How “Dumb Money” Nukes Boil & Bankrupt The Earth

So today’s real reactor battle is not over new ones, which essentially don’t exist.

It’s about the risks posed by the old ones, all of which lack comprehensive liability insurance.

Harvey Wasserman 10 Oct 23  https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/how-dumb-money-nukes-boil-bankrupt-the-earth #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nucler-free #NoNukes

No new U.S. reactors, big or small, fission or fusion will be built here within at least the next five years…more like ten. Those that try will do nothing but divert resources away from the Solartopian technologies needed to save the Earth.

They’ll also lose big money for their billionaire backers and the taxpayers who’ll be forced to bail them out.

There are now 93 large uninsured light-water reactors licensed for operation in the US. One more– Georgia’s Vogtle #4– may open within the next year or so.

All of them emit radioactive Carbon-14. They release additional greenhouse gasses through the process of mining, milling and enriching uranium-based fuel, as well as attempting to store it once it’s become radioactive waste.

All commercial reactors burn at ~570 degrees Fahrenheit, warming the planet on their own.

Meanwhile, there are zero such commercial nukes in the pipeline. None are under construction.

No credible observer– pro-nuke or no nuke– contends that any large new reactor could be ordered, built, licensed, insured and brought on line in the United States within the next decade or two… well beyond whatever window we might have to solve our worsening climate crisis.

The whole industry, which is inseparable from the nuclear weapons complex, was sold to the public on the premise that its electricity would come “too cheap to meter.”

But consider the last eight major reactor projects in the US and Europe:

Finland’s Olkiluoto3 opened last year, billions of Euros over budget and more than a decade behind its original 2009 promise date. Though brand new, it’s already been forced to scale back operations at least once due to a massive influx of far cheaper solar/wind/hydro-generated electricity.

France’s Flamanville remains under construction, also years late and billions over budget.

Two reactors at England’s Hinckley, again years late, have soared beyond E35 billion. Odds on them ever opening are up for grabs. Odds on them ever cost competing with wind or solar are less than zero.

Two huge reactors at VC Summer are stillborn. Their $9 billion in construction costs have stuck South Carolina with a dusty mausoleum that will never generate power.

After fifteen years, Georgia’s Vogtle #3 has finally gone critical. Unit #4 may open next year. Projected in 2008 at $14 billion, the pair together may yet exceed $40 billion. They’ll certainly be the last big light water reactors built in the U.S.

Together Summer and Vogtle bankrupted Westinghouse. The European projects have bankrupted Electricite de France.

Thus Wall Street’s unwillingness to fund big new nukes is likely to deepen.

So now we hear instead about “Small Modular Reactors.” With backing from the likes of Bill Gates and Oliver Stone, the idea of mass producing small, simple nukes claims major media fandom. The critiques of SMRs are widespread and varied.

But there’s no more hilarious proviso than one coming from the industry itself, in the form of a sort of disclaimer from NuScale in a recent announcement. The list of “warnings” resembles one we hear on the air for various prescription drugs, but stretches in length to resemble a documentary film, practically matching this article in length. Take a look by scrolling down to the section that begins “Forward Looking Statements.” You may want to settle in with a cup of coffee.

At this point, there are currently no proven SMR prototypes. Cost projections again recall that 1950s “too cheap to meter” lie told by Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss (the villain in the film Oppenheimer).

NuScale’s promised delivery date has already slipped from 2026 to 2029. Independent assessments put that well into the 2030s. The billions squandered on such projects divert capital that should otherwise fund renewables.

Likewise much-hyped thorium reactors, which remain untested, unproven, and of uncertain costs.

As for fusion, its operations would concentrate temperatures of 100 million degrees Fahrenheit on an increasingly fragile planet. And that despite decades of intense research, and gargantuan expenditures, its future availability, ecological impacts and financial costs remain naggingly uncertain.

Thus, in the vital window from now until decade’s end, no new nukes, large or small, fission or fusion, will be ready to tangibly replace the burning of fossil fuels. The once-beloved nuclear genie can’t cure global boiling. There’s simply no there there.

Which makes our current fleet of atomic elders even more dangerous. Thoroughly decayed reactors like California’s Diablo Canyon and Michigan’s Palisades soak up billions in public funds to keep operating. But they’ve yet to secure comprehensive liability insurance. At a current average age of more than forty (Diablo opened in 1985) they cost far more to operate than proven, readily available wind, solar, battery and efficiency technologies.

Diablo in particular is plagued by deadly flaws such as embrittlement, cracked pipes, seismic vulnerability, an aging workforce and much more.

So today’s real reactor battle is not over new ones, which essentially don’t exist.

It’s about the risks posed by the old ones, all of which lack comprehensive liability insurance.

And about how quickly we can bury at last the immensely powerful fossil fuel industry that threatens us all.

For that, the only clear solution comes with a fast-as-possible shift to safer, cleaner, cheaper truly green Solartopian renewables that actually do exist. That are constantly evolving.

They may not be too cheap to meter (except in rare cases, like nighttime wind power in west Texas).

But they comprise today’s last, best hope to cool our boiling Earth…while creating jobs and profit for those wise enough to see it now.

October 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Are Hamas fighters using American weapons meant for Ukraine?

When it comes to arms supplies, the US is its friends’ worst enemy.

Rt.com 9 Oct 23 #Ukraine

Throughout recent history, the perceived weapon of choice for a terrorist (or freedom fighter, depending on one’s perspective) has been an AK-47 assault rifle. Today, in the aftermath of the so-called post-9/11 “global war on terror,” it’s not uncommon to see such fighters with a Glock 9mm pistol, or a Colt M4 carbine.

These are weapons paid-for by the US taxpayer and ostensibly provided to forces joined in the cause of defeating terrorists and/or freedom fighters (again, depending on the political beliefs of the observer), but that end up in the hands of the latter instead. Obviously, that is never the outcome Washington intends. And yet, somehow, these weapons end up arming the very forces the US and its allies are trying to defeat.

The most recent example of this phenomenon appears to involve Hamas and the attacks perpetrated by militants affiliated with that organization on military and civilian targets in southern Israel. A video, the authenticity of which has yet to be verified, purports to show a Hamas fighter thanking Ukraine for the provision of small arms, ammunition, and hand grenades. More videos, taken during the actual assaults, show the Hamas fighters armed with a plethora of US-made weapons.

These videos have alarmed some US lawmakers, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia’s 14th District, who, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, Tweeted/Xeeted “We need to work with Israel to track serial numbers on any US weapons used by Hamas against Israel. Did they come from Afghanistan?” the Congresswoman asks. “Did they come from Ukraine? Highly likely the answer is both.”

Any attempt to answer Marjorie Taylor Greene’s questions will more than likely turn up information that should make the US government very uncomfortable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been saying since June of this year that US-made anti-tank weapons intended for Ukraine were turning up on the Israeli border. Left unsaid by Netanyahu was how this had come to be – corruption is rampant inside Ukraine, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has reported on hundreds of millions of dollars of aid being diverted into the hands of parties it was not originally intended for. By my calculations based on conversations with numerous informed sources, the amount diverted could be as high as six out of every ten dollars of assistance sent to Ukraine. It’s one thing if this involves money; it’s another thing altogether if this involves weapons.

The wide availability of US-made weapons on the global black market used by terrorists/freedom fighters to arm themselves is reflective of the lax approach the US takes when it comes to providing military assistance to parties involved in active combat. The US appears to be more interested in reinforcing the political messaging attached to such deliveries–that the US is actively supporting friends in need. The actual security-related aspects of this effort, however, seem to escape most senior US policy makers.

This became evident in May 2022, when Rand Paul, a Republican Senator from Kentucky, tried to have an inspector general put in place to monitor and account for some $40 billion in military assistance to Ukraine requested by President Joe Biden. Senator Paul’s motion was overwhelmingly defeated by a Congress which appeared to be happy to assume a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” posture when it came to the issue of Ukraine and corruption.

The issue of US weapons falling into the hands of persons not only for whom the weapons were not intended, but –more critically– into the hands of people the weapons were intended to fight against, who then use them against American allies, is not a new one………………………………………….

The reality is that the US has become one of the major sources of weapons for terrorists/freedom fighters around the world. While Marjorie Taylor Greene is correct to demand answers when it comes to the issue of the security of Israel, a long-time American ally, the same questions can be asked about virtually every security assistance program instituted by the US in the post-9/11 era. It appears that America’s approach to fighting the global war on terror has ended up making those whom it calls terrorists more capable of carrying out the acts of violence US policy portends to be trying to stop. The sad truth is that America, in its rush to arm the world, in many ways ends up being its friends’ worst enemy.  https://www.rt.com/news/584413-hamas-fighters-us-weapons/

October 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Past Time to End the Persecution of Julian Assange

SCHEERPOST, By Eve Ottenberg / CounterPunch 9 Oct 23

It’s long past time for the U.S. and U.K. to free Julian Assange. His flagrantly unjust incarceration is a global scandal, and the world is quite upset about it. Indeed, on September 19 at the United Nations, heads of state denounced this phony prosecution for the fraud and subterfuge it is – an assault on a free press, and an attack on Assange personally, for practicing journalism. For over four years, this publisher has been left to rot in a dungeon in Britain’s notorious maximum-security prison, Belmarsh. The reason? Well, they might not admit it, but U.S. sachems want him crushed for embarrassing them, by revealing the murderous criminality of the American military in Iraq and elsewhere.

Periodically, some world leader lets loose a geschrei of protest. “It is essential to preserve freedom of the press. A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way,” railed Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to the assembled UN diplomats. Honduran president Xiomara Castro also denounced the official abuse of Assange. And on September 20, a delegation of Australian politicians brought a letter to Washington officials, demanding the U.S. drop its grotesque prosecution of Assange.

This is not the first time heads of state or other political bigwigs have urged American President Joe Biden to end Assange’s ordeal.  Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has twice written Biden, imploring him to release Assange and rightly fulminating over the damage done to a free press by his incarceration. In late 2022, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan leaders called for the publisher’s freedom. Colombian president Gustavo Petro vowed on social media to “ask President Biden…not to charge a journalist just for telling the truth.” Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese also petitioned the U.S. on his Canberra constituent, Assange’s behalf. So far Biden appears unmoved…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Espionage Act is an embarrassment and a disgrace to a free people. So are the charges against Julian Assange. Both the Act and the prosecution should be scrapped.

 https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/09/past-time-to-end-the-persecution-of-julian-assange/—

October 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Endless electricity and water use: the Artificial-Intelligence-Blockchain-Data Centre -Nuclear-NuScale nightmare to come

Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs

Please, no crypto boom, thank you

The Register, Tobias Mann, Sun 8 Oct 2023 #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nucler-free #NoNukes

Colocation outfit Standard Power hopes to power two new datacenters in Ohio and Pennsylvania entirely by miniaturized nuclear reactors from NuScale.

Standard Power makes no secret it focuses on providing datacenter services to not just those into AI workloads and other kinds of high-performance computing but also those performing proof-of-work blockchain mining, the kind needed to craft digital tokens like Bitcoin. The significant energy requirements of this type of blockchain work spurred an investigation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last year, and calls by lawmakers to implement reporting and/or sustainability requirements for such operations.

Generally speaking, a datacenter packed with proof-of-work miners is going to demand a chunky amount of power. Concerned it may not get adequate electricity supplies for its new facilities, which by the sounds of it will support blockchain mining as well as other workloads, Standard Power said it hopes to take the nuclear option.

“We see a lot of legacy baseload grid capacity going offline with a lack of new sustainable baseload generation options on the market especially as power demand for artificial intelligence-computing and datacenters is growing,” Standard Power CEO Maxim Serezhin said in a statement.

And the colo outfit’s Ohio and Pennsylvania datacenters may need or get a lot of power. The company expects to deploy 24 of NuScale’s small modular reactors between the two sites. These reactors are reportedly capable of generating 77 megawatts apiece — putting the total deployed capacity at 1,848 megawatts.

Despite the announcement, it may be a few years before Standard Power can realize its nuclear dreams. As we learned in January, Idaho National Labs will be among the first to demonstrate NuScale’s reactors, and the first of these modules isn’t expected to come online until 2029. We asked Standard Power when it expects its facilities will be operational; we’ll let you know if we hear anything back…………………………………..

Standard Power is hardly the first datacenter operator to get excited about nuclear power, either. Cumulus Data opened a datacenter next to a nuclear plant — the full-size kind — in January and last month we learned that Microsoft is now hiring someone to potentially deploy SMR systems to power its growing cloud enterprise.  https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/08/standard_power_nuclear_datacenter/

October 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment