Antinuclear

TODAY. Even in Australia!! Signs that the Right-Wing might be losing its enthusiasm for the nuclear industry

It’s getting harder to understand politics

Globally, the Right wing – traditionally stupid – now having (rather intelligent?) second thoughts about waging eternal war, and even concerned about the cost of the weapons-to-Ukraine binge. The Left, the supposed intelligentsia , are gung ho for war.

Now shock horror! – twinges of criticism of nuclear power amongst the Right, while the political Left, by and large promote nuclear power.

Even in Australia the right-wing News Corpse is whingeing about nuclear costs.

What is a traditional Leftie like me, supposed to do?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the political Right are pretty stupid. (At least, here in Australia, I can vouch for that.)

But, on the subject of nuclear power, there seems to be a glimmer of light emerging. And that is confusing to the onlooker.

Up until now, one could depend on Right-wing media and politicians to be firmly united in praising nuclear power (it’s safe, clean, cheap, solves climate change, solves energy problems, has no connection with weapons etc etc). Meanwhile the political Left are a bit less stupid, (have a few reservations about nuclear power – mainly cost) and on their extreme Left, actually oppose it.

We knew where we all stood. But now – there’s a weakening among the previously sturdy Right.

Dwayne Yancey in his thoughtful article ‘The Complicated Politics of Nuclear Power” points out that in the USA 37% of Republicans oppose nuclear power, and in Virginia, a strongly religious Republican Delegate, Marie March, opposes plans for “a sacrifice zone” of small nuclear reactors there.

In the UK, Sanjoy Sen, writing in Conservative Home, raises serious doubts about nuclear power plans, and raises the possibility that someone might “get cold feet and cancel all that”. He rather ominously warns “what can we learn from our French neighbours, the world’s biggest nuclear enthusiasts?” [nuclear power is failing in France] He does go on to parrot out the widely believed dogma that small nuclear reactors are the answer to everything. But still his article shows a definite chink in Right wing belief in the rightness of nuclear power.

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Albanese, Malinauskas split over nuclear power

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/albanese-malinauskas-split-over-nuclear-power-20221205-p5c3vu?fbclid=IwAR1-4LuwNOztVd72JUm4cyf8MTysX1reDHooPxW-1Np1pG3zpyzGOYmT-Ec Phillip Coorey 5 Dec 222

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has clashed with South Australian Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas, who wants to explore nuclear power for his state amid the nation’s energy crisis.

Mr Malinauskas had argued that the possible assembly of nuclear submarines in Adelaide was an opportunity for Labor, especially those in Mr Albanese’s Left faction, to rethink its opposition to nuclear power.

But Mr Albanese, who inspected flood preparations in Renmark on Saturday with the premier, gave that short shrift.

“I have a great deal of respect for Mali, but everyone’s entitled to get one or two things wrong,” Mr Albanese told Five AA radio.

“I haven’t changed my view that it’s a huge distraction from what we need to do. It just doesn’t add up. That’s essentially the problem.

“Every five years or so we have this economic analysis of whether nuclear power stacks up and every time it’s rejected.

“I think you’ve got the issue of waste and you’ve got where it goes. So I think it’s a distraction from what we need to do. That’s my position, and it hasn’t changed.”

The popular Mr Malinauskas argued the planned construction of nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide should ease public concern over nuclear energy. Under that proposal the reactors will be built overseas and delivered to Adelaide fully sealed for incorporation into the front part of the submarine hull.

“In respect of my position on nuclear power for civil consumption, or use, I’ve always thought the ideological opposition that exists in some quarters to nuclear power is ill-founded,” Mr Malinauskas told News Corp.

“Nuclear power is a source of baseload energy with zero carbon emissions. For someone like myself, who is dedicated to a decarbonisation effort, we should be open-minded to those technologies and it would be foolhardy to have a different approach.”

Federal shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien, who is exploring a nuclear power policy option for the Coalition, applauded the premier.

“The premier’s commonsense approach is in stark contrast to Prime Minister Albanese’s irrational refusal to engage in a mature conversation about the possible role of advanced nuclear technology in Australia.”

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UK Tories getting nervous about nuclear power plans?

Conservative Home, Sanjay Sen 7 Dec 22

Fears that Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement would see Sizewell C cancelled proved unfounded. The 3.3 giga-watt nuclear mega-project is now set to get under way on the Suffolk coast with a price tag of £20 billion.

Or maybe £30 billion. If the track record of its French design is anything to go by, things might not go exactly to plan.

Nick Clegg famously dismissed nuclear power because it takes a decade to come on-line. That was a decade ago, and we could really do with some extra power right now.

today’s Government has big ambitions: eight sign-offs by 2030 with nuclear supplying 25 per cent of our power by 2050. As long as no-one gets cold feet and cancels all that.

Net Zero enthusiasts and climate sceptics alike see a major role for nuclear. But is Sizewell C best way to deliver it? How did we get where we are now? And what can we learn from our French neighbours, the world’s biggest nuclear enthusiasts?

………… Meanwhile, our current nuclear fleet is fast depleting. Despite generous life extensions, all but one of the UK’s nine remaining reactors will be retired by 2030. That means Sizewell C will mostly be plugging the gap left behind, not creating extra capacity. To compound matters, our ability to import electricity could be impacted by the challenges facing the French nuclear industry.

Is Sizewell C our best option – or was it our only option?

Sizewell C is a tweaked version of Hinkley Point C which is (still) under construction. Whilst its third-generation EPR technology is intended to deliver improved efficiency and safety, it hasn’t exactly performed flawlessly to date. Operational plants at Olkiluoto (Finland) and Taishan 1 and 2 (China) have proven problematic so far. Those under construction, Flamanville 3 (France) and our very own Hinkley, continue to incur delays and cost over-runs.

Whilst engineers will recognise the technology, much differs below the surface. Hinkley is 80 per cent French (EDF) and 20 per cent Chinese (CGN). But with EDF financially constrained and relations now strained with Beijing, Sizewell ownership will be 20 per cent EDF, 20 per cent UK Government, with the remainder from infrastructure investors and pension funds.

Contracts for Difference have also been ditched. Not only blamed for Hinkley’s giant cost, they are also held responsible for scaring off other would-be nuclear investors: Hitachi Wylfa (North Wales) and Toshiba Moorside (Cumbria). Instead, Sizewell will use the Regulated Asset Base model which shares costs (and risks) with consumers from day one…………………………. https://conservativehome.com/2022/12/07/sanjoy-sen-nuclear-is-the-best-path-to-a-greener-cheaper-and-more-secure-energy-supply/

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘New’ Nuclear Reactors Will Make Us a Guinea Pig Nation

“The central issue,……“is that the NRC is accepting on faith that these new reactors are going to be safer and wants to adjust its regulations accordingly, to make them less stringent—on faith.”

Federal officials want to gut safety measures to pave the way for untested new facilities—maybe in your neighborhood.

https://progressive.org/latest/%E2%80%98new%E2%80%99-nuclear-reactors-guinea-pig-nation-grossman-61222/ BY KARL GROSSMAN , DECEMBER 6, 2022

“Guinea Pig Nation: How the NRC’s new licensing rules could turn communities into test beds for risky, experimental nuclear plants,” is what physicist Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled his presentation on November 17.

The “Night with the Experts” online session, organized by the Nuclear Energy Information Service, focused on how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is involved in a major change of its rules and guidance to gut government regulations to pave the way for what the nuclear industry calls “advanced” nuclear power plants.

Already, Lyman said, the NRC has moved to allow the construction of nuclear power plants in thickly populated areas. This “change in policy” was approved in a vote by NRC commissioners in late July. 

For more than a half-century, the NRC and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, sought to have nuclear power plants built in “low population zones”—because of the threat of a major nuclear plant accident. But this year the NRC substantially altered this policy. 

The lone NRC vote against the change came from Commissioner Jeff Baran, who in casting his ‘no’ vote wrote, “Multiple, independent layers of protection against potential radiological exposure are necessary because we do not have perfect knowledge of new reactor technologies and their unique potential accident scenarios . . . . Unlike light-water reactors, new advanced reactor designs do not have decades of operating experience; in many cases, the new designs have never been built or operated before.” 

He cited the NRC criteria, which declare that the agency “has a longstanding policy of siting nuclear reactors away from densely populated centers and preferring areas of low population density.” Under the new policy, he noted, a “reactor could be sited within a town of 25,000 people and right next to a large city.”

That is just one of the many reductions proposed in safety standards.

“The central issue,” says Lyman in an interview following his presentation, “is that the NRC is accepting on faith that these new reactors are going to be safer and wants to adjust its regulations accordingly, to make them less stringent—on faith.”

The industry’s new line of smaller nuclear power plants—including what it calls the “small modular nuclear reactor”—are much more expensive than existing light-water nuclear power plants. The older, more common nuclear power plants are large and cooled by plain water, whereas the new “advanced” plants are more costly, in part because they are cooled by various other substances. 

Weakening safety standards will, of course, make it easier to build and cheaper to operate these pricey reactors. The proposed changes are a demonstration of one of the NRC’s nicknames—the “Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission.”

A list of the NRC’s proposed safety reductions was included in Lyman’s presentation, quoted here with my commentary:

• Allowing nuclear power plants to have a “small containment—or no physical containment at all.” Containments are the domes over nuclear plants to try to contain radioactive releases in an accident.
• “No offsite emergency planning requirements.” The NRC has been requiring emergency planning including the designation of a ten-mile evacuation zone around a nuclear power plant.
• “Fewer or even zero operators.” The nuclear industry would like advanced nuclear plants to operate “autonomously.”
• Letting the plants have “fewer” NRC “inspections and weaker enforcement.”
• Reduced equipment reliability reporting. 
• “Applications” for an advanced reactor “should contain minimal information.”
• The NRC’s review standards should be lenient.
• Letting the plants have “fewer inspections and weaker enforcement.”
• Fewer back-up safety systems.
• Regulatory requirements should be few in number and vague.
• “Zero” armed security personnel to try to protect an advanced nuclear power plant from terrorists. 

The “NRC is willing to twist and contort even reasonable safety regulations in ways that cater to nuclear industry desires to a degree that would rival a toy balloon-dog at a children’s party,” Nuclear Energy Information Service director David Kraft tells The Progressive. “It is this kind of almost institutionalized acquiescence to industry wants that has led many to believe that NRC stands for Not Really Concerned.”

In his talk, Lyman referenced a 140-page report for the Union of Concerned Scientists which he authored, issued in March 2021, titled “ ‘Advanced’ Isn’t Always Better, Assessing the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of Non-Light-Water Nuclear Reactors.”

The report states: “Almost all nuclear power reactors operating and under construction today are LWRs, so called because they use ordinary water to cool their hot, highly radioactive cores. Some observers believe that the LWR [light-water reactor], the industry workhorse, has inherent flaws that are inhibiting nuclear power’s growth,” he writes. “In response, the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories, universities, and numerous private vendors—from large established companies to small startups—are pursuing the development of reactors that differ fundamentally from LWRs. These non-light-water reactors (NLWRs) are cooled not by water, but by other substances, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.”

Though these are called “advanced” reactors, the report continues, most of them are modeled on decades-old designs. 

“In part,” he notes, “the nuclear industry’s push to commercialize NLWRs is driven by its desire to show the public and policymakers that there is a high-tech alternative to the static, LWR-dominated status quo: a new generation of ‘advanced’ reactors. But a fundamental question remains: Is different actually better? The short answer is no. Nearly all of the NLWRs currently on the drawing board fail to provide significant enough improvements over LWRs to justify their considerable risks.”

“Make no mistake about it—while NRC is doing its part to serve nuclear industry needs, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is the aggressive pro-nuclear agenda of the Biden Administration that has unleashed a juggernaut of financial and PR support for new nuclear reactors,” Kraft says “Everything from the tens of billions of dollars allocated for new nuclear in the Infrastructure Act and the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act, which establishes a nuclear power production tax credit], to the national dog-and-pony show [the recent U.S. tour promoting nuclear power] of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, demonstrates the Administration’s intentions to run roughshod over the objections of the public. We have a hard fight ahead of us.”

The NRC is not currently accepting comments on its plan for changes to its regulations for “advanced” reactors, according to Lyman. But he encouraged the public to weigh in on NRC actions via public meetings and email. The Nuclear Energy Information service plans to post his talk on its website.

Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared in CounterPunch and is reprinted with perm

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Europe accuses US of profiting from war

EU officials attack Joe Biden over sky-high gas prices, weapons sales and trade as Vladimir Putin’s war threatens to destroy Western unity.

  BY BARBARA MOENS, JAKOB HANKE VELA AND JACOPO BARIGAZZI, NOVEMBER 24, 2022  “………………….. Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer. 

“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO. 

The explosive comments — backed in public and private by officials, diplomats and ministers elsewhere — follow mounting anger in Europe over American subsidies that threaten to wreck European industry. The Kremlin is likely to welcome the poisoning of the atmosphere among Western allies. 

“We are really at a historic juncture,” the senior EU official said, arguing that the double hit of trade disruption from U.S. subsidies and high energy prices risks turning public opinion against both the war effort and the transatlantic alliance. “America needs to realize that public opinion is shifting in many EU countries.”………………………..

As they attempt to reduce their reliance on Russian energy, EU countries are turning to gas from the U.S. instead — but the price Europeans pay is almost four times as high as the same fuel costs in America. Then there’s the likely surge in orders for American-made military kit as European armies run short after sending weapons to Ukraine. ……………………….

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic recognize the risks that the increasingly toxic atmosphere will have for the Western alliance. The bickering is exactly what Putin would wish for, EU and U.S. diplomats agreed. 

The growing dispute over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — a huge tax, climate and health care package — has put fears over a transatlantic trade war high on the political agenda again. EU trade ministers are due to discuss their response on Friday as officials in Brussels draw up plans for an emergency war chest of subsidies to save European industries from collapse. 

“The Inflation Reduction Act is very worrying,” said Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher. “The potential impact on the European economy is very big.”

“The U.S. is following a domestic agenda, which is regrettably protectionist and discriminates against U.S. allies,” said Tonino Picula, the European Parliament’s lead person on the transatlantic relationship…………………………

Behind the scenes, there is also growing irritation about the money flowing into the American defense sector.

The U.S. has by far been the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine, supplying more than $15.2 billion in weapons and equipment since the start of the war. The EU has so far provided about €8 billion of military equipment to Ukraine, according to Borrell.

According to one senior official from a European capital, restocking of some sophisticated weapons may take “years” because of problems in the supply chain and the production of chips. This has fueled fears that the U.S. defense industry can profit even more from the war. 

The Pentagon is already developing a roadmap to speed up arms sales, as the pressure from allies to respond to greater demands for weapons and equipment grows.  ……………………… more https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-ukraine-gas-inflation-reduction-act-ira-joe-biden-rift-west-eu-accuses-us-of-profiting-from-war/

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Missouri Community and Its Children Grappling With Exposure to Nuclear Waste

In the 2022 report, BCDC took 32 soil, dust, and plant samples throughout the school buildings and campus. Using x-ray to analyze the samples BCDC found more than 22 times more lead-210 than the estimated exposure levels for the average US elementary school in the Jana Elementary playground alone. There were also more than 12 times the lead-210 expected exposure in the topsoil of the basketball courts alone.

Radioactive  isotopes of polonium-210, radium-266, thorium-230, and other toxicants were also found in the library, kitchen, ventilation system, classroom surfaces, surface soil and even soil as far as six feet below the surface.

 https://blog.ucsusa.org/chanese-forte/missouri-community-and-its-children-grappling-with-exposure-to-nuclear-waste/ Chanese Forte, December 8, 2022

The families, students, and school officials in Florissant, Missouri have been living a modern nightmare for the past several weeks, learning that Jana Elementary school and the surrounding region has high levels of radiation, a problem caused decades ago by the production of nuclear weapons

Radiation exposure can damage the DNA in cells leading to a host of health problems including cancer and auto-immune disorders. What’s more troubling is that the Centers for Disease Control reports that children and young adults, especially girls and women, are more sensitive to the effects of radiation.

Jana Elementary school has 400 students and a predominantly (82.9%) Black student body. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of environmental racism which results in harming Black, Indigenous and Brown communities much more in the process of creating and maintaining nuclear weapons.

When science cannot agree, the community suffers

The suburban school north of St. Louis, Missouri, was thought to be safe for students based on research completed in 2000 by the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

Specifically, USACE has been in the Coldwater Creek region for the last 20 years attempting to remediate radioactive waste associated with the creek (which does not include Jana Elementary).

Toward the start of the 2022 semester, as part of an ongoing lawsuit in the region the Boston Chemical Data Corp (BCDC), an environmental consulting group, reported the elementary school as having radioactive waste levels far above the estimated national levels.

These radioactive waste exposures—like lead-210—are associated with decreased cognition, brain defects, thyroid disease, and cancer, and can accumulate in the body over time.

Following the BCDC report, all Jana Elementary students were sent home for the rest of the semester in hopes their homes were less toxic.

By the Thanksgiving holiday break, the USACE returned to test inside and on the playground of the school and found no radiation on the campus, news which many community members and organizers unsurprisingly expressed as suspicious.

The School Board then hired SCI Engineering, a private engineering firm, to sample Jana Elementary who came to a similar conclusion as USACE.

Now returning to classes from Thanksgiving break, many wary students joined classes at new schools in the area per the school board’s decision related to BCDC’s radiation exposure assessment. Many parents also expressed to National Public Radio they felt left out of discussions for decisions being made.  

How did radioactive waste end up in Florissant, MO?

The region near Jana Elementary was first contaminated by the US Department of Energy’s decision to make St. Louis one of the processing sites for uranium during the Manhattan Engineering District project. These nuclear weapons were built through World War II and originally stored at the St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Unfortunately, the waste was later illegally dumped in 1973 at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, MO, which lies about 10 miles Southwest of Jana Elementary. The West Lake Landfill is located near the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works Company which regularly floods, causing these harmful chemicals to be carried away by nearby water ways like Coldwater Creek.

Coldwater Creek runs for 19 miles throughout the area and flows directly into the Missouri River. Jana Elementary, just North of St. Louis, is bordered by the creek on two sides but has to date not been included in any clean-up efforts by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

US Army Corps of Engineers initially didn’t sample inside or outside of Jana Elementary

Prior to the Boston Chem Data Corp 2022 report, the USACE did not take any samples within 300 feet of the school building in their 2017 assessment. According to BCDC’s report, this doesn’t follow US Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR) standards for radioactive sampling.

In fact, it ignores the conclusion ATSDR made that most exposures in the region will be indoors and just outdoors of buildings.

Indoor samples from creek-facing homes in the same neighborhood as Jana Elementary had similar radioactive waste both indoors and outdoors. ATSDR also noted in a 2019 report that radioactive wastes are routinely moved from Coldwater Creek into homes due to flooding. The region floods frequently which is only increasing due to climate change in the region.

New radioactive sampling methods used to understand student exposure

In the 2022 report, BCDC took 32 soil, dust, and plant samples throughout the school buildings and campus. Using x-ray to analyze the samples BCDC found more than 22 times more lead-210 than the estimated exposure levels for the average US elementary school in the Jana Elementary playground alone. There were also more than 12 times the lead-210 expected exposure in the topsoil of the basketball courts alone.

Radioactive  isotopes of polonium-210, radium-266, thorium-230, and other toxicants were also found in the library, kitchen, ventilation system, classroom surfaces, surface soil and even soil as far as six feet below the surface.

Marco Kaltofen, an environmental engineer who is leading the BCDC team, collected roughly 1,000 samples from across the region as a part of law suit efforts. There are several businesses and homes also indicated as exposed in the lawsuit as well.

Overall, Kaltofen suggests that BCDC’s unprecedented x-ray method better picks up the microscopic radioactive materials. However, he also asserts both studies are essentially saying the same thing, which is of course confusing for many community members.

Community organizers fight for testing and clean-up

Just Moms STL activist Dawn Chapman has worked tirelessly since 2014 to get the federal government to test for radioactive material in more regions where the creek floods.

The co-founder of Just Moms STL, Karen Nickel, also attended Jana Elementary School and has reported currently living with several autoimmune disorders. She uses her experience and love of the area to battle these exposure injustices.

In a 2017 Nation Public Radio report, Ms. Chapman says,

“They [The US Government] fought us for years. Finally, they [tested] parks that had flooded, and found [radioactive waste]. They started testing some backyards and found it. We pushed for Jana Elementary, because it is the closest school to the creek.”   Just Moms STL activist, Dawn Chapman

We reached out to Just Moms STL to understand what the next steps are. Just Moms STL Recommends:

• The sites in St. Louis should be expeditiously cleaned up.
  
  Unfortunately, Jana Elementary School is not the only place to be concerned about near St. Louis. 
• Since remediation of nuclear weapons waste in the area has already taken decades, many of these students will likely age out of Jana Elementary School before there is full remediation of radioactive waste in the St. Louis area.

While there is guidance on defining “safe” or acceptable radioactive exposure levels as it relates to human health, scientists also calculate “expected” levels from the Earth naturally (like radon in sediment).

Unacceptable levels are frequently defined as radiation exposure above natural levels by communities.

• However, legally the Army Corps is allowed to leave some radioactive residue above naturally occurring levels, and Just Moms STL would like this to no longer be the case.  
• Residents near nuclear weapon processing sites like the St. Louis area should be included in federal radiation compensation programs, such as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). UCS also suggests consideration of St. Louis in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act (EEOICPA), and other forms of compensation as well.

Expanding radiation compensation programs is complicated because the list of communities that want to be included who currently qualify is long. Moreover, Just Moms STL says the RECA program needs to be expanded to include processing sites like St. Louis, which has previously only applied to nuclear testing exposure sites and uranium workers, or EEOICPA, which has only covered nuclear site workers, but not surrounding communities.

There are currently two bills being proposed to the House and Senate to extend and strengthen  RECA. Just Moms STL is working to get Missouri elected officials to help sponsor and carry RECA as well. And your representatives may also be interested in supporting adjustments to RECA or the EEOICPA.

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction’

 ‘Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction’: As COP15 talks kick
off, calls mount for ambitious outcome. UN Secretary General warns
humanity’s current treatment of nature amounts to a suicide mission, as
first day of critical nature talks opens in Quebec capital.

 Business Green 7th Dec 2022

https://www.businessgreen.com/news-analysis/4061293/humanity-weapon-mass-extinction-cop15-talks-kick-calls-mount-ambitious-outcome

December 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment