”

The site also flooded in 2023 after Hurricane Idalia made landfall, according to a report in Newsweek, that said spent fuel was scheduled to remain on site until 2037.

–With assistance from Tony Czuczka.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Australian Defence Minister Marles, with all pretension, flogging a dead seahorse

By Paul Keating, Sep 28, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/marles-with-all-pretention-flogging-a-dead-seahorse/

Richard Marles and his mate, the US defence secretary, are beginning to wilt under the weight of sustained comment in Australia critical of the AUKUS arrangement.

Marles, unable to sustain a cogent argument himself, has his US friend propping him up in London to throw a 10,000-mile punch at me – and as usual, failing to materially respond to legitimate and particular criticisms made of the AUKUS arrangement.

The US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, claims AUKUS would not compromise Australia’s ability to decide its own sovereign defence issues, a claim made earlier by Richard Marles and the prime minister.

But this would only be true until the prime minister and Marles got their phone call from the president, seeking to mobilise Australian military assets – wherein, both would click their heels in alacrity and agreement. The rest of us would read about it in some self-serving media statement afterwards. As my colleague, Gareth Evans, recently put it, “it defies credibility that Washington will ever go ahead with the sale of Virginias to us in the absence of an understanding that they will join the US in any fight in which it chooses to engage anywhere in our region, particularly over Taiwan”.

In London, Marles claimed that the logic behind AUKUS matched my policy as prime minister, in committing to the Collins class submarine program. This is completely untrue.

The Collins class submarine, at 3,400 tonnes, was designed specifically for the defence of Australia – in the shallow waters off the Australian continental shelf.

The US Virginia class boats at 10,000 tonnes, are attack submarines designed to stay and stand on far away station, in this case, principally to wait and sink Chinese nuclear weapon submarines as they exit the Chinese coast.

At 10,000 tonnes, the Virginias are too large for the shallow waters of the Australian coast – their facility is not in the defence of Australia, rather, it is to use their distance and stand-off capability to sink Chinese submarines. They are attack-class boats.

When Marles wilfully says “AUKUS matches the Collins class logic” during the Keating government years, he knows that statement to be utterly untrue. Factually untrue. The Collins is and was a “defensive” submarine – designed to keep an enemy off the Australian coast. It was never designed to operate as far away as China or to sit and lie in wait for submarine conquests.

And as Evans also recently made clear, eight Virginia class boats delivered in the 2040s-50s would only ever see two submarines at sea at any one time. Yet Marles argues that just two boats of this kind in the vast oceans surrounding us, materially alters our defensive capability and the military judgment of an enemy. This is argument unbecoming of any defence minister.

As I said at the National Press Club two years ago, two submarines aimed at China would be akin to throwing toothpicks at a mountain. That remains the position.

The fact is, the Albanese Government, through this program and the ambitious basing of American military forces on Australian soil, is doing nothing other than abrogating Australia’s sovereign right to command its own continent and its military forces.

Marles says “there has been demonstrable support for AUKUS within the Labor Party”. This may be true at some factionally, highly-managed national conference — like the last one — but it is utterly untrue of the Labor Party’s membership at large – which he knows.

The membership abhors AUKUS and everything that smacks of national sublimation. It does not expect these policies from a Labor Government.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

Public scrutiny of UK-US  nuclear pact is essential

Public scrutiny of UK-US  nuclear pact is essential

“Rather than working together to get rid of their nuclear weapons, the UK and US are collaborating on further advancing their respective nuclear arsenals” – Carol Turner

The Agreement facilitates the development of Britain’s nuclear weapon technology and supports building the Trident replacement. This is in direct contradiction to Britain’s legal obligation under the NPT and CTBT to the disarm.

Vice Chair of CND, Carol Turner, writes on the UK-US Mutual Defence Agreement, and what it spells for the so-called independence of Britain’s foreign policy. 29 Sept 24

One of the Prime Minister’s first foreign policy initiatives after taking office in July was an amendment to the Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes. Never heard of it? That could be just what Labour is hoping for.

The Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) is a bilateral nuclear pact between the USA and Britain. The United States provides the UK with nuclear technology and know-how in exchange for access to British intelligence facilities. Since it was first signed in secret in 1958, the MDA has been brought before parliament for approval every 10 years. This has been a formal process, with no vote and negligible scrutiny.

After the MDA is signed by the end of this year, not even the formality of approval will be required in future. Defence Secretary John Healey laid an amendment to the MDA before parliament on 25 July – three weeks after Labour took office, just five days before the summer recess – which removes all mentions of renewal. When the pact is signed this year, it becomes permanent. No parliamentary debate and no change in the law is needed for this. As CND General Secretary Kate Hudon observes ‘this spells farewell to even the smallest notion of parliamentary responsibility’ for Britain’s foreign policy.

What’s on offer for Britain and the US

The agreement enables both countries to exchange classified information allowing them to develop their respective nuclear weapon systems. The MDA is essential to the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system. The current UK warhead is a copy of the US warhead; some components are bought from the US. Inevitably, the United States leverage over Britain’s foreign and security policy will to be enhanced by the MDA amendment.

In an explanatory memorandum to parliament which accompanied the proposed changes to the agreement, Healey explained the MDA ‘provides the necessary requirements for the control and transmission of submarine nuclear propulsion technology, atomic information  and material between the UK and US, and the transfer of non-nuclear components to the UK’.

Healey neglects to point out that control and transmission of Trident nuclear weapons is indispensable to Britain’s ability to use them. Being able to deliver a nuclear bomb to its target, is every bit as essential as the nuclear warhead itself. As Richard Norton Taylor rightly points out, the MDA ‘gives the lie to persistent claims by the Ministry of Defence that Britain’s submarine-launched nuclear arsenal is operationally independent’.

In  exchange for this, Britain provides the US with intelligence facilities. The Menwith Hill listening post in Yorkshire makes signals intelligence available to the US from across the northern hemisphere, intercepting both military and commercial electronic communications. Fylingdales radar station, also in Yorkshire, is one of three bases that comprise the USA’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. Information from these bases initiates a nuclear response from the US or Britain to a perceived threat.

Agreement breaches Britain’s international obligations

Healey’s memorandum claims the MDA ‘is consistent with the UK’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and commitments under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’. It does not provide for ‘the transfer of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices’.

The Agreement facilitates the development of Britain’s nuclear weapon technology and supports building the Trident replacement. This is in direct contradiction to Britain’s legal obligation under the NPT and CTBT to the disarm. The NPT states that countries should undertake ‘to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to… nuclear disarmament’. Rather than working together to get rid of their nuclear weapons, the UK and US are collaborating on further advancing their respective nuclear arsenals.

A 2004 legal advice paper from Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin concluded it is ‘strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’. This is because it implies ‘continuation and indeed enhancement of the nuclear programme, not progress towards its discontinuation’.


What parliament can do

When the MDA was first introduced, parliament was powerless to oppose renewal. However, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act of 2010, now provides an opportunity for parliament to oppose ratification. The House of Commons could block the MDA indefinitely if MPs so decided.

The government is not obliged to hold a debate or vote, however, the onus is on MPs. Before the MDA was renewed in 2014, Jeremy Corbyn MP tabled Early Day Motion 153 calling for a debate. It was supported by LibDem, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Green, as well as Labour MPs.

The need for an open and transparent debate is crucial this year, before the Agreement becomes permanent. At the very least, Labour should be made to answer why they are they are contravening their legal obligation to work towards disarmament and instead renewing an agreement designed to maintain US and UK nuclear weapons production capabilities.

and why MPs should do it

The world is moving closer to war in Europe between nuclear armed antagonists. Extending the Mutual Defence Agreement indefinitely:

  • is a further step in perpetuating Britain’s nuclear arsenal
  • encourages nuclear proliferation, and
  • makes Britain a key target in the event of war.

This change to the MDA should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. It’s time that MPs challenged the Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes.

  • Carol Turner is a Vice Chair of the Campaign Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and active in Labour CND.
  • Follow Labour CND on Twitter, or for more information, see their website.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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