Antinuclear

Dan Monceaux’s Submission urges the Senate to keep Australia’s legal protections against the hazards of nuclear industrial facilities

Various nuclear industrial facilities are currently prohibited in Australia. These are prohibited for good reason:
they carry with them unique and problematic risks to people, the environment and the public purse.
The legislation in its current form protects the Australian people from harm from ionising radiation,
and our land, air and waters from radioactive contamination.

If there is a genuine need for any currently prohibited nuclear industrial development to occur in Australia, a case should be made openly to the Australian people prior to, not following, the repeal of these protections.

Environment and Other Legislation Amendment (Removing Nuclear Energy Prohibitions) Bill 2022 Submission 146.

My name is Dan Monceaux, I’m a lifelong resident of South Australia, and emerging documentary
filmmaker. Through my work on the forthcoming film Cuttlefish Country, I sought to understand
the nuclear history of South Australia, from the nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga to Emu Field, to
the scramble to find and develop uranium deposits in the 1940s and 1950s to fuel the nuclear arms
race of the Cold War. It included the establishment and abandonment of uranium processing plants
at Port Pirie and suburban Adelaide (Thebarton) and a handful of other uranium mines in my home
state. My interest in nuclear legacies, including costs borne by exposed people, communities and
the environment was piqued during this work, which led me to participate in the 2015-16 Nuclear
Fuel Cycle Royal Commission as a citizen journalist. I became the chief author for the
commission’s Wikipedia article, and have made significant contributions to many other Wikipedia
articles related to nuclear subjects, from transportation to legacy sites and workers’ compensation
programs, some of which I refer to in this submission.

During the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, I also established a Facebook discussion group
to follow and discuss the Commission’s work, which later evolved into Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch
Australia. With roughly 500 members from around Australia, the group contains members of all
persuasions, from the curious to those staunchly pro or anti-nuclear. As a pre-text to this
submission, I wish to mention that pro-nuclear voices have typically been the most disruptive in the
group, including waves of apparently choreographed incursions from international origins, some of
whom openly admitted that they were there to disrupt, as members of a group called “Nuke
Warriors”. Once the group’s membership requirements were reset to permit Australian members
only, the discussion became less adversarial. Since changing the membership criteria, and enforcing
stricter rules on conduct, the majority of active members today are of anti-nuclear persuasion. In
response perhaps to realising their minority status, some of the active pro-nuclear members have
blocked other group members (their critics) which has distorted the discussion by allowing much of
their shared content to go unchallenged. I believe this to be a reasonable reflection of the interested
public on this issue: that members of the public engaged with nuclear issues are more likely to
oppose rather than support further nuclear industrial development.

As far as I know, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia group is unique in that it does not
promote a particular attitude of support or opposition to the nuclear industry. It has held true to its
original purpose: to serve as a place for exchange of information, critical analysis, discussion and
debate. Beyond my moderator’s role at NFCWA, I have personal views and I will share them
openly here and whenever asked. The views expressed in this submission are my own, and do not
reflect those of the membership of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia.

IT STARTED WITH THE BOMB

The historic record shows that nuclear industry has from its genesis been coupled to military
interests. The development of the atomic bomb came first, with nuclear power generation a
secondary development in the application of nuclear fission. In my opinion, nuclear power was
politically useful in helping nuclear nations build and maintain both 1) a social license for their
nuclear estates and 2) the expertise to build, operate and maintain them. With the passage of time,
some of those estates have trended into decline (USA, UK, France), while perceived military
opponents have established or maintained their nuclear estates more affirmatively (Russia and
China). It is my belief that the push to enable nuclear industrial development in Australia is driven
by a fear that the strengthening nuclear estates of Russia and China could precipitate a shift in the
balance of power away from Anglo-American global domination.

Nuclear weapons remain the most destructive weapons ever created by humans, and I do not believe
that the so-called “nuclear deterrent” (aptly also referred to as M.A.D. or Mutually Assured
Destruction) has effectively prevented war or been a net-positive for humanity. My position
considers the worldwide distribution of fallout from nuclear weapons tests, and the contamination
of people, lands and the environment at every stage in the nuclear fuel chain.

The prospect of facing a nuclear winter, caused by a nuclear war, is an existential threat to life as we
know it on Earth. With the modernisation of nuclear arsenals, developments in hypersonic delivery
systems over the past decade, and advancements of artificial intelligence influencing military
technology, the threat of nuclear conflict is increasing. The Doomsday Clock, which is set by the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to indicate how close we are to obliterating ourselves, has the dial set
at a mere 100 seconds to midnight; the closest we have ever been to “the end”. An update is
imminent, and I’m not optimistic about the clock hands’ direction.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

LEGACY SITES & CONTAMINATION
A quick look at the USA’s list of Superfund contaminated sites shows what nuclear industrial
practise leaves in its wake. Among its listed properties around the USA are hundreds of abandoned
uranium mines, some uranium mining and milling sites, some sites managed by the Department of
Energy as part of the USA’s nuclear weapons research and development program (including some
that date back to the Manhattan Project), a nuclear waste repository called Maxey Flats where
plutonium was stored that leaked, and even legacy sites left by luminous clock dial painters which
used radioactive paint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites

The short history of nuclear industrial development has shown that contamination and waste have
historically been afterthoughts, but with very costly consequences for contaminated people and
environments. This is true the world over. The most obvious local example is the Ranger uranium
mine in Australia, where the remediation cost is likely to fall between 1.4 and 2.2 billion Australian
dollars. The project ran for roughly forty years in the Australian tropics, but not without
environmental problems, including periodic concerns about the contamination of nearby waterways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_Uranium_Mine

LOSSES OF LIFE AT AND NEAR NUCLEAR FACILITIES
A quick survey of incidents involving nuclear industrial facilities or their products that have lead to
losses of life includes nuclear fuel-fabricating or production facilities at Marcoule (France),
Kyshtym (USSR) and Tokaimura (Japan). Lives have been lost at nuclear power plants in Mihama
(Japan), Surry, Virginia (USA), Jaslovské Bohunice (Czechoslavakia) and Idaho Falls (USA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

More widely known are major accidents at power plants at Fukushima (Japan), Chernobyl (USSR)
and Three Mile Island (USA), though the extent of harm caused by the resulting plumes of
radioactive contamination from these “meltdowns” include conflicting projections of the number of
cancer developments and fatalities. In short, it is hard to prove that a particular cancer was
attributable to exposure to fallout, though fatalities did occur from thyroid cancer developments
following the Chernobyl disaster. Published estimates of numbers of fatalities occurring linked to
the Chernobyl disaster range from 4,000 to 60,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster

WORKERS COMPENSATION PROGRAMS
Another important measure of the inherent risk when handling or being exposed to radioactive
materials comes via reports of nuclear industrial workers compensation programs. Figures are
available for programs in the USA and UK, while other countries programs either suffer for lack of
data (Japan) or secrecy measures (France). In the USA, the Federal government administers
compensation programs that have paid out approximately $2.6 billion USD (under the Radiation
Exposure Compensation Act) and over 40,000 claims which includes downwinders (people
impacted by nuclear weapons test fallout), onsite participants (people who worked on the weapons
tests who were exposed to fallout), uranium miners, millers and ore transport workers. Another
scheme called the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program has paid out
over $22.6 billion USD and represents over 136,000 impacted workers. In the United Kingdom, the
Compensation Scheme for Radiation-linked Diseases has paid out 163 successful claims, to a total
sum of 8.9 million pounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_Exposure_Compensation_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Employees_Occupational_Illness_Compensation_Program
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_scheme_for_radiation-linked_diseases

Given Australia’s abundance of renewable energy ready to be harnessed, surely no sane industrialist
would seriously consider constructing a new nuclear power plant, uranium enrichment, fuel
reprocessing or fuel fabriciation facility on Australian soil, if it were to be a purely commercial
proposition. Nor should Australia engage in establishing facilities for the servicing or production of
nuclear vessels or nuclear weapons programs if we are to encourage nuclear non-proliferation as a
pathway to peace.

If there is indeed, as history and probability suggest, one or more defence interests leading this push
to repeal prohibitions, it is worth considering that the military also has a poor track record when it
comes to environmental contamination. Many airforce, army and navy facilities appear on the
USA’s Superfund contaminated site lists, with a wide range of contaminants present in lands andwaters. In the Australian context, we have recently observed that defence facilities are among the
many nationally identified as having dangerous concentrations of PFAS, impacting soil and water,
and the Department of Defence has been criticised for its poor past practises in environmental
management and its sale of contaminated sites.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/24/contaminated-australian-defence-sitesput-spotlight-on-environmental-record

DECOMMISSIONING COSTS
Even where environmental and safety performance has been good, nuclear facilities are very costly
to decommission at the end of their working lives. It has been estimated by the United Kingdom’s
Audit Office that the decommissioning of the UK’s nuclear estate could cost 260 billion pounds.
The decommissioning of just one complex, Sellafield, is estimated to reach 67 billion pounds and is
not expected to to be complete until 2035.
https://www.prosperoevents.com/it-is-estimated-that-the-uks-nuclear-waste-cleanup-operationcould-cost-260-billion/#:~:text=Decommissioning%20a%20nuclear%20site%20can,take%20until
%202035%20to%20complete.

The USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that decommissioning costs for most nuclear
power plants will cost $300-400 million USD each.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html

CONSTRUCTION COSTS
The cost of building new nuclear power plants since the Fukushima disaster have also increased.
Emblematic of this is the Hinckley C project in the United Kingdom, which is now expected to cost
25-26 billion UK pounds to construct. In 2012, it was predicted to cost 16 billion. The project is
expected to take ten years in total to construct. There are also many nuclear power plant
developments that have been suspended or cancelled entirely. There are at least 84 such projects in
the USA alone spannig the history of the industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reactors_in_the_United_States

One example of this phenomenon is Clinch River, USA. The project was to be a so-called
“advanced” breeder reactor site, with an initial estimated cost of $400 million USD in 1971. Before
the project was ultimately cancelled in 1983, the cost estimate had increased to $8 billion USD;
twenty times the original projected cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinch_River_Nuclear_Site

INDUSTRIAL & MEDICAL FATAL EXPOSURES
Proponents of nuclear industry often point to medical uses of radiation to help bolster their social
license. Yet radiation from engineered sources is inherently dangerous, and some of the worst
radiological disasters have involved radiation sources from medical or other domestic industrial
equipment that have been poorly handled, managed and/or disposed of.

A worker in Brescia received a fatal dose from a Cobalt-60 source at a cereal irradiation facility.
Workers in Israel and Belarus overrode safety systems to clear stuck conveyors and received fatal
radiation doses at commercial irradiation facilities. In San Salvador, three workers at a medical
irradiation plant were exposed to a Cobalt-60 source; one died and another lost a limb.

Fatal overdoses were given to three patients by Canadian-designed Therac-25 radiation-therapy
machines due to poor programming. In Epinal, France, five people were killed and twenty-four
severely injured by receiving overdoses of radiation during therapy due to a software error. In
Zarazoga clinic, Spain, eleven patients received fatal overdoses with a radiotherapy device. In
Panama, 28 cancer patients were killed during a period of gross medical negligence by lethal doses
of radiation. In Indiana, USA, an Iridium-192 source “broke off” inside a patient during
brachytherapy and was in the patient for four days where it administered a fatal dose. In Rio de
Janeiro, a 7-year old girl was given a fatal series of radiation overdoses by negligent doctors and
technicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents

LOST RADIATION SOURCES
Radiation sources may be abandoned or disposed of improperly, thus creating a public health risk.
In Xinzhou, China a Cobalt-60 source was removed from a former environmental monitoring
station, contaminating over a hundred people and killing three. In Estonia, a thief stole a Caesium137 source which gave him a fatal radiation dose. In Samut Prakan, Thailand, a stolen Cobalt-60
source injured seven people and killed three. In Lia, Georgia, a lumberjack was killed by radiation
exposure after finding two Strontium-90 cores from radioisotope thermoelectric generators and
choosing to sleep beside them, using them as heaters.

In New Delhi, a man died after handling scrap metal containing Cobalt-60 from an incorrectly
disposed of medical source. Six others were hospitalised. In Goiania, Brazil, a Caesium-137 source
was salvaged from abandoned medical equipment and contaminated 250 people, of whom four
died. In the USA an unemployed radiation worker killed himself by intentional exposure, with the
source believed to have been a temporarily appropriated Iridium-192 source.

In Kramatorsk, Ukraine, a radiation source was found embedded in construction material of an
apartment. Prior to its discovery, six residents of the building had died from leukaemia. It is
believed to have been picked up by accident in a gravel building aggregate. Further incidents
involving lost radiation sources can be seen at the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident

SO WHY REPEAL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS?
So why repeal prohibitions that were clearly instated to protect Australians and the Australian
environment from nuclear weapons, nuclear hazards, radioactive pollution and escalating
militarisation? In my opinion, an argument as to why they should be repealed should precede the
movement of any bill that seeks to remove safeguards. Without providing a complete and honest
rationale, I can only assume that vested interests in allied military and civilian nuclear estates
(notably the UK and USA) are attempting to lead us in this direction. Such interests include those
seeking to arm Australia against an increasingly powerful China, as well as the many private
interests in the nuclear fuel chain who would design, build and maintain any new facilities should
they be constructed in Australia. This is a specialised field with a relatively small number of
companies eager to profit should Australia extend its participation in the nuclear fuel cycle beyond
its current reach: uranium mining in South Australia and Western Australia, and a single research
reactor at Lucas Heights. The objectives of these minority interests are not shared by the wider
Australian community and I caution the Senators who have sponsored this bill to represent the
interests of the many over the few.

The only way to mitigate the risks associated with Australia escalating regional tension by
expanding its own nuclear estate is to turn in the opposite direction. That requires following the lead
of the Nobel Peace Prize winning not-for-profit organisation, ICAN (International Campaign to
Abolish Nuclear Weapons). That organisation, founded here in Australia, actively and consistently
promotes and lobbies for global nuclear disarmament. Australia and other uranium mining nations
should also seek to phase out their production of fissile material. The risks presented by the
production, transformation, transportation, use and storage of radioactive materials are hazards
which humanity has struggled to contain since discovery, and they are unnecessary.

As the Climate Council reminds us: “nuclear power is the slowest, most expensive, most dangerous
and least flexible form of new power generation for Australia”. It is clear from the precedent set in
my own state of South Australia, that hybrid systems which combine various renewable energy and
energy storage technologies can lead states and territories to truly carbon-free electricity generation
and more resilient and reliable electricity supply. Nuclear power is not required to supply
Australia’s current or projected electricity needs. Nuclear weapons aren’t required to establish and
maintain peace.
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/nuclear-power-stations-are-not-appropriate-for-australia-andprobably-never-will-be/

Containment remains a major problem and cost factor at every step of the nuclear fuel chain, from
radon gas inhalation and radioactive tailings management at mine sites, to long term storage of
spent, reprocessed nuclear fuel and other lower-level radioactive materials, which need to be
isolated and safeguarded for centuries. Australia should strive to support peace over war, health
over sickness and majority over minority interests by disassociating itself from nuclear power and
nuclear weapons and instead advocating for peace, harmony and renewable power generation and
storage technologies.

CONCLUSION
Out of my combined concerns for protecting human health, preventing environmental
contamination, protecting against costly “white elephants” and eliminating nuclear weapons, I wish
to express my disapproval of the proposed amendments to both the ARPANS Act 1998 and EPBC
Act 1999. The changes seek to allow the consideration and potential approval of various nuclear
industrial facilities that are currently prohibited in Australia. These are prohibited for good reason:
they carry with them unique and problematic risks to people, the environment and the public purse.
The legislation in its current form protects the Australian people from harm from ionising radiation,
and our land, air and waters from radioactive contamination.

If there is a genuine need for any currently prohibited nuclear industrial development to occur in
Australia, a case should be made openly to the Australian people prior to, not following, the repeal
of these protections.   https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Nuclearprohibitions/Submissions

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Renewable Energy Is Charging Ahead.

 Renewable energy has seen considerable
growth in recent years, but there is a long way to go to achieve a clean
energy future that averts the worst effects of the climate crisis. The
window is quickly closing on our ability to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris
climate agreement: keeping global temperature rise well below two degrees
Celsius by the end of the century.

The latest report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stressed that the world
needs fast and deep emissions cuts to meet that goal and eventually reach
net zero emissions by 2050. Switching to renewable forms of power
generation, such as solar, wind and hydropower, will be a key component of
that effort. “The target is very ambitious,” says Heymi Bahar, a senior
energy analyst at the International Energy Agency.

And every year that goes
by without major climate action, “we are basically losing the carbon
[budget] that is left, and we need to go faster in a more expansive way. In
that sense, most of the job, according to our models, needs to be done in
the coming seven years,” Bahar says.

Globally, renewables account for
about one third of electricity generation—and that share is rising. In
2022 renewable generation capacity grew by a record 295 gigawatts,
according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Further,
renewables accounted for more than 80 percent of all added power capacity
last year, the agency reported. Last year renewables produced more
electricity than coal-powered plants for the first time in the U.S. Wind
and solar now produce about 14 percent of the country’s electricity, up
from virtually nothing just 25 years ago. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration expects that more than half of electric generation capacity
added to the nation’s grid in 2023 will be from solar energy.

The main reason renewable energy has grown so much in recent years is a dramatic
decline in the expense of generating solar and wind power. The cost of
solar photovoltaic cells has dropped a stunning 90 percent over the past
decade, partly because of ramped-up manufacturing—particularly in
China—Bahar says. Government subsidies in countries such as the U.S. also
helped renewables grow in the early years, as did policies making
commitments to renewable adoption, says Inês Azevedo, an associate
professor in the department of energy science and engineering at Stanford
University.* For example, many U.S. states set standards for how much of
their electricity needs should be met with renewable energy by a particular
year.

 Scientific American 21st April 2023

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/renewable-energy-is-charging-ahead/

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Zealand’s nuclear test veterans seek recognition

More than 500 sailors on New Zealand navy ships were exposed to tests of hydrogen bombs in the late 1950s.  Aaron Smale spoke to one ahead of Anzac Day.

newsroom, Aaron Amale 23 Apr 23

He was a 17-year-old kid from Te Kuiti when he was ordered onto the deck of a Navy ship and told to sit down with his back facing out to sea. He and his mates donned dark glasses and wore what was grossly inadequate protection. Then he saw the bones in his hands from the flash of a hydrogen bomb being detonated. 

Ordered to stand up and turn around, Tere Tahi saw what should have been a frightening sight but his reaction was one of awe and wonder. 

“It was the most beautiful thing. It was fantastic. It was fantastic seeing all the different colours in the blast. It was a marvellous experience to see something like that, but we didn’t know what effects it would have on us after that.  We went in close to the fallout when the sea was being drawn towards the mushroom.”

Tahi had joined the Navy as a teenager and was stationed on the ship Rotoiti, one of two New Zealand ships that was sent to Christmas Island and witnessed the British testing hydrogen bombs in 1958. The legacy of those tests continues to affect those who saw them and has been passed down through their families.

“We were told to get on to the upper deck with anti-flash gear, put on dark glasses and to have our backs towards the detonation and when that was completed, we were told to turn and watch the blast. We had all this gear on and dark glasses and when it went off we could see the bones in our fingers, in our hands, with our hands over the dark glasses.”

“I wasn’t scared, because we didn’t know what the after effects would be.”…………

Tahi is now the president of the Nuclear Test Veterans Association in New Zealand and has taken on the fight to try and help veterans and their families affected by the impacts of being exposed to radiation. The association is having a reunion on April 28-30 in Palmerston North.

“I’ve set up some projects to help our veterans that have illnesses. What I want to do is give them some assistance helping them out with the illnesses. Some of them are finding it difficult to finance.”

The illnesses are not limited to the veterans themselves.

“Another problem that we faced with is a lot of our children, a lot of the veterans’ children have been born with deformities. It’s been very bad too. And that’s my final legacy – if you try and do something for them.”………………………

It wasn’t only New Zealand personnel who were exposed to the blasts. British sailors were also present and have been waging the same war to get recognition. 

“I went to England to a nuclear test veterans association commemoration. I was invited by the English government to go over there, this was in November of last year. It was the British. It was them that dropped the bomb.”

He says in hindsight he believes they were being used in an experiment. He worked as a radio operator and heard the secret communications coming through.

“As a radio man we receive secret signals saying that the reason they wanted troops there was to see what effects it would have on the equipment, which would have been our ships and the equipment on the ships, and to what see what effects it would have on the men. It was terrible. They wanted to see what effects it would have on us. It was obvious we were guinea pigs.

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our bomb was a hundred times worse than that. A hundred times worse.”……………………………….

An estimated 20,000 British servicemen, 524 New Zealand soldiers and 300 Fijian soldiers were deployed to “Christmas Island” from 1956 to 1962. 

Between May 1957 and September 1958 the British government tested nine thermonuclear weapons on Kiritimati for Operation Grapple. In 1962, the UK cooperated with the US on Operation Dominic, detonating another 31 bombs on Kiritimati.

The long-term impact on their lives and families largely hasn’t been formally acknowledged. The inhabitants of the islands have never been acknowledged either.  https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nuclear-test-veterans-still-waiting-for-recognition—

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘It Is Skynet’: Pentagon Envisions Robot Armies in a Decade

Blitzkrieg 2040

Nazi Germany, overran Europe in a very, very short period of time … because they were able to take those technologies and put them together in a doctrine which we now know as Blitzkrieg,” he said.

Milley, and the Pentagon with him, hopes to do the same now by bringing together emergent capabilities like robotics, AI, cyber and space platforms, and precision munitions into a cohesive doctrine of war.

By being the first to integrate these technologies into a new concept, Milley says, the United States can rule the future battlefield.

The Pentagon’s quest for an AI-dominated battlefield is becoming a reality

Epoch Times, By Andrew Thornebrooke, April 20, 2023

WASHINGTON—Robotic killing machines prowl the land, the skies, and the seas. They are fully automated, seeking out and engaging with adversarial robots across every domain of war. Their human handlers are relegated to the rearguard, overseeing the action at a distance while conflicts are fought and won by machines.

Far from science fiction, this is the vision of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

The United States, according to Milley, is in the throes of one of the myriad revolutions in military affairs that have spanned history.

Such revolutions have spanned from the invention of the stirrup to the adoption of the firearm to the deployment of mechanized maneuver warfare and, now, to the mass fielding of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).

It is a shift in the character of war, Milley believes, greater than any to have come before.

“Today we are in … probably the biggest change in military history,” Milley said during a March 31 discussion with Defense One.

“We’re at a pivotal moment in history from a military standpoint. We’re at what amounts to a fundamental change in the very character of war.”

Robotic Armies in 10 Years

Many would no doubt be more comfortable with the idea of robots battling for the control of Earth if it were in a science-fiction novel or on a movie screen rather than on the list of priorities of the military’s highest-ranking officer.

Milley believes, however, that the world’s most powerful armies will be predominantly robotic within the next decade, and he means for the United States to be the first across that cybernetic Rubicon.

“Over the next ten to fifteen years, you’ll see large portions of advanced countries’ militaries become robotic,” Milley said. “If you add robotics with artificial intelligence and precision munitions and the ability to see at range, you’ve got the mix of a real fundamental change.”

“That’s coming. Those changes, that technology … we are looking at inside of 10 years.”

That means that the United States has “five to seven years to make some fundamental modifications to our military,” Milley says, because the nation’s adversaries are seeking to deploy robotics and AI in the same manner, but with Americans in their sights.

The nation that gets there first, that deploys robotics and AI together in a cohesive way, he says, will dominate the next war.

“I would submit that the country, the nation-state, that takes those technologies and adapts them most effectively and optimizes them for military operations, that country is probably going to have a decisive advantage at the beginning of the next conflict,” Milley said.

The global consequences of such a shift in the character of war are difficult to overstate.

Milley compared the ongoing struggle to form a new way of war to the competition that occurred between the world wars

In that era, Milley says, all the nations of Europe had access to new technologies ranging from mechanized vehicles to radio to chemical weapons. All of them could have developed the unified concept of maneuver warfare that replaced the attrition warfare which had defined World War I.

But only one, he said, first integrated their use into a bona fide new way of war.

“That country, Nazi Germany, overran Europe in a very, very short period of time … because they were able to take those technologies and put them together in a doctrine which we now know as Blitzkrieg,” he said.

Blitzkrieg 2040

Milley, and the Pentagon with him, hopes to do the same now by bringing together emergent capabilities like robotics, AI, cyber and space platforms, and precision munitions into a cohesive doctrine of war.

By being the first to integrate these technologies into a new concept, Milley says, the United States can rule the future battlefield.

To that end, the Pentagon is experimenting with new unmanned aerial, ground, and undersea vehicles, as well as seeking to exploit the pervasiveness of non-military smart technologies from watches to fitness trackers.

Though the effort is just gaining traction, Milley has in fact claimed since 2016 that the U.S. military would field substantial robotic ground forces and AI capabilities by 2030.

Just weeks from now, that idea will begin to truly culminate, when invitations from the Defense Department (DoD) go out to leaders across the defense, tech, and academic spheres for the Pentagon’s first-ever conference on building “trusted AI and autonomy” for future wars.

The Pentagon is on a correlating hiring spree, seeking to pay six figures annually for experts willing and able to develop and integrate technologies including “augmented reality, artificial intelligence, human state monitoring, and autonomous unmanned systems.”

Likewise, the U.S. Army Futures Command, created in 2018, maintains as a critical goal the designing of what it calls “Army 2040.” In other words, the AI-dependent, robotic military of the future.

Though slightly further out than Milley’s assumption of 10 to 15 years, Futures Command deputy commanding general Lt. Gen. Ross Coffman believes that 2040 will mark the United States’ true entry into an age characterized by artificially intelligent killing machines.

…………………….. Everything Spins Out of Control’

Remaking the American military and forming a new, cohesive way of war is a tall order. It is nevertheless one that the Pentagon appears prepared to pay for.

The DoD is requesting a record $1.8 billion in funding for AI projects for the next year alone. That amount will exceed the estimated $1.6 billion in AI investments being made by China’s military.

……………….. John Mills, former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, believes that this path is rife with the potential for unintended consequences.

“It is Skynet,” Mills told the Epoch Times, referencing the fictional AI that conquers the world in “The Terminator” movie franchise. “It is the realization of a Skynet-like environment.”

“The question is, what could possibly go wrong with this situation? Well, a lot.”

…………… “The integration of AI with autonomous vehicles, and letting them action independently without human decision-making, that’s where everything spins out of control.”

To that end, Mills expressed concern about what a future conflict might look like between the United States and its allies, and China in the Indo-Pacific.

Imagine, he said, an undersea battlespace in which autonomous submarines and other weapons systems littered the seas.

Fielded by Chinese, American, Korean, Australian, Indian, and Japanese forces, the resulting chaos would likely end with autonomous systems engaging in war throughout the region, while manned vessels held back and sought to best launch the next group of robotic war machines. Anything else would risk putting real lives in the way of the automated killers.

“How do you plan for engagement scenarios with autonomous undersea vehicles?” Mills said

“This is going to be absolute chaos in subsurface warfare.”

……………………… There is just one caveat to that ethical, trustworthy, governable, deployment of lethal AI systems: The Pentagon does not have any hard and fast rules to prohibit autonomous systems from killing…………………………………………………………….
more https://www.theepochtimes.com/in-depth-it-is-skynet-pentagon-envisions-robot-armies-in-a-decade_5207504.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-04-20&src_cmp=uschina-2023-04-20&utm_medium=email&est=vibelq5SAFOai0xZ2IdvvJe4uwKWVBE7hfxTKp%2FcR9S0a9BSSEoQCAfiSObFUg%3D%3D

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Three nuclear superpowers, rather than two, usher in a new strategic era

Beijing and Moscow point to the overhaul as a motivating factor for their own upgrades. Arms controllers see a spiral of moves and countermoves that threatens to raise the risk of miscalculation and war.

BY DAVID E. SANGER, WILLIAM J. BROAD AND CHRIS BUCKLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES Apr 23, 2023

WASHINGTON – On the Chinese coast, just 215 kilometers (135 miles) from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs.

The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to get production started. That deal means that Russia and China are now cooperating on a project that will aid their own nuclear modernizations and, by the Pentagon’s estimates, produce arsenals whose combined size could dwarf that of the United States.

………………………………………………………………“By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” the Pentagon said last fall in a policy document. “This will create new stresses on stability and new challenges for deterrence, assurance, arms control, and risk reduction.”

………………………………………………… The dynamic is, indeed, more complicated now — the Cold War involved only two major players, the United States and the Soviet Union; China was an afterthought. Its force of 200 or so nuclear weapons was so small that it barely figured into the discussion, and Beijing never participated in the major arms control treaties.

…………………………….Deepening tensions between Beijing and Washington appear to have hardened Xi’s judgment that China must counter “all-around containment,” including with a more robust nuclear deterrent……………………………………………………………

In Russia and the U.S., rolling out new weapons

…………………………… The Pentagon sees at least one of the emerging weapons as potentially threatening, in part because it could, if perfected, outwit the United States’ anti-missile defenses. The weapon is a long-range nuclear-powered undersea torpedo that, once unleashed, could move autonomously toward one of the nation’s coasts. Its warhead, as described by Russia, would create “areas of wide radioactive contamination that would be unsuitable for military, economic, or other activity for long periods of time.” Kristensen said the torpedo was close to operational.

For its part, the Biden administration has announced plans to make the first new warhead for the nation’s nuclear arsenal since the Cold War — an update that the White House says is long overdue for safety reasons. The weapon, for submarine missiles, is a small part of a gargantuan overhaul of the nation’s complex of atomic bases, plants, bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Its 30-year cost could reach $2 trillion.

Beijing and Moscow point to the overhaul as a motivating factor for their own upgrades. Arms controllers see a spiral of moves and countermoves that threatens to raise the risk of miscalculation and war.

Like all top nuclear arms, the new warhead, known as the W93, is thermonuclear. That means a small atom bomb at its core acts as a match to ignite the weapon’s hydrogen fuel, which can produce blasts a thousand times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb. The atomic triggers are usually made of plutonium. Experts say that is true of Beijing’s arsenal and explains its building of breeder reactors.

The United States has about 40 tons of plutonium left over from the Cold War that is available for weapons and needs no more. It is, however, building two new plants that can fashion the old plutonium into triggers for refurbished and new thermonuclear arms, such as the W93. Recently, the agency that does investigations for Congress estimated the new plants could cost up to $24 billion.

Many arms-controllers decry the new facilities. They say Washington has in storage at least 20,000 plutonium triggers from retired hydrogen bombs and that some of them, if needed, could be recycled.

Despite such criticism, the Biden administration is pushing ahead, insisting that trigger recycling is risky. Jennifer M. Granholm, the energy secretary, has declared the new plants essential for “a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.”

………………………….. “We don’t know what to do,” said Henry D. Sokolski, a former Pentagon official who now leads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “What’s the response to this — do we just build more, and are we going to be able to build many more than they are?” https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/23/world/china-russia-us-nuclear-arsenal-buildup/

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Daniel Ellsberg is still fighting — Beyond Nuclear International

For Ellsberg there was “no greater cause” than confronting the evils of nuclear weapons

Daniel Ellsberg is still fighting — Beyond Nuclear International

Legendary whistleblower keeps giving in his final months

By Linda Pentz Gunter

Most of us who have been around long enough in this movement probably have their own Daniel Ellsberg story. With the 91-year old famous whistleblower’s recent announcement that he has terminal pancreatic cancer, with just months to live, many were re-telling theirs. It was an apt outpouring of admiration, respect and love. So much so, that April 24-30 is now Daniel Ellsberg Week.

……………………………………….Thus I came to learn that one of the great heroes of our time, who was prepared to sacrifice a lifetime of freedom for a just cause, was indeed a man of quiet humility and one who has filled that lifetime that he views as some sort of unexpected bonus, with endlessly generous gifts of writing, insight, analysis and conviction.

His recent book — The Doomsday Machine, confessions of a nuclear war planner — is essential and definitive and nightmare-inducing. In other words, desperately important. 

“In public, he has been a beacon of integrity and truth, willing to say and do what the warmakers and nuclear-holocaust planners find completely unacceptable,” RootsAction co-founder and director Norman Solomon told Common Dreams columnist, Brett Wilkins. ”In private, his thoughtful kindness and daily commitment to humanity are central to his being. And I want to emphasize right now that nothing in the world is more important to read and heed than Dan’s monumental book The Doomsday Machine.”

 ……………………………………………………………………….When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars…………………………

………………………………………………….I was able to devote those years to doing everything I could think of to alert the world to the perils of nuclear war and wrongful interventions: lobbying, lecturing, writing and joining with others in acts of protest and non-violent resistance.

…………………………………………………..China and India are alone in declaring no-first-use policies. Leadership in the US, Russia, other nuclear weapons states, NATO and other US allies have yet to recognize that such threats of initiating nuclear war–let alone the plans, deployments and exercises meant to make them credible and more ready to be carried out–are and always have been immoral and insane: under any circumstances, for any reasons, by anyone or anywhere…………………………………………………….. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/23/daniel-ellsberg-is-still-fighting/

April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Inadequate Protection: Current Radiation PPE is Failing to Shield Female Healthcare Workers

SciTechDaily By BMJ APRIL 22, 2023

Adequate protection cannot be guaranteed by standard personal protective equipment for breast tissue; employers should invest in protective gear that ensures the safety of all employees.

In an article published recently in The BMJ, doctors advocate for improved ionizing radiation protection for women in healthcare who are regularly exposed to radiation through X-rays and other imaging procedures, in order to reduce their risk of developing breast cancer.

Due to the high sensitivity of breast tissue to radiation and the fact that ionizing radiation is a well-established human carcinogen, there are apprehensions that frequent exposure to ionizing radiation during image-guided procedures could increase the likelihood of female healthcare workers developing breast cancer.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) such as lead gowns are used to shield the body from harmful radiation during these procedures. But studies have shown that current radiation PPE provides inadequate protection to breast tissue as it leaves the area close to the armpit (known as the upper outer quadrant and axilla — the most common site of breast cancer) exposed.

“Providing adequate breast covering PPE could therefore reduce radiation exposure and potentially help prevent breast cancer in female healthcare workers,” write Isobel Pilkington and colleagues.

They acknowledge that measuring the risk of occupational radiation-induced breast cancer in women working in healthcare is challenging, but as the number of female trainees entering these specialties increases, they say “it is essential that the available evidence is considered and equipment provision improved to minimize this risk.”

They point to observational evidence suggesting an increase in breast cancer risk among female US orthopedic surgeons compared with an age-matched female population, and to a small Finnish study showing breast cancer at 1.7 times the expected rate in radiologists, surgeons, and cardiologists compared with female physicians not working with radiation.

In a study using artificial female torsos to measure radiation exposure, researchers found inadequate upper outer quadrant protection and no statistically significant reduction in dose when standard PPE was compared with a torso without PPE………………………………….

Reference: “Protecting female healthworkers from ionising radiation at work” by Isobel Pilkington, Hannah Sevenoaks, Emily James and Deborah Eastwood, 12 April 2023, The BMJ.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2023-075406

 https://scitechdaily.com/inadequate-protection-current-radiation-ppe-is-failing-to-shield-female-healthcare-workers/
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April 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment