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Why the EU could be the biggest loser from the Ukraine conflict

SOTT, Fyodor Lukyanov, RTSat, 09 Mar 2024 , https://www.sott.net/article/489640-Fyodor-Lukyanov-Why-the-EU-could-be-the-biggest-loser-from-the-Ukraine-conflict

As alarms bells ring in the West, Emmanuel Macron’s talk of NATO troops in Ukraine reflects a fear of failure

French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged that the Fifth Republic will not send its troops to Ukraine in the near future. Earlier, he had stated that Western leaders had discussed the issue but failed to reach an agreement.

The evolution of the Ukraine crisis has had paradoxical consequences. Two years since the most acute phase began, Western Europe has found itself at the spearhead of the confrontation. Not only in terms of the costs it has incurred – which have been discussed from the very beginning. Now the possibility of a military conflict with Russia is being raised much more loudly in the Old World than on the other side of the Atlantic, and France is the instigator. Macron’s statement on the possibility of sending NATO troops into the war zone seemed spontaneous to many. But a week later, Paris insisted it was deliberate and well thought-out.

…………………………………………It seems that previously the constant incantation was to prevent NATO from being drawn into a direct, nuclear conflict with Russia. And now, suddenly, Paris is talking about “strategic ambiguity,” about a cunning game to confuse Russian President Vladimir Putin and make him afraid to take decisions because of possible irreversible consequences. Let him be afraid of the next steps, not us.

This is not yet being repeated in other major capitals, but a group of countries ready to cross swords with Moscow is beginning to take shape.………………………………

Western European ambiguity is likely to mean stepping up the substantial military assistance to Ukraine without announcing it, but also without hiding the growing signs. The risks are considerable because there is no reason to believe that Russia would somehow refrain from responding if it saw reason to do so.

The fear of Russia is not new in Western Europe, and is in its own way historically very sincere, so we should not write it off. All the more so because, after the Cold War, Europe collectively believed we could forget the previous problems with a clear conscience. But here we are again.

However, we dare to suggest that the current Western European reaction and the escalation of the Russian threat are also linked to another factor: the realisation that it is the EU that could be the main loser in the ongoing conflict. The gap between the demands of the population and the priorities of the political class is widening, according to opinion polls. Added to that, it’s unclear what to expect from the senior partner over in Washington. It turns out that ambiguity is everywhere, and there is nothing left but to make it the core of one’s policy. And insist on it.

On the eve of the Russian presidential election, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov invited EU ambassadors to a meeting, but they refused.

Comment: It appears as if Europe hasn’t learned important lessons of history which seriously puts us all in danger. It is clear though that the European leaders are making these decisions without consulting the people in their countries who are more interested in the domestic problems within EU. As always, war and/or the fear of war in a climate of engineered hysteria works wonders in distracting people towards an enemy ‘out there’ and thus protecting the real enemy ‘inside’.

Coalition Kill Chain for the Pacific: Lessons from Ukraine

U.S. Naval Institute, By Majors Dylan Buck and Steven Stansbury, U.S. Marine Corps, July 2023

Proceedings Vol. 149/7/1,445

Russia’s war in Ukraine offers a critical case study on why—and how—to build a more robust kill chain that leverages partners’ and allies’ capabilities. A more expansive satellite communications (SATCOM) network that enables a real-time integrated common operational picture (COP) will be necessary to generate the relative combat power advantage over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Russia initiated combat operations in Ukraine with cyberattacks on SATCOM to disrupt Ukraine’s kill chain—the methodology for finding, fixing, targeting, tracking, engaging, and assessing (F2T2EA) an adversarial objective.

Ukraine’s kill chain—the methodology for finding, fixing, targeting, tracking, engaging, and assessing (F2T2EA) an adversarial objective. The United States, alongside partners, allies, and industry, was able to blunt Russia’s invasion by reconstructing Ukraine’s SATCOM network and sharing critical intelligence. However, the kill chain architecture leveraged against Russia does not exist in the first island chain of the western Pacific.

…………… To achieve the capability required to deter the PLA, the Department of Defense (DOD) must further develop SATCOM architecture in the first island chain and expand partners and allies’ access to the COP to build a coalition kill chain that can mass fires.

……….. the United States had to create more permissive policy for intelligence sharing for more effective targeting. Furthermore, kill chains in the Pacific are more dependent on SATCOM as submarine internet cables are more vulnerable and likely already compromised by China.

……. First, to enhance U.S. SATCOM architecture, the DoD could begin to supplement geosynchronous orbit satellites by proliferating low-earth-orbit and medium-earth-orbit satellites. This would reduce vulnerabilities related to adversarial space operations and expand SATCOM range and resiliency. SpaceX’s Starlink functions off the same principle of a mesh networks of low-earth-orbit satellites.

Second, the United States could use partner and allies’ satellite networks and make policy more permissive with intelligence sharing. In March 2022, the Department of Defense announced its Joint All-Domain Command and Control Implementation Plan with the 5th line of effort to “Modernize Mission Partner Information Sharing.” The intent is to enhance the ability to integrate partner and allies’ data for all-domain coalition operations. After all, the value in integrating systems is only as good as the real-time tracks being shared. To build a coalition kill chain, U.S. policy will have to become more permissive with intelligence sharing among partners and allies.

Structure of the Multinational Kill Chain

The United States will also need to create a methodology for building a multinational COP and integrated fires network. Tactical-level forces across the partner and ally network must evolve to contribute more to operational and strategic-level fires and effects. This effort is twofold: first, the joint force could expand partners and allies’ access to Type-1 Link-16 cryptography, so they are built into the operational tasking link; and second, it could reduce constraints on protocols and pathways for sharing information.

The first effort would integrate partners and allies into the tactical data link router used by the U.S. joint force, also known as the Joint Range Extension Applications Protocol. This would require access to the joint Link 16 architecture by assigning partners and allies a cryptographic variable logic label via an operational tasking data link (OPTASK LINK). Access to the Link 16 architecture would provide a shared COP capable of integrating national technical means for finding and fixing targets and cuing assets to track them.

……………………………………………Once the multilateral kill chain is built, it must be rehearsed with common understanding of joint war-at-sea terminology among partners and allies. War-at-sea, zones of action, and zones of fire must be standardized in planning to achieve a common lexicon. The Global Area Reference System is also key to orientation and understanding the battlespace. Rehearsing multilateral plans for fire, specifically including protocols for authorities, and collaborating on battle damage assessments are necessary to achieve true integration………………………………………………….. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/july/coalition-kill-chain-pacific-lessons-ukraine

March 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader: Stop the Worsening Undercount of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza

By Ralph Nader, March 5, 2024

Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs/missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.

The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”

The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains – just about everything.

The U.S.-equipped Israeli war machine has even uprooted agricultural fields, including thousands of olive trees on one farm, bulldozed many cemeteries and bombed civilians fleeing on Israeli orders, while obstructing the few trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt.

With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With five thousand babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded and without food, healthcare, medicine and clean water for any of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health Ministry’s official count is warranted.

Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death/injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower.

The Health Ministry is intentionally conservative, citing that its death toll came from reports only of named deceased by hospitals and morgues. But as the weeks turned into months, blasted, disabled hospitals and morgues cannot keep up with the bodies, or cannot count those slain laying on roadsides in allies and beneath building debris. Yet the Health Ministry remains conservative and the “official,” rising civilian fatality and injury count continues to be uncritically reported by both friend and foe of this devastating Israeli state terrorism.

It was especially astonishing to see the most progressive groups and writers routinely use the same Hamas Health Ministry figures as did the governments and outside groups backing the one-sided war on Gaza. All this despite predictions of a human catastrophe in the Gaza Strip almost every day since October 7, 2023, by arms of the United Nations, other besieged international relief agencies on the ground, eyewitness accounts by medical personnel, and many Israeli human rights groups and brave local journalists in that Strip, the geographic size of Philadelphia. (Unguided Western and Israeli reporters and journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli government.) (See the open letter titled, “Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe” to President Biden on December 13, 2023, by 16 Israeli human rights groups that also appeared as a paid notice in the New York Times.)

Then came the December 29, 2023, opinion piece in The Guardian by the Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Devi Sridhar. She predicted half a million deaths in 2024 if conditions continue unabated. (See her piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict).

In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March 2, 2024, Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes: “The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine — a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid.”

Tharoor quotes Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council: “We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions.” “Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.”

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations lead humanitarian officer, said “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to the Post, warned of an “‘unknown number of people’ – believed to be in the tens of thousands – lying under the rubble of buildings brought down by Israeli strikes.”

Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said “All people in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Almost all are drinking salty and contaminated water. Health care across the territory is barely functioning.” “Just imagine what this means for the wounded, and people suffering infectious-disease outbreaks. …many are already believed to be starving.” UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Doctors Without Borders are all relating that the same catastrophic conditions are getting worse fast.

Yet, and get this, in this article, the Post still stuck with the “more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the ongoing war began.”

Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the independent media and critics of the war would have us accept that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has survived – albeit the sick, injured and more Palestinians about to die. This is lethally improbable!

From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.

Imagine Americans, if this powerful U.S.-made weaponry was fired on the besieged, homeless, trapped people of Philadelphia, do you think that only 30,000 of that city’s 1.5 million people would have been killed?

Daily circumstantial evidence of the deliberate Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructures requires more reliable epidemiological estimates of casualties.

It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent ceasefire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege. It matters for the columnists and editorial writers who have been self-censoring themselves, with some, like the Post’s Charles Lane fictionally claiming that Israel’s military doesn’t “intentionally target civilians.” It matters for accountability under international law.

Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Joe Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: what about Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children will continue for years.)

Respecting the more accurate casualty toll of Palestinian children, mothers and fathers presses harder for permanent ceasefires and the process of recovery and reparations for the survivors of their Holocaust.

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Buried Nuclear Waste May Soon Rise From the Grave

If we don’t get a handle on climate change soon, we may have a serious radioactive issue on our hands.

BY DARREN ORF MAR 07, 2024 https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a60067341/gao-nuclear-waste-report/

During the Cold War, the U.S. stashed nuclear waste—or accidentally dispersed it—in several sites around the world.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released an update on three of those sites in Spain, Greenland, and the Marshall Islands.
Two of those sites are currently under threat from climate change in the form of either melting ice or rising sea levels, which could eventually reveal these dump sites’ deadly contents.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union had the bright idea to irradiate the planet with nuclear bomb testing.

Of the 67 U.S. nuclear tests during this period, Castle Bravo—conducted on the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954—was the biggest of them all. This denotation, along with all the others, came with an ecological and human toll on the surrounding area. And now, during the era of climate change, the specter of the most dangerous era of the nuclear age is haunting the world once again.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GOA) re-evaluated three sites around the world contaminated by U.S nuclear waste. One of these sites included Palomares, Spain—in 1966, a U.S. B-52G bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs collided with a KC-135 tanker in the area. The collision didn’t cause the bombs to explode (you probably would’ve heard about that one time we accidentally bombed Spain) but it did disperse a lot of radioactive material. The report finds that the U.S. and Spain continue to monitor the contamination to this day.

However, the nuclear waste sites in Greenland and the Marshall Islands are currently a more direct threat to the world due to climate change. Entombed in ice under Greenland is roughly 47,000 gallons of radioactive waste produced by the Portable Mobile-2A (PM-2A) reactor, which powered the “city under the ice” known as the U.S. Camp Century base. Although the reactor was removed, the waste was left behind. Simply put, engineers at the time never thought it’d be exposed, but climate change—a term that wasn’t even coined yet when the base was built in 1960—is slowly melting the ice cap, which could reveal the radioactive waste hiding below.

“The scientists concluded that the contaminants should remain entombed in the ice at least through 2100,” the report reads. “The radioactive isotopes will continue to decay while entombed in the ice sheet and, as a result, will be less of a threat to human health the longer they remain locked in the ice.”

However, of most pressing concern is the nuclear waste currently impacting the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Runit Island houses a “nuclear coffin” that contains 110,000 cubic yards of radioactive contaminated soil and 6,000 cubic yards of contaminated debris, and it’s already been documented that rising sea levels are impacting this coffin. Nuclear radiation can also be measured at several atolls as well, including Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrik Atolls.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the RMI have disagreed over the impacts of the U.S.’s past nuclear testing on the people of this island, and the GOA believes that a new communication strategy could help alleviate mistrust—which isn’t exactly what the Marshallese people want to hear.

“What we need now is action and implementation on environmental remediation,” Ariana Tibon, chair of RMI’s National Nuclear Commission told the environmental website Grist. “If they know that it’s contaminated, why wasn’t the recommendation for next steps on environmental remediation?”

In other words, it’s time for the U.S. to stare down the ghosts of its nuclear past.

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, wastes | Leave a comment

Could Fukushima’s radioactive water pose lasting threat to humans and the environment?

studies have highlighted how tritium can be absorbed into sediments and soils, raising concerns about its potential transfer to the water cycle and the food web.

research showing that fish have transported radioactive particles generated by the Fukushima incident far and wide. Like a number of other nuclear accidents before it, that makes what happened at Fukushima a global concern.”

by Alan Williams, University of Plymouth, https://phys.org/news/2024-03-fukushima-radioactive-pose-threat-humans.html

The meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, represents the most severe nuclear power accident of the 21st century so far.

However, a new study highlights how the decision by the Japanese government to begin releasing the radioactive water stored within it—a decision approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—has generated scientific and public debate, given its potential to cause environmental harm for decades to come.

Writing in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers say the water cannot be stored indefinitely due to the ongoing risk of earthquakes and tsunamis in the region.

But they say not enough is known about the long-term impacts of tritium—the primary radionuclide present, with a half-life of 12.6 years—to ascertain if the release of more than one million tons of water can be considered safe or not.

As a result, they have called for assurances that regular monitoring will be carried out in different components of the region’s ecosystem to examine any impacts the release might be having on the environment.

They have also suggested more evidence is needed about the future effects of tritium in the presence of multiple and emerging stressors, such as hypoxia, rising ocean temperatures, and microplastics, given that environmental contamination can occur in many combinations.

The study was carried out at the University of Plymouth, where researchers have been examining the environmental impacts of radioactive material for almost three decades.

“The Japanese tsunami of 2011 was devastating for people living along this whole coastline. The presence of a nuclear power plant within the region left a lasting threat, and this study highlights some of the complex challenges that need managing and scientific questions that still need addressing.”

“Being in a region prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, there is an obvious danger in simply storing radioactive water there indefinitely. But based on our research, not enough is known about the impacts of tritium on both environmental and human health to say that releasing the water into the ocean is completely safe,” says Awadhesh Jha, professor in genetic toxicology and ecotoxicology and corresponding author on the research.

The new study includes a review of existing literature on the behavior of tritium in the environment and studies that have assessed its impact on individual species.

That includes studies that have highlighted how tritium can be absorbed into sediments and soils, raising concerns about its potential transfer to the water cycle and the food web.

There has also been research showing that tritium can cause DNA damage to certain fish species, which could impact their physical and reproductive fitness and—ultimately—the genetic diversity of a population.

However, the researchers say there is little data available on the distribution, behavior, and potential effects of tritiated water and organically-bound tritium, and therefore assessing the broad risks is almost impossible.

They also say the Fukushima situation cannot be compared with the Chornobyl accident, as some authorities have attempted to do, given the differing geographical locations of the two plants and the fact the long-term environmental impacts of Chornobyl are still being debated.

“Through our study, we have found research showing that fish have transported radioactive particles generated by the Fukushima incident far and wide. Like a number of other nuclear accidents before it, that makes what happened at Fukushima a global concern.”

“As such, we urgently need global research into the impacts of tritium—and how they might be managed—especially with the nuclear power industry set to expand significantly. If it does indeed expand, the construction of nuclear power plants, especially in coastal regions, should also take into account worst-case scenarios of flooding, earthquakes, and tsunamis as part of a fundamental goal to minimize radioactive discharges to the environment,” says Professor Jha.

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing, oceans | Leave a comment

13 Years On: Fukushima Governor Urges State to Clarify Soil Policy

Nippon Mar 9, 2024 1

Fukushima, March 9 (Jiji Press)–Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori wants the Japanese government to clarify its policy on transferring soil from decontamination work following the March 2011 nuclear accident to final disposal sites outside the northeastern Japan prefecture.

“We’ll seize every opportunity to strongly call on the state to present a specific policy and a road map swiftly, in order not to create a blank period,” he has said in a recent interview.

Fukushima has decided to host interim storage facilities for the soil on the premise that the soil is stored at final disposal sites to be created outside the prefecture, Uchibori noted. This is the central government’s “legally prescribed responsibility,” he said.

A considerable amount of time will be needed to realize the soil transfer because there are a host of issues, including the selection of final disposal sites, but the remaining time is limited, Uchibori said………. https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2024030701079/13-years-on-fukushima-governor-urges-state-to-clarify-soil-policy.html

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point Responds to Environmental Concerns Over Bristol Channel Eel Populations

Hinkley Point addresses SEG’s concerns on eel populations in the Bristol Channel, proposing solutions for environmental conservation amidst development.

BNN, Nitish Verma, 05 Mar 2024

In a recent development, Hinkley Point has addressed concerns voiced by the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG) regarding the nuclear plant’s impact on eel populations in the Bristol Channel. The SEG, a prominent organization dedicated to the conservation of the European eel, has expressed reservations about supporting the Hinkley Point C development without significant changes to protect these migratory fish, especially the critically endangered European eel.

Environmental Alarms and Hinkley’s Rebuttals

The Bristol Channel is home to the most substantial population of migrating eels in the British Isles, with recent surveys suggesting an annual arrival of 75 million tonnes of glass eels. This has raised alarms about the potential threats posed by the Hinkley Point C development to this vital migratory route. The area’s designation as a RAMSAR reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest underscores its global ecological importance. Chris Fayers, head of environment at Hinkley Point C, countered these concerns by highlighting extensive research conducted by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), which suggests a minimal impact on fish populations, including eels. Furthermore, joint studies by the Universities of Bristol and Exeter have been cited to address risks related to noise pollution, a factor previously thought to significantly harm eel populations.

Proposed Solutions and SEG’s Stance

In response to the SEG’s concerns, Hinkley Point C has proposed the creation of a new salt marsh and the implementation of fish passes designed to be ‘eel friendly’ and benefit the overall eel population. These measures aim to mitigate the environmental impact of the nuclear plant’s operations on the local ecosystem. However, the SEG remains cautious, emphasizing the need for substantial evidence and effective implementation of these measures before lending their support to the development. The group’s focus on ensuring the survival and recovery of the European eel underscores the critical nature of this issue.

Looking Ahead: Conservation and Development Balance

The debate surrounding Hinkley Point C’s impact on eel populations in the Bristol Channel highlights the broader challenge of balancing infrastructure development with environmental conservation. As the largest and most high-profile NGO focusing on the recovery of the European eel, the SEG’s concerns carry significant weight. The outcome of this situation could set important precedents for how large-scale projects address and mitigate their environmental impacts. With both sides presenting arguments and potential solutions, the ongoing dialogue between Hinkley Point C and environmental groups will be crucial in determining the future of the Bristol Channel’s eel populations. https://bnnbreaking.com/world/uk/hinkley-point-responds-to-environmental-concerns-over-bristol-channel-eel-populations

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Anglesey nuclear power plant plan resurrected almost four years after being shelved due to costs

This Is Money, By JOHN ABIONA , 7 March 2024

Plans for a nuclear power plant in North Wales look set to be revived almost four years after the project was shelved.

Jeremy Hunt said the Government has bought the Wylfa site on Anglesey and a second at Oldbury-on-Severn in south Gloucestershire from Hitachi for £160million.

The Japanese firm walked away from building the plant at Wylfa in September 2020 having suspended the project the year before due to rising costs.

But yesterday the Chancellor, who referred to the island by its Welsh-language and constituency name, said: ‘Ynys Mon has a vital role in developing our nuclear ambitions.’

Ministers are also pressing ahead with plans for small modular reactors (SMRs) with six companies including Rolls-Royce bidding to win the contract.

These will complement Somerset’s Hinkley Point C and Suffolk’s Sizewell C nuclear power stations…………………………………………….more https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-13165945/Anglesey-nuclear-power-plant-plan-resurrected-four-years-shelved.html

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

The Biden doctrine in Gaza: bomb, starve, conceal, deceive

The White House unveils a new PR stunt for Gaza aid while hiding US arms transfers to Israel.

AARON MATÉ, MAR 9, 2024

At his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Biden announced that the US military will install a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver emergency aid to the besieged enclave, where more than 2.2 million Palestinians face a humanitarian crisis, including starvation. The pier, which will take weeks if not months to complete, will be built by US soldiers.

The US, Biden claimed, “has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza” and believes that “protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.”

In reality, the emergency project underscores Biden’s real priority: to prolong Israel’s rampage in Gaza, the US is even willing to deploy its own military for face-saving public relations stunts.

With criticism of Biden’s Gaza complicity increasing inside the Democratic Party, and threatening him at the ballot box, the pier is the latest in a series of token gestures aimed at feigning concern for Gazans while providing unfettered support to the Israeli government that is indiscriminately attacking them.

The White House has carried out air drops over Gaza that amount to a few trucks’ worth of aid – compared to the thousands of trucks that Israel is blocking with US support. “The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border,” Doctors Without Border said Friday. “Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies.”

Even those trucks that can enter Gaza have been unable to make safe deliveries after Israel attacked their Hamas police escorts and crowds of desperate civilians lining up to receive aid. One air drop has even killed five Palestinian civilians and wounded others when a parachute failed to open.

The US military pier, Biden claimed, “will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.” His own aides acknowledge that this is a ruse. According to the Washington Post, administration officials quietly concede that “only by securing the opening of additional land crossings would there be enough aid to prevent famine.” And given that the pier will take at minimum 30 days to complete, that “[raises] questions about how famine in Gaza will be staved off in the critical days ahead,” the New York Times notes.

The White House has given the answer: rather than compel Israel to open those land crossings and prevent famine, it is instead adopting the Israeli position that the land crossings can be used as a tool of leverage against Hamas — and that Israel can control everything that gets in. In ceasefire talks, Israel has demanded that Hamas release hostages in exchange for, at best, a six-week pause to the massacre………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

it would be incongruent for the Biden administrating to publicly rebuke the Israeli government while privately rushing it weapons to help exterminate the Gazan “animals.”

Which explains why, five months into Israel’s genocidal campaign, the White House’s empty gestures have extended beyond mere empty words to costly, empty stunts by sea and air. https://www.aaronmate.net/p/the-biden-doctrine-in-gaza-bomb-starve?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=142435082&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

March 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

F-35A aeroplanes officially certified to carry thermonuclear bomb

The designation marks the first time that a stealth fighter can carry a nuclear weapon, in this case the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb.

Breaking DEFENSE, By MICHAEL MARROW, March 08, 2024

WASHINGTON — The F-35A Joint Strike Fighter has been operationally certified to carry the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb, a spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) tells Breaking Defense.

In a statement, JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere said the certification was achieved Oct. 12, months ahead of a pledge to NATO allies that the process would wrap by January 2024. Certain F-35As will now be capable of carrying the B61-12, officially making the stealth fighter a “dual-capable” aircraft that can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons.

“The F-35A is the first 5th generation nuclear capable aircraft ever, and the first new platform (fighter or bomber) to achieve this status since the early 1990s. This F-35 Nuclear Certification effort culminates 10+ years of intense effort across the nuclear enterprise, which consists of 16 different government and industry stakeholders,” Goemaere said. “The F-35A achieved Nuclear Certification ahead of schedule, providing US and NATO with a critical capability that supports US extended deterrence commitments earlier than anticipated.”

Responding to follow-up questions from Breaking Defense, Goemaere said US disclosure policy prohibits the release of information on dual-capable aircraft among NATO partners. According to analysis by the Federation of American Scientists, as of 2023 approximately 100 older variants of B61 bombs are housed by NATO allies Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, who share the alliance’s nuclear strike mission. The first four nations are all planned F-35 operators, with the need to have a nuclear-capable aircraft a key reason for Germany signing onto the program.

The F-35A is certified to only carry the newer B61-12 variant, which will replace the older models………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, noted the announcement is another milestone in America’s ongoing nuclear modernization effort.

“The stage is set for the tactical nuclear weapons upgrade in Europe with full-scale production of the B61-12 and four NATO allies and the US fighter wing at Lakenheath upgrading to operate the bomb on the F-35A,” he said……………….. more https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/exclusive-f-35a-officially-certified-to-carry-nuclear-bomb/—

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Plutonium pit ‘panic’ threatens America’s nuclear ambitions

The Hill, BY BRAD DRESS – 03/06/24

This is the second story in a series about Sentinel, the Air Force’s nuclear missile modernization project. Other stories touch on the challenges in the surrounding communities near Sentinel construction and with the Air Force’s budget issues.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the U.S. built its first nuclear bomb, work on a key component of the next generation of nuclear missiles is already underway.

Workers have begun laying the groundwork for the first production later this year of plutonium “pits” — hollow spheres the size of a half grapefruit, made from the rare chemical element. They fit inside a warhead and create a nuclear explosion when compressed by explosives.

These pits are crucial: As a source of nuclear fuel, they will transform the Air Force’s new, modernized nuclear missiles, called Sentinel, into weapons of mass destruction. Sentinel is scheduled to be fielded in the Western rural U.S. in the 2030s, though that is likely to be delayed.

The pit work will first unfold at the nation’s only fully operational plutonium pit production facility, the Plutonium Facility at Technical Area 55, in a building known as PF-4 at Los Alamos.

Overseeing the production is the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is pushing to get Los Alamos whirring to life this year to start making plutonium pits, with the hopes of eventually producing 30 per year at the site. The agency also plans to open a brand-new plutonium pit production plant in South Carolina, known as the Savannah River site, to meet an ultimate target goal of 80 pits a year.

But the NNSA hasn’t done large-scale pit production since the early 1990s, creating unease about restarting the process after decades of inactivity. And the agency is plagued by schedule delays, workforce challenges and budget concerns.

Sébastien Philippe, a research scientist at Princeton University who has closely tracked the Sentinel project, said the NNSA is struggling to meet its goals and raised concerns about the lack of a specific cost estimate for pit production.

“At this point, the deadline keeps moving, and the cost keeps growing,” he said.

The pit production is part of a U.S. scramble to modernize its entire triad after delaying such efforts for years due to the war on terrorism. The total modernizing effort is expected to exceed more than a trillion dollars.

Washington will replace its aging Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and build new submarines and bomber planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons, with the latest 10-year projection cost putting the modernization effort at $750 billion……………………………………………………………..

The NNSA pit production effort has been flagged for several years by a government watchdog group, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO in a 2020 report said history has “cast doubt on NNSA’s ability to produce the required number of plutonium weapon cores on schedule.”

“We found NNSA’s plans for re-establishing pit production do not follow best practices and run the risk of cost increases and delays,” GAO said in an updated report last year. “The re-establishment of pit production capabilities is one of the most complex and potentially costly efforts presently operated by NNSA.”

The NNSA budget for pit production proposed in Congress for the next fiscal year is around $3 billion. The overall NNSA budget is expected to be boosted by 8 percent to $24 billion, based on congressional budget documents.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, grilled NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby in a 2022 hearing over budget and schedule concerns………………….

n last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December, lawmakers inserted several amendments due to concern about NNSA’s work.

Congress noted that reports have flagged the management and oversight of the plutonium modernization program with “serious deficiencies,” and required the NNSA to develop a master schedule and a life-cycle cost estimate. ……………………………………………………..

NNSA facing workforce challenges, lawsuit

…………………………………………………………..With the NNSA restarting pit production after so long, others are concerned about the potential for contamination and leakage from the hazardous practice.

Rocky Flats looms large over the debate. In 1957 and 1969, fires broke out at the facility and nearly created an environmental catastrophe on par with the meltdown in Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant.

The site was also known to have leaked barrels of radioactive waste into nearby fields. The FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency raided Rocky Flats in 1989 over environmental concerns.

The facility stopped production in 1992 and officially shut down in 1994. The Department of Energy took 10 years to clean up the area, which was designated as a hazardous waste site.

And Los Alamos itself has shut down in the past, from 2013-16, over safety concerns at PF-4.

The shaky history has spurred concerns in the communities around Los Alamos, where the “downwinders” — those who were affected by the winds carrying radioactivity after the Trinity test — have long kept a critical eye on NNSA operations.

As part of the new pit production, remaining plutonium after conversion to a new pit will be stored as waste. That waste will be sent to a disposal plant in Carlsbad, N.M.

Los Alamos said the facility has upgraded fire suppression systems and checked nuclear containers to ensure safety in case of an accident. Additionally, plutonium pits are handled inside of sealed compartments, which technicians insert gloves into to prevent harmful exposure.

But Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, wasn’t convinced the safety measures were sufficient.

“Los Alamos has a very checkered nuclear safety track record,” he said, and “production always causes more contamination and more radioactive waste.”

Coghlan sued the NNSA in 2021 for violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires an environmental review and public input for government projects. He said the NNSA has not conducted a robust town hall or environmental review on the pit production.

“That is not just a paper document. It requires public hearings. It requires NNSA to essentially make its case,” he said. “It requires NNSA to respond to public comment.”……………………………………

Questions linger over Savannah River

At the Savannah River site in South Carolina, the NNSA will have to start up a facility that has never produced plutonium pits……………………………………………………………

The new Savannah site is only half-designed and is estimated to finish construction sometime between 2032 and 2035 — missing the goal of the Air Force, which wants to field its 400 Sentinel missiles in 2030.

At the same time, the budget for the site to complete construction has ballooned from about $3 billion in 2017 to an estimated cost of $11 billion.

Von Hippel, the nuclear policy scientist, and Curtis Asplund, an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy at San José State University, said it would be better to focus on small-scale pit production at Los Alamos first.

“Trying to build a second pit production facility at the Savannah River Site in a building designed for another purpose while simultaneously re-equipping Los Alamos’s plutonium facility and crowding it with hundreds of trainees for both facilities is a prescription for a fiasco,” they wrote in an opinion last year………………………………………………….

With the challenges facing the NNSA, critics question if the pits are even needed, given the tens of thousands made during the Cold War period. The pits used today are about 40 years old, and while around 100 years is considered the end of a pit’s life, that’s a best guess…………………………………………….. more https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4510010-plutonium-pits-us-nuclear-ambitions-sentinel/

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Didn’t Even Try to Defend the Legality of Its Occupation to World Court

Israel’s system is “an even more extreme form of the apartheid” than South Africa’s was, South African ambassador said.

By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, March 6, 2024

or six days, more than 50 countries, the League of Arab States, the African Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation presented testimony to the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) about the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. The overwhelming majority of them, largely from the Global South, told the court that the occupation was illegal.

The historic hearing, which took place February 19-26, was held in response to the United Nations General Assembly’s December 30, 2022, request for an advisory opinion on the following questions:

(a) What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?

(b) How do the policies and practices of Israel … affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?

The General Assembly asked the ICJ to discuss these issues with reference to international law, including the UN Charter; international humanitarian law; international human rights law; resolutions of the Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights Council; and the 2004 advisory opinion of the ICJ finding that Israel’s wall on Palestinian land violated international law.

Israel regularly thumbs its nose at the World Court. It ignored the court’s ruling that the wall was illegal and refuses to implement the ICJ’s provisional order to refrain from committing genocidal acts and ensure humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Before the hearing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the court: “Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the proceedings of the international court in The Hague regarding ‘the legality of the occupation’ — which are an effort designed to infringe on Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats,” he said. “The proceedings in The Hague are part of the Palestinian attempt to dictate the results of the diplomatic settlement without negotiations.”

Although Israel didn’t appear at the hearing, it submitted a five-page statement which called the General Assembly’s questions “a clear distortion of the history and present reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Israel didn’t even attempt to defend the legality of the occupation, focusing instead on why the ICJ should not issue an advisory opinion.

Israel complained that the ICJ “is asked simply to presume Israeli violations of international law — to accept, as given, plainly biased and flawed assertions directed against Israel alone.” Although consent of the parties is not required for the ICJ to render advisory opinions, Israel protested that it had “not given its consent to judicial settlement of its dispute with the Palestinian side.”

A handful of countries — including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Fiji, Hungary, Italy and Zambia — sided with Israel. Only Fiji argued that the occupation was lawful. The U.S. contended that an occupation can be neither lawful nor unlawful; it is rather governed exclusively by international humanitarian law, which only deals with acts by the occupying power, and doesn’t examine the legality of the occupation itself.

“The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” said Richard Visek from the U.S. State Department, urging the court to consider Israel’s “legitimate security needs.” Visek defended Israel in the ICJ the day after the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the fourth time.

Israeli Genocide Is “Result of Decades of Impunity”

“The genocide underway in Gaza is the result of decades of impunity and inaction. Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative,” Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the court……………………………………………………………………………………………

Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Territory Is Illegal

It is a peremptory norm of international law that territory cannot be acquired by force. In 1967, Israel launched a “preemptive” war against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and seized the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel has occupied those Palestinian territories ever since.

Visek from the U.S. State Department told the ICJ that Israel was defending itself in the 1967 war. But it was Israel that initiated the war. Rossa Fanning, Ireland’s attorney general, called it “the war [Israel] launched,” thus, an act of aggression. Wilde noted that Israel “claimed to be acting in self-defence, anticipating a non-immediately imminent attack,” but “even assuming, arguendo, its claim of a feared attack, States cannot lawfully use force in non-immediately imminent anticipatory self-defence.” Article 51 of the UN Charter forbids a state from using military force except in self-defense after an armed attack by another state.

…………………………………………………………….Israel asserts that it has not occupied the Gaza Strip since 2005, when it withdrew its military forces and settlements. But it continues to exercise military control over Gaza by continuous military operations in and against Gaza.

……………………….Gaza and its population remain under effective Israeli control and are, therefore, occupied. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Apartheid “Goes Hand-in-Hand” With Violation of Right to Self-Determination

Israel maintains a system of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory, as confirmed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, called Israel’s apartheid system “an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalized against Black people in my country.”

In the West Bank, Israel preserves its separation wall, segregated roads, checkpoints and restrictive permit requirements. While Israelis are subject to a civil legal system, Palestinians are controlled by a military system. They can be held indefinitely with no charges or due process in administrative detention and can be convicted based on secret evidence………………………………………………….

Israeli Settlements Constitute Illegal Annexation

More than 700,000 Israeli settlers — 10 percent of the nearly 7 million people in Israel — have been transferred into the occupied Palestinian territories, “continuously terrorizing and forcibly displacing Palestinians from even more of their territory and engaging in pogroms against them,” Shoman from Belize stated.

This constitutes a “disguised form of annexation,” Ireland’s Fanning said. “The prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force is firmly established in customary international law. Using force to occupy and maintain such occupation for the purposes of territorial acquisition or annexing an occupied territory by force in whole or in part, is each illegal.”

Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population violates international humanitarian law, as the ICJ has ruled. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention says: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Legal Consequences for All States and the UN

“Israel must dismantle the physical, legal and policy regime of discrimination and oppression … evacuate Israeli settlers from Palestinian territories, permit Palestinians to return to their country and property, and lift the siege and blockade of Gaza,” Webb from Belize told the ICJ. “These consequences, taken collectively, mean that Israel must immediately, unconditionally, and totally withdraw from the entire Palestinian territory.”

…………………………………………………………………………………… The ICJ will likely issue its advisory opinion in about six months. https://truthout.org/articles/israel-didnt-even-try-to-defend-the-legality-of-its-occupation-to-world-court/

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, Legal, Reference | Leave a comment

The horrors of nuclear weapons testing

I think that enough time has gone by that the longer-term dangers of nuclear weapons, such as radioactive fallout, have largely disappeared from the public consciousness—much to the agony and despair of those afflicted to this day.

Radioactive fallout and its long-term effects—things that the average person today does not really appreciate—would be the result from any future nuclear weapons explosion that touched the Earth’s surface. Fallout does not just affect the target, but also the surrounding areas—which could be as far as hundreds of miles away. And the effects could last for years, if not decades thereafter.

Bulletin By Walter Pincus, March 7, 2024

There has been talk in the national security community lately about the so-called “merits” of resuming underground or even atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. I think this would be a grave mistake for many reasons—chief among them is that it forgets the horrific health effects that resulted from some previous nuclear tests.

To be clear, since 1963, atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons have been banned, as have tests in outer space and under water. And underground explosive tests have been banned ever since the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT. (Technically speaking, while the United States and China have signed the CTBT, neither has ratified it. Russia did both sign and ratify the treaty but on November 2, 2023 Russia announced it had rescinded its ratification. All three countries, however, have so far abided by the CTBT treaty.)

Meanwhile, sub-critical nuclear tests—which use tiny amounts of plutonium but do not create self-sustaining, exponentially-growing, nuclear chain reactions—have continued to this day, in laboratories or in specially constructed underground tunnels. The US is building new tunnels for sub-critical tests at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site where they are expected to help in designing the new, US W93 nuclear warhead now under development.

Presumably, then, what we are referring to when we talk about the possible resumption of nuclear testing is not the latter sub-critical testing, but some version of atmospheric, outer space, underwater, or underground explosives testing.

And here things get tricky.

Because I think that enough time has gone by that the longer-term dangers of nuclear weapons, such as radioactive fallout, have largely disappeared from the public consciousness—much to the agony and despair of those afflicted to this day.

I believe that the more people understand and even can visualize the immediate and long-term dangers of nuclear weapons use, the less likely it is that they may be used. Several nuclear scientists have told me they have memories of specific past nuclear atmospheric tests, most memorably two who were involved in the Manhattan Project—Harold Agnew and Hans Bethe.

Agnew photographed the Hiroshima mushroom cloud from the US aircraft that followed the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb. Agnew almost always brought up the effect that had on him when we met.

For his part, Bethe, at 88—on the 50th anniversary of the birth of the atomic bomb—wrote: “I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time—one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever imagine.”

In an interview years earlier at Cornell University where he was teaching, Bethe had told me something similar—and at 91, I have never forgotten those words.

The closer you are to nuclear weapons, the more you are aware of the dangers if they were to be used again. However, I believe, most people today have forgotten, if they ever knew, what a single nuclear weapon could do.

Seeing is believing. But believing in this case should make you work to oppose their use, as can be seen in a very rough sort of timeline of my own life…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It was in February 1966, well after the 1963 atmospheric test ban treaty, that I first wrote about the impact of nuclear weapons. It was a rather flip, three-paragraph note in The Reporter Magazine, which no longer exists. The story concerned a law that had passed Congress the previous month, a measure which required the US Government to pay $11,000 to each of the 82 men, women and children—or their survivors—who had been on Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific on March 1, 1954 when the United States detonated Test Bravo from a tower on an artificial island built within Bikini Atoll, more than 120 miles west of Rongelap.

Bravo was the first US test of a deliverable thermonuclear bomb and was expected to have a six-megaton yield, the equivalent of six million tons of TNT. In fact, the explosion was more than double that—15 megatons—and one thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Thanks in good part to thousands of documents on nuclear weapons declassified and released during the Clinton Administration, I was able to describe details about the Bravo explosion two years ago in my book, Blown To Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders, as follows:

In a few seconds the fireball, recorded at one hundred million degrees, had spread nearly three miles in diameter, then quickly spread to ten miles. The sandspit and nearby reef where Bravo had stood, along with coral island areas, were vaporized down almost two hundred feet into the sea, creating a crater about one mile in diameter.

It was estimated that three hundred million tons of vaporized sand, coral and water shot up into the air as the fireball rose, and one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds created by the blast pulled additional debris up into the fireball. Within one minute, the fireball had gone up forty-five thousand feet with a stem four miles wide filled with radioactive debris. It continued to zoom upward, shooting through the troposphere and into the stratosphere within five minutes.

Later data showed the cloud bottom was at fifty-five thousand feet, the secondary mushroom cloud bottom was at one-hundred-fourteen thousand feet, and the upper cloud hit one-hundred-thirty thousand feet.

Ten minutes after detonation the mushroom cloud had widened and measured seventy-five miles across just below the stratosphere.

Original projections had predicted Bravo radioactive fallout would emanate from a fifteen-mile-wide cylinder that could stretch into the stratosphere. Instead, it turned out to be a one-hundred-mile-wide cloud where “debris was carried up and dispersed over a much larger area than was thought possible,” wrote Dr. William Ogle, the test’s task force commander of the scientific group that dealt with radioactivity.

That March 1, 1954 morning, the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon, with a crew of 23 aboard, was trawling its nets 90 miles east-northeast of Bikini. A crewman at the stern rail saw a whitish flare in the west that briefly lit up the clouds and the water. It grew in size, turned to yellow-red, then orange. After a few minutes, the colors faded and shortly thereafter the ship was rocked by the blast of an explosion.

The Lucky Dragon’s captain and the fishing master, who had read ship warnings before they left port, realized they might have strayed into a nuclear test area. They quickly decided to haul in their fishing nets and head back to Japan, almost 2,500 miles away.

It was another two or three hours before a fine white dust began to come down on the boat. With a light rain, the radioactive dust continued to settle on crewmen and the fish on the deck as they worked for another two hours to bring in their lines.

On Rongelap about 30 miles further east, at about 11:30 a.m., a similar powdery, radioactive ash began falling in the area. It stuck to the Marshallese people’s skin, hair, and eyes; many walked barefoot and the powder stuck to their toes; it fell on fish drying on wooden racks that would be eaten that night. Rain briefly fell as the fallout continued into afternoon, dissolving the powdery ash on roofs and carrying it down drains into water barrels that provided drinking water to each household.

On parts of Rongelap Island, where most people lived, the almost five hours of fallout led to drifts of up to one-inch or more high on the ground, on roofs, and along the beach. People recalled that when the moon broke through the clouds that night, it looked like patches of snow on the ground.

It would be two days before the Marshallese were evacuated from Rongelap and taken to the Kwajalein Navy Base by a US Navy destroyer. By then, most of the Rongelapese people had suffered from acute radiation exposure and nausea; some had experienced skin lesions as well.

Since the Bravo test was highly classified, a decision was made in Washington to keep the fallout incident secret, although the Atomic Agency Commission (AEC) had released a statement on March 1, 1954 that a nuclear test had taken place in the Marshall Islands Pacific Proving Ground. That had generated a small front page story in the March 2, 1954, edition of The New York Times. It was not until March 11, 1954, that the AEC admitted people “unexpectedly exposed to some radioactivity” had been moved to Kwajalein “according to a plan as a precautionary measure.”

Two weeks passed before the Lucky Dragon returned to its home port in Japan. It was only then that on March 16, 1954, the first story appeared in the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper of what had happened to the boat’s crew and their fish—not what happened to the Marshallese. That story immediately triggered initial worldwide attention to the dangers of fallout from nuclear weapons.

However, it was not until President Eisenhower’s March 31, 1954 press conference that AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss, who had just returned from observing post-Bravo nuclear tests, admitted publicly that the Bravo test was “in the megaton range” and “the yield was about double that of the calculated estimate.” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The early part of the 1955 report described the blast and heat effects of early atomic bombs detonated in the air, before discussing fallout from Bravo and other detonations. “In the air explosion, where the fireball does not touch the earth’s surface, the radioactivity produced in the bomb condenses only on solid particles from the bomb casing itself and the dust which happens to be in the air. In the absence of materials drawn up from the surface, these substances will condense with the vapors from the bomb and air dust to form only the smallest particles. These minute substances may settle to the surface over a very wide area—probably spreading around the world—over a period of days or even months. By the time they have reached the earth’s surface, the major part of their radioactivity has dissipated harmlessly in the atmosphere and the residual contamination is widely dispersed.”

The report then turned to what fallout would occur if the fireball hit the ground. “If however the weapon is detonated on the surface or close enough so that the fireball touches the surface, then large amounts of material will be drawn up into the bomb cloud. Many of the particles thus formed are heavy enough to descend rapidly while still intensely radioactive. The result is a comparatively localized area of extreme radioactive contamination, and a much larger area of some hazard. Instead of wafting down slowly over a vast area, the larger and heavier particles fall rapidly before there has been an opportunity for them to decay harmlessly in the atmosphere and before the winds have had an opportunity to scatter them.”

It described the Bravo fallout as looking like snow “because of calcium carbonate from coral,” and then noted its “adhesive” quality thanks to moisture picked up in the atmosphere as it descended. In the end it contaminated “a cigar-shaped area extending approximately 220 statute miles downwind, up to 40 miles wide,” from Bikini. It “seriously threatened the lives of nearly all persons in the area who did not take protective measures,” the report said.

The report then talked about radioactive strontium in fallout as having a long, average lifetime of nearly 30 years, noting it could enter the human body either by inhaling or swallowing. Deposited directly on edible plants, the strontium could be eaten by a human or animal. While rainfall or human washing of the plants would remove most of the radioactive material, radioactive strontium deposited directly on the soil or in the ocean, lakes, or rivers could be taken up by plants, animals, or fish. There it would lodge in their tissue where it could later be eaten by humans…………….

The other radioactive element in fallout described specifically as a threat in the report was radioactive iodine. Even though the average life of radioactive iodine was only 11.5 days, it was described as a serious hazard because, if inhaled, it concentrated in the thyroid gland where it could damage cells, depending on dosage………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Back on Rongelap, despite some cleanup, there are few in residence. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in July 2019, done by researchers from Columbia University, found that levels of plutonium and cesium in the soil on Rongelap and other Marshall Island atolls were “significantly higher” than levels that resulted from fallout existing from the July 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power accident—which occurred 28 years after US nuclear tests had ended in the Marshalls.

The Rongelap Marshallese as well as the Japanese seamen who were exposed to fallout on March 1, 1954, can be seen as surrogates for anyone caught in a future nuclear war. Rongelap Atoll, as well as Bikini Atoll, for the most part still cannot be inhabited despite attempts to decontaminate them. Think of what today’s cities would be like if hit by a thermonuclear weapon whose fireball struck the ground and created radioactive fallout.

Within weeks it will be 70 years since the Bravo test. The more the US public and the world are reminded of that test and the resulting Rongelap story, the more they should work to deter any potential use of nuclear weapons. https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-03/the-horrors-of-nuclear-weapons-testing/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter03072024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearTestingHorrors_03072024

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Dose the US Need New Plutonium Pits?

Maintaining nuclear weapons is both dangerous and expensive.

Inkstick, ALICIA INEZ GUZMÁN, MARCH 4, 2024

Sprinkled across five western states, in silos buried deep underground and protected by reinforced concrete, sit 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Each of those missiles is equipped with a single nuclear warhead. And each of those warheads is itself equipped with one hollow, grapefruit-sized plutonium pit, designed to trigger a string of deadly reactions.

All of those missiles are on “hair-trigger alert,” poised for hundreds of targets in Russia — any one of which could raze all of downtown Moscow and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Except — what if it doesn’t? What if, in a nuclear exchange, the pit fizzles because it’s just too old? In that case, would the weapon be a total dud or simply yield but a fraction of its latent power?

Outwardly, at least, that’s the question driving a whole new era of plutonium pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina……………………………………………………

Now, as the nuclear industrial complex awakens from its long slumber, the resumption of plutonium pit production has emerged as a deeply polarizing and political act. Anti-nuclear activists have accused the federal government of exploiting the uncertainty around aging to jumpstart a nearly $60 billion dollar manufacturing program. They assert that the real reason America has resumed the production of pits is for the purpose of introducing a new generation of warheads for a new generation of missiles — the first of which is the Sentinel, one of the most complex and expensive programs in the history of the US Air Force……………………………………………………..

“The issue of plutonium pit aging is a Trojan horse for the nuclear weaponeers enriching themselves through a dangerous new arms race,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, an anti-nuclear group based in Santa Fe. “Future pit production is not about maintaining the existing, extensively tested stockpile. Instead, it’s for deploying multiple new warheads on new intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

……………………………………………..America’s plutonium pits are also estimated to hold their power for a good 85 years, and some estimates give them decades more. Much of the current stockpile is about 40 years old, which suggests there is no looming crisis.

The mystery of pit aging has nonetheless been at the heart of numerous studies conducted over decades at LANL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). In 2006, each lab released its findings to JASON, an independent and elite group of scientists that’s been advising the federal government since the Cold War, for review. JASON’s conclusion: “Most plutonium pit types have credible lifetimes of at least 100 years.” Half a dozen years later, researchers at LLNL were able to artificially age plutonium to 150 years. Those plutonium samples, researchers stated at the time “continue to age gracefully.”

But, come 2019, the political tide had changed. With President Donald Trump in office and a receptive Congress backing a plan to reinstate pit production, JASON was not convinced that enough studies on aging had been conducted in recent years. The group urged more studies. It also urged that “pit manufacturing be re-established as expeditiously as possible,” the brief report read………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Too Big to Fail”

The political machinations actually go back even further — to the 2010 concession that President Barack Obama made to a largely Republican bloc of Senators: arms control in exchange for a revival of the nuclear weapons complex.

“The deal was that in return for Senate ratification of the New [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty], Obama would support a modernization plan that would modernize literally almost every aspect of the entire US nuclear arsenal,” explained Sharon Weiner, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University.

At the time, the deal was heralded as a rare moment of bipartisan consensus. Today, experts look back on it as the beginning of a new era, a tectonic modernization of America’s nuclear triad — land, sea and air — now projected to cost close to $2 trillion over the next 30 years. That’s roughly the GDP of Canada.

Plutonium pits, of course, represent only a small fraction of the cost. That mind-boggling figure reflects a total reimagining of the nation’s entire nuclear program, complete with brand new ballistic missile submarines, 400 new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles, tactical aircrafts, underground silos and 800 nuclear warheads.

The Sentinel program alone — cost, $131 billion — is a juggernaut. “I think this program has become too big to fail for an entrenched part of the military-industrial-congressional complex,” said Geoff Wilson, an expert on federal defense spending at the Independent watchdog, Project on Government Oversight.

And all of it together is being embraced in response to the same argument — that missiles, warheads, silos, and pits, nearly everything built during the Cold War — are getting too old. In a society defined by obsolescence, the language is potent.

……………………………………………………..A New Cold War

In the unthinkable scenario that a Sentinel is deployed, it would propel like a rocket beyond earth’s atmosphere and into space. As it reached its apogee, the missile would shed all its pieces and the warheads would descend toward their intended targets, half a world away.

For now, though, the Sentinel is barely a reality. The program is so complex and vastly over budget that some in the arms control community are calling for its complete cancellation. Experts question such a missile’s ability to deter China without provoking Russia. Other critics consider the plan to build new weapons as a dangerous return to the policies of the Cold War.

……………………………………even if all the timetables are met, intercontinental ballistic missiles will always be a “danger to the world as long as they are on launch-on-warning alert,” according to Frank N. von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs emeritus with Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security.

The risk of a false alarm is enough reason to “do away with the ICBMs altogether,” as he and others — presidents, retired commanders, and at least one secretary of defense, alike — have long campaigned to do. “An accidental launch is a major contributor to the overall probability of an all out nuclear war.”

That’s because a president would have no more than a few minutes to decide whether a threat is real or false. As President George Bush was famously quoted, that wouldn’t give him enough time to get “off the crapper.”

And once an ICBM is launched, there would be no way to stop it, von Hippel emphasized.

It’s not the weapons so much that are archaic, but the thinking behind them, according to Wilson of the Project on Government Oversight. ICBMs were born in a different age, as was the entire nuclear triad: “a Cold War relic that the military-industrial complex has worked overtime to retroactively justify.”

In the world of today, Wilson is skeptical that ICBMs will actually protect Americans. “Practically, these weapons are strategic dinosaurs.”………………………………………. https://inkstickmedia.com/does-the-us-need-new-plutonium-pits/—

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

[Episode #219] – Nuclear Illusions

Energy Transition Show 6th March 2024 https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-219-nuclear-illusions/—

In Episode #209, we peeled back the layers on civilian nuclear power, revealing its history as a facade for the nuclear weapons industry with a corresponding legacy of deception.

Yet, the allure of small modular reactors (SMRs) has recently been touted as the nuclear industry’s saving grace and a beacon of hope with the potential to sidestep a muddled past. Despite all the fanfare and substantial investments, the crumbling of prominent SMR initiatives exposes the continuation of the industry’s tradition of overpromising and underdelivering, a pattern all too familiar to those who’ve been watching closely.

Joining us in this episode is Jim Green from Friends of the Earth Australia, a seasoned nuclear journalist with three decades of experience in critiquing nuclear energy. Jim offers an unparalleled depth of insight into the industry’s persistent shortcomings and the realities behind the SMR hype. Together, we delve into the track record of conventional nuclear power, the latest trends in nuclear plant construction and retirements worldwide, and examine the companies at the forefront of the SMR push, offering a candid exploration of the nuclear power industry’s claims versus its actual performance.

Guest:

Jim Green is the National Nuclear-Free Campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group (nuclearconsult.com), and former editor of the World Information Service on Energy’s ‘Nuclear Monitor’ newsletter. He has a First Class Honours degree in Public Health and a Doctorate in Science and Technology Studies for his thesis on the debates over the replacement of Australia’s nuclear research reactor.

March 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

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