A mutual suicide pact: Australia’s undeclared nuclear weapons strategy
A mutual suicide pact: Australia’s undeclared nuclear weapons strategy, Pearls and Irritations, By Michael McKinleyJan 20, 2022 As the world’s nuclear arsenals build even more killing power, the need for Australia to abandon this perilous defence arrangement only increases.
The conventional wisdom has it that in the matter of nuclear weapons Australia is an exemplary international citizen. According to the Standard Version, it diligently supports the various nuclear arms control and disarmament regimes, and adheres to the position which regards nuclear weapons as instruments of nuclear deterrence and thus of the stable relations between major powers. Nuclear war-fighting is eschewed. Virtue is asserted. Res ipsa loquitor. The problem is that both claims are not only false, but embedded within what passes for defence policy with increasing willed ignorance, deceit and dishonesty.
At issue is the Australia’s unqualified general support for the various postures the US adopts and the particular role which it provides through the joint Australia-US facilities at Pine Gap and Northwest Cape. Their status as integral components in US global nuclear strategy – and thus nuclear targets in the event of major, peer-to-peer-war challenges the concept of government by consent of the governed.
The arrangements and agreements between Canberra and Washington have never been made public; indeed, successive governments have been industrious in their attempts to close off anything resembling national dialogue or debate on them.
This, of course, is a traditional and dishonourable tradition. Its origins are to be found in the official dishonesty surrounding Australia granting the British government the right to conduct a series of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga, Emu Plains and the Montebello Islands from 1952 to 1963.
Unabated, it has coarsened the legal and ethical fabric of the nation’s security and foreign policy ever since to the point where the obvious has to be restated because, essentially, it no longer gives cause for shame, outrage, or anger.
Consider just six issues on which policymakers and mainstream national security commentators and scholars have been mute.
Diplomacy, it seems, has been substituted for by bellicose statements by high-level military and civilian personnel which exhibit, little more than its relegation to an irrelevance beyond its cosmetic utility.
Second, there is proliferation by stealth. The US initiative to modernise its nuclear arsenal by installing the burst-height compensating super-fuze has extraordinary implications. It effectively triples the killing power of its ballistic missiles and, as described by three of America’s most respected weapons analysts (Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie and Theodore Postol) in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the situation is one in which the US has developed “the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.”
Third, the advent of weapons with warheads described as “variable yield,” “low yield,” “clean” (sic), or “mini nukes” has encouraged declarations at the highest levels in the US that, under certain circumstances, nuclear weapons have “tactical” utility. And they are a matter of pride: as the head of US Strategic Command told a congressional committee in 2020, these innovations made him “proud to be an American.”
Fourth, this embrace of tactical nuclear weapons cannot be separated from the explicit intention to envisage nuclear weapons as inescapably enmeshed in the overarching concept of deterrence. Put another way, for Admiral Richard, and those of a like mind, there is no meaningful distinction to be made between conventional and nuclear deterrence: they comprise a single entity, the former being dependent on the latter for its intellectual and strategic credibility.
By extension the fifth comes into focus: the US to continuing to reserve to itself the right to a nuclear first strike. In 2020, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Tod Wolters, commander of US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, went so far as to enthuse over it with this endorsement: “I’m a fan of flexible first use policy.”
Sixth and finally, there is nuclear deterrence itself. The term is employed in polite conversation as though it was simply a technical description; in reality, however, it is an obscenity and this becomes obvious when its explicit principle is confronted.
In simple terms it is a mutual suicide pact to the preserve the status quo of the time. Richard Tanter on this site has accurately described Australia’s position within the alliance and under the nuclear umbrella as one which it expects the US to commit genocide in the name of the country’s defence.
An important point is missed here: this understanding or expectation has never been put to the Australian people. ………… …… https://johnmenadue.com/a-mutual-suicide-pact-australias-undeclared-nuclear-weapons-strategy/
Australia continues to lead the world for solar installations.
Rooftop solar took a hit in 2021 with the industry growing a third less than expected thanks to lockdowns and supply chain disruptions, despite still showing strong growth overall. More than 3m households and small businesses across the country now have solar panel systems installed, with the milestone reached in November. According to registration data provided by solar consultancy company SunWiz, 3.24GW of new solar capacity was added across the country last year, representing 10% growth on the previous year.
These figures include small rooftop systems of less than 100MW registered by homeowners and small businesses, and do not include large, industrial-scale solar installations. Queensland now has the most installed capacity, with 4,483MW, closely followed by New South Wales (4,256MW) and Victoria (3,839MW). Australia continues to lead the world for solar installations with a total installed capacity of just under 17GW.
nationwide.
Guardian 19th Jan 2022
Australia-UK talks – all about nuclear submarines and military co-operation against China.
Nuclear submarines and closer interaction with British military to dominate Australian talks with UK, ABC, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene Closer military cooperation and possible basing of British defence assets in Australia will be discussed when ministers from both nations hold long-awaited face-to-face talks in Sydney this week.
Key points:
- British and Australian ministers will discuss the nuclear submarine deal and emerging security threats
- This will be the countries’ first in-person AUKMIN meeting since before the pandemic
- Scott Morrison will host the British ministers at Kirribilli House ahead of the talks
The British foreign and defence secretaries are due to arrive on Thursday ahead of their formal AUKMIN talks with their Australian counterparts on Friday.
This year’s Australia–United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations is expected to be dominated by the recent AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, as well as growing concerns over China’s power in the Indo-Pacific. ……………………….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/nuclear-submarines-dominate-australia-uk-talks/100765474
Anti-radiation pills given out to residents, nurseries, schools, care homes and clinics near UK’s nuclear submarine ports
EARLY 100,000 anti-radiation pills have been handed out to residents of three English ports in case nuclear submarines go into meltdown, Declassified UK has found. The medication, issued between 2016 and 2021 in Plymouth, Portland and Barrow-in-Furness, went to nurseries, schools, care homes and clinics near naval docks.
The figures were revealed in a freedom of information request by the investigative website. Nuclear-powered submarines are built for the Royal Navy by arms company BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, and the vessels moor at sites such as Devonport dockyard in Plymouth and Dorset’s Portland harbour.
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Kate Hudson said: “The production, servicing and berthing of nuclear powered submarines in or near population centres presents an unacceptable health risk. “Safeguarding our communities cannot be achieved through limited distribution of pills.”
Morning Star 18th Jan 2022
Plans approved for biggest battery storage system in Victoria — RenewEconomy
A 240MW/480MWh project proposed by Maoneng for the Mornington Peninsula has been cleared for development by the state government. The post Plans approved for biggest battery storage system in Victoria appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Plans approved for biggest battery storage system in Victoria — RenewEconomy
Big Australian banks slammed for funding massive gas “carbon bomb” — RenewEconomy
ANZ, NAB and Westpac have been criticised for helping to bankroll Woodside’s massive expansion of LNG production, despite their climate pledges. The post Big Australian banks slammed for funding massive gas “carbon bomb” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Big Australian banks slammed for funding massive gas “carbon bomb” — RenewEconomy
A closer look the Australian carbon market in 2021 – a year of records — RenewEconomy
We take a closer look at 2021 in the Australian carbon market “by the numbers,” and weigh the implications for 2022 – an election year. The post A closer look the Australian carbon market in 2021 – a year of records appeared first on RenewEconomy.
A closer look the Australian carbon market in 2021 – a year of records — RenewEconomy
An energy revolution is possible, but only if leaders get imaginative about how to fund it — RenewEconomy
If we want to solve climate change, we first need to transform our economic thinking. Relying on research and development to bring down costs is not an option. The post An energy revolution is possible, but only if leaders get imaginative about how to fund it appeared first on RenewEconomy.
An energy revolution is possible, but only if leaders get imaginative about how to fund it — RenewEconomy
What the heck is going on with Ukraine?
Emma Elsworthy, Crikey Worm 20 Jan 22 Worm editor
”’………………..So what the heck is going on? Well, Ukraine is stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the European Union on one side and Russia on the other — Russian is widely spoken there, and they have strong ties as a former soviet republic. But Russia has long demanded Ukraine resist the West and stay more Russian, as BBC explains, saying in no uncertain terms that Ukraine must not join NATO. Cast your mind back to 2014, as Vox explained, and you may recall Russia taking Crimea after Ukraine booted their pro-Moscow president. Ever since, things have been really tense, but Russia recently upped the ante by putting 100,000 troops on their border. So what do Russia want? Mostly for NATO to stop moving into the East and for it to return to its pre-1997 borders, which means it’d have to bail from stations in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. https://edm.privatemedia.com.au/webmail/272522/1224982414/a7e05398a18da97e419b70c061dc77e2eba2537433139c09a89d2cb6dc8e8b3d
Holding in the deep: what Canada wants to do with its decades-long pile-up of nuclear waste
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no country in the world has solved the conundrum of how to permanently dispose of waste that will stay toxic for 400,000 years. And after decades of trying hard to figure it out, Canada doesn’t seem especially close to a solution.
This is the legacy that we are leaving for our children, our grandchildren, great grandchildren, or great, great grandchildren,”
“ it would be irresponsible and morally wrong to commit future generations to a technology that produces such dangerous material, unless there is at least one proven safe method of dealing with it,”
Canada plans to store spent nuclear fuel deep, deep underground near the Great Lakes. That is, if an industry group can find a community willing to play host, The Narwahl, By Emma McIntosh Jan. 19, 2022, The final resting place of Canada’s most radioactive nuclear waste could be a cave about as deep below the surface as the CN Tower is tall.
If it happens, the chamber and its network of tunnels will be drilled into bedrock in the Great Lakes basin. Pellets of spent nuclear fuel — coated in ceramic material, loaded into bundles of metal tubes the size of fireplace logs, then placed into a metal container encased in clay made from volcanic ash — will be stacked in the underground chamber sealed with concrete 10 to 12 metres thick. Though the radioactive pellets will have spent several years cooling down in pools and concrete canisters, they will still emit so much energy that their presence will heat up the space where they sit for 30 to 60 years. The warmth will linger for anywhere from a few centuries to a few millennia.
But none of this will become reality unless the industry-backed Nuclear Waste Management Organization can find a willing host. Two Ontario towns are in the running: South Bruce, located about two hours’ drive northwest of Toronto near Lake Huron, and Ignace, roughly 200 kilometres north of Lake Superior, not far from the Manitoba border. The municipalities, along with 10 First Nations and two Métis councils, are awaiting the completion of dozens of studies as they mull whether the economic benefits of such a project outweigh the risks.
“We have to make sure that there isn’t an environmental risk for us, or it’s a relatively remote risk,” said Dave Rushton, a project manager for the Municipality of South Bruce.
If anyone thinks they’re informed today, I kind of question it. We’re not fully informed because we haven’t got this information yet.”
………. no country in the world has solved the conundrum of how to permanently dispose of waste that will stay toxic for 400,000 years. And after decades of trying hard to figure it out, Canada doesn’t seem especially close to a solution.
“This is the legacy that we are leaving for our children, our grandchildren, great grandchildren, or great, great grandchildren,” said Bzauniibiikwe, whose English name is Joanne Keeshig. She’s Wolf Clan from Neyaashiinigmiing, also known as Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, which is located near the South Bruce proposal.
“Seven generations from now, this will not be resolved unless we start seriously taking a look at what can be done.” Modelling suggests underground nuclear waste disposal is safe. But no country has tried it yet…………….
High-level waste, meanwhile, is the responsibility of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a non-profit established by Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation, and Hydro-Québec. In the 60 or so years that Canada has produced nuclear power, it has never had a place to dispose of spent fuel. As of 2020, the country’s nuclear power utilities had produced about three million fire log-sized bundles of it — enough to fill eight hockey arenas from the ice to the top of the boards — and that number grows by about 90,000 each year. In the absence of a place to leave it permanently, producers are currently keeping high-level waste in temporary storage near the reactors. By 2100, when the federal government says it expects all of the country’s existing nuclear plants to be decommissioned, industry projects it will be holding onto nearly 5.6 million bundles.
Accumulating nuclear waste has raised red flags for a long time. In 1978, the Ontario government commissioned a report titled “A Race Against Time,” which concluded the waste was proving trickier to handle than experts initially thought and suggested a potential moratorium on new nuclear plants if the industry didn’t progress within eight years.
Another report from the United Kingdom the same year came to a similar but stronger conclusion, said Gordon Edwards, a mathematician who has long critiqued the nuclear industry as the president of the not-for-profit Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
“One of their main conclusions was that we are agreed that it would be irresponsible and morally wrong to commit future generations to a technology that produces such dangerous material, unless there is at least one proven safe method of dealing with it,” Edwards said.
“The problem with radioactivity is you can’t shut it off … You have to somehow keep it out of the environment.”
Federal and provincial governments never issued a moratorium: construction on the Darlington plant in Bowmanville, Ont., which had been approved in 1977, began in the ‘80s. The Bruce and Pickering plants, meanwhile, continued to get new reactors.
These days, the federal government is pushing to advance new nuclear technology, called small modular nuclear reactors (commonly known as SMRs), which some argue could be a climate mitigation tool. The technology is less efficient than larger reactors and produces more waste. Two of these new reactors might be built in the near future — the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which oversees the industry, is considering an application for one at the Chalk River Laboratories research site in Deep River, Ont., and Ontario Power Generation has announced its intent to build another at Darlington.
In 2002, Parliament did pass legislation requiring the industry to band together and deal with its waste and later that year, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization was formed. Twenty years on, it still hasn’t figured out what to do with high-level radioactive waste. Keeping it above ground, as is done now, leaves it vulnerable to natural disasters, or human ones like terrorism and war.
“It’s a question of ethics,” said Brian Ikeda, an associate professor at Ontario Tech University who studies the management of radioactive waste and has a contract to do upcoming work for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.
“Do you want to leave this stuff — which you don’t like and you think is really dangerous — and have your grandchildren figure out what to do with it? Because that’s what’s actually going to happen … we could be putting those people at huge risk by having this material out.”
As such, a consensus has emerged among global experts that the best way forward is to dispose of spent fuel far underground, a concept called a deep geological repository. But putting nuclear waste underground isn’t simple.
The waste — which in worst-case scenarios could poison groundwater or soil — must be packaged securely enough to withstand a future ice age, which could bring massive glaciers three kilometres thick, heavy enough to affect underground geology. It must be placed in rock that is stable and won’t shift for 400,000 years, the length of time the Nuclear Waste Management Organization believes the waste would remain radioactive enough to be harmful if leaked. It must be climate change proof.
It must also account for the many unknowns of future generations, who might not know how to actively maintain the storage site, but on the other hand will hopefully be able to monitor it. It must be buried so deep that, if our languages disappear or the information about what’s sealed within is somehow lost, our descendants would be unlikely to disturb the buried chamber and expose themselves to the unimaginable risk inside.
Another challenge is the simple fact of entropy: everything breaks down over time. No matter what type of container holds the nuclear waste, its material will corrode over the course of many thousands of years, Ikeda said. The trick is to buy as much time as possible. …………………………………………….
Finding a nuclear waste disposal site in Ontario will require First Nations consent and buy-in from local towns………………………………………………………… https://thenarwhal.ca/nuclear-waste-ignace-bruce/
January 22 -one year since nuclear weapons became illegal
January 22: Nuclear weapons illegal one year https://www.orangeleader.com/2022/01/19/opinion-january-22-nuclear-weapons-illegal-one-year/, January 19, 2022, By Dawn Burleigh The corporate-military-political complex that continues to renew the arsenals of the nine nuclear nations represents a colossal failure of imagination.
Everyone knows that a nuclear war cannot be won, that the weapons are strategically useless, and that they are a catastrophic world-ending accident waiting to happen.
Everyone knows that the trillions spent on these weapons along with boondoggles like the F-35 Strike Fighter are heartlessly siphoned away from the fight against Covid, acute hunger in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the climate emergency—let alone decent pay for day-care workers.
If nuclear catastrophe happens, say the optimists (when it happens say the pessimists), anyone who survives will cast a searching look upon the whole rotten system that fostered such a monstrous end to the human effort to secure itself on the planet. Some will want to assign blame, assuming enough institutional structure remains to replicate the conditions of a Nuremberg-like court of judgment, but that worthy effort would come too late.
Let us choose optimism and posit that disaster can be averted. We then find ourselves between two paradigms, the first where war has often been the first resort in conflict and always looms as a possibility behind diplomacy, and the second where everyone understands the no-win reality of the weapons that requires eliminating them and evolving a different kind of global security system.
Whatever form such a system might take, a world federation, a renewed United Nations, or a major upgrade in prestige and publicity for diplomatic processes, is less important than the simple education of all the citizens of the planet to the reality of our situation: we must change or die.
The extended moment of the paradigm shift may be, as former Secretary of Defense Perry has ceaselessly warned, the most dangerous time of all, where nuclear war is even more likely than during the Cold War. But the risk of continuing to drift is far greater than the risk of efforts, like those of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and countless others, to eliminate these world-ending weapons.
Global conflicts remain complex and of course not principally caused by the weapons makers, though it is clear that the arms race is fueled by greed, and its inertial momentum immensely complicates diplomatic efforts to resolve conflict short of war. Nuclear weapons overshadow the points of tension involving the nuclear superpowers, including Ukraine (Russia vs. NATO, Taiwan (China vs. the U.S. et al.) and Kashmir (India vs. Pakistan).
A relatively small number of people, heads of government and of large corporations along with diplomats, hold the fate of the earth in their hands. In the United States Congress should hold hearings where members of this elite group of nuclear strategists can be held to a standard of absolute clarity—justifying to American citizens why they need to spend above a trillion dollars to renew our arsenal, and why they refuse to consider the will of the Earth’s people:
86 nations are signatories to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. January 22 will mark the one year anniversary of the date the treaty became international law. Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral, and useless.
Winslow Myers, syndicated by PeaceVoice, author of “Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide,” serves on the Advisory Board of the War Preventive Initiative.
Chemical pollution has passed safe limit for humanity, say scientists
Chemical pollution has passed safe limit for humanity, say scientists
Study calls for cap on production and release as pollution threatens global ecosystems upon which life depends
Changing from a consumer economy to a conserver economy – painful but necessary
Political leadership is about telling it as it is, not pretending it is all painless.
Adjusting back to a sustainable consumption path would be painful in the short term, but not in the longer term — and it will be a lot less painful than continuing with Plan A.
Dieter Helm: One definition of madness is said to be persisting with Plan A in the face of all the evidence that it is not working, and avoiding even thinking about a Plan B. But, after 30 years and 26 COPs — Conferences of the Parties to the UN’s 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change — that pretty much sums up our approach to climate change.
Every year since1990, we have added another two parts per million to the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — including in the lockdown years 2020 and 2021. The case for “one more heave” looks pretty slim.
The current preoccupation with economic growth based on stimulating demand, Keynesian-style, with negative real interest rates and quantitative easing, and ever greater borrowing for the next generation to repay, suggests the omens are not good.
This sort of economics is pretty obviously not environmentally sustainable. Yet the obvious consequence is ignored: it will not be sustained. With 3C or more of warming, the loss of a big chunk more of biodiversity, and the rainforests gone, all those new ideas and technologies will not be enough to stave off the costs of the environmental downhill our unsustainable consumption is causing.
Political leadership is about telling it as it is, not pretending it is all painless. Adjusting back to a sustainable consumption path would be painful in the short term, but not in the longer term — and it will be a lot less painful than continuing with Plan A.
FT 19th Jan 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/13702f42-a923-4cd8-a6c7-03f775a0742b
Drones sighted over Sweden’s nuclear power stations
Days of sightings of drones over key Swedish sites including nuclear plants have prompted the country’s security service to take the lead in an investigation. Three nuclear sites have been targeted and sightings have been reported over airports and the royal palace. Authorities have not speculated on who is behind the mysterious drones. Police and the coastguard are searching the sea and islands around Stockholm, local media reports say.
The latest sightings on Monday evening involved a drone above the Forsmark nuclear plant, but security agency Sapo said it was also investigating earlier drone flights near the Ringhals and Oskarshamn power
plants. Police appealed to the public to come forward with information. Sapo said the drones were suspected of “grave unauthorised dealing with secret information”.
BBC 18th Jan 2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60035446
1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 