72 Minutes Until the End of the World?
Carl Sagan’s conclusion is that the enemy is not a foreign nation, it’s the weapons themselves.
The generals that I refer to in that section on the SIOP [Strategic Integrated Operational Plan, the 1960s-era plan for general nuclear war] believed they could fight and win nuclear war, even if it meant killing 600 million people across the globe. That is insane. No one would argue that now.
A new book lays out the frighteningly fast path to nuclear Armageddon.
By KATHY GILSINAN, 04/29/2024 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/29/the-frighteningly-fast-path-to-nuclear-armageddon-00154591
Nuclear war would be bad. Everyone knows this. Most people would probably rather not think through the specifics. But Annie Jacobsen, an author of seven books on sensitive national security topics, wants you to know exactly how bad it would be. Her new book Nuclear War: A Scenario, sketches out a global nuclear war with by-the-minute precision for all of the 72 minutes between the first missile launch and the end of the world. It’s already a bestseller.
It goes without saying that the scenario is fictional, but it is a journalistic work in that the scenario is constructed from dozens of interviews and documentation, some of it newly declassified, as a factual grounding to describe what could happen.
That’s this, in Jacobsen’s telling: A North Korean leader launches an intercontinental ballistic missile at the Pentagon, and then a submarine-launched ballistic missile at a nuclear reactor in California, for reasons beyond the scope of the book except to illustrate what one “mad king” with nuclear weapons could do. A harried president has a mere six minutes to decide on a response, while also being evacuated from the White House and pressured by the military to launch America’s own ICBMs at all 82 North Korean targets relevant to the nation’s nuclear and military forces and leadership. These missiles must fly over Russia, whose leaders spot them, assume their country is under attack (the respective presidents can’t get one another on the phone), and send a salvo back in the other direction, and so on until 72 minutes later three nuclear-armed states have managed to kill billions of people, with the remainder left starving on a poisoned Earth where the sun no longer shines and food no longer grows.
Some scholars, particularly among those who favor large nuclear arsenals as the best deterrent to being attacked with such weapons ourselves, have criticized some of Jacobsen’s assumptions. The U.S. wouldn’t have to court Russian miscalculation by overflying Russia with ICBMs when it has submarine-launched ballistic missiles in the Pacific. Public sources indicate that the president’s six-minute response window is still about in line with what Ronald Reagan noted with dismay in his memoirs. But that assumes he’s boxed into a “launch on warning” policy, something Jacobsen’s sources characterize as a constraint to move before enemy missiles actually strike, but which government policy documents insist is merely an option and not a mandate. (The president could also just decide, contra the deterrence touchstone of “mutual assured destruction,” not to nuke anybody at all in response.)
The book arrives at a time when the countries with the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, the U.S. and Russia, are violently at odds in Ukraine, a Russian state TV host is calling a Russia/NATO conflict “inevitable,” and the Council on Foreign Relations is gaming out scenarios in case the Russians use tactical nukes in Ukraine. Oh, and Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than ever before. It’s a fair time to ask Jacobsen’s central question — what if deterrence fails? Even if we’d rather not think about it.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Kathy Gilsinan: The book starts with two missiles out of North Korea and ends with essentially the end of the world 72 minutes later. And the subtitle calls this “a scenario.” Is it a realistic scenario?
Annie Jacobsen: The scenario I chose was pieced together from interviews I did with 46 on-the-record sources and dozens of sources on background, and I ran by them various scenarios to come up with the most plausible scenario that unfolds once it begins. And this is what I came up with. And so far, I haven’t had anyone who actually runs these scenarios for NORAD take issue with the choices that I’ve made and the way in which the decision trees unfold, which makes it all the more frightening.
Gilsinan: Can you walk me through why it would be inevitable that the North Koreans hit us with two and we hit them back with 80?
Jacobsen: Let’s look at the words of General [John] Hyten, former STRATCOM commander, when he did an interview with CNN during former President Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric days. And General Hyten said on the record, in a rather “don’t you dare” way, speaking almost directly to North Korea: “If somebody launches a nuclear weapon against us, we launch one back. They launch two, we launch two.”
To drill down a little bit further on that I looked to Dr. Bruce Blair, a former missileer himself. Now he’s deceased, but he became one of the world’s experts on nuclear command and control systems and authority. And he explained in a monograph I cite in the book that it’s far more likely that if North Korea hit the United with one missile, America would send 82 in return. [The monograph, written under the auspices of the anti-nuclear group Global Zero, points to about 80 “aimpoints” relevant to North Korea’s nuclear and other military forces as well as its leadership, but also notes that “graduated and flexible strikes” would be possible. Jacobsen says she relied on other sources to support the assumption the U.S. would attack all the targets.] Everything I did, I linked to an open-source scenario that had been thought through by experts who have dedicated their intellectual prowess to these issues for decades.
Gilsinan: In this scenario, the U.S. responds with ICBMs that have to fly over Russia, with predictable consequences. Why, according to the folks you’ve spoken to, would we risk flying missiles over a nuclear power if we could use submarine-launched missiles from the Pacific Ocean?
Jacobsen: I asked that same question to numerous people, and the most powerful answer came from former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta himself: “There’s not a lot of thought given to who the hell else may be thinking about doing what … at a time like this.”
Gilsinan: Maybe this is the point of the book. I would like very much to believe that STRATCOM is smarter than me and has thought this through ahead of time.
Jacobsen: Part of the terrifying truth about nuclear war, or if a nuclear exchange were to unfold, is the insane time clock that was put on everything from the moment nuclear launch is detected. This is fact. And so is the fact that the president has only six minutes, that’s the rough time to make this decision. And in that time, the Black Book gets opened; he must make a choice from a counterattack list of choices inside the Black Book. Those choices have been thought through for multiple scenarios, but you can’t possibly take into consideration every contingency in real time, which makes so clear to readers exactly how insane the truth is about the unfolding of the scenario. And the unpredictability of it. And for example, one of the few people that actually read the contents of the Black Book and spoke to me about it in general terms so as not to violate security clearances is Ted Postol [a former assistant to the chief of naval operations]. He’s the one who said to me that every decision was a bad decision.
Gilsinan: Why do we think it’s six minutes specifically? I know that’s in Reagan’s memoirs, but why do we think that is still the case?
Continue readingWhy Iran may accelerate its nuclear program, and Israel may be tempted to attack it
Bulletin, By Darya Dolzikova, Matthew Savill | April 26, 2024
On April 19, Israel carried out a strike deep inside Iranian territory, near the city of Isfahan. The attack was apparently in retaliation for a major Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel a few days earlier. This exchange between the two countries—which have historically avoided directly targeting each other’s territories—has raised fears of a potentially serious military escalation in the region.
Israel’s strike was carried out against an Iranian military site located in close proximity to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, which hosts nuclear research reactors, a uranium conversion plant, and a fuel production plant, among other facilities. Although the attack did not target Iran’s nuclear facilities directly, earlier reports suggested that Israel was considering such attacks. The Iranian leadership has, in turn, threatened to reconsider its nuclear policy and to advance its program should nuclear sites be attacked.
These events highlight the threat from regional escalation dynamics posed by Iran’s near-threshold nuclear capability, which grants Iran the perception of a certain degree of deterrence—at least against direct US retaliation—while also serving as an understandably tempting target for Israeli attack. As tensions between Israel and Iran have moved away from their traditional proxy nature and manifested as direct strikes against each other’s territories, the urgency of finding a timely and non-military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue has increased.
A tempting target. While the current assessment is that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic maintains a very advanced nuclear program, allowing it to develop a nuclear weapons capability relatively rapidly, should it decide to do so. Iran’s “near-threshold” capability did not deter Israel from undertaking its recent attack. But Iran’s nuclear program is a tempting target for an attack that could have potentially destabilizing ramification: The program is advanced enough to pose a credible risk of rapid weaponization and at a stage when it could still be significantly degraded, albeit at an extremely high cost.
Iran views its nuclear program as a deterrent against direct US strikes on or invasion of its territory, acting as an insurance policy of sorts against invasion following erroneous Western accusations over its nuclear program, ala Iraq in 2003. That’s to say, during an attempted invasion, Iran could quickly produce nuclear weapons……………………………
Israel sees the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat and has long sought its elimination. For this reason, reports that Israel might have been preparing to target Iranian nuclear sites as retaliation for Iran’s strikes against its territory came as little surprise……………………………………………………………………….
A range of bad options. The possibility of Iranian weaponization and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites could lead to a serious escalation spiral and, potentially, a wider military conflict in the region……………………………………………………………
Following past instances of Israeli sabotage against the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran has doubled down—rebuilding damaged sites, hardening facilities, and ramping up its nuclear activity. The same is likely to be true should Iranian facilities be targeted directly this time, only to a greater degree. The shift from a proxy conflict between Iran and Israel to a direct engagement will only increase the value Iran places on its nuclear program as a deterrent against further direct attack on its territory and US military intervention. Should Iran assess that its regional proxies and its missile and drone capabilities have been insufficient to deter Israel from conducting direct strikes against its strategically significant nuclear program, Tehran may see the actual weaponization of its nuclear program as the only option left that can guarantee the security of the Iranian regime……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://thebulletin.org/2024/04/why-iran-may-accelerate-its-nuclear-program-and-israel-may-be-tempted-to-attack-it/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter04292024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_IranNuclearProgramIsrael_04262024
Biden’s pledge to aid Palestinians is a big, murderous lie
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 29 Apr 24
President Biden claims to be supporting food, water and medical aid to Palestinians now dying in Gaza from disease, starvation as well as being blown to bits by Biden’s 2000 lb. bombs.
But he knows full well Israel is violation his February 8th directive requiring assurances from Israel that it’s not using U.S. military aid to violate human rights law. Israel’s ongoing genocide of 2,300,000 Palestinians there puts Israel about as far from required compliance with Biden’s edict as the two sides of the Grand Canyon.
Biden’s February 8th directive states that Israel “will facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
But Israel is not only blocking most aid from alleviating starvation and disease in Gaza, It’s using Biden’s bombs to attack Palestinian and foreign humanitarian workers from delivering that aid. When it comes to impeding, Israel know what works. Its already killed one American aid worker.
Biden knows this but maintains the fantasy, sadly swallowed whole by many of his reelection supporters, that he’s doing ‘everything he can to aid the staving, disease ridden Palestinians.’
’ Truth is he’s doing everything he can to enable Israel’s grotesque removal of the Palestinians from their Gaza land coveted by Israel.
He’s even conspiring with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to derail the impending indictment of Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court. The indictment is expected this week unless the Netanyahu-Biden genocide tag team can prevent it.
President Biden has bigger problems that losing tens of millions of his 2020 voters, sealing his reelection defeat, by his enabling of Israeli genocide. He may end up a fellow indicted war criminal with Benjamin Netanyahu in the dock at The Hague.
The conservative charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy
Dutton and O’Brien are also brazenly using the AUKUS defence agreement to bolster the case for civilian nuclear power reactors. Under AUKUS, Australia will get submarines powered by small nuclear reactors. As part of the agreement, signed by the Albanese government, Australia is responsible for disposing of the nuclear waste from the subs. That means Australia will be obliged to develop a responsible nuclear waste system. The nuclear lobby hopes this will help overcome popular resistance to a civilian nuclear waste dump in Australia.
Dutton’s nuclear power plants . The conservative charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy
By Marian Wilkinson, The Monthly, May 24
Five charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy
When Lesley Hughes agreed to lead a nocturnal wildlife tour at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo in August last year, she didn’t quite realise what she was letting herself in for. As the distinguished professor of biology explained the perils facing the animal kingdom from climate change, a disparate group of movers and shakers nodded with polite enthusiasm – among them, National Party leader David Littleproud, Liberal Party climate and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, and Larry Anthony, the head of a lobbying firm known for pushing fossil fuel clients.
This was not the professor’s natural milieu, but, like many of the guests at the splendid harbourside function centre that wintry evening, Hughes was there to win hearts and minds in the fight to save the planet. It was the opening night of the International Climate Conference hosted by the Coalition for Conservation, an enterprising conservative charity with deep roots in the Liberal and National parties. One of its aims is to reach out to environmentalists, renewable energy experts and climate scientists to garner support for Coalition members backing the goal of getting Australia to net zero emissions.
C4C, as it’s known, had gathered an impressive line-up of speakers, including the man who led the successful 2021 United Nations Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, former United Kingdom minister Sir Alok Sharma, and His Excellency Abdulla Al Subousi, ambassador for the United Arab Emirates, whose nation was set to host the next UN climate summit in Dubai.
But as the guests tucked into the opening night dinner, one speaker sounded a jarring partisan note: C4C’s influential patron, Trevor St Baker, couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Albanese government’s renewable energy policy. St Baker’s intervention was telling. The Queensland rich-lister was close to C4C’s chairman, Larry Anthony, a former National Party president. For years, he had employed Anthony’s lobby shop, SAS Consulting, back when he was in the coal-fired power business. Now St Baker was investing in the energy transition – electric vehicle charging and battery technology – but his passion project was nuclear energy and, in particular, introducing the idea of small modular nuclear reactors to Australia.
While St Baker’s presence was a surprise to some C4C supporters that night, his ideas on nuclear energy were about to hit the zeitgeist. He and his partners in a small nuclear consultancy, SMR Nuclear Technology, were riding the new wave of global enthusiasm for nuclear energy. Influential players, from former Microsoft boss Bill Gates to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, were spruiking small and micro modular reactors as a game-changer that would help the world reach net zero emissions by 2050. In climate circles it was dubbed the “tech bro” culture, as next-generation nuclear attracted bullish headlines, and billions in private investment and government grants
The C4C climate conference was dotted with speakers enthusiastic about bringing nuclear power to Australia, few more so than the opposition’s spokesman, O’Brien. The line-up was a clear signal that the C4C charity had pivoted towards its patron’s pro-nuclear position. More importantly, it reflected the big nuclear shift by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. In a headline-making speech a few weeks earlier, Dutton had attacked what he called “renewable zealotry”, saying that if Albanese wanted to phase out coal and gas, the only feasible and proven technology to back up renewable energy was “next-generation nuclear technologies”. Specifically, Dutton pushed the idea of small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro modular reactors (MMRs).
Dutton is now releasing more details on the opposition’s “coal to nuclear” power plans, which he argues can deliver cheaper electricity and new jobs in regions where ageing coal generators will be forced to close. So far, the plans bear a striking resemblance to a policy Trevor St Baker and SMR Nuclear Technology have been advocating for several years, in evidence and submissions to federal and state parliamentary committees, in think tanks and in energy forums. These describe in voluminous detail how small modular nuclear reactors are less costly to build than the big nuclear plants, safer and more flexible, allowing them to be sited at old coal plants already connected to the electricity grid.
Just how influential St Baker and his partners have been in the opposition’s nuclear switch is unclear. Dutton’s move to nuclear has been slammed by critics………………………………………………………
Whatever the economics of the opposition’s nuclear plan, there is no doubt about its political impact. It has reignited the partisan climate wars in Australia. Since first signalling their nuclear plans in 2022, Dutton and O’Brien have kept up a relentless attack on the Albanese government over what they call its reckless “renewables only” energy plan, blaming it for driving up household energy prices, threatening energy security, de-industrialising Australia and trampling the rights of farmers.
Professor Hughes is watching the divisive nuclear debate unfold with dismay. A director of the Climate Council, Hughes has been a lead author with the UN’s chief scientific advisory panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and now sits on the federal government’s Climate Change Authority advising on its emissions reduction targets. “In my opinion, given the lack of any economic rationale for nuclear, one can only conclude that it’s a distraction to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep operating with business as usual,” she says.
Despite Dutton and O’Brien’s bullish optimism, their nuclear pivot is a big political gamble. While a rash of polls suggests support for nuclear energy is growing in Australia, some also show most Australians still don’t want a reactor in their own region, let alone a nuclear waste dump. Even Queensland’s Liberal National Party leader, David Crisafulli, has ruled out any plan to replace the state’s old coal-fired power stations with small nuclear reactors, saying it can’t happen without bipartisan support. The issue also threatens the fragile truce in the Liberal Party over climate change policy. The party’s most vocal renewable energy advocate, former New South Wales energy minister Matt Kean, has launched a stinging attack against the policy push. “I am not opposed to nuclear power,” he tells me. “I was state energy minister for five years. If nuclear power was a viable pathway to net zero, I would have done it. But it did not stack up – economically, environmentally or engineering-wise.”
Kean was speaking shortly after he resigned from his role as ambassador for the C4C environmental charity. In his frank resignation letter, he told C4C’s chair, Larry Anthony, that he saw the advocacy for nuclear power “as an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables”.
Kean sees Anthony and St Baker as having an outsize influence on the charity’s shift to a pro-nuclear position. St Baker is a powerful business figure in Dutton’s home state. He’s long been a political donor to the Queensland LNP and to the state’s Labor Party. His support for nuclear power is no secret.
Talacko denies either St Baker or Anthony influenced the charity’s position on nuclear energy. “Our exploration of this technology was thorough and impartial, and our support for nuclear energy is not influenced by political agendas nor tied to financial backing from the nuclear industry,” she tells me by email. But she also says she didn’t know her charity’s key patron was a director and major shareholder of SMR Nuclear Technology. “I was not aware of Trevor’s position at this organization.”
For well over a year, C4C has played a critical role in supporting and promoting the Coalition’s push on nuclear energy. In early 2023, Talacko joined Ted O’Brien on a nuclear fact-finding trip to the United States and Canada. O’Brien’s trip was funded in part by one of C4C’s donors – which one he doesn’t say. The group was briefed by corporate executives and government officials on a range of small and medium modular nuclear reactor projects. O’Brien says Talacko returned from the trip convinced “nuclear should be part of a balanced mix”. Talacko posted O’Brien’s upbeat story about their briefings on the C4C website. None of the projects O’Brien wrote about was commercially operating. Indeed one, a much-anticipated small nuclear project in Idaho run by American company NuScale, collapsed months later because of major blowouts in costs. That was despite getting almost $1 billion in US government support. NuScale’s chief executive was blunt about the project’s future prospects, telling Bloomberg, “Once you’re on a dead horse, you dismount quickly. That’s where we are here.”
Neither O’Brien nor Talacko’s enthusiasm for next-gen nuclear was dented by what happened to NuScale. Quite the reverse. Just weeks after the collapse, in November 2023, C4C funded a delegation of Coalition MPs, as well as Talacko, to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, COP28. O’Brien had been invited to address a meeting that the World Nuclear Association, the global nuclear lobby, was hosting with C4C at the summit. The C4C delegation included Liberal senators Andrew Bragg and Dean Smith, the Nationals’ Senate leader Bridget McKenzie, deputy leader Perin Davey and shadow trade minister Kevin Hogan, and Larry Anthony.
………………………….. the COP declaration was a triumph for the nuclear lobby, and O’Brien vowed the Coalition would sign up to the nuclear partnership if it was re-elected. Talacko posted a glowing account on C4C’s website. …………………..
But turning the heady nuclear promises in Dubai into a credible climate policy at home is proving a daunting challenge for the opposition. The first hurdle it faces is the law. Federal environment and nuclear safety laws effectively ban civilian nuclear power generation in Australia. Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland also have specific laws prohibiting it.
Overturning these laws has long been on the wish list of business lobbies such as the Minerals Council of Australia, as well as the National Party and senior Liberals, but it remains politically fraught. O’Brien admits there was no chance of it happening in this parliament.
Even Bob Pritchard thinks overturning the laws will be tough. And he worries that if Dutton goes to an election pledging to change the laws and loses, it will put the nuclear industry in Australia back years.
The opposition’s immediate problem is the lack of “social licence” for nuclear power in Australia. A majority of us are still anxious that nuclear reactors and their waste are not safe to live with. O’Brien, with help from C4C and other pro-nuclear lobby groups, is working hard to turn this around. Barely a week goes by now without an event with a panel of experts talking up nuclear energy’s role in getting to net zero emissions.
Dutton and O’Brien are also brazenly using the AUKUS defence agreement to bolster the case for civilian nuclear power reactors. Under AUKUS, Australia will get submarines powered by small nuclear reactors. As part of the agreement, signed by the Albanese government, Australia is responsible for disposing of the nuclear waste from the subs. That means Australia will be obliged to develop a responsible nuclear waste system. The nuclear lobby hopes this will help overcome popular resistance to a civilian nuclear waste dump in Australia.
It’s no coincidence Dutton recently met with executives from Rolls Royce last month to talk about nuclear power. Under AUKUS, the British company will supply the small reactors for Australia’s nuclear submarines. Rolls Royce is also trying to rapidly develop small modular reactors for civilian nuclear power with the backing of millions of dollars in UK government grants.
Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, sees AUKUS as the best leg-up for the nuclear lobby in Australia for decades.
“Despite years of lobbying from the mining sector, and from pro-nuclear advocates, there has been no success in gaining a social licence for the technology in Australia,” Sweeney tells me. “But they see AUKUS as the thin edge of the wedge – the way they will expand nuclear from a defence relationship to get domestic acceptance and integration of nuclear technology and nuclear power in Australia.”
Sweeney is convinced Dutton’s nuclear plans have little chance of success. “I think that they will have their work cut out,” he says, “but there is no question that this is a very serious, systematic and resourced attempt by the pro-nuclear voices.” Like many activists who spent years campaigning on climate change, Sweeney believes the overriding aim of Dutton’s nuclear shift is political. “It unites techno-modernist Liberals with the renewable-recalcitrant Nationals in one policy framework. And it also continues business as usual – it’s no challenge to the fossil fuel interests to talk about nuclear.”………………………………………………………………………..
When the politicians returned to Canberra in February, the drums were once again beating in the climate wars. On the lawn in front of Parliament House, the “Rally Against Reckless Renewables” was in full swing. The National Party’s Barnaby Joyce was firing up the crowd of several hundred farmers and anti-renewable activists telling them, “You’re the army! This is the start!”
Joyce’s performance enraged Dr Matt Edwards, a prominent Australian solar scientist now working for Adani Solar, owned by the giant Indian power company. Edwards was also the vice chair of C4C, but he’d clearly had enough. He belted out a stinging op-ed for the Australian Financial Review laying into Joyce and what he called “the remnants of the Coalition now taking an uninspired punt on nuclear”. Edwards bluntly dismissed the opposition’s plan to replace ailing coal plants with nuclear, saying, “given high costs, long lead times and lack of investor appetite for nuclear, it is easy to cynically imagine that these plans might be used to justify extending the life of fossil generation while we wait for an atomic revolution that never comes”.
The fallout was immediate. C4C’s chairman and chief executive were furious. Dr Edwards resigned from the board. Just one more casualty in the latest round of the climate wars.
Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning journalist and author. Her latest book is The Carbon Club. https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2024/may/marian-wilkinson/dutton-s-nuclear-power-plants#mtr
Gen Z Just Might Save The World
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 28, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/gen-z-just-might-save-the-world?r=cqey&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true—
Kids are taking over university campuses around the world for the noblest possible reason anyone could do such a thing in 2024. There are so many reasons to feel pessimistic, but Gen Z’s fierce opposition to the Gaza genocide is a massive reason to have hope for the future.
I talk all the time here about the need for a collective awakening and revolution in order to turn this disaster of a civilization around, but it could turn out that what ends up saving humankind is as mundane as a superior generation of humans emerging out of the information age and replacing inferior generations who’ve been far more indoctrinated by mass media propaganda.
Northeastern University brought in the police to break up a pro-Palestine demonstration, claiming antisemitic slurs and hate speech were being used by the demonstrators, but witnesses say it was actually pro-Israel counter-demonstrators who’d been shouting the antisemitic slogans, and a video confirms this. The pro-Israel agitators got some 100 demonstrators arrested by standing near them and shouting “Kill the Jews”, but they themselves were not arrested.
Whoever got this on video is a goddamn hero. Now nobody can deny that this has been happening. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1784389687798366610
I keep seeing people expressing bafflement at the way Biden keeps alienating his base by shamelessly perpetuating the human butchery in Gaza. Doesn’t he care about getting re-elected?, they ask.
No, Biden does not care whether he gets re-elected, and neither do his empire manager handlers. What matters to them is advancing imperial interests in the middle east, not winning some pretend political puppet show that only exists to entertain and divert the common riff raff. They will happily lose the election and hand the genocidal baton off to Trump and his empire manager handlers who support all the same agendas as Biden’s.
Biden loses literally nothing of material relevance by being a one-term president, so there’d be no reason for him to step back from all the agreements he’s made with the inner workings of the empire to get him where he’s at now even if he wanted to.
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One of the weirdest things happening right now is how empire managers and propagandists are claiming these campus protests are being fueled by foreign influence from evil regimes, even as the Israeli PM openly influences state governments to crack down on those protests.
Biden loses literally nothing of material relevance by being a one-term president, so there’d be no reason for him to step back from all the agreements he’s made with the inner workings of the empire to get him where he’s at now even if he wanted to.
If you’ve been shocked by the lies and propaganda your government and your media have been churning out about Gaza, it would probably be a good idea to take another look at what they’ve been telling you about Ukraine too. And Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Yemen while you’re at it.
The New York Times has a new Pentagon press release disguised as news reporting titled “A New Pacific Arsenal to Counter China,” subtitled “With missiles, submarines and alliances, the Biden administration has built a presence in the region to rein in Beijing’s expansionist goals.”
It’s exactly what it sounds like: it describes the US empire’s military encirclement of China, but frames it as a defensive action to counter “Beijing’s expansionist goals” rather than the extreme act of aggression and military expansionism that it actually is. If China started surrounding the US with war machinery like this it would be World War Three instantaneously.
One of the dumbest things the imperial media ask us to believe is that the US empire is surrounding its #1 geopolitical rival with war machinery for defensive purposes, in response to “expansionist goals” by that rival who has zero war machinery anywhere near the United States.
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So many of the awesome anti-imperialists I follow and admire got their start years ago supporting Palestinian rights. Israel-Palestine is like a gateway drug for anti-imperialism and anti-war activism for a lot of westerners, because the issue is so mainstream-adjacent due to the west’s intimacy with the Israeli state.
The Gaza genocide is going to give rise to a real antiwar movement in the west if the empire managers can’t find a way to stomp it out. Which is why they’re trying so hard to do exactly that — but their attempts thus far have been pathetic failures, and have only made things worse for them.
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One of the weirdest things happening right now is how empire managers and propagandists are claiming these campus protests are being fueled by foreign influence from evil regimes, even as the Israeli PM openly influences state governments to crack down on those protests.
Protesters in Taiwan demand closure of nuclear power plants
https://www.euronews.com/video/2024/04/27/watch-protesters-in-taiwan-demand-closure-of-nuclear-power-plants Protesters in Taiwan demand closure of nuclear power plants. The
demonstration was against legislators extending the use of Maanshan Nuclear
Power Plant, also known as the “Third Nuclear Powerplant.” Protestors
braved the rain dressed in coats and straw hats, as speakers played the
nuclear leak alarm message. Taiwan currently has four nuclear power plants,
with the first and second in the process of decommissioning, a third one
still in use and a fourth whose construction was suspended in April 2014.
Euronews 27th April 2024
The astonishing growth of renewable energy
Renewable energy is taking over the world!
Energy Revolutions, DAVID TOKE, APR 26, 2024
As I say in my forthcoming book. Energy Revolutions, Profiteering versus Democracy’ (PlutoPress): ‘if recent growth trends in renewable energy continue, then sustainable renewable energy sources (mostly wind and solar PV) will make up 100 per cent of world energy consumption (all energy, not just electricity) by the year 2050. ……..Based on trends over the last ten years, nuclear power would be projected to supply only around 3 per cent of world energy in 2050. There is a consistent trend in the last ten years of world growth in renewable energy (mostly wind and solar power) of 12.6 per cent per year…….By contrast, the total primary energy consumption (that is, all energy, not just electricity) is showing an average growth of 1.4 per cent per year over the previous ten years’ This is shown in a Table below [on original] taken from my Energy Revolutions book:
Nuclear power hardly needs to be included in such charts, since their contribution to world energy by 2050 is likely to be negligible. See the chart below, [on original] also taken from my forthcoming book Energy Revolutions
Nuclear power is actually declining as a proportion of total energy consumed in the world. This is because the amount of energy supplied by electricity is rapidly increasing whilst the volume of nuclear production is static. Increasingly the new electricity supplies are coming from renewable energy sources. Despite the ritualistic pronouncements from the nuclear industry about an imminent upsurge in nuclear power through a new ‘renaissance’ (which has been supposed to be happening for the last 20 years) renewables are triumphing.
Oil and gas corporations like Exxon produce their own fantasy pronoucements about how use of natural gas will increase in the future. Not only are renewables dominating deployments of electricity generation capacity, but the market for fossil fuels is being eaten away as electrification spreads through the world economy. Transport will become dominated by electric vehicles, electric trains and eventually also electric planes. Heating will be increasingly provided by electrically powered heat pumps.
As strong as they are, fossil fuel and nuclear interests cannot stop the renewables takeover. Sure, they can slow it down to an extent by misinformation about renewable energy and technologies like EVs and heat pumps, but green energy will win in the end. That is because there is an unbeatable combination of grassroots energy activists campaigning for renewable energy and also because renewable energy and renewable-friendly technologies are developing so fast! https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/the-astonishing-growth-of-renewable
Nuclear and associated news this week
Some bits of good news – High Seas Treaty: EU votes to ratify landmark international law to protect oceans. ‘I want to tackle it in a big way’: Meet the Nigerian women spearheading solar projects
TOP STORIES.
Gen Z Just Might Save The World – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXs9LMrwDpA
Bankers upgrade Lockheed stock after Iran strikes at Israel.
New civil nuclear programmes crossing over into military nuclear programmes.
Nuclear-waste dams threaten Central Asia heartland– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExuDrRYHmDE
How much will the UK’s new nuclear submarines really cost? -ALSO AT more https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/28/2-a-how-much-will-the-uks-new-nuclear-submarines-really-cost/
Climate. Tens of thousands evacuated from massive China floods. Europe baked in ‘extreme heat stress’ pushing temperatures to record highs. Heatwave in India: TV host faints during live broadcast as swaths of country reel from sweltering temperatures.
Noel’s notes. Japan – the return of the “Nuclear Village“? Ukraine war – the changing face of weaponry. The failed social species – Homo-not-sapiens-at-all. Oh it’s a great time to be an American – with shares in “Defense” companies!
AUSTRALIA. Dutton’s atomic bet threatens Coalition chain reaction over climate. Dutton’s nuclear policy backfires. ‘A little awkward’: Coalition faces internal tension over nuclear plans . Dutton’s plan to save Australia with nuclear comes undone when you look between the brushstrokes. The conservative charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy. National Party threatens to tear up wind and solar contracts as nuclear misinformation swings polls. Nationals’ nuclear climate policy puts Australia’s Paris deal in doubt. US bases including Pine Gap saw Australia put on nuclear alert, but no-one told Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
NUCLEAR ISSUES
| CIVIL LIBERTIES. The McCarthyist Attack on Gaza Protests Threatens Free Thought for All. | ECONOMICS. Price tag for Poland’s first nuclear plant may reach $37bn. Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game. Rolls Royce scales back plans to build nuclear factories in UK. |
ENERGY. The astonishing growth of renewable energy.
ENVIRONMENT. Unstable nuclear-waste dams threaten fertile Central Asia heartland. Indian Nuclear Sites Impact South Tibetan Plateau Radioactivity. Chernobyl – the Cloud Lingers On.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Zionism Is In Its Flop Era. Acknowledging the Horrors of Gaza—Without Wanting to End Them.
EVENTS. National Not-the-Nuclear-Lobby Returns to Parliament Hill, Ottawa. www.uraniumfilmfestival.org / https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/usacanada-2024-program / https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/…/2024_las_vegas…
| HEALTH. Nuclear test campaigner demands access to medical files. | MEDIA. Cruelty of Language — The New York Times’ Leaked Gaza Memo. Inside Fukushima’s red zone: Eerie pictures show abandoned schools, hospitals and shopping malls frozen in time 13 years after .nuclear disaster in Japan | OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Nuclear-Free Future Awards unite unsung heroes. No Drones Over Gaza Or Anywhere! |
PLUTONIUM. NNSA Delays Urgent Research on Plutonium “Pit” Aging But Spends Billions on Nuclear Weapons Bomb Core
POLITICS. Biden signs $95bn aid bill to be sent ‘right away’ – for wars in Ukraine, Israel, and provocations in Taiwan.
Now is the Time for All Good Men and Women to Come to the Aid of Our Country USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTP-W9VoFKA
War Parties, the Peace Candidate, and the November Election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxDYqMTjA9U
Iran says nuclear weapons have no place in its nuclear doctrine.
Where are France’s nuclear reactors and what is planned for more?
Scottish National Party and UK Government in row over cost of nuclear dumping grounds. Popular UK holiday park to close, as Sizewell C nuclear project takes over
Japan city assembly OKs request for nuclear waste site survey.
Saudi Arabia is set to witness major developments in nuclear sector: IAEA chief Rafael Grossi.
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Patrick Lawrence: The Impotence of Antony Blinken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MHtQ9CF_-s&t=218s | PROTESTS. Protesters in Taiwan demand closure of nuclear power plants. | SAFETY. Paul Dorfman: “In Ukraine or the Middle East, the risk of a nuclear accident is real” –ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/24/2-b1-paul-dorfman-in-ukraine-or-the-middle-east-the-risk-of-a-nuclear-accident-is-real/ Nuclear: In Flamanville, the EPR farce continues.Chernobyl campaigner Adi Roche warns of global nuclear threat as power plant attacked in Ukraine. Thirty-eight years on, lessons from Chernobyl. Grim nuclear anniversary: Zaporizhzhia must not repeat Chornobyl. IAEA clears Japanese reactor for 60-year lifetime. |
TECHNOLOGY. Problems delay Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor restart.
The former rail chief now minding the (construction) gap at Sizewell. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/29/2-b1-the-former-rail-chief-now-minding-the-construction-gap-at-sizewell/
WASTES. Scotland could be hit ‘with £22bn nuclear clean-up bill’ ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/26/2-b1-scotland-could-be-hit-with-22bn-nuclear-clean-up-bill/
Nuclear waste storage facility told to take action after breach. Plutonium.
The long path of plutonium: A new map charts contamination at thousands of sites, miles from Los Alamos National Laboratory
| WAR and CONFLICT. Israeli Strikes in Rafah Kill 22, Including 18 Children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OdABlkwi6M&t=67s Russia: West military support for Ukraine could lead to confrontation between world’s nuclear powers. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Oversees Simulated ‘Nuclear Counterattack’. Why Iran may accelerate its nuclear program, and Israel may be tempted to attack it. | WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. U.S. Senate Passes $95 Billion Foreign Military Aid Bill. The US secretly sent long-range ATACMS to Ukraine — and Kyiv used them. Three Cheers for Our Red, White, and Blue War Profiteers. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Applaud $95 Billion Supplemental Arms Package. US nuclear weapons in Poland would be priority military target – Moscow. Russia-Ukraine war: EU ministers fail to pledge Patriot systems to Ukraine at key meeting – as it happened. Macron ready to ‘open debate’ on nuclear European defence. Polish president: Poland ready to deploy allied nuclear weapons on its territory. “Fiscally conservative” Congressman Sean Casten votes to squander $95 billion to further destroy Ukraine, enable genocide in Gaza, provoke military confrontation with China, |
Ukraine war – the changing face of weaponry
I mused today on the lovely words of the lovely war-mongering Australian Minister for Defence – Richard Marles. He’s nearly as good as that USA smarm master Antony Blinken – in choosing the nicest words to cover nasty stuff.
Today he was talking about Australia sending $millions to Ukraine – for:
uncrewed aerial systems air-to-ground precision munitions spurring on competition among Western nations to harness technology and drive down the equipment’s production cost.
All these weasel words sort of obscure the reality that one big goal is to support the American, Australian, and even Israeli weapons companies. Yes – Israel. In February, the Israeli company Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department.
The other goal is to be part of American militarism and its experimental work in Ukraine.
You see – the beauty of the Ukraine war, for America, is that there should be no American lives at risk. Tough about the Ukrainian lives, (and of course the thousands more Russian soldiers’ lives don’t count).
But this is a sort of experimental interim-type war – between having troops of soldiers getting killed and just having heaps of civilians getting killed, (and seeing if America can win by having no persons at risk in it).
World War 1 was the classic – the ultimate war for killing soldiers. – estimated 9.7 million and also 10 million civilians
World War 2 an even bigger killer of soldiers – 20 million, but also 40 million civilians – an “improvement” in killing civilians.
The “in-between” wars – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – have still been a mixture of killing soldiers and civilians – but especially with the Afghanistan war – the emphasis shifted towards drone killings, with the officer directing the killing from the distant comfort of an office in USA.
So – getting back to the lovely Marles – he avoided words like “drones” and “missiles” – thus sort of obscuring the fact that Australian weapons are headed right into Russian territory as part of an American long distance attack. Of course, it is called defence – though it is not at all clear that Australia is under military threat from Russia.
Anyway, Ukraine is a good practise ground for deploying weapons that can kill civilians of another country. The weapons-makers are getting better and better at this. The Biden administration last month secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine. The newest 1$billion package will include additional long-range ATACMS. Nuclear weapons might be deployed in Poland. Biden administration’s $850 billion defense budget request for fiscal year 2025 includes $69 billion for nuclear weapons.
It’s all great fun. USA will be able to more or less comfortably fight another country (? China) without putting any “boots on the ground”, (except perhaps a few Taiwanese boots – but after all, they’re not even being worn by white feet, so – no matter, really)
The only fly in the ointment is that American militarism is causing a reaction in other countries. They have populations and leaders who feel that they will have to reciprocate. And they too have gee-whiz clever men with little-boy minds who devise killing machines.
It is truly a vicious circle. There’s a lack of leaders with wisdom. But no shortage of the mealy-mouthed Marles and Blinkens who make it sound as if everything is OK.
Dutton’s nuclear policy backfires
Mike Seccombe The Saturday Paper, 27 Apr 24
This much can be said for Colin Boyce: he is not one of the federal Coalition’s nuclear nimbys. He would, if necessary, agree to have a nuclear power station in his electorate…………………………………………………..
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement on March 12 that the Coalition would “shortly” announce about six sites across the country where nuclear reactors could be built forced the issue. Dutton’s plan would put them in places where coal-fired power stations were closing down.
The promised announcement of potential nuclear sites has been pushed progressively further into the future. Initially it was expected within a couple of weeks, then before the federal budget on May 14. Last Sunday, on the ABC’s Insiders program, Dutton would not commit to a pre-budget announcement, improbably blaming the recent stabbing incidents in Sydney for the delay.
On Tuesday this week, Nationals leader David Littleproud told Sky News the Coalition parties were “not going to be bullied into putting this at any time line, but you will see it before the election”.
Whenever the announcement does eventually come, Boyce’s central Queensland electorate, Flynn, is likely to be on the list.
Boyce’s acceptance of nuclear power in his electorate is not so much an endorsement of the policy being pushed by his leaders as an acceptance that he has no other choice.
Flynn, twice the size of Tasmania and dotted with coalmines and gas wells, produces vast amounts of energy, most of which is shipped overseas.
………………………………………………………………….. Boyce says, probably correctly, “ there will be no coal-firedpower stations in Queensland operational after 2035”.
He is not happy about that and is even less happy that the state opposition supported the government’s legislated target, for he has never accepted the need to stop burning fossil fuels.
Before his election to federal parliament, Boyce served five years in the Queensland parliament, representing the coal seat of Callide. There, he argued for the construction of more coal-fired power stations. He denied the reality of human-induced climate change.
Opposition to fossil fuels, he told state parliament on June 17, 2021, was “driven by the mind-numbing, eco-Marxist Millennials and upper middle-class ‘wokes’ who have been indoctrinated with some quasi-religious belief that coal is bad and carbon dioxide is poisoning the planet”.
……………………………………………………………………. Even within the Coalition’s ranks there are some who see the move as being at least as much an attempt to address a political problem as to address the climate crisis, although most will not say so publicly.
Bridget Archer will, however. The Tasmanian MP – one among a much-depleted cohort of moderate Liberals after the 2022 election – issued a warning to her colleagues via the pages of the Nine newspapers last month that nuclear energy should not be put forward as an alternative to wind and solar.
“There is no point even having a nuclear discussion if you don’t accept a need to decarbonise, to transition away from coal and gas,” she said. “There only is a case for nuclear if there is a fairly rapid transition to large-scale renewables, otherwise why are you doing it?”
She then answered her own question: “I think part of the reason for having the discussion is to keep people in the tent on net zero.”
Others privately assess the motivations of the federal Coalition leadership more harshly. They suggest it’s not primarily about getting nuclear up but about slowing the transition to wind and solar and thereby extending the life of fossil fuels in power generation.
Certainly, the chances of getting the federal parliament to greenlight a domestic nuclear industry are remote. For about 25 years, nuclear power has been prohibited by law in Australia, and it was the Howard Coalition government that banned it, under a 1998 deal with the Greens to get other legislation through the Senate.
Given the ever-growing proclivity of Australian electors to give their votes to progressive independent candidates and Greens, there is a good chance neither major party will win majority government at the next election. Even if the Coalition did win the House of Representatives, it almost certainly would not gain a majority in the Senate. Unless Labor recanted on its vehement opposition to nuclear power, Dutton’s plan would fall at the first hurdle.
……………………………………. the available evidence suggests even those members of the federal Coalition parties who publicly spruik the Dutton policy lack the courage of their convictions.
Last month, shortly after Dutton made his big announcement, reporters for the Nine papers contacted a dozen of them.
“Twelve opposition MPs have publicly backed lifting the moratorium on nuclear power in Australia but will not commit to hosting a nuclear power plant in their own electorate,” their story began
……………………………………………….. Two points. First, the Coalition plan no longer involves small modular nuclear reactors, but instead would rely on building traditional large plants. Second, the polling to which Littleproud referred actually showed a lot of people were woefully misinformed about the cost of nuclear power.
When asked to rank sources of energy “in terms of total cost including infrastructure and household price”, 40 per cent of respondents thought solar and wind power were the most expensive, compared with 36 per cent who thought nuclear was, and 24 who picked coal and gas. Fully one third of respondents thought nuclear was the cheapest option.
They are spectacularly wrong. According to the most recent GenCost report – the annual collaboration between the Australian science agency CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) – SMRs are by far the most expensive way of generating electricity. The “levelised cost” of power from an SMR would be $382 to $636 per megawatt hour, while solar and wind would cost between $91 and $130 per MWh.
The Dutton response was to attack the experts. He claimed GenCost underestimated the cost of renewables because it did not include expenditure on the transmission infrastructure required to integrate them into the grid.
This was untrue, as the report’s authors promptly made clear. Dutton was undeterred, however, which in turn saw the chief executive of the CSIRO, Douglas Hilton, release an open letter defending the importance of independent scientific endeavour.
Last Tuesday, the same day as Littleproud went on Sky News and maintained the falsehood that nuclear power was cheaper than wind and solar, another report was released, further confirming more wind and solar energy was simultaneously lowering both prices and emissions from the electricity sector.
The quarterly Energy Dynamics report from the energy market operator showed that in the first three months of this year, renewables provided 39 per cent of power in the east coast power grid, almost 2 per cent more than in the corresponding period last year.
……………………………..“We are increasingly seeing renewable energy records being set which is a good thing for Australian consumers as it is key in driving prices down and NEM [National Electricity Market] emissions intensity to new record lows,” AEMO’s executive general manager of reform delivery, Violette Mouchaileh, said in a media release accompanying the report…………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2024/04/27/duttons-nuclear-policy-backfires
How much will the UK’s new nuclear submarines really cost?
The terrible truth is that nobody knows how much this will cost.
25th April
What does it cost, and how many jobs does it actually create? This is
especially important now with the next generation of nuclear-powered
submarines, the “Dreadnought” class, starting construction.
When the UK Government announced the programme to replace the current Valiant class
boats, the cost they announced in Parliament, £31 billion, was to build
four submarines.
This is as disingenuous as announcing the cost of a
revamped NHS as the cost to build four hospitals. The total cost of
ownership over the projected 30-year lifespan is much larger.
We have reached a figure of over £600bn. Shocking? Indeed. Surprising? Compared to
what, the HS2 rail link? The terrible truth is that nobody knows how much
this will cost. The annual report of the government’s own
“Infrastructure and Projects” authority has a lot of bad news,
including a “red” score for the development of the Dreadnought boats’
new engines. In short, this means it can’t be done. Sounds expensive.
The National 25th April 2024
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24277002.much-will-uks-new-nuclear-submarines-really-cost
Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game
BY HARVEY WASSERMAN 26 Apr 24
For the first time since 1954, no large new atomic reactors are under construction or on order in the United States.
On March 1, 2024, Vogtle Unit 4 connected to the Georgia grid …years behind schedule and billions over budget. Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” America’s last large light-water reactor thus forever froze the “Peaceful Atom” in financial failure.
Despite enormous public hype and subsidies, ZERO new US atomic reactors—large or small— are likely to become significantly available here for at least a decade.
The first will likely be an unproven “Small Modular Reactor” prototype already leaning toward a trillion-dollar failure.
***
When it comes to the myth of nuke power helping to fight global warming…there’s no there there.
Atomic reactors cause climate chaos. Some 415 reactors directly heat our air and water in concert with mega-explosions like Chernobyl and Fukushima. All pour radioactive carbon 14 into a lethal brew of filth and wastes.
Despite the latest round of “Nuclear Renaissance” hype, the US lacks the industrial capacity to produce impactful new reactors—large or small— before 2030, if then.
The void comes when we most desperately need to reduce carbon emissions. The mega-grift for unproven new nukes cripples the vital transition to renewables, multiplying the planet-killing impacts of fossil fuels…and of decrepit old reactors whose average age is now over 40.
The original fantasy that the “Peaceful Atom” would be “too cheap to meter” came from Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey, Jr., in “Oppenheimer.”
Harry Truman’s 1952 Paley Commission Report on the future of energy had predicted an epic boom in renewables, including 15,000,000 solar heated US homes by 1975.
But in December, 1953, President Eisenhower—in a remarkably war-like speech—told the United Nations that “Atoms for Peace” would limitlessly power the planet.
On September 6, 1954, the Navy and Westinghouse began building the first US commercial reactor, which opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1958.
In 1974 Richard Nixon promised a thousand US reactors by the year 2000. There were in fact 104. With Vogtle 4’s opening, there are now 94—and none on order or under construction.
Atomic power has become what Forbes Magazine called in 1985 “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”
A 2014 study of 180 nukes worldwide said 175 of them cost 117% more than promised, while going 64% beyond schedule.
Despite the early hype, the Peaceful Atom’s financial catastrophes are too frequent to count, and with price tags too huge to compile, including…
X the 1966 “We Almost Lost Detroit” accident at Michigan’s Fermi I, costing at least $100 million;
X the 1979 Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which—aside from killing innumerable downwinders—converted a $900 million asset to a $2 billion liability;
X the 1983 Washington Public Power System’s $2 billion pubic bond default, the first of its kind, killing four reactors then under construction;
X Sacramento’s 1989 landslide vote to shut the municipal utility’s money-losing Rancho Seco reactor, where surrounding solar panels (unlike the dead nuke) still produce juice;
X the Public Service of New Hampshire’s 1988 dump of Seabrook Unit Two, fueling the first investor-owned utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression;
X the 1998 failure of New York’s never-to-operate $7 billion Shoreham, which shattered the Long Island Lighting Company;
X the 2017 collapse of South Carolina’s VC Summer, whose $9 billion dead loss joined Vogtle’s $20 billion cost overrun to bankrupt Westinghouse;
X NuScale’s 2023 SMR collapse in Idaho, fusing into financial failure the industry’s ever-escalating crises in safety, seismic instability, un-insurabililty, heat and radiation emissions, terrorism, war.
Massive explosions at Russia’s Kyshtym and New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project underscore the industry’s unsolved waste management problem. So does radioactive devastation at California’s Santa Susanna and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.
After seven decades of experience, massive 21st century catastrophes continue in the US, Finland, France, England.
Westinghouse’s Summer/Vogtle bankruptcy follows 70 years of a “negative learning curve.”
Finland’s Olkiluoto, France’s Flamanville and England’s double reactor project at Hinckley Point are all hugely over budget and years behind schedule. Olkiluoto has occasionally shut to make way for cheaper wind and hydro.
Many of France’s flagship 56 reactors regularly curtail their output for generic repairs…or as rivers become too global-heated to cool the cores without serious downstream eco-damage.
But Germany’s 2023 final reactor closures allow more than half its power to come more cheaply and reliably from renewables.
California’s similar-sized economy now often gets 100+% of its power from renewables, dwarfing remnant double reactors at Diablo Canyon, now costing $1+ billion/year over market.
Undaunted, Brussels’ World Nuclear Summit just hyped a tripled global fleet, calling for investments beyond $5 trillion to fund a production schedule than many believe is simply impossible.
The international banking response has been a grim “Just Say No”…accompanied by a vote of confidence in a renewable future.
But most terrifying is the demand that decrepit reactors (average age 42+) operate without meaningful inspections or insurance…………………………………………. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/
TODAY. Japan – the return of the “Nuclear Village”?
A first in Japan – The municipal assembly of Genkai in southwestern Japan will request a survey to see if their area is suitable for an underground disposal site for highly radioactive waste. When the Mayor approves this survey, the Saga Prefecture town, will receive up to 2 billion yen ($12.9 million) in state subsidies for allowing the survey.
Local business associations had submitted separate requests for the survey to the assembly, hoping the subsidies and survey activity will prop up the local economy. The associations called on the town, as already a host of a nuclear power plant, to proactively cooperate with the central government.
That would be just the start. The nuclear lobby everywhere is well experienced in arranging “community benefits”. And in nowhere better than Japan.
It starts with the catch-cry of “Jobs Jobs” – first in the construction industry, then in the operations of the nuclear facility, local contractors, and then onward – to the promise of enlivening the local economy. But this wonderful goal is also to be achieved by all sorts of grants and subsidies – “incentives for acceptance” -in Japan Japan: “siting promotion subsidy” – community funds for local development.
For Japan, this could be back to the bad old days.
in the late 1990s, Iida Tetsunari3 coined the term ‘nuclear village’ to describe the ‘syndicate’ of actors pushing Japan’s nuclear power program – institutional and individual pro-nuclear advocates in the utilities, the nuclear industry, the bureaucracy, the Diet (Japan’s parliament), business federations, the media, and academia.
The influence of the nuclear industry over government and the judiciary was powerful and involved ‘regulatory capture’ – industry influence over safety regulation. In safety-related class-action lawsuits, the courts tended to decide in line with government interests to further develop Japan’s nuclear power program
Beyond just “normalisation” of areas hosting nuclear facilities, the “nuclear village” became a celebration of the wonderful, positive role of the nuclear industry in Japanese life, lauded in politics, business, and. education.
That worked out well for Japan, (and for the USA) – in Japan’s great industrial leap forward, and in overcoming and atoning for that old nuclear disaster – the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan’s success became a pointer towards other nuclear villages.
But then came the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in 2011, – and it all ground nearly to a halt. Public opposition to nuclear power has held the industry back over the years since.
But the small global phalanx of nuclear promoters continues to work assiduously to control public opinion. It preys on people’s fear of global heating, and on fears of economic downturn, and promotes nuclear facilities as ‘the answer”. It looks as if that message might now be being heard by at least one municipality in Japan.
Could this be the start of Japan’s nuclear village all over again?
Dutton’s atomic bet threatens Coalition chain reaction over climate
Dutton blew this strategy to pieces when he indicated earlier this year that he would soon unveil a far more ambitious project. One that would dramatically escalate the political debate by embracing large-scale baseload nuclear in places like the Hunter and La Trobe valleys, Anglesea in Victoria, South Australia’s Port Augusta, Collie in WA and Tarong in Littleproud’s Queensland electorate.
“He was winning, now he’s losing”, said one strategist of Dutton’s switch from a vague pro-nuclear policy to one that promises specifics.
Rather than keep the heat on Labor’s handling of cost-of-living pain as inflation stays high, the opposition leader’s nuclear venture risks becoming the story.
https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/dutton-s-atomic-bet-threatens-coalition-chain-reaction-over-climate-20240425-p5fml7 Jacob Greber Senior correspondent, Apr 25, 2024
A golden rule in politics, attributed to Napoleon, is that you should never interrupt your enemy when they’re struggling or making mistakes.
Peter Dutton’s push to engineer an ambitious nuclear power policy that keeps the Coalition from fracturing over climate policy is as fine an example as you could hope to find of premature politicus interruptus.
Rather than keeping the heat on Labor’s handling of the economy and ongoing cost-of-living pain – see for instance this week’s diabolical inflation data that has all but killed off any interest rate relief this year – Dutton’s nuclear venture risks becoming the story.
It will shunt the Coalition into a realm in which it has to elaborate on its plans for emissions targets; clarify whether it has one for 2035, and come clean on whether it will crab walk away from the Paris Agreement altogether.
Pivoting to nuclear means the Coalition will very likely miss the nation’s current 2030 target (of cutting emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels). Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud both see nuclear as a way to slow or halt the rollout of renewables and new electricity transmission. The political contrast for voters will be that Labor is already executing a plan to reach that goal.
Many inside Labor can’t believe their luck, already salivating at how to weaponise Dutton’s nuclear policy into a potent political fear campaign at the next election.
It is not widely understood – as has been explained here before – that the 2030 target is an international promise that cannot be watered down. Setting sail on a policy that falls short, intentionally, is only possible by withdrawing from Paris.
Dutton has not made clear where he stands on these questions, which are at the heart of the Coalition’s current deliberations. There is no internal consensus, either among Liberals or with the Nationals.
These are not waters that Dutton or Littleproud want to drift in for too long. For moderate Liberals – including those hoping to regain the seats they lost in 2022’s climate election – it should be ringing alarm bells.
Initially, Dutton’s go-big, go-nuclear policy venture was slated to be unveiled ahead of the budget, triggering internal consternation among those who felt they had not been directly consulted, particularly across the National Party which has not yet signed onto the idea of large-scale nuclear power generation.
And if they do, the Nationals will want Dutton to deliver the same mega-buck regional roads, dam and rail spending splurge that Barnaby Joyce secured in exchange for backing Scott Morrison over net zero by 2050 in the lead-up to the 2021 Glasgow Climate Conference.
Until now, Littleproud has kept the embers glowing by supporting small-scale nuclear reactors, so-called SMRs, which conjure benign images of unobtrusive remotely located generators no larger than a truck.
Both leaders mirrored the Coalition’s standing position, including under Morrison, of seeking to undo John Howard’s 25-year-old ban on nuclear. They stuck to a simple approach – one that most voters would have no issue with – of asking why the nation can’t have an adult “conversation” about the pros and cons of nuclear power?
This stance had the political benefit of sounding eminently sensible while being bereft of detail or real-world consequence. Such as where these things might be built. And at what cost.
Dutton blew this strategy to pieces when he indicated earlier this year that he would soon unveil a far more ambitious project.
One that would dramatically escalate the political debate by embracing large-scale baseload nuclear in places like the Hunter and La Trobe valleys, Anglesea in Victoria, South Australia’s Port Augusta, Collie in WA and Tarong in Littleproud’s Queensland electorate.
Old coal stations repurposed, in other words.
Yet after weeks of internal wrangling, the timeline for that announcement has blown out to some time after the May 14 budget. It may yet be buried entirely, say some observers, which would be hugely embarrassing for Dutton given how far he has already ventured.
The delay is also instructive of ongoing division over climate policy within the Coalition that has not been resolved since Morrison’s defeat two years ago by Labor and the teal independents who plundered the Liberal party’s inner-city crown jewels.
Significantly, many inside the Coalition fear the opposition leader’s nuclear push will become a self-inflicted political wedge.
Like John Hewson’s ill-fated 1993 “Fightback!” GST promise, or Bill Shorten’s bold policy platform in 2019, Dutton is seen to be at risk of “painting a big target on our backs”.
“He was winning, now he’s losing”, said one strategist of Dutton’s switch from a vague pro-nuclear policy to one that promises specifics.
Many inside Labor can’t believe their luck, already salivating at how to weaponise Dutton’s nuclear policy into a potent political fear campaign at the next election.
Queensland Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli’s repeated rejection of Dutton’s planned “nuclear renaissance” indicates he thinks it’s political suicide.
Every regional and marginal battleground seat can expect to be flooded with warnings about the dangers of nuclear energy, the risks of transporting uranium, and fights over where to store spent fuel.
Younger voters like Millennials are sensibly less allergic to the idea of nuclear energy than Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, especially those who popped their political cherries during the nuclear disarmament movements of the Cold War.
But once the question becomes about where to locate these things – when you ask the locals – support tends to slide.
And then there are the attendant details. How will a nuclear power program that will not become a reality for at least 15 to 20 years help coal power workers being displaced by plant closures meanwhile?
Nuclear baseload energy offers the prospect of many good things, including a manufacturing renaissance. But making things in the 2030s will be nothing like making things in the 1950s. Current trends suggest robots will do most of the work, not humans.
Dutton’s determination to press ahead on nuclear – there are no signs at this point of a backdown, but keep your eyes open – could turn out to be a massive stroke of political genius, or fatal hubris.
The opposition leader had every right to feel confident after last year’s Voice to parliament referendum outcome. Polls such as this week’s Resolve Political Monitor show voters are drifting back to the Liberals.
But that shift is happening before Dutton and the Liberal party have really defined themselves, or offered details of what a future Coalition government will look like.
The nuclear policy – and its consequences for the Coalition’s climate and energy stance – will fill that void as quickly as an atomic chain reaction.
Instead of a 2025 election strategy that rests on telling voters how bad Labor is while dispensing pork barrel promises to swing electorates, the Coalition will be in the business of having to explain a hugely expensive, risky and complicated policy.
That’s one hell of a punt.
Nuclear-waste dams threaten Central Asia heartland
Dams holding large amounts of nuclear waste can be found in Kyrgyzstan’s
scenic hills. However, following a 2017 landslide they have become
unstable, threatening a possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster if they
collapse.
Reuters 24th April 2024
1 This month
7 April – WEBINAR – Australia and the Doomsday Clock – Preventing nuclear war through NoFirstUse and other policies
Online | Tuesday April 7, 4:00-5:30pm, Australian Eastern Time / 8:00-9:30am Central Europe Time
– Access the registration link
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 