US ‘Dangerously Close’ To Another Nuclear Missile Crisis; After Russia, China Could Respond To Deployment Of Nuke Subs To S.Korea

The Eurasian Times, 4 May 23

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was on a state visit to the US from April 25 for six days. The top agenda of the visit was ‘how to contain, control, and neutralize the North Korean nuclear threat.’

Since the beginning of 2023, North Korea has carried out about a dozen missile tests. Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, has been categorical in condemning military exercises being carried out jointly by South Korean and US military and has threatened to retaliate.

South Korea and the US have regularly carried out military exercises. …………………………….

Proposed US Nuclear Submarine Deployment

To protect South Korea from the North Korean nuclear threat, the US has announced that it will deploy SSBN in South Korean waters. The event is yet to take place.

Proposed US Nuclear Submarine Deployment

To protect South Korea from the North Korean nuclear threat, the US has announced that it will deploy SSBN in South Korean waters. The event is yet to take place.

A look at the globe will indicate that US nuclear submarines, equipped with nuclear-warhead Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, will also be able to strike mainland China.

However, if the SSBN deployment indeed does take place, it might, and will, be different from the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the following reasons:

a. In 1962, only two nuclear powers, the US and the USSR, challenged each other with a nuclear strike.

b. China, then, was not a nuclear power. China exploded its first nuclear device on October 8, 1964.

c. In 2023, there are nearly a dozen nations in possession of nukes.

d. China is a formidable economic and nuclear power now.

e. In 1962, the USSR’s decision to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba forced the US to retaliate. Then, the USSR was the initiator. The US was the affected party.

f. In 2023, China will be the affected party, and the USA will be the initiator if the US does not back off from its decision to deploy SSBNs near South Korea.

g. In the event of an escalation, the US will have to face nukes from China and North Korea but also (maybe) from Russia.

Key Issues

The key issue, which might rather lead to a similar situation as the Cuban Missile Crisis, is the US announcement to deploy nuclear weapons capable submarines near South Korea.

Such a deployment aims to protect South Korea from any North Korean military or nuclear misadventure. However, a closer look at the probable region of deployment of nuclear submarines will indicate that the US will be able to threaten the underbelly of China exactly in the same manner as the Soviet missiles threatened the US underbelly. China will almost certainly react or retaliate in the way deemed fit.

Should that happen, will diplomacy succeed yet again and prevent a nuclear holocaust? Global grouping in 2023 is vastly different from what prevailed in 1962………..

SSBNs are extremely difficult to track. China, Russia, or North Korea cannot track and confirm the presence of US Navy SSBNs. If deployed in the abovementioned areas, the SSBN will threaten North Korea, China, and Russia.

China’s Concerns

Beijing has already reacted by describing the planned deployment of SSBNs by the US as a bid to promote the latter’s selfish geopolitical interests.

The US expansion of the nuclear umbrella has been termed an irresponsible action and a threat to world peace. The Chinese spokesperson said, “The United States has put regional security at risk and intentionally used the (Korean) peninsula issue as an excuse to create tensions.

What the US does is full of Cold War thinking, provoking bloc confrontation, undermining the nuclear non-proliferation system, damaging the strategic interests of other countries, exacerbating tensions on the Korean peninsula, undermining regional peace and stability, and running counter to the goal of the de-nuclearisation of the peninsula.

………….. The recently concluded AUKUS treaty has already raised hostility between China and the US. The decision to deploy SSBNs capable of carrying up to 20 MIRVed ballistic missiles in close proximity has invited extremely adverse reactions from China………………………………………………………………………………………

Conclusion

The US decision to deploy SSBNs in South Korea would almost certainly invite adverse reaction and possible retaliation from China, which Russia and North Korea will support. ……………………………………………..https://eurasiantimes.com/us-dangerously-close-to-nuclear-crisis-after-russia/

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

MPs, Scientists Raise Alarm Over Climate Hype for Small Modular Reactors

The Energy Mix, May 2, 2023. Primary Author: Christopher Bonasia @CBonasia_

Several Members of Parliament and activists are warning the Canadian government that its support for nuclear energy projects could prove costly and ineffective—even as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau maintains that nuclear is “on the table” for achieving the country’s climate goals.

The federal government considers nuclear energy—including small modular reactors (SMRs) that are touted as easier to build and run than traditional nuclear plants—as key to meeting energy needs while aiming for net-zero by 2050.

………………..But on April 25, anti-nuclear activists and a cross-partisan group of MPs held a media conference on Parliament Hill, urging Ottawa to rethink its stance on nuclear and calling the energy source a dangerous distraction from climate action, reported CBC News.

Speakers in the group said Trudeau and his cabinet are getting bad advice about nuclear energy.

“The nuclear industry, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, has been lobbying and advertising heavily in Canada, trying to convince us that new SMR designs will somehow address the climate crisis,” said Prof. Susan O’Donnell, a member of the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB). The reality, she added, is that SMRs will produce “toxic radioactive waste” and could lead to serious accidents while turning some communities into “nuclear waste dumps”.

Moreover, there is “no guarantee these nuclear experiments will ever generate electricity safely and affordably,” O’Donnell said, since SMRs are still relatively untested.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called government funding for nuclear projects a “fraud.”

“It has no part in fighting the climate emergency,” May said. “In fact, it takes valuable dollars away from things that we know work, that can be implemented immediately, in favour of untested and dangerous technologies that will not be able to generate a single kilowatt of electricity for a decade or more.”

Liberal MP Jenica Atwin, New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice, and Bloc Québecois MP Mario Simard also attended the media event, the National Post reports. Atwin, who was first elected as a Green in 2019 before crossing the floor, “is the only Liberal to publicly break ranks so far, but said she has had conversations with colleagues who appear to be ‘open-minded’ to learning more about her concerns,” the Post says.

Advocacy groups like the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) have also pushed back against SMRs, arguing they “pose safety, accident, and proliferation risks” akin to traditional nuclear reactors. CELA urged[pdf] the federal government to “eliminate federal funding for SMRs, and instead reallocate those investments into cost-effective, socially responsible, renewable solutions.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says renewables will “lead the push to replace fossil fuels” but that nuclear can help in countries where it is accepted. As of 2022, there were only three SMR projects in operation—one each in Russia, China, and India, CBC News reported.

Canada’s First SMR Passes Pre-Licencing

In Ontario, which currently produces 60% of its electricity from conventional nuclear stations, plans for one such SMR passed a regulatory checkpoint in March. Slated to be Canada’s first new nuclear reactor since 1993, the BWRX-300 is being built by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and North Carolina-based GE Hitachi.

…………………………………………………………………….The review is not binding on the commission and does not involve the issuance of a licence, but its completion does give OPG “a head start on licencing,” said GE Hitachi spokesperson Jonathan Allen.

However, the pre-licencing review also revealed “some technical areas that need further development,” CNSC said. The commission will require OPG to supply further details on severe accident analysis and the engineered features credited for mitigation. OPG must also demonstrate that the reactor’s design meets the requirement for two separate and diverse means of reactor shutdown (or an alternative approach) and provide further information “on the protective measures for workers in the event of an out-of-core criticality accident.”

“From the list of areas needed for further development, it looks like [GE Hitachi] has some work to do,” said Allison Macfarlane, director of the University of British Columbia’s public policy school, who chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) between 2012 and 2014.

BWRX-300 Raises Safety Questions

The BWRX-300 is a leading concept that GE Hitachi says is its simplest boiling water design, and could deliver 60% lower capital costs per megawatt than other SMRs.

But Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Mix he has concerns about the design. He pointed to a joint CNSC-NRC review [pdf] that identified several issues associated with reactor containment, including a potential for “reverse flow” of steam from the containment back into the reactor vessel under certain accident conditions. The review also found that the reactor’s reliance on isolation condensers may not always be effective to remove heat from the reactor during loss-of-coolant accidents.

“The consequences of a failure of isolation condensers is apparent from the fate of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, which experienced a core melt only hours after the system was lost,” Lyman said, citing the 2011 nuclear disaster in Ōkuma, Japan.

He added he is “extremely skeptical” that the BWRX-300 design will mature quickly enough to allow CNSC to make a meaningful determination of its safety in time for the anticipated 2028 start date. SMR designs need to undergo further testing and analysis before they can be considered safe, and yet vendors are rushing to deploy new, untested reactor designs without going through the necessary stages of technology development, including testing of full-scale prototypes, Lyman said.

“History has shown that shortcuts in this process are an invitation to disaster,” he added.

SMRs fall under the same Class 1A Nuclear Facilities Regulations as traditional reactors, so they do receive the same level of CNSC scrutiny. With its mandate to ensure the safe conduct of nuclear activities in Canada, the commission “will only issue a licence if the applicant has demonstrated the reactor can be operated safely,” the spokesperson said.

Next steps for the DNNP include a CNSC assessment, already under way, to review OPG’s licence application. This will result in a Commission Member Document that offers results and recommendations to an independent commission. Then there will also be two public hearings. The first is slated [pdf] for January 2024 and will consider the applicability of the previous environmental assessment to the BWRX-300. A separate, future hearing will determine whether to issue a construction licence for the DNNP.

“It is the independent commission who will make the decision as to whether the licensee or applicant is qualified to carry on the proposed activities and in a safe manner that protects the public and the environment,” the CNSC spokesperson said. https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/05/02/canadian-mps-raise-alarm-over-nuclear-energy-drive-for-climate-goals/

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Brisbane recyclable battery start-up signs up first international investor — RenewEconomy

Vaulta’s first international investor has joined its effort to make the battery industry more sustainable. The post Brisbane recyclable battery start-up signs up first international investor appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Brisbane recyclable battery start-up signs up first international investor — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bandt says Australia is “petrol state” dealing with “last gasp” of gas lobby — RenewEconomy

Federal Labor must make crucial decisions on role of gas – and powerful fossil fuel lobby – or miss the opportunity to electrify Australia, Greens say. The post Bandt says Australia is “petrol state” dealing with “last gasp” of gas lobby appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Bandt says Australia is “petrol state” dealing with “last gasp” of gas lobby — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Giga-scale desert region solar plants may have positive climate impact — RenewEconomy

Gigawatt-scale solar projects planned for China’s Gobi Desert and other arid regions could have significant positive climate impacts, scientists find. The post Giga-scale desert region solar plants may have positive climate impact appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Giga-scale desert region solar plants may have positive climate impact — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Extend the RET: Wind industry giants call for reboot of federal renewables incentive — RenewEconomy

CEC and Acciona call for extension to federal Renewable Energy Target as Australia struggles to compete in the global clean energy race. The post Extend the RET: Wind industry giants call for reboot of federal renewables incentive appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Extend the RET: Wind industry giants call for reboot of federal renewables incentive — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Solar innovator Sundrive maps out plan for 5GW of Australian PV manufacturing — RenewEconomy

Sundrive, a solar innovator backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes, says Australia can become a solar manufacturing powerhouse as it maps out plans for 5GW of PV capacity. The post Solar innovator Sundrive maps out plan for 5GW of Australian PV manufacturing appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Solar innovator Sundrive maps out plan for 5GW of Australian PV manufacturing — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sharpe says she wants to accelerate NSW renewable and storage roadmap — RenewEconomy

New energy minister Penny Sharpe praises work of Matt Kean and says she is looking to accelerate the state’s renewable and storage roadmap. The post Sharpe says she wants to accelerate NSW renewable and storage roadmap appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Sharpe says she wants to accelerate NSW renewable and storage roadmap — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Wind industry begins recycling drive to stop 599 ageing turbines going to landfill — RenewEconomy

Australia is looking to solve a major landfill problem as a quarter of the country’s farms approach the end of their design life. The post Wind industry begins recycling drive to stop 599 ageing turbines going to landfill appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Wind industry begins recycling drive to stop 599 ageing turbines going to landfill — RenewEconomy

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and the ‘made men’ of the Biden administration

Antony Blinken and the ‘made men’ of the Biden administration

BY JONATHAN TURLEY, – 04/22/23 https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3963743-antony-blinken-and-the-made-men-of-the-biden-administration/

Secretary of State Antony Blinken would really, really prefer to talk about grain in Ukraine this week. But many people are less interested in what Blinken is doing as secretary of state than in what he did to become secretary of state. 

This week, Blinken was implicated in a political coverup that could well have made the difference in the 2020 election. According to the sworn testimony of former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell, Blinken – then a high-ranking Biden campaign official – was “the impetus” of the false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was really Russian disinformation. Morrell then organized dozens of ex-national security officials to sign the letter claiming that the Hunter laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Morrell further admitted that the Biden campaign “helped to strategize about the public release of the statement.”

Finally, he admitted that one of his goals was not just to warn about Russian influence but “to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election.”

Help it did. Biden claimed in a presidential debate that the laptop story was “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan.” Biden used the letter to say “nobody believes” that the laptop is real.

In reality, the letter was part of a political plan with the direct involvement of his campaign, but Biden never revealed their involvement. Indeed, over years of controversy surrounding this debunked letter, no one in the Biden campaign or White House (including Blinken) revealed their involvement.

Of course, the letter was all the media needed. Discussion of the laptop was blocked on social media, and virtually every major media outlet dismissed the story before the election. 

That was also all Biden needed to win a close election. The allegations that the Biden family had cashed in millions through influence peddling could have made the difference. It never happened, in part because of Blinken’s work. 

Once in power, Blinken was given one of the top Cabinet positions. He was now one of the “made” men of the administration.

He was not alone. The 2016 election was marred by false allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Unlike the influence peddling allegations made against Biden, the media ran with those stories for years. It later turned out that the funding and distribution of the infamous Steele dossier originated with the Clinton campaign. The campaign, however, reportedly lied in denying any such funding until after the election. It was later sanctioned for hiding the funding as legal expenses.

Those involved in spreading this false story were rewarded handsomely. For example, the second collusion story planted in the media by the campaign concerned the Russian Alfa Bank. 

The campaign used key Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, who went public with the entirely false claim of a secret back channel between Moscow and the Trump campaign. 

Sullivan was also a “made” man who was later made Biden’s national security adviser. Others who were implicated in either the Steele dossier or Alfa Bank hoaxes also later found jobs in the administration. The Brookings Institution proved a virtual turnstile for these political operatives. 

Many signatories on the Russian disinformation letter continue to flourish. MSNBC analyst Jeremy Bash signed the letter and was put on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board. As with Sullivan, it did not seem to matter that Bash had gotten one of the most important intelligence stories of the election wrong.

Former CIA head James Clapper was referenced by Biden on the letter and was also a spreader of the Russian collusion claims. Despite those scandals and a claim of perjury, CNN gave him a media contract.

They are all “made” men in the Beltway, but they could not have succeeded without a “made” media.

These false stories planted by the Clinton and Biden campaigns succeeded only because the media played an active and eager role. In any other country, this pattern would fit the model of a state media and propaganda effort. However, there was no need for a central ministry when the media quickly reinforced these narratives. This is a state media by consent rather than coercion. The Biden campaign knew that reporters would have little interest or curiosity in how the letter came about or the involvement of campaign operatives. 

If Republicans did not control the House of Representatives, the Morrell admission would never have occurred. The Democrats repeatedly blocked efforts to investigate this story and the influence peddling allegations. Even this week, some Democrats called it a “tabloid story.” 

Given the career paths of figures such as Blinken and Sullivan, there is a concern that other officials may see the value in “earning their bones” as “made” men and women. There is now a senior IRS career official who is seeking to disclose what he claims was special treatment given to Hunter Biden in the criminal investigation.

While the 51 former intelligence figures were eager to raise Russian disinformation claims before the election, most have become silent. After all, the letter served its purpose, as Morrell indicated, “to assist [Biden] in winning the election.” After the false stories planted before the 2016 and 2020 elections, the question is what is in store for 2024?

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embroiled in alleged attempt to influence US officials on allegedly corrupt company Burisma

Hunter Biden joined the board of the allegedly corrupt Ukrainian company Burisma in April 2014, while the US authorities were working with British law enforcement on a financial investigation into its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

Secretary of State Blinken and his cabinet secretary wife were embroiled in an alleged attempt to influence US officials on behalf of Burisma – and may have known Hunter was on the board despite telling investigators otherwise.

• Emails show Tony Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan corresponding with a consultancy firm hired by Hunter’s Ukrainian gas company Burisma 
• Blinken told Senate investigators under oath that he had ‘no knowledge’ of Hunter Biden’s service on the board of Burisma  
• Hunter emailed Ryan to make sure her husband  took a meeting with the consultancy firm to discuss ‘some troubling events we are seeing in Ukraine’

By JOSH BOSWELL FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 2 May 2023 

Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his wife, Joe Biden‘s cabinet secretary Evan Ryan, were both embroiled in an alleged attempt to influence US government officials on behalf of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, emails show.

Blinken told Senate investigators under oath in 2020 that he had ‘no knowledge of Hunter Biden‘s service on the board’ of Burisma, and didn’t know about Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat consultancy hired by the firm in 2015 to improve its image in Washington DC.

But State Department emails show he spoke with Blue Star’s CEO Karen Tramontano at a political event around July 2016 while he was Deputy Secretary of State, and agreed to have a coffee with her to discuss ‘some troubling events we are seeing in Ukraine’.

And July 14, 2016 emails from Hunter’s laptop show the First Son checked in with Blinken’s wife to try to make sure he took a call from Tramontano and her chief operating officer Sally Painter – as well as meeting with Blinken himself at his State Department office in July 2015.

There is no evidence that Blinken or Ryan tried to change US policy on Burisma’s behalf.

But Senator Ron Johnson is now accusing the Secretary of State of having ‘lied bald-faced to Congress’ about his links to the murky influence campaign in 2020 sworn testimony.

Blinken has come under new scrutiny this month over his relationship with the Bidens, after the House Judiciary Committee received testimony that he helped orchestrate a letter by intelligence chiefs claiming Hunter’s laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign just weeks before the 2020 election.

The government and laptop emails obtained by DailyMail.com suggest Blinken, who was Joe’s senior campaign advisor, his Vice Presidential National Security Advisor in the Obama administration and now Secretary of State, may have been more aware of Hunter’s dealings than he has let on.

Blinken was grilled by Senate homeland security committee investigators in December 2020, as part of a probe into Hunter’s business dealings run by Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson.

Hunter joined the board of the allegedly corrupt Ukrainian company Burisma in April 2014, while the US authorities were working with British law enforcement on a financial investigation into its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

When Hunter’s appointment became public soon after, it caused a firestorm of controversy – including among State Department officials, who complained in emails that ‘the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine.’

However, the furor apparently passed by Blinken, who told investigators in sworn testimony that he was not ‘aware of any association that Hunter Biden had with Burisma’ while Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017, had no emails or texts with the First Son, and never discussed Hunter’s financial or business arrangements with him.

Data on Hunter’s laptop shows 26 emails involving Blinken’s personal address and three with his Vice Presidential office address, between 2010 and 2018.

A further 47 emails include his wife Evan’s VP office email and 22 have her personal email address.

A contact book entry for Blinken on Hunter’s laptop includes three numbers labeled ‘mobile’, ‘car’ and ‘other’, as well as his office and personal email addresses.

Speaking to Fox New on Sunday, Senator Ron Johnson, who has been investigating the Biden’s business dealings for four years, accused Blinken of having ‘lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden.’

‘Antony Blinken finally did come in and sit down for a voluntary transcribed interview in December of 2020 because he wanted to be Secretary of State,’ Johnson told Maria Bartiromo.

‘And now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden. My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in. Tell them to preserve their records.’

On May 22, 2015, Hunter wrote to Blinken asking if he had ‘a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee? I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things.’

Blinken replied ‘absolutely’, and copied his secretary to ‘find a good time’. Hunter forwarded the exchange to his business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer.

The meeting was postponed due to the death of Hunter’s brother Beau eight days later from brain cancer.

Hunter and Blinken eventually met for lunch at his State Department office on July 22, 2015, but Blinken told Senate investigators they only discussed ‘the loss the family had suffered and how they were coping’.

In November that year Burisma hired Blue Star Strategies to improve the firm’s image in DC.

Blue Star CEO Karen Tramontano played down her relationship with Hunter in her own 2020 testimony to the Senate committee, and claimed at first that she didn’t know Hunter was on its board.

In June 2021 DailyMail.com revealed emails from Hunter’s laptop showing in fact he was the point man for Burisma’s hiring of Blue Star, and that as far back as March 2014 Tramontano had discussed registering her investment banking license with Hunter’s firm Rosemont Seneca.

Tramontano and her COO Sally Painter set about arranging meetings and calls with top government officials, trying to convince them to take a softer approach towards Burisma owner Zlochevsky and refrain from calling his gas firm ‘corrupt’.

Blinken told investigators that although he knew Tramontano and Painter, he was unaware of their firm, Blue Star.

State Department emails obtained by the Homeland Security Committee show that on June 27, 2016 Painter wrote to Blinken’s assistant from her Blue Star email address about a meeting he agreed to when he bumped into them at an event three days earlier.

‘Per my conversation with Tony at the Truman event, Karen Tramontano and I would like to have a brief coffee with Tony at his earliest convenience regarding some troubling events we are seeing in Ukraine. (He said yes),’ Painter said in the email.

‘Karen was President Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and we are just back from Kiev.’

A call appears to have been scheduled for the following month, but when it fell through Hunter got involved – contacting Blinken’s wife and then-assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs Evan Ryan to chase up the contact.

‘Time for a very quick call?’ Hunter wrote to her AOL email address on July 14, 2016. ‘He said neither Karen or Sally called this afternoon,’ she responded.

‘I don’t know what happened. Talked to S and K and they said they called at 5:30 and left message w/ his Asst. Sorry,’ Hunter wrote. She replied: ‘He didn’t get the msg. He said if we can get him their numbers he can call them late afternoon DC time tmrw – let me know if that works.’

The next day Blinken wrote to his aide, ‘Please send me her [Tramontano’s] number. I may call.’

It is unclear if the call took place. Blinken told investigators ‘I don’t recall having a coffee with them.’

 influence campaign with the DoJ.

Tramontano’s lawyer said the probe ended when the firm submitted a filing to the government admitting its lobbying activities for the Ukrainian gas firm – more than six years after the fact.

Blue Star’s filing, submitted in May 2022, finally declared its $60,000 of work for Zlochevsky in 2015 and 2016 including ‘to help schedule meetings with U.S. Government officials so counsel for Mr. Zlochevsky could present an explanation of certain adverse proceedings in the U.K. and Ukraine involving Mr. Zlochevsky.’

The filing listed a 2016 ’email and meeting’ with Obama’s energy envoy Amos Hochstein, and also with Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Catherine Novelli.

It did not declare any meetings, emails or calls with Blinken.

May 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The age of small modular nuclear?

the CEO of Rolls Royce described it as “a Lego kit of parts” for building a nuclear reactor. So it’s not actually an Small Modular Reactor , but why not call it one if you can tap government funding by pretending it is?

BY AGREENERLIFEAGREENERWORLD ON APRIL 30, 2023 By Jeremy Williams

There was something of a non-sequitur from Britain’s Chancellor Jeremy Hunt recently. “We don’t want to see high bills like this again,” he said of the country’s current energy costs. “It’s time for a clean energy reset. That is why we are fully committing to nuclear power in the UK, backing a new generation of small modular reactors.”

If I was hoping to bring down energy bills, then nuclear isn’t the first place I’d look. The cost of Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in decades, was originally priced at £16 billion. That made it the most expensive building in the world, and that was before costs began to spiral upwards. The latest estimate is that it will cost £32 billion. So it really doesn’t make much sense for Jeremy Hunt to be promising lower bills with nuclear power.

But maybe it’s not about megaprojects like Hinkley. Maybe, as Hunt suggests, the future lies in the much-vaunted Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). A number of agencies are looking for smaller reactors that can be standardised and therefore built quickly and cheaply – cheap being relative in the world of nuclear. It ought to be cheaper to install a chain of SMRs than to build one massive and bespoke power station.

The theory is that if they are small and they are modular, then SMRs would be closer to a manufactured product than a construction project. That would mean economies of scale, and potentially prompt the kind of decline in costs that we’ve seen in solar or in battery technologies.

But SMRs have been discussed for years. How close are we to seeing them as part of a low-carbon electricity grid?

Let’s start with who is working on the idea. A recent overview of the sector from the OECD includes this map of various projects. It’s not exhaustive, but it shows the major players.

Most of the action is in the US, with other projects in China, Britain, France, Russia and a handful of others. Some of these are private enterprises, particularly the American ones. Elsewhere a lot of the work is coming from state-owned nuclear companies such as EDF in France, or Argentina’s CNEA. Anyone who has invested in nuclear power and research in the past is likely to have an SMR project on a drawing board somewhere.

Is anyone actually building them? Sort of, but only China and Russia have working SMRs so far – a demonstration plant in China, and Russia’s pioneering floating nuclear power station, the Akademik Lomonosov. I wouldn’t consider either of those to be good examples of what SMRs are supposed to be, but they’re the ones that get mentioned. Construction on further plants is underway in both countries, along with Argentina. As the OECD notes, “there are currently no SMRs licensed to operate outside of China or Russia.” Everywhere else, SMRs are in various phases of research, design and planning.

This doesn’t tell us much about how long it’s going to take to bring SMRs into the energy mix. That’s because the big obstacle in nuclear power isn’t technology, but regulation. It’s incredibly difficult and slow to bring a new nuclear technology to market, and rightly so, given its dangers. Licensing a new nuclear design in the US takes five years and costs a billion dollars – and that’s before you even apply to build anything. That’s just to confirm that the design is safe.

Things move incredibly slowly in the nuclear world. The concepts for the European Pressurised Reactor that’s being built at Hinkley Point – and which is considered a new design, were being done in the mid-nineties. So of the long list of companies with concepts for SMRs, how many of those will ever get built, and in how many decades? From a climate change perspective, speed matters. We don’t want to accelerate nuclear power at the expense of safety, but at the moment it is going to take too long to bring any of these new reactors online.

Here in the UK, there is one firm that is synonymous with SMRs, and that’s Rolls Royce. Any article on the subject in the UK will mention Rolls Royce and often illustrate the article with a glossy picture of their proposed design – as I’ve done above. What’s odd about this is that Rolls Royce’s design isn’t a small modular reactor. It’s being called that because it’s a buzzword, but it’s 470Mw in capacity. That’s smaller than Hinkley Point C at 3,300Mw, but it’s a whole lot larger than what is generally called an SMR.

Neither does it use modular reactors to achieve its larger power output. What Rolls Royce is doing is using modular construction techniques to build a traditional reactor a bit quicker. On Michael Liebriech’s Cleaning Up podcast, the CEO of Rolls Royce described it as “a Lego kit of parts” for building a nuclear reactor. So it’s not actually an SMR, but why not call it one if you can tap government funding by pretending it is?

Looking at where we are at the moment, I expect there will be a new generation of smaller nuclear power stations at some point in the future. I expect China will do it first, and that the economies of scale will happen there. If it ever reaches the UK, it will be a few years away.

A more urgent question is whether or not a new generation of nuclear power will happen in time to make a difference to climate change. That looks far less certain.

First published in The Earthbound Report.

May 2, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Preparing for War: The Global Military Budget

2022 proved to be a boon for militarists the world over

May 1, 2023: Dr Binoy Kampmark  https://theaimn.com/preparing-for-war-the-global-military-budget/—

US$2.24 trillion is a mighty amount. It’s also a sickening figure when considering the object of this exercise. The flickering tease of war, the promise of bloodshed and an increasingly large butcher’s bill, are inevitable suggestions from such a figure. The scenes are also clear: well-paid suits dazed by theories of the next war; policy wonks jabbering over mock war games. A huge amount of money is being pushed into the venture, and the sceptics are being held at bay.

Much of this news comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest findings that countries are spending 2.2% of the world’s gross domestic product on armaments. Of that amount, the United States, China and Russia accounted for 56% of the total. Global military spending, the SIPRI report also notes, grew by 19% over 2013-2022, rising every year since 2015.

The amount is slightly more than the previous year, when SIPRI announced that total military expenditure had risen by 0.7% in real terms in 2021 “to reach $2113 billion.” The largest contributors to the binge on that occasion were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia. In sum, the five countries accounted for 62% of expenditure.

This reads differently from the more optimistic International Monetary Institute’s assessment from 2021: “Worldwide military spending, when estimated on the basis of unweighted country averages, has declined by nearly half, from 3.6 percent GDP during the Cold War period (1970-90) to 1.9 percent of GDP in the years following the global financial crisis.” When it comes to variations on the figures in this field, best stick with SIPRA.

2022 proved to be a boon for militarists the world over, though there were particular regions that saw more growth than others. In Europe, levels of spending had reached levels unseen since the Cold War, up from 13% from the previous twelve months. The reason commonly given: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In East Asia, the justification is the increasingly hostile US-Chinese rivalry, though those in Washington’s corner are ever pointing the finger to the Yellow Horde’s ambitions in Beijing.

The picture in Europe is an ugly one, with concerns being expressed in certain strategic circles that not enough is being done to move away from dependency on the US imperium. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has even posited that Europe is the victim of US “vassalisation”, notably in light of the Ukraine War. Visions of strategic autonomy are more distant than ever.

Such sentiments, however, do little to discourage the militarists: whether Europe chooses to throw in its lot with Washington or not, the arms dealers and manufacturers will do a merry jig. To prove that point, the ECFR advocates the deployment of “western European forces to the east in greater numbers, offering to replace US forces in some cases.” The only difference here is the burden shared, rather than the amount spent.

In terms of individual countries, Finland’s military expenditure rose by 36% in 2022 to reach $4.8 billion, the largest in the country’s year-on-year increase since 1962. Polish military expenditure grew by 11%, reaching $16.6 billion over the course in 2022. The passage of the Homeland Defence Act, designed to reorganise the military and raise defence spending, promises to eventually push the levels to 4% of GDP. Warsaw has made no secret of the fact that it wishes to have the continent’s largest army, a daft and distinctly draining exercise.

The figures are also significant given the increasingly proxy nature of the Ukraine War’s balance sheet. Ukraine, for its part, rose from its position at 36 on the league of arms spenders to 11 in 2022, with a figure of $44 billion. But SIPRI has a modest confession to make: it is unable to furnish us “an accurate assessment of the total amount of financial military aid to Ukraine.” This is largely because the donor countries have, for the most part, not released disaggregated data. A rough estimate of $30 billion is provided, which “includes financial contributions, training and operational costs, replacement costs of the military equipment stocks donated to Ukraine and payments to procure additional military equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces.”

Some of this must be factored into the increased budgets of the UK (top European spender at 3.1%), with Germany and France coming in at 2.5% and 2.4% respectively. Of the three, the UK has given the most military aid to Ukraine, and is second only behind the United States, which allocated $19.9 billion.

As for the US itself, the Biden administration has already mooted the idea that it will increase the number of troops deployed to Europe by 20,000 personnel to 100,000. The measure is part of the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), an effort to, according to the US Department of Defense, “enhance the US deterrence posture, increase the readiness and responsiveness of US forces in Europe, support the collective defense and security of NATO allies, and bolster the security and capacity of US allies and partners.”

While China, with a bill of $292 billion, is leant upon as an excuse for increased military expenditure by other powers, the United States remains the undisputed premier spender, making up a staggering 39% of the global total at $877 billion. Hardly the sort of figure to be sported by a peacemaker.

May 2, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Single Dumbest Thing The Empire Asks Us To Believe

Caitlin Johnstone  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-single-dumbest-thing-the-empire?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=118488383&isFreemail=true&utm 1 May 23

The single dumbest thing the US-centralized empire asks us to believe is that the military encirclement of its top two geopolitical rivals is a defensive action, rather than an act of extreme aggression.

We’re asked to believe many extremely stupid narratives by the manipulators who rule over us, but I really think this one might take the cake. The idea that the US militarily encircling Russia and China is an act of defense rather than aggression is so in-your-face transparently idiotic that anyone who thinks critically enough about it will immediately dismiss it for the foam-brained nonsense that it is, yet it’s the mainstream narrative in the western world, and millions of people accept it as true. Because that’s the power of US propaganda.

It gets more and more absurd the more you think about it. Their argument is basically, “No no you don’t understand, the US has been hurriedly surrounding its primary geopolitical competitors with war machinery because it wants to prevent them from doing something aggressive.” They’re like, “We can’t just have nations exerting military aggression willy nilly, that’s why we needed to move all this war machinery to the other side of the planet onto the borders of our primary strategic rivals.”

Can you think of anything more insane than that? Than all of the most powerful and influential figures in politics, government and media simultaneously claiming that a nation amassing heavily-armed proxy forces on the borders of their enemies is something that should be regarded as an action designed to prevent aggression, rather than an incendiary act of extreme aggression in and of itself?

I recently had someone tell me that the US has every right to expand its immense military presence near China, and to illustrate their point they said that if China set up a base in Mexico the US would have no business telling them not to. But that argument actually illustrates my point, not theirs: only the most propaganda-addled of minds would believe that the US would allow China to set up a military base in Mexico for even one second. There’d be kinetic warfare long before the foundations were even poured.

What this undeniably means is that the US is the aggressor in these conflicts. It was the aggressor when it expanded NATO and began turning Ukraine into a de facto NATO member, and it is the aggressor as it accelerates its encirclement of China and prepares to open the floodgates of weapons into Taiwan. If it is doing things on the borders of its geopolitical rivals that it would never permit those rivals to do to it, then it is the aggressor, and anything its rivals do is a defensive response to those aggressions.

This is how the US-centralized empire always acts. It continually attacks, starves and menaces nations which disobey the decrees it issues in its self-appointed role as the leader of the so-called “rules-based international order”, then as soon as its aggressions receive the slightest bit of pushback its spinmeisters feign Bambi-eyed innocence and pretend they’re just passive witnesses to unprovoked aggression by the disobedient nations.

But the empire is not passive, it is not innocent, and it is primarily responsible for the extremely dangerous current and emerging conflicts we are seeing on the world stage. The US empire is imperiling us all with its last-ditch frantic scramble to secure unipolar planetary hegemony before multipolarity takes over, engaging in freakishly aggressive actions on the borders of the nuclear-armed nations who challenge its power.

And I just think that’s worth reiterating from time to time. If we don’t keep reminding ourselves what’s true, these bastards will drive us all nuts.

May 2, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment