Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Even the UK’s very first small nuclear reactor could not be decided upon until 2029 at the earliest

Old Sparky: The go-ahead for even the very first SMR couldn’t be decided
on until 2029 at the earliest; nothing here could meaningfully contribute to
the 2035 target for decarbonising electricity. No wonder so little is being
spent – it’s just a costly way to keep options open.

 Private Eye 4th Aug 2023

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/columnists

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US, Finland Negotiating Defense Agreement That Would See Deployment of American Troops

August 14, 2023  https://wordpress.com/post/nuclear-news.net/240861

Washington and Helsinki are in the process of establishing a new defense cooperation agreement that would see expended deployments of American soldiers and Finland hosting war games.

By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com

Washington and Helsinki are working on a new deal to govern the military relationship between the two nations. Finland recently became the thirty-first member of NATO, doubling the alliance’s border with Russia.

According to YLE News, Finnish state media, Helsinki and Washington are negotiating a new Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA).  YLE said the new deal would be a “significant departure from its previous” DCA with the US.

Finland held a prolonged policy of official neutrality prior to joining NATO earlier this year. However, Helsinki established deep ties with the bloc over recent decades. The new DCA will expand America’s military presence to several Finnish bases, including ports and airports.

The outlet reports the new DCA will “permit the presence of foreign troops for extended periods, specifically for conventional military exercises…[and] grant US military personnel access to facilities and areas within Finland for training, weapons storage, and equipment maintenance.”

The war games and NATO soldiers will be viewed as a provocation by Russia, which shares an 800 miles border with Finland. Helsinki already hosts NATO troops for military drills near the Russian border.

When Helsinki announced its intention to join the North Atlantic bloc last year, the Kremlin warned about additional international troop deployments in Finland. Last week, Moscow announced it would deploy additional military assets to its border with NATO members.

Finnish negotiations have expressed some reservations about expanding the DCA with the US. YLE explains, “noting that the agreement excludes nuclear weapons,” and Helsinki wants all integration troops deployments to be labeled as temporary.

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Senate nuclear power report sees no role for nuclear .

A Senate committee released a report into nuclear power last Friday. The majority report, endorsed by Labor and Greens senators, argued against nuclear power and against the repeal of Howard-era legislation banning nuclear power in Australia. A dissenting report by Coalition Senators argued for repeal of the legislation banning nuclear power.

The majority report concludes that repeal of legislation banning nuclear power “would create an unnecessary escalation of risk, particularly given Australia is able to utilise readily available firmed renewable technology to secure a reliable, affordable and clean energy system for Australia’s future”. It gives the following reasons:

1. Nuclear power is the most expensive energy option for Australia whereas firmed renewable energy is the cheapest option. Introducing nuclear power into Australia’s electricity network would “drive up power prices, causing additional economic pain for everyday Australians who are already struggling with the cost of living pressures.”

2. Next generation nuclear technology is unproven and there are no commercially operational ‘small modular reactors’ anywhere in the world. “It is clearly not possible for Australia to develop a nuclear power sector with SMR technology which is not commercially available,” the majority report states.

3. Given the “very considerable” lead time that would be involved in establishing a new nuclear industry in Australia, the contribution of nuclear power to the electricity market would likely be negligible given Australia’s projected 83 per cent uptake of firmed renewables by 2030. “The committee recognises that addressing climate change requires immediate action and pursuing nuclear energy would only be a distraction from Australia’s 2030 target and broader efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050.”

4. Nuclear power is inflexible. The energy output of nuclear power plants lacks the flexibility required to meet the needs of a modern electricity market. Firmed renewables are much better suited to the load profiles of modern electricity grids which require greater flexibility.

5. Nuclear carries inherent and consequential safety risks. In addition to other risks, establishing a nuclear power industry in Australia “would unnecessarily add to the local and global problem of managing high-level nuclear waste”.

6. Water scarcity — an issue “close to the hearts of many Australians”. Reactors require “significant volumes” of water for cooling and the “necessity of locating nuclear power plants near sea water would likely mean the construction of nuclear reactors near densely populated areas and would create additional environmental and security risks.”

7. Nuclear power would create “potential and unnecessary national security risks” due to “perceived links between civil nuclear industries and nuclear weapons proliferation, as well as opening the possibility of nuclear reactors being the target of hostiles.” Australia continues to be an international advocate of nuclear non-proliferation and the committee supports Australia’s ongoing participation in the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Treaty, as well as the international and bilateral nuclear safeguard agreements it has ratified.

8. “There is no social license to support the establishment of a civil nuclear industry in Australia. A significant majority of Australians are not comfortable with the prospect of having nuclear power plants, or the radioactive waste they produce, in their backyards. Overwhelmingly, Australians recognise the importance of transitioning to a secure and sustainable energy future, and firmed renewables are the key to achieving that future.”

August 15, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Gina Rinehart: Australia’s wealthiest person uses Bush Summit speech to push for nuclear power

Rebecca Le May, The West Australian, Mon, 14 August 2023 

Gina Rinehart is pushing for Australia to become nuclear-powered instead of upsetting farmers with more “bird-killing wind generators and massive solar panel stretches”.

The multi-billionaire used the final sentence of her keynote speech at The Australian Bush Summit on Monday to call for a national foray into the contentious energy source — easing into the topic with a joke purportedly by nuclear physicist Edward Teller, who helped Robert Oppenheimer produce the first nuclear bomb………… (Subscribers only) more https://thewest.com.au/business/mining/gina-rinehart-australias-wealthiest-person-uses-bush-summit-speech-to-push-for-nuclear-power-c-11581010

August 15, 2023 Posted by | politics, Western Australia | Leave a comment

Amid ‘staggering’ Ukrainian toll and souring US polls, Biden seeks billions more for war

the Zelensky government does appear to be a willing partner in McConnell’s sacrifice ritual. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov is said to have told US officials that flooding Ukraine with weapons allows NATO allies to “actually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded. For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground.”

As Ukraine faces “staggering” losses and US public mood shifts, the Biden administration seeks billions more to prolong the war.

Aaron Maté, AUG 15, 2023,  https://mate.substack.com/p/unlocked-amid-staggering-ukrainian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=135995766&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email—

The Biden administration is asking Congress for an additional $24 billion for the Ukraine proxy war, more than half of it in military aid. The request comes one week after a CNN poll showed, for the first time, that a majority of Americans oppose additional funding to Kiev.

For a White House committed to ensuring a Russian “quagmire” in Ukraine, public opinion is of secondary importance. Two months into a widely hyped yet now faltering Ukrainian counteroffensive, a fresh influx of NATO weaponry appears necessary to prolong the war. In one of several gloomy assessments to appear in US establishment media, a senior western diplomat tells CNN that the prospect that Ukrainian forces can “make progress that would change the balance of this conflict” is “extremely, highly unlikely.” Ukraine’s “primary challenge” is breaking through Russia’s heavily fortified defensive lines, where “Ukrainian forces have incurred staggering losses.” According to Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley, US military assessments of the war are “sobering,” with Ukraine now facing “the most difficult time of the war.”

This picture, CNN’s Jim Sciutto observes, represents “a marked change from the optimism at the start of the counteroffensive,” with Western officials now acknowledging that “those expectations were ‘unrealistic.’” The battlefield reality is so dire that it is even “now contributing to pressure on Ukraine from some in the West to begin peace negotiations, including considering the possibility of territorial concessions.”

But as Biden’s new spending request suggests, there is no sign that the US is among those Western states applying pressure for peace. After all, the stated US aim, as top officials have made clear, is not to defend Ukraine and its long-term future but to instead “weaken” Russia (Lloyd Austin) and ensure “a strategic failure for Putin,” so that Russian can “pay a longer-term price in terms of the elements of its national power.” (Jake Sullivan)

Whereas CNN’s Western sources now allow themselves to admit that their publicly voiced “optimism at the start of the counteroffensive,” was “unrealistic”, it was in fact, dishonest. As Pentagon leaks and subsequent disclosures have confirmed, US officials were well aware that Ukraine was not prepared to take on Russia’s heavily fortified defenses, but kept that assessment under wraps. Accordingly, while Ukraine’s battlefield losses are indeed “staggering”, what is perhaps most “sobering” is the fact that the Biden administration both anticipated and encouraged them.

But just like souring US public opinion, Ukrainian casualties are also a secondary concern, as the Biden administration’s more candid neoconservative proxy war partners continue to make clear.

To push through the new spending package , the White House is “counting on help from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader,” the New York Times reports. At a public event, McConnell detailed his rationale: The US, he explained, hasn’t “lost a single American in this war,” – not accurate if one counts mercenaries and private citizens, but correct in its implicit recognition that Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of lives on its American sponsors’ behalf. According to McConnell, there are additional benefits of the war that do not extend to ordinary Ukrainians: “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

Therefore, according to prevailing Biden-McConnell policy, the US must continue to fund a war that will sacrifice many more Ukrainian lives, all so that domestic war profiteers can reap taxpayer largesse for “replenishing weapons”, and so that the US – not having its soldiers die in Ukraine – can use the opportunity for “improving our own military” for a war that it might actually fight.

Although US officials have reportedly “expressed frustration” at Ukraine’s efforts to minimize military casualties, the Zelensky government does appear to be a willing partner in McConnell’s sacrifice ritual. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov is said to have told US officials that flooding Ukraine with weapons allows NATO allies to “actually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded. For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground.”

For the benefit of weakening Russia, enriching US military contractors and serving as a NATO “testing ground,” Ukrainian lives are not the only staggering sacrifice. According to the Wall Street Journal, “20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war,” a scale unseen for a Western military since the First World War, and a potential undercount “because it takes time to register patients after they undergo” surgery.

According to veteran State Department bureaucrat Aaron David Miller, the Biden administration has no other choice but to continue sacrificing Ukrainians. The US, he explained, “is in an investment trap in Ukraine with no clear way out. Chances of a military breakthrough or a diplomatic solution are slim to none; and slim may have already left town. We’re in deep and lack the ability to do much more than react to events.” The key term here is “investment trap”: having invested in a proxy war aimed at bleeding Russia, the US is therefore obliged to continue it.

But if the US were driven by other concerns – such as Ukrainian well-being – it could consider supporting the diplomatic opportunities that it has blocked to date. Prior to Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration encouraged the Ukrainian government to crack down on political opponents; further integrate its military into NATO; avoid implementing the Minsk accords for ending its post-2014 civil war; and assault the Russian-allied Donbas. When Russia submitted detailed proposals in December 2021 to address its concerns, the White House effectively balked. And after Russia’s invasion, the US blocked a tentative peace deal that would have seen Russia withdrew to its pre-February 2022 lines. More recently, the US has pushed Ukraine into a counteroffensive that it knew had no chance, and rejected a Ukrainian NATO bid that it had long encouraged for the apparent purpose of baiting Moscow.

In short, the Biden administration has provoked this war and is now seeking a new influx of taxpayer money to prolong it. Even the latter goal is now openly admitted. At last month’s NATO summit in Lithuania, the New York Times reported, “several American and European officials acknowledged” that their “commitments” to Ukraine “make it all the more difficult to begin any real cease-fire or armistice negotiations.” Additionally, US-led “promises of Ukraine’s eventual accession to NATO — after the war is over —create a strong incentive for Moscow to hang onto any Ukrainian territory it can and to keep the conflict alive.”

So long as keeping the conflict alive comes predominantly at the cost of Ukrainian lives, then Washington’s bipartisan proxy warriors clearly have no qualms about forcing a war-weary public to foot the bill.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Small Modular Reactors- a US view

we now have ‘an echo chamber, with each outlet clambering over the next to crow about the great benefits of nuclear power in misleading language that suggests this technology is already entirely proven out’. 

It all fits into what see she see as an emerging pro-SMR mind set, with there being a lot of speculative investment venture cash still around- and a lot of press support. She says that though ‘very few of the proposed SMRs have been demonstrated and none are commercially available, let alone licensed by a nuclear regulator’, the media has been promoting them as the way ahead.

August 12, 2023  https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/08/small-modular-reactors-us-view.html

Allison Macfarlane, who was Chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from 2012-2014, has been looking at Small Modular Reactors in the USA and elsewhere. She thinks they are likely to be uneconomic, much like the their larger brethren, which, as she describes, have recently been doing very poorly in the USA. 

Indeed, just like the EPR story in the EU, it makes for a sorry saga: ‘The two units under construction in South Carolina were abandoned in 2017, after an investment of US$9 billion. The two AP-1000 units in Georgia were to start in 2016/2017 for a price of US$14 billion. One unit started in April, 2023, the second unit promises to start later in 2023. The total cost is now over US$30 billion.’

Big reactors do look increasingly hard to fund and build on time and budget, while it is argued that smaller ones could be mass produced in factories at lower unit costs and finished units installed on site more rapidly. However, that would mean foregoing conventional economies of (large) scale, and, overall, Macfarlane claims that SMRs may end up being worse that large plants in operational and economic terms. 

For example, she says ‘one of the reasons SMRs will cost more has to do with fuel costs’ with some designs requiring ‘high-assay low enriched uranium fuel (HALEU), in other words, fuel enriched in the isotope uranium-235 between 10-19.99%, just below the level of what is termed “highly enriched uranium,” suitable for nuclear bombs.’ She notes that ‘currently, there are no enrichment companies outside of Russia that can produce HALEU, and thus the chicken-and-egg problem: an enrichment company wants assurance from reactor vendors to invest in developing HALEU production. But since commercial-scale SMRs are likely decades away, if they are at all viable, there is risk to doing so.’

She also notes that the use of HALEU, so as to offset the smaller size of the reactor core, will ‘result in increased security and safeguards requirements that will add to the price tag’. As she has explored in a PNAS paper with others, smaller cores mean more neutron escapes and so a need for more shielding, which will become activated, adding to the waste burden to be dealt. Indeed she says, overall, some SMRs may produce ‘significantly more high-level waste by volume that current light water reactors.’ That view did not go down well with SMR promoters, who sometimes portray SMRs as being cleaner than standard reactors.  

Some advanced SMRs may use molten salt fluids as a reactant and also coolant, and the waste chemistry then is different, although there will still be wastes to deal with. But for the moment, the focus is on simpler technology – just scaled down versions of the standard  Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR). Macfarlane notes that one of these, NuScale, is the only SMR design to received ‘design certification’ for its 50MW unit from the NRC

However, the company has now decided to submit a new application to the NRC to build a larger version, presumably in the expectation that this would be more economic. It’s also proposed to have multiple units on one site, sharing some common services.  That might offset some of the extra costs of small systems, but not much. Macfarlane says ‘cost estimates for the reactor have risen from US$55/megawatt electric (MWe) in 2016 to $89/MWe in 2023, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.’

Arguably, to be economic, they need to be bigger. That seems to have been the logic behind another mini-PWR, the Rolls Royce SMR being developed in the UK by Rolls Royce. Although at 470MW, that one is hardly ‘small’. 

By contrast, Oklo, another US company, is going in the opposite direction. It has been developing Auora, an advanced micro-nuclear power plant. It’s a tiny (1.5 MW) liquid sodium cooled fast neutron reactor. However, it was outright rejected by the NRC. Macfarlane says that ‘the NRC rarely outright rejects an application, instead working with licensees until they either get the application right or decide to walk away. In this case, Oklo refused to fill “information gaps” related to “safety systems and components.’ But Oklo persevered. And she notes it has gone for public finance via a merger with AltC Acquisition Corporation. 

It all fits into what see she see as an emerging pro-SMR mind set, with there being a lot of speculative investment venture cash still around- and a lot of press support. She says that though ‘very few of the proposed SMRs have been demonstrated and none are commercially available, let alone licensed by a nuclear regulator’, the media has been promoting them as the way ahead.

Even usually sane US outlets like the Atlantic Policy journal seem to have joined in. She says we now have ‘an echo chamber, with each outlet clambering over the next to crow about the great benefits of nuclear power in misleading language that suggests this technology is already entirely proven out’. 

 So she concludes, a bit pessimistically, that, in the USA, ‘in the nuclear celebratory mood of the moment, there is little patience or political will for sober voices to discuss the reality that new nuclear power is actually many decades away from having any measurable impact on climate change – if at all’.

The situation in Europe is a bit different. Although nuclear is also being supported in some countries, like the UK and France, anti-nuclear views are also apparent. For example a recent academic paper in Joule claims that ‘relying on nuclear new-builds to achieve the EU climate targets is virtually impossible.’ And overall it concludes ‘in solving the climate crisis, new nuclear is a costly and dangerous distraction.’ Whereas SMRs will be any better is unclear. There are quite few speculative SMR ventures around the word, as a UK review noted, but a recent study of 19 proposed SMR designs found that they were likely to be generally more expensive than conventional nuclear, and even more so than renewables. So, why bother?

As Macfarlane says, the battle lines are drawn on this issue around the world, with much of it being a PR battle – there is no real hardware yet. While the likes of Forbes magazine are pushing SMRs as the ‘go-to energy source’, in a hard hitting article in Fortune, Stephanie Cookes says ‘the billions currently being spent on nuclear are crowding out viable, less costly solutions for decarbonizing the power sector.’ 

Place your bets…but, for some, the outcome already looks clear. As David Schlissel said in US trade journal Utility Drive, ‘an old adage is that anything that sounds too good to be true probably is. Given the history of the nuclear power industry, everyone – utilities, ratepayers, legislators, federal officials and the general public – should be very skeptical about the industry’s current claim the new SMRs will cost less and be built faster than previous designs.’

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This week in nuclear news

Some bits of good news:  For Outdoor Workers, Learning About Heat Protection Is a Lifesaver.    Climate leaders on what brings them hope.  A rare monkey came back from the brink.

TOP STORIES

Atomic Bombing of Japan Was Not Necessary to End WWII. US Gov’t Documents Admit It.       Racism and the choice to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Target China

US/France Threaten Intervention in Resource-Rich Niger: Fears of War in West Africa.

Counting the dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The terrible emptiness of “Oppenheimer”.

 Climate,   July was world’s hottest month on record, climate scientists confirm. Four fifths of humanity ‘hit by heat linked to climate change’ in July. 

Virtually certain’ extreme Antarctic events will get worse without drastic action, scientists warn.    Antarctica ‘suffering’ because of burning fossil fuels, say scientists. Antarctica could become ‘global radiator’ if ice loss continues at the current rate . 

Nuclear.  “Oppenheimer” continues to make its impact. The USA pulls quite a swiftie on Australia. as the AUKUS ‘Security’ deal quietly organises for American nuclear submarine’s highly toxic radioactive wastes to be dumped on Australia, (just as Aboriginal group has won a legal battle against nuclear waste dumping). Racism is becoming a more obvious feature of the nuclear industry worldwide.

Christina notes. The “modern” nuclear industry manages its radioactive sewage in a medieval way. The Australian Labor Party embraces militarism– has it lost its soul?

AUSTRALIA. 

CLIMATE. Is it “Hello” or “Goodbye” to Great British Nuclear Power?

CIVIL LIBERTIES. McCarthyism Is Back, and It’s Coming for the Peace Movement.

ECONOMICS. 

EDUCATION. United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) held a public youth pitch event “‘Peace & XX’ Ideation – Nuclear Disarmament and Sustainable Futures”

EMPLOYMENT. Hinkley nuclear site workers win after unofficial walkouts. Hinkley Point C unrest continues as steel erectors down tools.

ENERGY. TVA should focus on a better grid and renewable, not nuclear, energy .

ENVIRONMENT. Fish Hell – impacts of sea water nuclear cooling systems . Agency to test for tritium in fish after Fukushima water discharge,

ETHICS and RELIGION. ‘Oppenheimer’ depicts a man becoming powerful—and irrelevant. Nuclear weapons since Oppenheimer: Who’s in control?. 

U.S. group marks 1945 atomic bombings, at interfaith service in Hiroshima, urges abolishing nuclear weapons and building better world. Sombre ceremony outside Manitoba Legislature illuminates push to eradicate nuclear weapons.

HEALTH. Reducing the risks of nuclear war — the role of health professionals. Medical Journals Issue Urgent Call for Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Carcinogens found at Montana nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface. Radiation. Additional information on tritium. Still more information about Tritium .

MEDIA. Nevada’s atomic fallout: How nuclear explosions in the Silver State reverberate through lives today. The Illusory Truth Effect And The “Unprovoked” Invasion Of Ukraine. YouTube Deletes military analyst Scott Ritter’s Channel.  Famed director Oliver Stone gets it so very wrong about nuclear power . 

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear fusion – a step forward, but is it in a sensible direction? Small Modular reactors– a US view.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . 

POLITICS. Democracy Needs Healthy Debates About War And Peace. Poll Shows Majority of Americans Oppose Further Aid in Ukraine. 

 Biden vows to compensate New Mexico residents sickened by nuclear weapons radiation after 1945 testing. Illinois Gov. Pritzker vetoes bill that would have allowed new nuclear construction. 

Sweden to clear obstacles for new nuclear reactors. Sweden criticised over plan to build at least 10 new nuclear reactors.

Public participation for the Flamanville EPR reactor commissioning project (INB 167).  Philippines House panel OKs bill outlining nuclear damage compensation.  Who decides whether Bataan should go nuclear?.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. As Threat Remerges, Global Community Must Speak as One, Commit to Nuclear-Free World, Secretary-General Says on Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing. The BRICS Revolt: How Ukraine War Eroded U.S. Authority.

PROTESTS. Demonstrators protest development of nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge. Ten arrested at protest against nuclear weapons at Volkel airbase. Anti-nuclear protesters at Faslane charged after blocking entrance. In South Korea, activists march against Tokyo’s waste plan.

SAFETY. Dounreay inspectors raise further red flag about sodium storage. Ukrainian Minister Warns Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant ‘One Step Away’ From Blackout. Ukraine: Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant initiates reactor shutdown following water leak, reports IAEA. 2 minor earthquakes strike near North Korea’s nuclear test site.

SECRETS and LIES. Zelensky Fires All Military Enlistment Office Chiefs Over Corruption Allegations. Secret Pakistan cable documents US pressure to remove Imran Khan. Sweden’s “Energiforsk” should remove misleading reports on nuclear power”.

WASTES. Scottish ministers test attitudes to building radioactive waste facilities near homes. Hearing on the Chalk River Megadump . Theddlethorpe nuclear waste site: Public to vote by 2027. 

Chinese UN mission releases working paper on Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater issue, urging Japan to discharge in responsible manner. Concrete tomb filled with deadly nuclear waste is leaking as it’s starting to crack.

WAR and CONFLICT. Ukrainian counteroffensive ‘highly unlikely‘ to succeed, US officials tell CNN.   Ukraine fights narrative battle as counteroffensive stalls – NBC.       Zelensky fears peace pressure from West – NYT.    Ukraine facing ‘difficult’ autumn – foreign minister. Poland admits Ukraine’s counteroffensive won’t succeed.

‘Oppenheimer’ the movie versus our nuclear reality. A warning from the Caribbean – none of us is safe from nuclear disaster. At Nagasaki Memorial, Guterres Cautions of Nuclear Disaster Risk .

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Rapid Dragon: the US military game-changer that could affect conventional and nuclear strategy and arms control negotiations.     We don’t need nuclear cruise missiles at sea.     Another Washington declaration: U.S. nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, Egypt rejects multiple US requests to arm Ukraine: Report.

August 14, 2023 Posted by | Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Why the nuclear option is clever in opposition but a nightmare in government

The Coalition’s push to include nuclear energy in the nation’s arsenal has nothing to do with solving the climate debate.

InQueensland, August 14, 2023, John McCarthy

If only that was the case.

The first and most reasonable question for them is why is the Coalition is pushing nuclear now and did nothing to progress it when they were in power?

The answer is just as reasonable. It has no hope and it’s not because of its inherent cost and efficiency, which seems to make up a lot of the debate.

An example of how difficult it would be to push forward with nuclear energy was the recent Federal Court decision to overturn the approval of a waste dump for radioactive material in the South Australian town of Kimba, where the issue had split the town.

It took a decade to get to that point and the division in Kimba would be likely to be played out nationally if the Coalition ever got serious about adopting nuclear energy.

……….The reason the Coalition has started pushing nuclear is very much the same reason it won’t succeed. It’s devisive. It would be a nightmare.

You may think that’s a criticism of the Coalition but it isn’t. It’s politics and clever politics, as well.

Nuclear provides an agitation point for the Albanese Government and a pivot on which the Coalition can position themselves as forward-thinking and rational…………………………..

It should also be noted that a nuclear power station in the US was recently completed seven years late and cost $US34 billion ($52.3 billion), about $US21 billion over its initial budget.

While adopting nuclear, the LNP in Queensland has ditched coal. Its support is now whispered rather than championed, as it was in 2019 when it was instrumental in handing Government to Scott Morrison.

………………………………………………… The real issues however are about waste, where a nuclear power station would be sited, how much would it cost and how long would it take to develop and, most importantly, is it safe? All pretty reasonable questions.

Whether they would continue to advocate for nuclear if they returned to Government is a completely different question. It’s reasonable to assume that the issue would be handed to a committee where it would gather dust.

……………………….. The problem is nuclear remains a social and environmental nightmare…….. https://inqld.com.au/opinion/2023/08/14/why-the-nuclear-option-is-clever-in-opposition-but-a-nightmare-in-government/

August 14, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Suggestions that Julian Assange might be returned to Australia, with a “plea deal”.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could get a David Hicks-style plea deal with the US that would see him return to Australia, United States ambassador Caroline Kennedy has told the SMH . She said such a resolution to the Department of Justice’s case against him is possible despite US Secretary of State Antony Blinken coming across hard-lined about the matter.

Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton said Kennedy’s comments show the US wants to be done with the 13-year-long saga, but what would that look like exactly?’

Law expert at the ANU Don Rothwell told the paper the US could downgrade Assange’s 17 espionage charges for a guilty plea — he’s already done four years in a UK prison, and the rest of the sentence could be done in Australia. But Assange fans might say it’s hard to imagine him ever pleading guilty, or going to the US to do so.

August 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Racism and the choice to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Dehumanizing of “others” began but did not end with Japan

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Aug 13 2023, e https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/13/the-choice-to-bomb-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

The debate about whether the United States “needed” to drop atomic bombs on Japan will likely be waged indefinitely. Was it to end the war, save American lives, test the bomb or send a message to Stalin?

Amidst all the theories, some of which are disputed and a few disproven, one over-riding motivation remains: racism.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a highly effective propaganda campaign was waged in the US to paint Japanese people as sub-human or worse. The Japanese were depicted as predators and vermin. During reporting from Iwo Jima, Time magazine, pronounced the Japanese people “ignorant” and went on speculate: “Perhaps he is human. Nothing. . . indicates it.” 

Today, the posters and rhetoric in circulation then would be considered abhorrent hate speech. But in the 1940s, it instilled enough revulsion in the American public to justify the annihilation of at least 200,000 human beings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And it was only the beginning. After World War II, the newly emergent atomic powers began testing their weapons of annihilation on Indigenous communities far away. The Americans bombed the Marshall Islanders; the British targeted Aboriginal lands in Australia and the islands of Micronesia; the French went to Algeria and then Polynesia; the Soviet Union chose Kazakhstan.

The Marshallese, like the Japanese before them, were characterized as subhuman. They were deliberately experimented on, to see what would happen to human beings living in a highly radioactive environment. This included returning the people of Rongelap to their atoll just three years after they were removed to make way for the enormous and disastrous Castle Bravo test on March 1, 1954. They were returned, because, said, Merril Eisenbud, director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Agency’s health and safety laboratory, “That island is by far the most contaminated place on Earth and it will be very interesting to get a measure of human uptake when people live in a contaminated environment.”

Much of this was celebrated by the US military brass. The Marshallese victims of atomic tests were brutally denigrated as uncivilized, albeit they were, conceded Eisenbud in one his most appalling statements, “more like us than mice”.

The uranium needed for atomic weapons was mined in places such as the Congo in Africa, and on Native American and First Nations lands in North America. 

Today, France still gets at least half of the uranium needed to power its commercial nuclear reactors from Niger, although the recent coup there may have put that supply chain in jeopardy. But many of the people who mine it live without electricity and running water and suffer the health consequences of the radioactive tailings and waste left behind in their environment.

Of course, it’s not an entirely racist story. Atomic veterans the world over have struggled for recognition of their suffering and for compensation, largely unsuccessfully. Many experienced the tests directly. Others were sent in later to “clean up” the radioactive mess left behind.

In the US, citizens of Nevada and surrounding states were shocked to learn that their own government was willing to treat them like guinea pigs. The more than one thousand atomic tests carried out at the Nevada Test Site, situated on Western Shoshone land, contaminated communities across multiple US states.

Those communities were not warned or protected. Indeed, the Nevada tests were treated as something thrilling. Las Vegas even promoted them as some sort of bizarre tourist attraction. One postcard of the time depicts a massive mushroom cloud rising behind the “Desert Inn” in Las Vegas as an American family unpack their luggage. But the postcard was no mere fantasy. Photographs of the time show Las Vegas hotel guests around a swimming pool watching a mushroom could rise in the distance.

Still today, sickeningly, you can buy Fat Man and Little Boy earrings at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas.

The United States has never officially apologized — to the people of Japan, or the Marshall Islands, or New Mexico, where the first Trinity test took place, or Nevada and the neighbouring states. Nor has France for its part in bombing Algerians in the Sahara and French Polynesians in the South Pacific. The UK has neither apologized to, nor agreed to compensate, its atomic veterans for their exposures during atomic tests on Australian Aboriginal land and the Line Islands of the Pacific.

The dehumanizing of other human beings, mostly on the basis of what we erroneously call “race” (we are all the same “race”) is of course not restricted to the nuclear sector. Communities of color, at least in the United States, are routinely targeted by the fossil fuel and chemical industries and by industrial and inhumane factory farming.

In North Carolina, for example, where a large portion of the country’s horrendous hog factory farms are located — known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs — there are 10 million pigs, about one per person. However, these are concentrated in a handful of mainly African American counties. As the Rachel Carson Council describes it in its report, Pork and Pollution, in one predominantly North Carolina African American county alone there are 2.3 million hogs.

Addressing the fundamental crime of racism is an essential step if we are to eliminate the existential threats of nuclear war and the climate catastrophe now upon us.

This article is adapted from a blog entry originally published by Scottish CND and a subsequent webinar presentation for Scottish CND on August 8. For an essential deep look at racism and the nuclear sector, read Vincent Intondi’s excellent book, African Americans Against The Bomb.

August 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Concrete tomb filled with deadly nuclear waste is leaking as it’s starting to crack

Joe Harker, 12 August 2023 https://www.unilad.com/news/world-news/qin-xi-huang-tomb-china-emperor-terracotta-army-345786-20230809

43 years ago a concrete container of nuclear waste was constructed on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, but there’s a big problem with that, it’s leaking.

During the Cold War, the US used islands in the Pacific to test nuclear weapons, and between 1946 and 1958 carried out a series of tests on Enewetak Atoll.

Of course, nuclear bombs poison the ground around them and the waste from these weapons is a dangerous commodity in and of itself. So between 1977 and 1980, a concrete dome was built to store the nuclear waste from the bomb tests.

That ended up being called the Runit Dome, because it was located on Runit Island, though it was also referred to as ‘the tomb’.

Housing radioactive debris, including poisonous plutonium, thousands of people scraped nuclear waste into a blast crater and covered it over with concrete to stop it from getting out.

Unfortunately that plan isn’t going quite so well as, according to IFL Science, a report from 2019 warns that changing conditions on the island are causing the concrete dome to crack.

Increasing temperatures are not helping the problem, while a rise in sea levels is also compounding the problem as the dome is not elevated off the ground, and the lapping waters of the sea are eroding it further.

This is all resulting in radioactive material bleeding out into the ground on the rest of the island and leaking out into the sea as well.

As long as the plutonium stays within the crater covered by the dome then it won’t be a major new source of contamination into the ocean.

That could all change if the cracking dome were to give way and seawater was able to flow in and out of the crater.

This concrete tomb could be a cracking nuclear coffin with a monster inside just waiting to be released, but for now things are still within acceptable levels.

According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, marine radioactivity expert Dr Ken Buesseler said they’d ‘known for years that the dome is leaking’, but for now only a ‘small amount of radioactivity’ was getting out.

For context, this isn’t putting the surrounding area beyond safety standards just yet, and the plutonium sealed beneath the Runit Dome is only a fraction of what was released during nuclear testing.

While he said things were alright at the moment, he warned that they ‘hadn’t considered sea level rise in the 1970s when they built this’, and said the dome would be ‘at least partially submerged by the end of this century’.

August 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY. The “modern” nuclear industry manages its radioactive sewage in a medieval way

The nuclear industry prides itself on being such a “modern” “civilised” industry. However, it is quite happy to deal with its garbage in a medieval way. Just as, centuries ago, in “civilised” Europe it was just fine to pour your sewage into the street – to flow on to public waterways and oceans.

This mendacious industry cons us all into believing that the Fukushima nuclear waste-water is the same as water released from active nuclear power plants. It is not.

Normally, water that is used in cooling a nuclear plant in routine operation and then discharged to the environment has no direct contact with the nuclear reactor fuel cores. In contrast, the contaminated water generated by the Fukushima disaster has come into direct contact with contamination from the melted down cores of three reactors and as such is severely contaminated with many radionuclides. It has  greater variety of radioactive materials but also the overall much higher radioactivity.

But that’s not the only deception. With its customary false logic, the nuclear industry claims that because several countries already pour nuclear-irradiated wastewater into the sea, that proves that it is OK to do so. That’s like a medieval person explaining that pouring sewage into the street is fine, because the neighbours do it.

The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades. The mind boggles at the thought of what the Russians do with theirs.

It took the Black Plague in 1350 to make people realise that sewage, garbage, and dead bodies in the streets were really a bad idea.

What is it going to take for the world to stop this wonderful “modern” nuclear industry pour its radioactive sewage into the public oceans?

And for that matter, since nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not essential – why allow their toxic sewage to be produced at all?

August 13, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Woomera looms as national nuclear waste dump site

Financial Review, Phillip Coorey, Political editor, 10 Aug 23,

A federal government decision to scrap plans for a nuclear waste dump outside the South Australian town of Kimba has increased speculation it will instead build a bigger facility on defence land at Woomera that could also accommodate high-level waste from the AUKUS submarines.

More than two decades of work by successive governments to find a site to store low- and medium-level waste ended on Thursday when Resources Minister Madeleine King announced the government would not appeal last week’s Federal Court decision against the dump going ahead.

The court ruled on an action brought by the local Barngarla people, angering the Kimba community which had been bracing for the jobs and revenue the facility would have created.

……………………………………………. The dump was also opposed by the state Labor government.

Local Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey, who holds the federal seat of Grey, lashed Ms King and the government in parliament, calling the decision not to appeal as “cowardly, gutless and lacking moral fibre”.

Liberal Senate leader and SA senator Simon Birmingham concurred, especially as the Federal Court ruling was “very narrow” one……………………………………………………………….

[The dump] was not designed to store high-level waste such as the spent reactors from the nuclear-powered subs Australia will acquire and build under AUKUS.

Favoured location

Earlier this week, Defence Minister Richard Marles reaffirmed that the submarine waste would have to be stored on Defence Department land. The Australian Financial Review understands the favoured location is the Woomera rocket range in remote SA, although the selection process has yet to begin.

A high-level waste dump in Woomera would also store low and medium-level waste, ending the decades of conflict that have been caused by trying to choose such sites as Kimba.

In March, former Howard government minister Nick Minchin told the Financial Review that Mr Marles should cut to the chase and identify Woomera as the site for the high-level nuclear waste dump required under the AUKUS pact.

As industry and science minister between 1998 and 2001, the then Liberal senator for SA fought to establish a repository for low- and medium-level waste after initially choosing Woomera but being rebuffed by the Defence Department because of the stigma associated with nuclear waste.

This was despite tonnes of radioactive soil having been stored at Woomera in barrels for years.

“From my long experience of working on this issue, the Commonwealth would be well-advised putting it on Commonwealth land to avoid the states playing politics,” Mr Minchin said.

“Having previously assessed Woomera, it ticks all the boxes in terms of remoteness, stability and space.”……………………………………………..  https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/woomera-looms-as-national-nuclear-waste-dump-site-20230810-p5dvle

August 13, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

How will they explain themselves to their grandchildren?

August 11, 2023, by: Mark Buckley  https://theaimn.com/how-will-they-explain-t

It is hard to understand the stupidity of Australia’s political leaders when it comes to the climate catastrophe. It is a given that the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott will ignore the facts as they unfold, but even they must have noticed what’s going on.

Maybe the political class don’t watch television, or read newspapers, or have relatives living overseas, but the rest of us do.

Two years ago there were horrific floods in Germany and Belgium, in mid-July 2021, which killed more than 220 people. Damage was widespread and was seen as far away as the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. In Europe, in summer.

In Australia we know the lasting devastation of floods, and the impossibility of future proofing. The only solution is to re-build, if re-build you must, on higher ground.

Is a flood more real if it happens in Germany rather than in Lismore, or Shepparton? Are wildfires more devastating when they happen in Canada or Greece? Does total destruction of a town in Hawaii mean more than if it happens in Mallacoota?

Ask Matt Canavan why he chooses to ignore the facts of climate destruction in Australia. What does he think of the lack of sea ice in the Antarctic this year? Some scientists think the rise in sea levels, caused by the undermining of the ice in Antarctica, could range from between 2 metres to 10 metres.

Imagine the harm to our coastal cities if it comes in closer to 10 metres. Well, they won’t be there anymore, so it’s not difficult to imagine the damage. It won’t make it hard to get onto the West Gate Bridge, because the West Gate Bridge will be an abandoned arc of empty roadway, and what would be the use of driving to Geelong, because Geelong won’t be there anymore.

Kardinia Park will be an empty reservoir. But enough imagining, already. For our intellectually challenged leaders, the plight of our civilisation is at stake.

Droughts and bushfires will alternate with flooding rains, as the seasons change. Mass starvation will lead to mass migrations, from those lands most affected, to those less affected.

If you think living in the mountains, far away from the mass populations of cities, will make you safe from the changes in the climate, think again.

Towns in the Andes mountains in Peru have reached 38°C or more, while in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, temperatures above 30°C have been recorded; this month. It is winter there now.

Peter Dutton wants to fix the climate crisis with nuclear power. Does he know how long it takes to arrange for a nuclear power station to be approved, planned and built? Does he not own a clock, or a calendar?

On the government’s side of the ledger, more than 2,000 medical professionals have demanded that the Albanese government withdraw $1.5bn funding for the Middle Arm industrial development, in the Northern Territory.

The funding is a handout to assist the development of the huge Beetaloo Basin gas field. Labor is struggling to disguise the funding. Are votes in the short-term worth wrecking the climate?

We have been told that the earth is reaching, and in some cases, passing through “tipping points” for the climate.

It doesn’t take much imagination to recognise the utter failure of almost every government on earth to react to the crisis.

See the piss-ant state governments as they legislate to criminalise the actions of climate activists. Jailing them won’t achieve anything. It is as effective and as ridiculous as trying to stop the tide.

See how the so-called leaders of governments world-wide baulk at the difficult conversations they need to have with their citizens, to convince them that time has almost run out.

Believe it or not, but the scientists need to change their language, from calm reason to barely suppressed terror. We are facing Armageddon, and politicians are worried that people will either panic, or vote them out of power.

They need to get to the front. Show some leadership. Make change. Don’t worry about plans for fifty years in the future, your rubbish plans for nuclear subs and inland rail.

Worry about the end of civilisation as we know it. Worry about our children and their children. I don’t want my grandchildren starving because we had a leadership which valued the chance of a directorship with a gas company over the survival of humanity.

And the leaders of today need to know there is nowhere to hide if it all turns to manure. They were warned, and there is not a mountain high enough to escape to.

August 13, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Zelensky Fires All Military Enlistment Office Chiefs Over Corruption Allegations

DAILY WIRE, By  Zach Jewell, Aug 12, 2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Friday that he will dismiss every single head of the country’s regional military enlistment offices over allegations of abuse of power, fraud, and corruption. 

In a statement released by Zelensky’s office, the president said that a recent inspection of “military commissars” revealed that some of the military officials illegally obtained cash or cryptocurrency while others illegally transported people eligible for military service across the border. The inspection began in June after journalists uncovered that the former head of the Odesa Oblast military enlistment office purchased property in Spain worth $4.5 million, according to the Kyiv Independent. ………………….

In all, 112 criminal cases have been opened following the inspection of enlistment offices and 33 people have been charged. …………………….

The Ukrainian president said he will replace the fired commissars with officers who have experience on the battlefield. The replacements will be reviewed by the country’s Security Service. 

Earlier this year, Zelensky fired one of his top generals and numerous top officials were fired or resigned after they were hit with allegations of corruption. Many of the officials who were fired or resigned were accused of leaving the country and living lavish lifestyles while their country fought the Russian invaders.

Zelensky’s firing of the enlistment office chiefs comes as President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve more than $24 billion in aid to Ukraine as part of a $40 billion package. In the package, Biden asked for $20 billion more to go to Ukraine than he requested be used to address the ongoing border crisis, POLITICO reported. 

The U.S., which is by far the largest supporter of Ukraine’s war effort, has failed to track its shipments of weapons and military equipment to the European country, according to a report last month from the inspector general for the Department of Defense. After describing the inability of the U.S. to track all of the weapons it had sent to Ukraine, the report listed several examples of groups in the country obtaining military equipment for nefarious purposes, though the origin of the equipment remained unclear as the report was heavily redacted.

Americans are becoming increasingly wary of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war with a majority of voters now saying they oppose more funding for Ukraine, according to a recent CNN poll. Biden, however, has repeatedly said that the U.S. will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

August 13, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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