Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations

Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, Mon, 19 Sep 2022 

The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, last week instructed the military commands that engage in psychological operations online to provide a full accounting of their activities by next month after the White House and some federal agencies expressed mounting concerns over the Defense Department’s attempted manipulation of audiences overseas, according to several defense and administration officials familiar with the matter.

The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

The researchers did not specify when the takedowns occurred, but those familiar with the matter said they were within the past two or three years. Some were recent, they said, and involved posts from the summer that advanced anti-Russia narratives citing the Kremlin’s “imperialist” war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict’s direct impact on Central Asian countries. Significantly, they found that the pretend personas — employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China — did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers.

…………………………. The U.S. government’s use of ersatz social media accounts, though authorized by law and policy, has stirred controversy inside the Biden administration, with the White House pressing the Pentagon to clarify and justify its policies. The White House, agencies such as the State Department and even some officials within the Defense Department have been concerned that the policies are too broad, allowing leeway for tactics that even if used to spread truthful information, risk eroding U.S. credibility, several U.S. officials said.

…………. ..A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, declined to comment.

Kahl disclosed his review at a virtual meeting convened by the National Security Council on Tuesday, saying he wants to know what types of operations have been carried out, who they’re targeting, what tools are being used and why military commanders have chosen those tactics, and how effective they have been, several officials said.

…………………… Congress in late 2019 passed a law affirming that the military could conduct operations in the “information environment” 

……The measure, known as Section 1631, allows the military to carry out clandestine psychological operations without crossing what the CIA has claimed as its covert authority, alleviating some of the friction that had hindered such operations previously.

The first defense official recalled:

“Combatant commanders got really excited. They were very eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.”

…………………………………  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter/

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nukes Are Our Corporate Death Wish…the Sun is the People’s Cure

replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.

The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?

Christina Macpherson <christinamacpherson@gmail.com>	7:56 AM (0 minutes ago)
to me

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/21/nukes-are-our-corporate-death-wishthe-sun-is-the-peoples-cure/ BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 21 Sept22,

Humankind’s ultimate extinction is now flowing through an atomic death spiral.

A single errant shell at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia…a single seismic shock at California’s Diablo Canyon…can bury us all in apocalyptic radiation.

The eruptions already stretch from Kyshtym, Iron Mike, Castle Bravo, Windscale, SL-1, Chalk River, Santa Susanna, Fermi I, Perry, Davis-Besse, North Anna, Tokaimura, Three Mile Island, Church Rock, Surry, Chernobyl, Vandellòs, Sosnovy Bor, WIPP, Fukushima, Fort Calhoun to South Texas and too many more.

It’s been clear since 1945 that A-Bombs can extinct the human race. Commercial reactors supply them with fissionable material and a work force.

Burning alongside thousands of nuclear warheads there are 400+ commercial reactors worldwide…decrepit, decayed, expensive, under-maintained, unstable and uninsured (except by token taxpayer funds). Six in Ukraine currently tremble in a war zone.

The average age of the 92 nukes in the US is nearly 40. The 1000+-square-mile dead zone around Chernobyl could be easily duplicated by any nuke. Just superimpose a similar lethal wound anywhere on a US map and calculate the damage.

But it’s a double-sided apocalypse.

Bombs & reactors can obliterate the human species with both explosive bangs and the agonized whimpers of radioactive murder.

But replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.

Cheaper, cleaner, safer, more reliable, more job-producing democratized green energy stands to obliterate the monetary and political death grip King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) has on our species’ throat.

The decentralized, community-controlled green vision is as terrifying to global energy barons as is biological extinction to the rest of us. And thus the atomic hucksters somehow try to convince us their apocalyptic reactors are “clean, green, carbon-free,” you name it.

The scam’s cutting edge is now in California, where would-be president Gavin Newson is pushing nuclear power while conspiring to kill renewables.

At the End Time vortex is Diablo Canyon.

For more than a half-century, plus grassroots citizens have fought two atomic power reactors on the central California coast, eight miles west of San Luis Obispo.

Unit One’s first components arrived on site in pre-digital 1967. By 1984-5, when the hardware was already obsolete, more than 10,000 citizens (including me) were arrested there.

As Jerry Brown’s greening Golden State has welcomed more than 17,000 wind turbines, 1.4+ million rooftop solar installations and massive advances in battery and LED/efficiency technologies now dwarf the output from the state’s one remaining nuke plant.

Some 1500 Californians now work at Diablo; over 70,000 work in renewables, batteries and efficiency. Shutting Diablo and replacing it with real green power would add thousands of jobs to the state’s energy mix.

Early on Pacific Gas & Electric vehemently denied that there were any active earthquake faults threatening Diablo. They refused to allow experts who said otherwise to testify in official hearings. They also refused to build in the safeguards required to withstand certain levels of seismic shaking.

But then in 1973 the company admitted that they knew about an active earthquake fault—-the Hosgri—-sitting just three miles from the reactor cores. Just 45 miles from the San Andreas, a dozen more fault lines intertwine near the core. Dr. Michael Peck, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s site inspector for five years, warned in 2014 a likely quake could shake Diablo to rubble.

But the NRC has refused to force PG&E to physically upgrade the facility. Instead a series of “waivers” let Diablo run where any number of fault lines could rattle it—-and millions of us downwind—-to outright oblivion.

The NRC has long since admitted that Unit One is seriously embrittled. It’s well-known throughout the industry that the steel cylinder containing its super-hot core reaction will shatter in a melt-down. Explosive radioactive death clouds will then pour into Los Angeles, the Central Valley and/or Bay Area….and into the jet-stream and around the globe, doing terminal damage to the human species.

Diablo has not recently—-if ever—-been independently inspected. It has no private insurance. There are no public evacuation plans for California’s major population centers.

In 2016-8, then-Governor Brown and now-Governor Newsom helped plan Diablo’s closure. Local citizens, elected officials, unions, regulators, environmental groups and more mapped out an orderly shut-down.

As a result, workers are being compensated, with some retiring, some staying for decommissioning, the younger ones being retrained to work in the booming renewable industry.

As a reward for not meeting legal safety and ecological requirements, PG&E has ducked a wide range of upgrades and maintenance The plant has been set to operate through the expiration of Unit One’s NRC license in 2024, then Unit Two’s in 2025. Its owner has been allowed to ignore routine upkeep, becoming more dangerous by the day.

Hot radioactive water still pours into ocean, killing billions of marine creatures. There remains just barely enough on-site space to accommodate the ensuing spent fuel through 2024-5. Managing more is an epic unknown, requiring at very least exceedingly dangerous manipulations of what’s already in the fuel pools, along with untenable expansions of the dry casks and concrete pads on the site.

The venerable Mothers for Peace—and thousands more—-want Diablo to immediately shut.

The nukes’ 2400 megawatts are already fading below a well-planned, cleanly executed symphony of solar panels, wind farms, batteries and LED/efficiency. Massive off-shore wind turbines will soon send mega-juice pouring into Diablo’s switching stations.

By public consensus the 2016 phase-out plan embodies as rational and well-calculated a transition as the human species could concoct…a model for winding down the other 90+ American reactors, and maybe even the 400+ worldwide. It offers a sustainable green escape from the obscene financial and ecological failures of atomic power to the proven reliability of a Solartopian future.

Which has pitched King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) into a Luddite state of terminal atomic panic.

The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?

With this giant hole poked into the obsolete energy Luddites’ Maginot line, what will happen to the trillions of dollars still sunk in the old ways of scorching the Earth? What will trillions of kilowatts of Solartopian electricity pouring into the grid do to the future of fossil/nuclear fuels?

The industry does not want to know—-and it does not want YOU to know.

Wind, solar, batteries and efficiency already sustain much of California’s and the nation’s grid, now commonly providing the flexible, reliable, low-cost, zero-aaron essential power needed to avoid blackouts, unsustainable rate hikes and lethal climate chaos.

First and foremost, King CONG’s anti-green blitzkrieg disrupts supply chains and assaults rooftop solar with taxes and regulations designed to kill it. Endless genuflections to the dead bird each big turbine kills per year accompany the assault. So do rightful worries over mining of lithium and cobalt, major polluters in regions with bad labor practices.

But these are solvable, non-plutonium-based problems in comparison with mining, milling and enriching uranium while failing to manage its wastes.

No windmill ever killed a fish, but nukes kill billions of marine creatures every day.

Every reactor burns at roughly 570 degrees Fahrenheit, spewing radiation, carbon 14 and lethal pollutants into the eco-sphere. Massive quantities of carbon pour from mining, milling, enrichment and disposal. All reactors and fuel pools can explode at any time.

The Trumpian Big Lie is that these ancient, uninsured instruments of mass extinction are somehow “emission and carbon free.”

So Newsom has strong-armed California’s legislature to trash Diablo’s shut-down deal and hand PG&E $1.4 billion to operate til the next quake blows the place apart.

With utility and fossil/nuke money in his presidential war chest, Newsom is poised to pursue the White House against a hard-right Ron DeSantis who actually vetoed solar taxes like the ones Newsom is pushing.

Polls in both Florida and California show 80% support for renewables. Fierce campaigns now rage against Diablo’s extension and Newsom’s attempt to kill rooftop solar.

The Governor now has the radioactive winds to his back.

But as fossil/nukes scorch the planet, and as their apocalyptic clouds pour over our biggest cities, and as their over-the-top inefficiencies bankrupt our economy, what will be left for his corrupt, cynical ilk to govern?

Harvey Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth. His Green Power & Wellness Show is at www.prn.fm. 

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Small modular reactors: What is taking so long?

Next-generation nuclear has long been just around the corner, but debate still rages over the silver-bullet credentials of small modular reactors.

By Oliver Gordon The growing urgency of the climate crisis and, more recently, the energy crisis has reawakened global interest in nuclear energy. Even the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk have waded into the debate to petition for a more prominent role for nuclear power in the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, there is much expectation surrounding the development of small modular reactors (SMRs), a new generation of nuclear reactors that are being marketed as the solution to all of nuclear power’s previous shortcomings.

To that end, there is much expectation surrounding the development of small
modular reactors (SMRs), a new generation of nuclear reactors that are
being marketed as the solution to all of nuclear power’s previous
shortcomings.

In fact, SMRs are not forecast to hit the commercial market
before 2030, and although SMRs are expected to have lower up-front capital
costs per reactor, their economic competitiveness is still to be proven in
practice once they are deployed at scale.

Nuclear reactors are extremely
complex systems that must comply with stringent safety requirements, taking
into account a wide variety of accident scenarios. The licensing process is
extensive and country-dependent, implying some standardisation will be
required for SMRs to properly take off.

However – beyond the perennial
oscillation of public acceptance of nuclear energy – there are still a
variety of challenges SMR technology needs to overcome before it can reach
commercial deployment. “The hardest is economics,” says M V Ramana, the
Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of
Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia,
Canada, and author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in
India. “Nuclear energy is an expensive way to generate electricity.”

 Energy Monitor (accessed) 21st Sept 2022
 https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/power/small-modular-reactors-smrs-what-is-taking-so-long

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry Beating Retreat at Bradwell?

 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/beating-retreat-at-bradwell/ 21 Sept 22, Recent news received by the Nuclear Free Local Authorities from an Essex resident appears to indicate that the development of a new Chinese-backed nuclear power plant at Bradwell-on-Sea is at a halt.

Like Operation Sealion before it, this unwanted foreign invasion of Southern England seems also to have been indefinitely postponed.

The Bradwell B power station project has been led by majority shareholder, the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), a Chinese-state owned energy corporation, with junior partners, French-state owned EDF Energy. CGN owned 66.5% of the equity and EDF Energy the rest. CGN had proposed to install two of its own UK HPR1000 reactors designed specifically for the plant, and the design received approval from the Office of Nuclear Regulation only in February 2022.

However, even before then, things were turning sour for the project. UK – China relations have been on a downward track for many months and Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith described Chinese investors as ‘not trusted vendors’ in Parliament. Giving substance to this sentiment, the Conservative Government passed the National Security and Investment Act, which entered into force in January 2022. This allows Whitehall ‘to intervene in certain acquisitions that could harm the UK’s national security’ such as civil nuclear power plants, and Ministers have frequently talked openly about their determination to terminate Chinese involvement in the Bradwell project.

Householders have now received letters that appear to indicate that the Bradwell B project team is indeed making a withdrawal from the site. Workers will soon be returning to fill in the exploratory boreholes they dug from 2018 to 2020 to conduct ‘early investigative surveys’ into ground conditions. Restorative work will take place from mid-September to make land available once more to enable local farmers to grow crops. And there is news that the project team will be ‘closing the current site compound’ and ‘removing the temporary site offices’ ‘by the end of the year’. Furthermore, there are no plans to ‘conduct further temporary ground investigation and load testing works’, for which planning approval has been granted, in 2023.

Commenting Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, said: “We do not know for certain if the Bradwell B project is finally dead and buried, but the fact that the project team is beating retreat from the site is a clear indication that no work will progress for the foreseeable future.

“Clearly Chinese involvement, which includes the bulk of the equity investment and the employment of a reactor specifically designed for this project, is as dead as the Dodo! It is unlikely that EDF Energy, which is already tens of billions of Euros in debt, will want to take on any further financial liability given its existing heavy involvement in both the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C nuclear power projects, and frankly the appetite of most private investors to back new nuclear projects is almost nil”.

For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email on richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or telephone 07583 097793

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘A huge victory’: Traditional owners win court challenge against $4.7b Santos gas project

‘A huge victory’: Traditional owners win court challenge against $4.7b Santos gas project

A federal court judge has upheld a challenge brought by Munupi clan elders who said they were not properly consulted before the project was approved.

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Consumers reap rewards of 100 pct renewables as wind and solar farms hand back windfall profits — RenewEconomy

One region in Australia is being shielded from soaring electricity costs because the wind and solar farms that supply it are returning their windfall profits to consumers. The post Consumers reap rewards of 100 pct renewables as wind and solar farms hand back windfall profits appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Consumers reap rewards of 100 pct renewables as wind and solar farms hand back windfall profits — RenewEconomy

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Solar is “pure gold” to Queenslanders, but governments are missing the opportunity — RenewEconomy

Rows and rows of solar rooftops show where Queenslanders stands on clean energy, it’s now up to governments to help it become a clean manufacturing powerhouse. The post Solar is “pure gold” to Queenslanders, but governments are missing the opportunity appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Solar is “pure gold” to Queenslanders, but governments are missing the opportunity — RenewEconomy

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

September 21 Energy News — geoharvey

Science and Technology: ¶ “How India’s Lattice Buildings Cool Without Air Con” • India’s architecture once featured intricate lattice structures. Cut from marble or red sandstone in ornamental patterns, jaali was an architectural feature in India between the 16th and 18th Century. Now, modern architects search for better ways to keep buildings cool, and the […]

September 21 Energy News — geoharvey

September 22, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear-news.net seems to be up and running again

If so – this website will revert to being principally about Australian news – but we’re not quite sure yet – watch this space.

September 21, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Is Zaporizhzhia safer now?

What is “cold shutdown”? And what about the fuel pools?

Cold shutdown reduces risk of disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – but combat around spent fuel still poses a threat

By Najmedin Meshkati, University of Southern California

Is Zaporizhzhia safer now? — Beyond Nuclear International Energoatom, operator of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, announced on Sept. 11, 2022, that it was shutting down the last operating reactor of the plant’s six reactors, reactor No. 6. The operators have put the reactor in cold shutdown to minimize the risk of a radiation leak from combat in the area around the nuclear power plant.
The Conversation asked Najmedin Meshkati, a professor and nuclear safety expert at the University of Southern California, to explain cold shutdown, what it means for the safety of the nuclear power plant, and the ongoing risks to the plant’s spent fuel, which is uranium that has been largely but not completely depleted by the fission reaction that drives nuclear power plants.

What does it mean to have a nuclear reactor in cold shutdown?

The fission reaction that generates heat in a nuclear power plant is produced by positioning a number of uranium fuel rods in close proximity. Shutting down a nuclear reactor involves inserting control rods between the fuel rods to stop the fission reaction.

The reactor is then in cooldown mode as the temperature decreases. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, once the temperature is below 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 Celsius) and the reactor coolant system is at atmospheric pressure, the reactor is in cold shutdown.

When the reactor is operating, it requires cooling to absorb the heat and keep the fuel rods from melting together, which would set off a catastrophic chain reaction. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, it no longer needs the same level of circulation. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant uses pressurized water reactors.

How does being in cold shutdown improve the plant’s safety?

The shutdown has removed a huge element of risk. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is a pressurized water reactor. These reactors need constant cooling, and the cooling pumps are gigantic, powerful, electricity-guzzling machines.

Cold shutdown is the state in which you do not need to constantly run the primary cooling pumps at the same level to circulate the cooling water in the primary cooling loop. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that reactor No. 6 is now in a cold shutdown state like the facility’s five other reactors, and will require less power for cooling. Now, at least if the plant loses offsite power, the operators won’t have to worry about cooling an operating reactor with cranky diesel generators.

And by shutting down reactor No. 6, the plant operators can be relieved of a considerable amount of their workload monitoring the reactors amid the ongoing uncertainties around the site. This substantially reduced the potential for human error.

The operators’ jobs are likely to be much less demanding and stressful now than before. However, they still need to constantly monitor the status of the shutdown reactors and the spent fuel pools.

What are the risks from the spent fuel at the plant?

The plant still needs a reliable source of electricity to cool the six huge spent fuel pools that are inside the containment structures and to remove residual heat from the shutdown reactors. The cooling pumps for the spent fuel pools need much less electricity than the cooling pumps on the reactor’s primary and secondary loops, and the spent fuel cooling system could tolerate a brief electricity outage.

One more important factor is that the spent fuel storage racks in the spent fuel pools at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant were compacted to increase capacity, according to a 2017 Ukrainian government report to the IAEA. The greater number and more compacted the stored spent fuel rods, the more heat they generate and so more power is needed to cool them.

There is also a dry spent fuel storage facility at the plant. Dry spent fuel storage involves packing spent fuel rods into massive cylinders, or casks, which require no water or other coolants. The casks are designed to keep the fuel rods contained for at least 50 years. However, the casks are not under the containment structures at the plant, and, though they were designed to withstand being crashed into by an airliner, it’s not clear whether artillery shelling and aerial bombardment, particularly repeated attacks, could crack open the casks and release radiation into the grounds of the plant.

The closest analogy to this scenario could be a terrorist attack that, according to a seminal study by the National Research Council, could breach a dry cask and potentially result in the release of radioactive material from the spent fuel. This could happen through the dispersion of fuel particles or fragments or the dispersion of radioactive aerosols. This would be similar to the detonation of a “dirty bomb,” which, depending on wind direction and dispersion radius, could result in radioactive contamination. This in turn could cause serious problems for access to and work in the plant.

Next steps from the IAEA and UN

The IAEA has called on Russia and Ukraine to set up a “safety and security protection zone” around the plant. However, the IAEA is a science and engineering inspectorate and technical assistance agency. Negotiating and establishing a protection zone at a nuclear power plant in a war zone is entirely unprecedented and totally different from all past IAEA efforts.

Establishing a protection zone requires negotiations and approvals at the highest political and military levels in Kyiv and Moscow. It could be accomplished through backchannel, Track II-type diplomacy, specifically nuclear safety-focused engineering diplomacy. In the meantime, the IAEA needs strong support from the United Nations Security Council in the form of a resolution, mandate or the creation of a special commission.

Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California

September 19, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

U.S. military leaders are reluctant to provide longer-range missiles to Ukraine

Senior U.S. military leaders have advised the White House against sending longer-range missiles to Ukraine over fears it could provoke a wider war with Russia, officials said

NBC News , By Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce, 17 Sept 22

The Biden administration has held off on a request from Ukraine to provide longer-range missiles over fears it could provoke a dangerous response from Russia, with senior Pentagon officials opposed to the idea, according to two military officials.

Defense officials who have advised against supplying Ukraine with the longer-range missiles, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs), have voiced concerns that the missiles could be used against targets inside Russian territory and potentially set off a wider war with Russia, the officials told NBC News.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday warned the United States against providing such a weapon to Ukraine, calling it a “red line.”

“If Washington decides to supply longer-range missiles to Kyiv, then it will be crossing a red line, and will become a direct party to the conflict,” Zakharova said. 

The Biden administration on Thursday announced another major package of military assistance for Ukraine worth $600 million, including artillery rounds, mines and more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). But the aid does not include the ATACMs, which have a longer range than the artillery and rocket systems delivered to Ukraine so far.

A number of lawmakers from both parties support Ukraine’s request for the missiles, which have a range of up to 300 kilometers, or about 185 miles. But the Biden administration said last month that Ukraine does not need the longer-range ATACMs, saying that other shorter-range rockets and missiles have proved effective against Russian forces.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that “we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia,” though he did not specify whether Washington had ruled out certain weapons………………….
 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-military-leaders-are-reluctant-provide-longer-range-missiles-ukrain-rcna48072

September 19, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New research on how nuclear war would affect Earth today – it won’t matter who is bombing whom

Kelly Kizer Whitt, 18 Sept 22,

A nuclear war would devastate our oceans and our world, with some effects lasting thousands of years. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Cheryl Harrison at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She said in a statement:

It doesn’t matter who is bombing whom. It can be India and Pakistan or NATO and Russia. Once the smoke is released into the upper atmosphere, it spreads globally and affects everyone.

These scientists’ simulations showed that it doesn’t matter whether the detonation of a nuclear arsenal came through a deliberate act of war, or through accident or hacking Their statement explained:

In all of the researchers’ simulated scenarios, nuclear firestorms would release soot and smoke into the upper atmosphere that would block out the sun, resulting in crop failure around the world. In the first month following nuclear detonation, average global temperatures would plunge by about 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees C), a larger temperature change than in the last Ice Age.

Ocean temperatures would drop quickly and would not return to their pre-war state even after the smoke clears. As the planet gets colder, sea ice expands by more than 6 million square miles and 6 feet deep in some basins blocking major ports including Beijing’s Port of Tianjin, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. The sea ice would spread into normally ice-free coastal regions blocking shipping across the Northern Hemisphere making it difficult to get food and supplies into some cities such as Shanghai, where ships are not prepared to face sea ice.

The sudden drop in light and ocean temperatures, especially from the Arctic to the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans, would kill the marine algae, which is the foundation of the marine food web, essentially creating a famine in the ocean. This would halt most fishing and aquaculture.

The scientists published their study in the peer-reviewed journal AGU Advances on July 7, 2022.

Where are the nuclear weapons?

Nine nations control more than 13,000 nuclear weapons on Earth, these scientists said. According to worldpopulationreview.com, the top three countries with nuclear weapons include Russia with 6,257, the United States with 5,550 and China with 350. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) aims to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reaches for disarmament.

In their study, the researchers simulated what would happen if the U.S. and Russia used 4,400 100-kiloton nuclear weapons. This would result in fires that would put more than 330 billion pounds of smoke and sunlight-absorbing black carbon into the upper atmosphere.

In another simulation, they imagined India and Pakistan detonating about 500 100-kiloton nuclear weapons. This would inject 11 to 103 billion pounds of smoke and soot into the upper atmosphere.

In all the simulations, the result was essentially the same.

The effect on marine life

With a blackened sky from the nuclear firestorm, oceans would receive less light and heat. This is especially true from the Arctic to the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Marine algae (seaweed), the base of the ocean’s food web, would die. Thus, a chain reaction would follow, creating a famine in the ocean. Fishing and aquaculture would mostly come to an end. So marine life suffers from both the initial blast and the resulting new ocean conditions.

Ocean waters would take longer to recover than on land. The changes to Arctic sea ice alone would probably last thousands of years, ushering in what the scientists called a Nuclear Little Ice Age.

Events other than nuclear war with similar results

Nuclear war isn’t the only event that could lead to these results of devastation in the ocean and on land. Massive wildfires and volcanic eruptions could eject enough soot into the atmosphere for similar results. Massive volcanic eruptions in the past have even caused multiple mass extinction events on Earth. Harrison said:

We can avoid nuclear war, but volcanic eruptions are definitely going to happen again. There’s nothing we can do about it, so it’s important when we’re talking about resilience and how to design our society, that we consider what we need to do to prepare for unavoidable climate shocks. We can and must, however, do everything we can to avoid nuclear war. The effects are too likely to be globally catastrophic.

September 18, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sendai and Genkai nuclear power stations in the path of powerful Typhoon Nanmadol

Strong Typhoon Nanmadol feared to hit southwest Japan’s Kyushu on Sept. 18

Close to Sendai and Genkai nuclear power stations

Record-breaking rainfall+violent winds – peak gusts at 270kph

FUKUOKA  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220917/p2a/00m/0na/010000c

Large and powerful Typhoon Nanmadol is predicted to approach southwestern Japan’s Kyushu region and make landfall there between Sept. 18 and 19.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the 14th typhoon of the year was moving northwestward at a speed of about 20 kilometers per hour over the sea some 190 kilometers east of Minamidaito Island at 9 a.m. on Sept. 17. The tropical storm had a central atmospheric pressure of 910 hectopascals. The maximum sustained wind speed near its center was 198 kph, with peak gusts at 270 kph. Violent winds at a speed of 90 kph or more were recorded within a 185-km radius on the east and a 150-km radius on the west of the storm’s center.

Many parts of Japan may be affected by the typhoon for extended periods of time as it is moving slowly while maintaining its strength. It is feared that the storm could cause record-breaking rainfall and violent winds through Sept. 19, the last day of the three-day weekend, primarily in west Japan and along the Pacific coast of east Japan. The JMA is calling on people to refrain from unnecessary outings.

(Japanese original by Azusa Yamazaki, Kyushu News Department)

September 17, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment