Nuclear News 1st January 2024
Good news? Yes, it’s hard to find. But it’s out there. So many millions of people working towards a clean and peaceful planet, working with compassion for the victims of war, of injustice, and of extreme weather. Impossible to name the many agencies – from the numerous United Nations ones, (UNICEF, UNHCR, UNESCO ……..), and ICAN, Red Cross , Red Crescent, MSF, Greenpeace, FOE …. … many more… Millions give their time voluntarily.
It’s a pity that the nature of news is to tell us the bad things, to glorify the global phalanx that promotes war and the nuclear industry, and to focus on the sociopaths who dominate politics and corporations. But the good movements and the good workers are there, carrying our hopes for 2024
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My resolution for 2024 – to make this newsletter shorter – (from next time), more to the point – and leave out Israel, Gaza, Ukraine as much as possible.
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TOP STORIES
Nuclear expert Mycle Schneider on the COP 28 pledge to triple nuclear energy production:‘Trumpism enters energy policy’.
Shuttering the Nuclear Weapons Sites: There’s Gold in Those Warheads but the Scrap Metal is Radioactive.
Why AI is a disaster for the climate.
The failed Nuscale project lets Utah down — again.
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From the archives. The spread of radiation- internal contamination through fresh produce in Japan
Climate. Amazon drought: ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’. The faith leaders fighting for the climate: ‘we have a moral obligation’. Sea level rise: ‘We can’t afford to wait’: a Cornish town faces climate threat head on.
Noel’s notes. The rise of the Übermensch – the tech gods. Are we ignoring GAZA – the new Auschwitz, as the world ignored Nazi camps from 1933-39? . Nuclear Industry’s New Year Resolution – “Let’s get sloppier about safety”.
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AUSTRALIA.
- Price Waterhouse Cooper’s (PWC’s) $8m nuclear submarine payday revealed. More serious governance failures in Defence contracting.
- Nuclear dreams rudely awoken by blast of CSIRO reality. Let’s Talk About Why Nuclear Won’t Work in Australia. Ted O’Brien’s fact-free nuclear cheerleading is cover for the same old climate vandalism. Renewables cheaper than nuclear, coal now and into the future: CSIRO. Cost update blasts nuclear out of energy mix. Opposition need to explain whether they’ll will stick with their ‘nuclear fantasy’.
- Atlas Network strategies: how fossil fuel is using “think” tanks to delay action.
- A Merry AUKUS Surprise, Western Australia! Busting the government spin about “radioactive waste management” at Garden Island, Western Australia.
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CIVIL LIBERTIES. With the Persecution of Julian Assange Biden Is Overseeing the Silent Death of the First Amendment
CLIMATE. COP28’s Unrealistic Tripling of Nuclear Power.
ECONOMICS.
- European nuclear Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) may be unworkable – analysts.
- UK guarantees for minimum price for nuclear-produced electricity – an expensive disaster.
- CSIRO says wind and solar much cheaper than nuclear, even with added integration costs.
- Regulators approve deal for ratepayers to pay for Georgia Power’s new nuclear reactors.
- Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza.
- China’s Low-Cost Nuclear Offer Faces Scrutiny in Kazakhstan.
ENERGY. Talen Energy Is Building Data Centers That Run on Nuclear Power. Now, It Needs to Find Buyers.
ENVIRONMENT.
- Oceans. US Promotion of Banned Fukushima Seafood Contradicts Biden’s Cancer Initiatives.
- How green is the UK Government’s nuclear energy strategy?
- Inside the Pentagon’s Painfully Slow Effort to Clean Up Decades of PFAS Contamination.
- Effect of U.S. nuclear weapons tests on the otters of Alaska.
- Water: State papers: Plans for nuclear power plant on shores of Lough Neagh shelved over drinking water concerns.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Catholic activists arrested for anti-nuclear protest outside UN. ‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros.
HEALTH. Buried secrets, plutonium poisoned bodies. Radiation heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP0NU65SKAo&t=1s Documents show toxins in Air Force nuclear missile capsules.
HISTORY. The Long History Of Zionist Proposals To Ethnically Cleanse The Gaza Strip.
LEGAL. Day X Marks the Calendar: Julian Assange’s ‘Final’ Appeal. Assange Appeal Hearing Set for February. Constitutional Violations: Julian Assange, Privacy and the CIA. Judge Rules Assange Visitors May Sue CIA For Allegedly Violating Privacy.
Former chair of Ohio utility regulator surrenders in $60 million bribery scheme linked to energy bill.
Tokyo High Court holds Japan government not liable for Fukushima nuclear disaster. Tokyo court holds only the utility responsible to compensate Fukushima evacuees, and reduces damages.
MEDIA. What? Ukraine Is Not Winning the War? The Narrative Turns. Now What? Meta’s Broken Promises -Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook. New Book: Energy Revolutions -Profiteering versus Democracy .
POLITICS. The Biden Administration Is Quietly Shifting Its Strategy in Ukraine. Biden has the power to rein in the nuclear presidency. He should use it. U.S. Nuclear Sector Set for Major Transformation.
Sunak to scale back nuclear target in latest UK net zero climbdown Time to shelve Hinkley Point C? UK’s Nuclear Minister has so far failed to meet East Suffolk communities who have concerns about Sizewell C nuclear project . NFLA Policy Briefing 283: Nuclear Free Local Authorities submission to the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into the ‘The Potential Role of Proposed Small Modular Reactors’
France’s Council of State opinion on a Bill relating to governance of nuclear safety in relaunching the nuclear sector . Spain Confirms 2035 Nuclear Phase Out Deadline.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Geopolitics has already doomed the second nuclear renaissance. Sweden, France strengthen cooperation on nuclear. Why Egypt’s new nuclear plant is a long-term win for Russia. US eyes reports Iran has accelerated uranium enrichment.
SAFETY.
- DRUGS IN THE NUCLEAR SPHERE: UNVEILING A TROUBLING NEXUS.
- Documents Reveal Hidden Problems at Russia’s Nuclear Powerhouse.
- GMB union says urgent action needed to tackle safety concerns at Sellafield. EDF to extend nuclear outages in 2024, 2025 on corrosion issue.
- Incidents: A nuclear-powered ship in Murmansk started to burn: only few locals got to know about the serious incident. Mystery fire breaks out on Russia’s only nuclear-powered icebreaker vessel as it was docked at Arctic port.
- Japan allows world’s biggest nuclear plant to restart. Japan Lifts Operational Ban on Fukushima Nuclear Plant Owners.
- South Carolina nuclear plant’s cracked pipes get downgraded warning from officials. Low-Flying Helicopters Will Monitor Any Nuclear Threat In Las Vegas This Weekend.
- Cyber-hackers target UK nuclear waste company Radioactive Waste Management. Nuclear attack on Northern Ireland viewed as ‘possibility’ after 9/11.
SECRETS and LIES. ‘Cover-up’ hearing Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for late January 2024.
TECHNOLOGY. SMR – Spending Money Recklessly – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL7kwLMANK0 Microsoft is training an AI to help get nuclear reactors approved.
URANIUM. Iran undoes slowdown in enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade -IAEA
WASTES. Cold War nuclear waste is prioritized at Carlsbad-area repository. How much is there? Site for Canada’s underground nuclear waste repository to be selected next year.
WAR and CONFLICT. US Trying to Water Down New Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council. Surrender or die – Netanyahu.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
- Israel receives 230 planes, 20 ships loaded with US arms amid Gaza war. US….Arsenal of Genocide in Gaza .
- Year of the drone — how the hi-tech weapon has transformed warfare.
- Spiralling nuclear costs make UK’s Ministry Of Defence’s equipment plan unsustainable.
- Russia has completed delivery of nuclear weapons to Belarus, Lukashenko says. Russia To Retire World’s Only Nuclear-Powered, Largest Battle-Cruiser Pyotr Veliky.
- Kim Jong Un announces his nuclear resolutions for 2024.
DRUGS IN THE NUCLEAR SPHERE: UNVEILING A TROUBLING NEXUS
Alastair philip wiper captures the unexpected connection between nuclear missiles and drugs
DesignBoom 31 Dec 23
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………As Alastair Philip Wiper explains in Drugs and Missiles, there is a compelling argument for the main danger posed by nuclear weapons: the unintended risk of self-destruction. History is full of declassified cases, from planes accidentally crashing with nuclear payloads to governments mistaking computer simulations of war for actual events. The accidental release of weapons through human error, such as pulling the wrong handle, and the explosion of missile silos underscore this vulnerability. ‘Once, a bear climbing the fence of an Air Force base was mistaken for Russian special forces beginning an invasion,’ shares the photographer. ‘And then there are the drugs.’
In Eric Schlosser’s book Command and Control, it’s revealed that of the individuals authorized to handle nuclear weapons in 1980, 1.5% lost their clearance due to drug abuse, totaling at least 1,728 individuals who were caught using drugs in proximity to nuclear weapons. Fast forward to 2016, a disconcerting reality unfolded as over a dozen Air Force members responsible for safeguarding nuclear missiles were convicted of both using and distributing substances such as LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana. This juxtaposition underscores the persistent and concerning intersection between drug use and the guardianship of powerful weaponry……………………………….. more https://www.designboom.com/art/alastair-philip-wiper-unexpected-connection-nuclear-missiles-drugs-12-25-2023/
Over 1,000 Children in Gaza Have Had One or Both Legs Amputated Since Oct 7
it is “beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”
| ScheerPost, By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com, 31 Dec 23 |
International aid workers describe a growing humanitarian nightmare in the Strip.
International aid workers visiting the Gaza Strip are relaying the horrific situation Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians. UNICEF reports over 1,000 children have lost legs. Israel is forcing the 2.3 million residents of Gaza into increasingly small areas that lack the ability to accommodate basic needs for survival.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said, “Around 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both their legs.” He told journalists in Geneva that “every single child is enduring these ten weeks of hell and not one of them can escape.”
Due to the conditions in Gaza, as well as the lack of aid, doctors are often forced to conduct surgeries in unsanitary facilities and without painkillers. “Not only were they amputated without anesthesia, but many of them were amputated in a very quick fashion,” he said.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a London-based surgeon who traveled to Gaza to treat patients, told Middle East Eye that having to perform these operations without anesthetic was “one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in my career.” At a November press conference, he said, “One night, at Al-Ahli Hospital, I performed amputations on six children.”
The UNICEF official said that even if children recover from the amputation, they do not escape the hell of the threat of death. “As a parent of a critically sick child told me, ‘Our situation is pure misery…I don’t know if we will make it through this.’”
Spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris added that WHO staff in Gaza spoke of not being able to walk in the emergency wards “for fear of stepping on people” lying on the floor “in severe pain” and asking for food and water. She called the situation “unconscionable” and said that it is “beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”
The Israeli military has destroyed most hospitals in Gaza. The medical facilities continuing to operate face frequent attacks and a lack of supplies. A Washington Post investigation recently found that the Israeli Air Force is using 2,000-pound bombs near hospitals…………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/31/over-1000-children-in-gaza-have-had-one-or-both-legs-amputated-since-oct-7/
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 