Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

The Dream of NuScale Small Nuclear Reactors Hangs in the Balance

Wired, 27 Feb 23

A cluster of reactors that are just 9 feet in diameter is supposed to start a nuclear energy resurgence. Mounting costs may doom the project.

JORDAN GARCIA, A deputy utilities manager in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is facing an energy crunch that is typical in the American West. For decades, the county-run utility relied on a cheap and steady mix of coal and hydroelectric power. But the region’s dams are aging and drought-parched, and its coal plants are slated to retire.

The county is aiming to fully decarbonize its grid by 2040, and the city has been tapping more solar lately, but batteries are arriving slowly, and Garcia worries about heat waves that strain the grid after the sun goes down. Wind power? He’d take more of it. But there aren’t enough wires stretching from the state’s windy eastern plains to the mesa-top community. “For us it’s pretty dire,” he says.

For the past few years, Garcia has been counting on a unique nuclear experiment to come to the rescue. In 2017, Los Alamos signed up to join a group of other local utilities as an anchor customer of the first small modular reactors, or SMRs, in the US, created by a company called NuScale. The design, which calls for reactors only 9 feet in diameter, had never been built before, but the initial cluster planned in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was promised to be much cheaper than a full-scale reactor and to offer affordable carbon-free energy 24/7.

To Garcia, this felt like a homecoming. Los Alamos, a town with the motto “Where discoveries are made,” is the birthplace of the atom bomb, and experimental reactors ran not far from downtown for much of the 20th century. But it had never actually used nuclear power to keep the lights on.

This month, Los Alamos and other local utilities across the West were facing a weighty decision: whether to pull the plug on their nuclear dream. NuScale had informed members of the group, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS, that the estimated costs of building the six 77-MW reactors had risen by more than 50 percent to $9.3 billion. For Garcia, that translated into a jump in the cost of energy from $58 to $89 per megawatt-hour.

…………… Without extra subsidies from the new Inflation Reduction Act—on top of $1.4 billion already committed to the project by the US Department of Energy—the price to energy users in places like Los Alamos would have doubled.

…………. The project’s power output is only 20 percent subscribed, and UAMPS says it will need to reach 80 percent for planning and construction to proceed next year.

Many a “nuclear renaissance” has fizzled.

…………….. Only two [large nuclear] reactors are being built in the US: a pair of 1100-MW units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, now seven years delayed and $20 billion over their $14 billion budget. 

NuScale hopes its smaller reactors can avoid that fate……… Last month, the company was the first of dozens of companies working on SMRs to have a design approved by US regulators. That makes NuScale first in the race to leap from a “paper napkin” reactor, as critics sometimes deride SMRs, to a real one, though the Idaho project involves a revised design that will need its own approval.

The project has hit roadblocks before. It began with 36 utilities signed on, but that number has fluctuated and dropped to 27 last year. In 2020, several municipal utilities dropped out in response to a construction delay and cost increases. Some later rejoined the project after the US Department of Energy upped its commitment to offset some of the costs.

Critics say those price revisions are a sign SMRs are heading down the same path as projects like Vogtle. For nearly a century, the nuclear power industry’s mantra was that building bigger plants would drive down costs. While existing plants aged and new construction withered, SMR companies began promoting a different philosophy, says David Schlissel, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Fiscal Analysis, claiming that constructing many small reactors would teach builders how to make them more cheaply.

But the evidence for progress is flimsy, says Schlissel, who notes that his 50-year career has spanned many a “nuclear renaissance” that fizzled. When that philosophy was applied in France, where dozens of reactors were built in the 1980s, costs still increased. Claims that “modularity” will help make construction construction more efficient are also suspect, he adds. The new Vogtle reactors involved nearly 1,500 “modular” components that were largely constructed offsite.

Schlissel also believes that NuScale’s current estimates are rosy because they rely on the approval of its newer design that uses less steel, one of the materials driving the cost increases. But regulators may not back that approach, he says.  Towns should get out while they can, he advises, before costs climb higher still, and seek out alternatives like geothermal and battery storage. “Let the buyer beware,” he says.

……………….. officials in Morgan, Utah, a small town in the Wasatch Mountains north of Salt Lake City, decided to make a quick exit from the project…….

This year, the city realized it had new alternatives to the rising costs of nuclear power. While the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to help offset the costs of the Idaho plant, it also includes funds to help rural communities start their own energy projects. Bailey wants the city to become more self-reliant, installing its own solar panels and batteries that reserve power overnight.

In this round, Morgan was the only defector, though another Utah city, Parowan, reduced its commitment from 3 MW to 2 MW—just enough to cover the loss of its coal power. But the new agreement with utilities, negotiated during a two-day meeting with UAMPS members this winter, sets the project under a ticking clock. It includes requirements that the price hold steady at $89 per megawatt-hour, and—most worrying to utilities that want the project to succeed—that the project be at least 80 percent subscribed by next year. If it doesn’t hit that threshold, towns will get a refund on most of their expenses so far.

At this point, the utilities have sunk relatively little of their own money into the project, but that will change in 2024 as the project begins to seek site-specific building approvals followed by actual construction. To get the project fully subscribed, the group is talking with utilities elsewhere in the Northwest, where NuScale is competing with other SMR startups, including the Bill Gates–backed TerraPower, which recently signed a feasibility agreement with PacifiCorp, a private utility. Webb of UAMPS says he is optimistic about where the negotiations are headed. 

…………………….. For now, the Los Alamos county council voted to formalize a long-planned increase of their share of the NuScale plant’s power, from 1.8 MW to 8.6 MW. Garcia hopes it will help encourage other utilities to take a chance on sparking a nuclear renaissance. https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-mini-nuclear-plants-hangs-in-the-balance/—

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization looks to First Nations to back waste storage, AND small nuclear reactors

Ontario sites short-listed for nuclear waste storage, The organization developing a place to store spent nuclear fuel in Canada has settled on two potential sites in Ontario. The move rules out 20 other potential sites across Canada, including three in northern Saskatchewan.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization recently announced the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area in northwestern Ontario, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce area in southern Ontario, are both under consideration.

“These communities are now working through their timelines to determine willingness,” Russell Baker, manager of media relations for the NWMO, said in an e-mail.

Baker said the NWMO hopes to settle on one of the two Ontario sites by the fall of 2024, but only “with informed and willing hosts, where the municipality, First Nation and Métis communities are working together to implement it.”

Disposing of spent nuclear fuel has been an issue for the nuclear industry for decades. A variety of countries, including Canada, are looking at deep geological repositories, where the waste can be safely stored for thousands of years within stable rock formations, like the Precambrian Shield. Finland is already building one.

Back in 2010, the NWMO announced there were 22 potential sites for underground storage across Canada, including sites near Pinehouse, English River First Nation, and Creighton, in northern Saskatchewan.

According to Guy Lonechild, executive director of the First Nations Power Authority (FNPA), coming up with a shortlist of potential sites is another step.

“There were some previous sites looked at in northern Saskatchewan but there’s been a lot of time and energy put into a deep geological repository in the province of Ontario. And those are the two viable options that that we would support for further study,” Lonechild, who is also a former FSIN chief, said.

Lonechild added the FNPA has been looking seriously at the possibility of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNR) for Indigenous and northern communities for several years.

……………. However, even though SMR’s are relatively small, the cost could easily be a billion dollars or more. Which is why FNPA would be looking for partnerships to help Indigenous communities get involved.

“So it is going to take a significant amount of capital. And so we’re looking at developing consortium groups to participate on an equity basis.”

………………….. “The only way we’re going to get there is if First Nations that are informed, that give free prior informed consent. And they identify ways that they want to participate in, in clean energy jobs and in the nuclear industry,” he said.

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Army War Crimes Include Shelling of Ambulances, Firetrucks, and Rescue Workers in the Donbass Republics

Ukrainian Army War Crimes Include Shelling of Ambulances, Firetrucks, and Rescue Workers in the Donbass Republics—Similar to Israelis and U.S. Backed Terrorists in Syria

Local residents describe the perpetrators of these crimes—who have received lavish U.S. funding—as “shameless,” “scumbags” and “terrorists.”

Heroic rescue workers in Donbas should be accorded rights under international law to help people without being targeted.

Covert Action Magazine, Eva Bartlett, 27 Feb 23
In the more than eight years of bombing the civilians of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Ukraine has committed untold numbers of war crimes. These include bombing residential areas, markets, hospitals, schools, parks—including with prohibited heavy weapons and banned cluster munitions—and, since late July, raining banned “Petal” mines down on populated civilian areas, including the very center of Donetsk, including as recently as September 7.

A lesser-known war crime is Ukraine’s routine targeting of ambulances, fire trucks, medics and rescuers, and their headquarters and stations. Many of the times Ukraine bombs such heroic rescuers, it is when they are on the way, or already on site, to help civilians often themselves just bombed by Ukraine.

On August 21, Ukrainian shelling of the DPR’s Gorlovka wounded twelve, including five firefighters.

The day prior, Ukrainian shelling targeted an ambulance station in the LPR’s Lysychansk, wounding several and damaging some of the ambulances.

On June 23, the Kievskiy District of Donetsk came under repeated shelling over the course of the two hours I was visiting the Emergency Services headquarters there. On the grounds, I saw the remnants of a “Hurricane” missile from a previous Ukrainian attack.

The previous day, Ukrainian forces targeted an Emergency Services fire truck on call, leaving the driver hospitalized in critical condition. According to his colleagues, they saw a drone above them just prior to Ukraine’s strike. The targeting was unquestionably deliberate.

On June 18, Ukraine targeted a central Donetsk district after Emergency Services had arrived, killing a firefighter and the driver, and injuring three more rescuers.

In early June, heavy Ukrainian shelling of Kuibyshevsky District, Donetsk, destroyed an ambulance and seriously injured the driver.

Ukraine’s attacks on emergency workers is not new; Ukraine has been doing so for years.

In June 2021, during a humanitarian cease-fire, Ukrainian forces targeted an ambulance which had arrived to evacuate three injured DPR soldiers.

In October 2019, Ukrainian forces fired an anti-tank guided missile at a DPR military ambulance en route to help a child, wounding the driver and a paramedic.

In August 2018, Ukrainian forces fired a missile at a DPR ambulance, killing the driver and two female paramedics.

When I first visited the DPR in September 2019, going to hard-hit areas around Gorlovka, I was told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.

“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured.”

This is something I was very familiar with in Gaza, occupied Palestine, where Israeli soldiers routinely fire at Palestinian farmers and other laborers on agricultural land, a policy of harassment to drive Palestinians off their land. In most cases, ambulances likewise could not reach the injured due to Israel’s policy of targeting ambulances. Consequently, seriously injured Palestinians bleed to death.

In Zaitsevo, I was told this had happened there, too. “A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”

Targeting medics and other rescuers ensures those in need of help are deprived of it, and increases the likelihood that people who might have lived instead die of their injuries.

The intentional targeting of ambulances and medics, as well as fire trucks and other emergency services vehicles and workers, is against international law.

Speaking to DPR Rescuers

During my last two visits to the DPR, in June and August 2022, I interviewed a number of Emergency Services workers and medics.

According to Konstantin Zhukov, the Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Services, the ambulance services workers face shelling daily, constantly, and many employees have been wounded while working. One of the ambulance stations was completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling.

Outside, I spoke with Tatyana Golota, an emergency physician, and Alena Kondrasheva, a paramedic.

Both reiterated that it is normal coming under repeated Ukrainian fire. They spoke of Ukraine shelling after medics and emergency services workers had arrived to help civilians.

They showed me an ambulance completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling. It was new and had only been operational a few months before being destroyed.

That day we were at work and heard about the brigade coming under fire. The doctor had gone to help people, and the driver, by chance, walked away to try to get a mobile signal. At that moment, there was a direct hit on the vehicle.”

Also in Donetsk, I spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

He likewise said rescuers increasingly come under fire when they go out on a call, sometimes making it impossible to reach the people in need………………………………………………………………………………………………

Of Ukraine’s heightened shelling over the past many months, Levchenko said it was constant and daily. “Before, if we speak about 2014-2015, twenty minutes, one hour maximum. Now six-seven hours non-stop, every day.”

He said that the Ukrainian forces shell, wait until rescuers arrive and then shell again. “They wait for 30 minutes for us to arrive. We arrive there, start assisting people, and the shelling resumes.”

This is something I witnessed for myself when, on August 4, Ukraine bombed the hotel in which I was staying, the fourth and fifth shells landing 50 meters away and then directly beside the hotel, respectively. When the fifth struck, shattering inwards the lobby glass doors, I had fortunately just stepped out of the lobby where 30 seconds earlier I had been speaking to journalists who had run in from the street.

When it seemed the shelling had stopped, journalists went outside to document the damage. Sadly, a young woman outside the hotel had been killed by the shelling. Five others just two streets away were also torn apart by the bombs, including a promising 12-year-old ballerina, her grandmother, and her world famous former ballerina ballet teacher.

Emergency Services arrived and, not long after, Ukraine resumed its shelling. Fortunately, they were able to get inside, but this is just one example of Ukraine’s double strikes.

According to Levchenko, Ukraine does not only shell two times, but that they sometimes shell three times: “They wait again, our guys hide in the shelters, as soon as we go out, put out the fire, help people, there could be people under the debris, doors stuck, people can’t get out and get to the basement…then shelling resumes.”

He described the people engaging in this sort of warfare against civilians and rescuers as “Shameless. Scumbags. Terrorists.”

He is not wrong.

Targeting Rescuers: A Terrorist Tactic Adopted by U.S. Allies in Ukraine, Israel and Syria…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ukraine Continues Killing Donbas Rescuers

On September 1, 13 DPR Emergency workers were killed and 9 injured from Ukrainian shelling. According to a representative of the Emergency Situations, the shelling was intentional.

“The missiles exactly hit residential buildings. The vehicle was outside and it was hit with shrapnel and pieces of the destroyed building. But again, you can see it’s an emergency vehicle—a fire vehicle. This is a war crime.”

The following day, two more Emergency Services workers were killed and two injured by Ukrainian shelling of their fire truck, in Makeevka. They were en route to put out a fire. Images accompanying the news show a mangled bright red fire truck, unmistakably a rescue services vehicle.

When in August I spoke with the Director of the Donetsk Department of Fire and Rescue of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, he told me that, at that time, four Emergency Services workers had been killed and 40 injured by Ukrainian shelling.

With Ukraine’s targeting of Emergency Services in September, the number of rescuers Ukraine has killed is now at least 19, with another 51 injured……………………………………………………………………….

The Kievskiy Emergency Ministry Chief, Andrey Levchenko, said of the rescuers, “They are all heroes. If it were possible, I would give a medal to every one of them, to honor their work, to support them. But they don’t do that for the medals, no way. Nobody ever said, ‘we’re not going, we don’t want to,’” he said, referring to when rescuers go out on calls.

He is right. These rescuers are heroes, putting their lives on the line every time they go out to help a person in need, knowing full well Ukraine frequently strikes an area a second and a third time, specifically to target rescuers. While they might not receive or want medals, they should be afforded their right under international law to rescue people without fear of being shelled by Ukraine. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/09/23/ukrainian-army-war-crimes-include-shelling-of-ambulences-firetrucks-and-rescue-workers-in-the-donbass-republics-similar-to-israelis-and-u-s-backed-terrorists-in-syria/

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria — RenewEconomy

Large solar farm in Victoria has more than 2,000 sheep acting as lawn mowers The post QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria appeared first on RenewEconomy.

QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone — RenewEconomy

Spanish developer unveils plans for a floating offshore wind farm in waters set to be declared as Australia’s second official development zone. The post New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues — RenewEconomy

Sunny side up: Oil giant bp and its Lightsource solar partner reportedly offer a share of their growing Australian solar portfolio up for sale as PV asset flip continues. The post Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukraine preparing attack on Crimea – Zelensky

 https://www.rt.com/russia/572038-ukraine-zelensky-crimea-attack/ 27 Feb 23, Kiev already has the resolve necessary for the assault, but is still building up its capabilities, the president says.

Ukraine is readying an offensive to try and seize Russia’s Crimean peninsula, President Vladimir Zelensky said on Friday at a press conference. Kiev is forming new units specifically for the task, with servicemen undergoing training abroad, he revealed.

“We’re taking military steps, we are preparing for them. We are mentally prepared already. We prepare technically, with weapons, forces, we form new brigades, we form offensive units of various kinds and types, we are sending people for training not only in Ukraine, you know, but also in other countries,” Zelensky stated.

The president, as well as other top officials, has repeatedly pledged to re-capture all of the former Ukrainian territories from Russia, including Crimea. The peninsula broke away from the country back in 2014 in the aftermath of the Maidan coup in Kiev, joining Russia after a landslide referendum.

Four other formerly-Ukrainian territories, namely the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, were incorporated into Russia after the overwhelming majority of their populations voted in favor of the idea last September.

Neither reunification with Crimea, nor the latest incorporations of other regions got Western recognition, with Kiev and its backers considering these lands part of Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly warned Kiev against plotting an assault on Crimea. Early in February, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chair of the Security Council, said that any attack on Crimea would be interpreted as a direct attack on the country itself and would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

France pushing hard to make the European Union a pro-nuclear organisation

France seeks ‘nuclear alliance’ at EU energy meeting

EU Observer, By WESTER VAN GAAL BRUSSELS, 27. FEB, 23

France is building an alliance of pro-nuclear states to advocate for expanding nuclear power in the bloc.

EU energy ministers are meeting on Monday and Tuesday (27 and 28 February) to discuss issues ranging from security of supply to the upcoming electricity market reform.

But on the sidelines, French energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runache has invited 12 other countries on Tuesday to discuss a “nuclear alliance.”

“I would like to remind you that nuclear power represents 25 percent of European electricity production”, said Pannier-Runache. “It will be one of the important low-carbon energy sources next to wind and solar power that will help us achieve carbon neutrality.”

She later explained that the meeting would be an occasion to discuss “research, supply chain and nuclear waste issues.”

Countries in attendance include traditionally pro-nuclear members Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Finland. Newly-joined Croatia, plus the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden will also attend.

It is the latest move in an ongoing spat with Germany which is phasing out nuclear power and whose negotiators have stressed nuclear electricity should not be equated to electricity derived from solar and wind.

Other countries not attending the meeting include Belgium and Luxembourg, whose energy minister Claude Turmes said nuclear power “is very slow.”

“It takes 12 to 15 years to build a new nuclear facility,” he said. “If we want to win the race against climate change, we need to be fast.”

The French meeting follows intense French lobbying to include nuclear power in a recent EU Commission rules for green hydrogen, which is made with electricity derived from wind and solar but now also allows nuclear power as energy source………….  https://euobserver.com/green-economy/156759

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

France pushing hard to make the European Union a pro-nuclear organisation

France seeks ‘nuclear alliance’ at EU energy meeting

EU Observer, By WESTER VAN GAAL BRUSSELS, 27. FEB, 23

France is building an alliance of pro-nuclear states to advocate for expanding nuclear power in the bloc.

EU energy ministers are meeting on Monday and Tuesday (27 and 28 February) to discuss issues ranging from security of supply to the upcoming electricity market reform.

But on the sidelines, French energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runache has invited 12 other countries on Tuesday to discuss a “nuclear alliance.”

“I would like to remind you that nuclear power represents 25 percent of European electricity production”, said Pannier-Runache. “It will be one of the important low-carbon energy sources next to wind and solar power that will help us achieve carbon neutrality.”

She later explained that the meeting would be an occasion to discuss “research, supply chain and nuclear waste issues.”

Countries in attendance include traditionally pro-nuclear members Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Finland. Newly-joined Croatia, plus the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden will also attend.

It is the latest move in an ongoing spat with Germany which is phasing out nuclear power and whose negotiators have stressed nuclear electricity should not be equated to electricity derived from solar and wind.

Other countries not attending the meeting include Belgium and Luxembourg, whose energy minister Claude Turmes said nuclear power “is very slow.”

“It takes 12 to 15 years to build a new nuclear facility,” he said. “If we want to win the race against climate change, we need to be fast.”

The French meeting follows intense French lobbying to include nuclear power in a recent EU Commission rules for green hydrogen, which is made with electricity derived from wind and solar but now also allows nuclear power as energy source………….  https://euobserver.com/green-economy/156759

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This week in Australian and other nuclear news

Bits of good news?

 – hard to find this week. There are “good news” sites, but these tend to focus on individual stories – about cute kittens, or kind teenagers. Still, I know that there are wonderful groups of people all over, collectively doing good things. I’m seeing my own examples of this, while reading through so many excellent submissions to Parliament from Australian environmental groups opposing nuclear power.

Nuclear.  It is getting more bizarre – as the USA contemplates artificial intelligence for launching nuclear weapons. As one of the very most “progressive” Democrats wants more opportunities for small companies to benefit in the weapons sales boom.

The propaganda tsunami – always a part of a war- is upon us.  But is this a war– between Russia and the entire world?  I have no doubt that some Russian soldiers have committed atrocities – and we’re told this every day.  But – really – are there no Ukrainian- committed atrocities?   Does Saint Zelensky really know what he is doing – or is he just following the USA line? Truth isn’t just the first casualty in this war – – it’s the second, third and so on casualty.

AUSTRALIA

Christina’s notes. TODAY. Painful realisation that our Labor defence minister is even more stupid and subservient to USA than the Liberals were!   Media determined to ignore the intrinsic connection between “new small nuclear reactors” and nuclear weapons.

CLIMATE. Temperature rise can be stopped. It is a dangerous myth to say that it’s too late to act. 

ECONOMICS. Yet another £6 billion cost hike for UK’s Hinkley Point C nuclear project. Cost of EDF’s new UK nuclear project rises to $40 billion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owfj0gSeAbw Debt-ridden EDF’s woes increase, with big rise in costs of Hinkley and Sizewell nuclear projects .  UK: big talk about small nuclear reactors, but not much is happening, really.     Russia’s nuclear industry is making great money – thanks to customers in Europe. Marketing: Seoul aims to use strengthened US ties to expand nuclear plant exports.

ENERGY. ‘No miracles needed’: Prof. Mark Jacobson on how much wind, sun and water can power the world. The Unholy Alliance – nuclear power, endless data centers, and endless energy use.

ENVIRONMENT. Groundwater carries radiation risk for North Korean cities near nuke test site – rights group . Toxic US-Japan collusion on nuke wastewater taints global environment.

ETHICS and RELIGION. Japan not only dumps wastewater but also morality.

HEALTH. Health appeal: avert nuclear war and respect international humanitarian law,

LEGAL. Linda Pentz Gunter on the Nuclear Corruption Cases. World dreads Japan’s date with disaster.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. Spreading the Bomb – Will Ottawa revisit Canada’s support for plutonium reprocessing?. Belarus’ second nuclear reactor is far behind schedule, while Unit 1 reactor remains unstable. .

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR. Fury as Japan plans to dump a million tonnes of contaminated water in the Pacific. Group calls for the stoppage of works at Sizewell C nuclear site, as Sizewell project is not yet authorised, and works are damaging the environment.

POLITICS.   Biden team has ‘deeply rooted hatred for Russia’ – US congressman. How US and Ukraine’s far-right made pro-peace Zelensky a ‘no peace’ president . Caitlin Johnstone – The Empire Gives People The Illusion Of Fighting The Power Without Ever Endangering Real Power. Democrats Praise Bush, Want More Small-Business War Profiteers. 

Canada launches $30 million small modular reactor funding program. USA’ Inflation Reduction Act is a game-changer for the nuclear industry -says Public Service Enterprise Group. 

Hinkley Point Nuclear Megaproject is really a colossal miscalculation of risk management. Do not bring nuclear energy plants to Scotland, SNP tells new UK energy minister.  Boris Johnson demands that UK government declares nuclear to be “a green energy” source, and boosts the industry .   Nuclear power – carbon intensive and environmentally damaging –NOT GREEN – Nuclear Free Local Authorities.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Reckless or rhetoric? — Putin suspends New START nuclear treaty. The New START nuclear treaty, and why Vladimir Putin is walking away from it. Scott Ritter: Anyone Who Doesn’t Get How Serious New START Suspension is ‘Doesn’t Appreciate Life’.       Vladimir Putin says the US-led military alliance in Ukraine seeks defeat and liquidation of Russia. 

Chomsky: A Stronger NATO Is the Last Thing We Need as Russia-Ukraine War Turns 1. China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis. India, China may have averted nuclear war in Ukraine by influencing Russia- US.   Tamara Lorincz: Canada’s Support For Ukraine’s War on the Donbass & Canada’s Anti-Russia Policies — In Gaza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpEaovhVois.   China calls for Russia to not go down the ‘nuclear weapons route’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRr4HuXsTQ8 .

France mounts ‘aggressive’ nuclear push with eye on EU industrial plan. Poland to buy 1st nuclear power plant with Westinghouse.           Japan beefs up moves in seeking G7 support for wastewater dump.

RADIATION. Our Global Surveillance System on NUKE TESTING is inadequate . Seoul offers radiation tests to N Korea defectors as group flags nuclear risks. Japan slammed for loosening test standards on Fukushima radioactive water.

SAFETY. Courting disaster —Missiles have been passing too close to Ukraine’s reactors.

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Russia Sends Ship To Space Station To Rescue “Stranded Crew”  .

SPINBUSTER. B1 Officials reveal cost of shooting down ‘UFOs’ – WSJ

WASTES. Japan postponing its controversial plan for trials to reuse radioactively contaminated soil . World Insights: Science should guide Fukushima wastewater release plan, Pacific leaders say.       Academic speaks out against Japan’s wastewater plan for Pacific.       800,000 cubic meters of new radioactive waste to be generated as a result of decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

WAR and CONFLICT. There has never in history been a greater need for a large Anti-War Movement . More Evidence Emerges That US Wanted Russia to Invade. Thousands rally in Berlin, Paris to call for peace in Ukraine. Forgotten heroes of Britain’s nuclear tests to FINALLY get long-awaited medal this summer. Should Algorithms Control Nuclear Launch Codes?.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Nuclear submarines – outrageous price tag beyond any value for Australia’s defence

Kazzi Jai , Nuclear fuel cycle watch Australia, 25 Feb 23

Interesting read in respect to the possible acquisition of nuclear subs, by Former Prime Minister Paul Keating

”But Sheridan’s problem is part of a wider problem. The national foreign policy debate in Australia, is now heavily populated by an army of ‘little Americans’ who cannot see past the United States and its interests. That is, the interests of another country.

These people populate our security agencies, the likes of ASPI, the military services and important sections of the media.

In terms of Australia’s sovereign interests – the gift of a continent, our position and proximity to Asia – these people prefer an exclusive faith in an Atlantic power half a world away.

Not that the alliance with the United States is not important to us. It is. The alliance has been and remains central to our security and foreign policy. But not to the exclusion of good and appropriate relations with the region and especially with China.

The ANZUS Treaty, struck in 1951, is an equivocal document which offers strategic consultation but fails to guarantee automatic military support to Australia by the United States in the event of Australia being attacked.

This differs from the first quality guarantee the US provides to NATO partners who are guaranteed an automatic military response by the US in the event a NATO partner is attacked by another state.”

”The nuclear propelled submarines under consideration by Australia would be armed with conventional torpedoes – the same as the existing Collins class submarines.

Were we to procure eight Virginia class US submarines – only two or three would ever be at sea on station.

At about A$9billion per submarine – a fleet of eight (in twenty-five years’ time) would cost around A$70billion in today’s dollars. $70billion to fire conventional torpedoes from two to three boats only at the same time.

The price tag is outrageous and beyond any value for the utility – especially when far cheaper conventional submarines can be acquired to do the same job.

And, of course, the submarine would, in part, be crewed by Americans – so the United States would be in full possession of Australia’s operational choices at any one time. Hardly the stuff of the sovereignty Australia both needs and is entitled to.”………………………………….. more https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/?multi_permalinks=6305931862771751%2C6296134680418136%2C6298248756873395&notif_id=1677060693963421&notif_t=group_activity&ref=notif

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Margaret Beavis | Here’s how to tone down the nuclear threat

We are at a turning point.

By signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Australia would join 122 countries who supported the treaty at the United Nations. Although the US will very actively discourage such action, Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines are all signatories and remain US allies.

By Margaret Beavis, February 27 2023  https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8100096/nuclear-war-is-not-winnable-heres-how-to-eliminate-the-threat/

With the invasion of Ukraine and now Putin suspending the New Start Treaty, the risk of both nuclear proliferation and nuclear war is increasing. But we can play a role in preventing this.

For more than seven decades we have been told that nuclear weapons are an essential political tool that make us safer, but in reality, each day we wake up without nuclear conflict is indeed a lucky day.

Myths come into being through the telling and re-telling of stories. Myths exist to help us make meaning of our world and our lives, however, not all myths are true.

There are three big myths about nuclear weapons.

The first myth is that a nuclear war is “winnable”. The research, however, is both clear-cut and horrifying. Even a “small” regional nuclear exchange – say between Pakistan and India – using less than 1 per cent of the global nuclear arsenal, would kill around 100 million people.

Massive fires would loft millions of tons of smoke into the stratosphere. Decade-long global cooling will follow. Crop yields of rice, wheat and corn would fall 15 to 30 per cent.

Conservatively estimated, around 2 billion people would starve.

If the US and Russia used their 1800 deployed weapons, food production would cease in most parts of the world. Most, if not all, of the human race would starve.

The second myth is an outdated, dogmatic belief that nuclear weapons make us safer. Nuclear deterrence assumes the threat of mutually assured destruction will prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

However, risk analysis demonstrates the reverse is true. Given increasing conflict, brinkmanship, and unpredictable world leaders, plus the risks posed by cyberattacks and extremists, it’s hard to rely on a mutually assured destruction strategy.

But the biggest risk, looking at history, is inadvertent use. We have – at least seven times – come within a hair’s breadth of global conflagration, due to human, computer or radar error, unusual weather patterns and even a faulty computer chip.

The US and Russia have come close on five occasions since 1979. It is inevitable that eventually our luck will run out.

The third myth is that nuclear disarmament is irresponsible. But it is hopelessly unrealistic to assume these weapons will never be used.

We are at a turning point.

By signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Australia would join 122 countries who supported the treaty at the United Nations. Although the US will very actively discourage such action, Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines are all signatories and remain US allies.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sacred site, nuclear target are neighbours

26 February 2023, By ROD MOSS  https://alicespringsnews.com.au/2023/02/26/sacred-site-nuclear-target-are-neighbours/

At the distant point of the track is the Joint Defence Facility, colloquially known as the Space Base or Pine Gap. Prior to awareness of Kweyrnpe, I’d joined peace activists in the 1980s, protesting at its gates about its role in war, surveillance and nuclear targeting.

Not until the mid nineties did I understand the significance of Kweyrnpe to the Hayes families when Patrick senior asked me to take him there to talk about the paintings.

He’d mentioned it was a sacred site when, as its TO, he’d been toured through the defence facility.

His grandson, Vernon Alice had accompanied him. The base was honouring an agreement with the TOs whenever new installations occurred though the family remain none the wiser about its inner workings.

Some of the younger men had spent time in Big House, the correctional centre, visible to the south of Kweyrnpe.

Whatever privations they’d endured, several admitted it wasn’t too bad as, unlike many inmates, they’d been on their own country which possibly explained the casual acceptance of many of their sentences and recidivism.

Initially it was the rock formations that fascinated me and those and the sky were painted first. But it wasn’t finished with me. Or me with it.

Some weeks later I imagined, then added, a wild dog pack lurching stealthily towards the viewer over; intruders beneath that apocalyptic sky.

The ridge to the right separates the initiated men’s site, with its overhang of protected paintings, from the women and children’s side which is adorned with native pines / alukerrwe.

Though no signage existed in the small car park at the time of this painting, a visitors book and a board with brief information about its significance for Arrernte has been erected advising on appropriate behaviour. A simplified story about the place also fronts the paintings.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Northern Territory, weapons and war | Leave a comment

There has never in history been a greater need for a large Anti-War Movement

Caitlin Johnstone 27 Feb 23 Caitlin’s Newsletter,

Things are escalating more and more rapidly between the US-centralized power structure and the few remaining nations with the will and the means to stand against its demands for total obedience, namely China, Russia, and Iran. The world is becoming increasingly split between two groups of governments who are becoming increasingly hostile toward each other, and you don’t have to be a historian to know it’s probably a bad sign when that happens. Especially in the age of nuclear weapons.

The US State Department’s Victoria Nuland is now saying that the US is supporting Ukrainian strikes on Crimea, drawing sharp rebukes from Moscow with a stern reminder that the peninsula is a “red line” for the Kremlin which will result in escalations in the conflict if crossed. On Friday, Ukraine’s President Zelensky told the press that Kyiv is preparing a large offensive for the “de-occupation” of Crimea, which Moscow has considered a part of the Russian Federation since its annexation in 2014.


As Anatol Lieven explained for Jacobin earlier this month, this exact scenario is currently the one most likely to lead to a sequence of escalations ending in nuclear war. In light of the aforementioned recent revelations, the opening paragraph of Lieven’s article is even more chilling to read now than it was when it came out a couple of weeks ago:

The greatest threat of nuclear catastrophe that humanity has ever faced is now centered on the Crimean peninsula. In recent months, the Ukrainian government and army have repeatedly vowed to reconquer this territory, which Russia seized and annexed in 2014. The Russian establishment, and most ordinary Russians, for their part believe that holding Crimea is vital to Russian identity and Russia’s position as a great power. As a Russian liberal acquaintance (and no admirer of Putin) told me, “In the last resort, America would use nuclear weapons to save Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, and if we have to, we should use them to save Crimea.”

And that’s just Russia. The war in Ukraine is being used to escalate against all powers not aligned with the US-centralized alliance, with recent developments including drone attacks on an Iranian weapons factory which reportedly arms Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and Chinese companies being sanctioned for “backfill activities in support of Russia’s defence sector” following US accusations that the Chinese government is preparing to arm Russia in the war.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been holding multiple meetings with top military officials regarding potential future attacks on Iran to neutralize the alleged threat of Iran developing a nuclear arsenal, a “threat” that Netanyahu has personally been lying about for years. 

If you’ve been reading Antiwar.com (and if you care about this stuff you probably should be), you’ve been seeing new articles about the latest imperial escalations against China on a near-daily basis now. Sometimes they come out multiple times per day; this past Thursday Dave DeCamp put out two completely separate news stories titled “US Plans to Expand Military Presence in Taiwan, a Move That Risks Provoking China” and “Philippines in Talks With US, Australia on Joint South China Sea Patrols“. Taiwan and the South China Sea are two powderkeg flashpoints where war could quickly erupt at any time in a number of different ways.

If you know where to look for good updates on the behavior of the US-centralized empire and you follow them from day to day, it’s clear that things are accelerating toward a global conflict of unimaginable horror. As bad as things look right now, the future our current trajectory has us pointed toward is much, much, much worse.

Empire apologists will frame this trajectory toward global disaster as an entirely one-sided affair, with bloody-fanged tyrants trying to take over the world because they are evil and hate freedom, and the US-centralized alliance either cast in the role of poor widdle victim or heroic defender of the weak and helpless depending on which generates more sympathy on that day.

These people are lying. Any intellectually honest research into the west’s aggressions and provocations against both Russia and China will show you that Russia and China are reacting defensively to the empire’s campaign to secure US unipolar planetary hegemony; you might not agree with those reactions, but you cannot deny that they are reactions to a clear and deliberate aggressor.

This is important to understand, because whenever you say that something must be done to try and avert an Atomic Age world war, you’ll get empire apologists saying “Well go protest in Moscow and Beijing then,” as though the US power alliance is some kind of passive witness to all this. Which is of course complete bullshit; if World War III does indeed befall us, it will be because of choices that were made by the drivers of the western empire while ignoring off-ramp after off-ramp.

This tendency to flip reality and frame the western imperial power structure as the reactive force for peace against malevolent warmongers serves to help quash the emergence of a robust anti-war movement in the west, because if your own government is virtuous and innocent in a conflict then there’s no good reason to go protesting it. But that’s exactly what urgently needs to happen, because these people are driving us to our doom.

In fact, it is fair to say that there has never in history been a time when the need to forcefully oppose the warmongering of our own western governments was more urgent. The attacks on Vietnam and Iraq were horrific atrocities which unleashed unfathomable suffering upon our world, but they did not pose any major existential threat to the world as a whole. The wars in Vietnam and Iraq killed millions; we’re talking about a conflict that can kill billions.

Each of the World Wars was in turn the worst single thing that happened to our species as a whole up until that point in history. World War I was the worst thing that ever happened until World War II happened, and if World War III happens it will almost certainly make World War II look like a schoolyard tussle. This is because all of the major players in that conflict would be armed with nuclear weapons, and at some point some of them are going to be faced with strong incentives to use them. Once that happens, Mutually Assured Destruction ceases to protect us from armageddon, and the “Mutual” and “Destruction” components come in to play.

None of this needs to happen. There is nothing written in adamantine which says the US must rule the world with an iron fist no matter the cost and no matter the risk. There is nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality which says nations can’t simply coexist peacefully and collaborate toward the common good of all beings, can’t turn away from our primitive impulses of domination and control, can’t do anything but drift passively toward nuclear annihilation all because a few imperialists in Washington convinced everyone to buy into the doctrine of unipolarism.

But we’re not going to turn away from this trajectory unless the masses start using the power of our numbers to force a change from warmongering, militarism and continual escalation toward diplomacy, de-escalation and detente. We need to start organizing against those who would steer our species into extinction, and working to pry their hands away from the steering wheel if they refuse to turn away. We need to resist all efforts to cast inertia on this most sacred of all priorities, and we need to start moving now. We’re all on a southbound bus to oblivion, and it’s showing no signs of stopping.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons consortium enthusiastically revving up their business.

Nuclear weapons consortium faces new global threats, JIM CARRIER S The Gazette, Feb 26, 2023

WASHINGTON • Thirty years after the Cold War, the United States is again running in a nuclear arms race.

Officially, no one calls it a race. It is contest between four or five adversaries who could destroy the world, or much of it. But it is shaping up to be a costly, unpredictable, generational competition that will shadow international nuclear geopolitics for decades.

Team USA, which is leading the pack at the moment, gathered in a hotel ballroom in Alexandria, Va., Feb. 14 to hear how it can win. The forum was the 15th Nuclear Deterrence Summit, a gathering of people employed by the “nuclear security enterprise,” the complex of laboratories, factories, corporations and federal branches that make and use nuclear weapons.

The atmosphere was by turns alarming and auspicious as contractors, who operate most of the nuclear enterprise and employ 95% of its 70,000 employees, heard of the growing threats to U.S. security, while contemplating lucrative federal contracts to counter those threats.

“Delivery of mission is becoming paramount while the fiscal environment is evolving from being cost-constrained to being cost-conscious,” reported a new study of the enterprise.

The result of that shift is clear: The first millions of trillions of dollars are flowing toward labs and factories that are designing, and starting to build, new thermonuclear bombs and new fleets of missiles, airplanes and submarines to deliver them.

For the 531 people in attendance the summit at times resembled a pep rally.

In a keynote address, Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), described the U.S. buildup as a “renaissance.”

Nuclear weapons remain the “cornerstone of national defense,” she said. The current stockpile of 3,750 aging warheads — down from more than 31,000 at the height of the Cold War in the mid-1960s — is being “modernized.” They include five existing warheads for gravity bombs, Minuteman and cruise missiles, and the Trident missile for new Columbia-class submarines, now being built.  One warhead, the W93, is a new design for the Sentinel, a new intercontinental ballistic missile that will replace the Minuteman III missiles in silos in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota.

To make that warhead, the U.S. will again make plutonium “pits,” the core of hydrogen thermonuclear bombs, at a remodeled plant in Los Alamos, N.M., and a new $10 billion plant in Savannah River, Ga.

The pit factories, which replace the infamous and now cleared from the landscape Rocky Flats factory outside Denver, are still being designed, and are the subject of lawsuits by activist groups who say the government sidestepped required full environmental impact statements. If they become operational, Los Alamos will make 30 pits a year starting in 2026 and Savannah River 50 pits a year — a number that is likely to grow, Hruby said.

In the next five years NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for applying nuclear science to military weapons, plans to complete five warhead modernizations, build at least six major construction projects and rebuild numerous facilities and capabilities that have “atrophied or disappeared” since the Cold War, she said. Many of the plants and labs are still cleaning up deadly contamination left from the Cold War.

“The American people are hearing more about nuclear issues than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Hruby said.

At the conclusion of her talk, which began at 8:30 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, moderator DJ Johnson, vice president of Honeywell’s Federal Solutions Business Enterprise, prompted the audience like a cheerleader………………

The audience applauded, a bit halting at first, perhaps because of two sobering messages that accompanied NNSA’s accomplishments. The first involved new international threats that in the last year shattered the foundations of nonproliferation treaties and the delicate balance of power and peace that had prevailed since the 1960s:………………………………………………………………………….

The second sobering message involved the enterprise’s brain deficit. Last year, the complex hired 11,000 people, but lost 7,000……………

Attrition at some plants is as high as 10% a year, nearly a third of the federal overseers are nearing retirement and 40% of the workforce has less than five years’ experience……………….

As the 500 enterprise employee met and contemplated a future full of nuclear weapons, two men stood across the street from the hotel, holding hand-painted signs. “Nuclear Weapons are illegal,” said one. “The World Wants Nuclear Disarmament,” said the other.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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