TODAY: The growing influence of the nuclear lobby on education.

It’s one thing for the nuclear lobby to pour money into universities in the USA and UK, to set up prestigious-looking nuclear departments. That’s one way to gain the respectability, approval and awe that the nuclear priesthood crave.

The original scientists of the Manhattan atomic bomb project enjoyed adulation (for a while) when everyone was encouraged to think that their brilliant device saved the world from Hitler. But that adoration faded as it transpired that Japan would have surrendered anyway, and the war in Europe was over, months before the “wonderful” bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

To assuage their guilt, most nuclear scientists enthusiastically embraced “Atoms for Peace” – and off and away went the public story that nuclear power is so good. The nuclear priesthood, being highly technical and male – developed a mindset, a reductionist point of view – the idea that technical achievement is all-important, and side issues like radiation effects, biology, environment, ecology, health, economics, history, criminal connections, are – well – just side issues.

But dammit! Those side issues just keep on coming up. Perhaps this is because the universities have been teaching too much of that other girlie “soft” stuff. So we need not just more more Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths – but Nuclear Science now too!

Australian journalist Liam Mannix, covers this new nuclear lobby push in his article ‘Cherish’ the power”, and points out that the uranium and nuclear industries have much more money to push for their interests, than do those “more socially constructive areas”.

The previous government in Australia determinedly downgraded humanities studies. Perhaps this is a worldwide trend. Anyway there is a saving grace for increasing STEM education – it gives girls and women that necessary knowledge – traditionally reserved for males. They, and men who can think, can gain the knowledge they need, to better evaluate pro nuclear propaganda.

Perhaps the world does need more nuclear scientists – there will be much need for them, in the marathon tasks of dismantling the toxic nuclear power/nuclear weapons industry. But we surely need also more humanities education, to understand and face the crises coming upon the world.

December 30, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Growing climate, nuclear risks spark doomsday fears

Past year has prompted warnings of armageddon amid war in Ukraine and concerns over higher rate of warming, but has also seen COVID pandemic recede and other positive signs

https://www.timesofisrael.com/growing-climate-nuclear-risks-spark-doomsday-fears/ By SHAUN TANDON 29 Dec 22, WASHINGTON (AFP) — For thousands of years, predictions of apocalypse have come and gone. But with dangers rising from nuclear war and climate change, does the planet need to at least begin contemplating the worst?

When the world rang in 2022, few would have expected the year to feature the US president speaking of the risk of doomsday, following Russia’s threats to go nuclear in its invasion of Ukraine.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis” in 1962, Joe Biden said in October.

And on the year that humanity welcomed its eighth billion member, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the planet was on a “highway to climate hell.”

In extremes widely attributed to climate change, floods submerged one-third of Pakistan, China sweat under an unprecedented 70-day heatwave, and crops failed in the Horn of Africa — all while the world lagged behind on the UN-blessed goal of checking warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Biggest risk yet of nuclear war?

The Global Challenges Foundation, a Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks, warned in an annual report that the threat of nuclear weapons use was the greatest since 1945 when the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in history’s only atomic attacks.

The report warned that an all-out exchange of nuclear weapons, besides causing an enormous loss of life, would trigger clouds of dust that would obscure the sun, reducing the capacity to grow food and ushering in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

Kennette Benedict, a lecturer at the University of Chicago who led the report’s nuclear section, said risks were even greater than during the Cuban Missile Crisis as Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared less restrained by advisors.

While any Russian nuclear strike would likely involve small “tactical” weapons, experts fear a quick escalation if the United States responds.

“Then we’re in a completely different ballgame,” said Benedict, a senior advisor to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which in January will unveil its latest assessment of the “doomsday clock” set since 2021 at 100 seconds to midnight.

Amid the focus on Ukraine, US intelligence believes North Korea is ready for a seventh nuclear test, Biden has effectively declared dead a deal on Iran’s contested nuclear work and tensions between India and Pakistan have remained at a low boil.

Benedict also faulted the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review which reserved the right for the United States to use nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances.”

“I think there’s been a kind of steady erosion of the ability to manage nuclear weapons,” she said.

Charting worst-case climate risks

UN experts estimated ahead of November talks in Egypt that the world was on track to warming of 2.1 to 2.9 C — but some outside analysts put the figure well higher, with greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 again hitting a record despite pushes to renewable energy.

Luke Kemp, a Cambridge University expert on existential risks, said the possibility of higher warming was drawing insufficient attention, which he blamed on the consensus culture of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and scientists’ fears of being branded alarmist.

“There has been a strong incentive to err on the side of least drama,” he said.

“What we really need are more complex assessments of how risks would cascade around the world.”

Climate change could cause ripple effects on food, with multiple breadbasket regions failing, fueling hunger and eventually political unrest and conflict.

Kemp warned against extrapolating from a single year or event. But a research paper he co-authored noted that even a two-degree temperature rise would put the Earth in territory uncharted since the Ice Age.

Using a medium-high scenario on emissions and population growth, it found that two billion people by 2070 could live in areas with a mean temperature of 29 C (84.2 F), straining water resources — including between India and Pakistan.

Cases for optimism

The year, however, was not all grim. While China ended the year with a surge of COVID-19 deaths, vaccinations helped much of the world turn the page on virus, which the World Health Organization estimated in May contributed to the deaths of 14.9 million people in 2020 and 2021.

December 30, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How did the US nuclear industry fare in 2022?

Nuclear plants big and small are getting support from the feds. Still, problems persist — TerraPower can’t source fuel, Oklo and NuScale are tangled in red tape, and more.

Canary Media 28 December 2022 Eric Wesoff

The U.S. nuclear power market continued to sputter in 2022 as it faced regulatory, technical and financial setbacks — despite solid support from the federal government. 

This mirrors the global nuclear scene; plant closings and construction delays have resulted in nuclear falling to just 9.8 percent of global power generation in 2021, its lowest level since the 1980s, according to the World Nuclear Industry 2022 annual report.

The United States generates more nuclear power than any other country in the world, with about 95 gigawatts of capacity, followed by China, but construction of new plants has been plagued by cost and schedule overruns, as well as an inability to keep up with the plunging costs of natural gas and renewable energy sources. Still, nuclear power provides a crucial 20 percent of U.S. electricity from the 92 light-water reactors that were built in a seemingly unreplicable construction binge in the 1970s and ​‘80s.

Some of these plants are struggling financially, many are approaching their decommission dates, and the only new large reactors constructed in recent memory, at the Plant Vogtle in Georgia, have been calamitous money pits brimming with incompetence and even fraud.

Here are the U.S. nuclear industry’s highs and lows from 2022. 

Diablo Canyon lives

Diablo Canyon, California’s last remaining nuclear plant, was granted up to $1.1 billion in support from the U.S. Department of Energy in November, which might allow the two-reactor plant to remain in business. ……………..

Still, Diablo faces a reckoning with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding its license, as the plant must now confront years of deferred maintenance in the run-up to its anticipated retirement. 

Fuel loading at Vogtle

On October 17, Georgia Power reported that ​“fuel load” into the Plant Vogtle Unit 3 reactor core had been completed, marking an overdue milestone in the bumpy journey of getting two new reactors at this power plant up and running. During the fuel-loading process, technicians and operators transferred scores of fuel assemblies one by one to the Unit 3 reactor…………………….

On December 7, Vogtle’s Unit 4 completed cold hydro testing, the penultimate step before hot functional testing, which is scheduled to begin early next year. 

The two units are the first new nuclear units to be built in the U.S. in more than three decades — and they haven’t made nuclear power look good. The project is six years overdue and will cost utility customers over $30 billion, more than double the original price tag. DOE’s Loan Programs Office provided more than $12 billion in loan guarantees to help complete Vogtle’s expansion.

DOE and IRA love nuclear power

The Biden administration is committed to maintaining the existing nuclear fleet and bringing innovative, new nuclear-reactor designs to market.

The Inflation Reduction Act provides generous production credits for existing nuclear plants and added premiums for meeting prevailing-wage requirements. These credits offer a potential $30 billion lifeline to struggling plants at risk of early retirement. 

The IRA also provides a tax credit for advanced nuclear reactors and a credit of up to 30 percent for microreactors, while devoting $700 million to support the development of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), the highly enriched fuel used in many advanced nuclear reactors. 

This funding is in addition to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit program, which lets existing U.S. reactors bid on credits to help support their continued operations. The DOE’s Loan Programs Office also has $11 billion in funding for nuclear plants and nuclear supply chains, according to Jigar Shah, director of the office. 

………………………….. TerraPower and dozens of other advanced nuclear startups require a concentrated form of fuel — HALEU. But the only current commercial supplier of HALEU is Tenex, a Russian state-owned company. That wasn’t a great situation even before Russia invaded Ukraine.

In mid-December, TerraPower announced that it has pushed back the planned start date for its reactor because depending on HALEU sourced from Russia had become an unworkable business plan. ​“Given the lack of fuel availability now, and that there has been no construction started on new fuel enrichment facilities, TerraPower is anticipating a minimum of a two-year delay to being able to bring the Natrium reactor into operation,” said CEO Chris Levesque.

The world’s fleet of light-water reactors runs almost entirely on fuel enriched to 3 to 5 percent U-235, which is classified as low-enriched uranium (LEU). In contrast, the vast majority of non-light-water reactor designs in development, like TerraPower’s, run on enrichments of 5 to 20 percent (HALEU).

X-energy goes public via SPAC

X-energy, a developer of small modular nuclear reactors and fuel, is going public through the magic of a merger with Ares Acquisition Corporation, a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company…………… Once the disreputable domain of pink-sheet over-the-counter stocks, SPACs have become an acceptable way for companies to go public without the burden of revenue or the actual due diligence most public companies go through. ………………………………………………..

NuScale’s NRC blues………….

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/how-did-the-us-nuclear-industry-fare-in-2022—

December 30, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

NuScam’s small nuclear reactors have both regulatory and financial woes

How did the US nuclear industry fare in 2022? Canary Media 28 December 2022 Eric Wesoff

“……………………………………………………………………….. NuScale’s NRC blues, NuScale Power has led the charge on small nuclear reactors for more than a decade but is still struggling with the NRC, as well as facing rising costs on a crucial first-of-a-kind 462-megawatt project in Idaho. 

The proposed project from NuScale and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a group of 50 municipal utilities spanning seven Western states, was initially slated to begin operation of the first of six small modular reactors in 2029. But according to December reporting in E&E News, ​“NuScale’s first reactor now faces sharply higher construction cost estimates, due to inflation and higher interest rates. If projected costs rise above $58 per megawatt-hour, it would trigger an up-or-down vote as early as next month from the project’s anchor customers.” E&E also reported that the costs of construction materials such as steel plate and carbon steel piping have skyrocketed since the project was approved in 2020.

In addition to cost issues, NuScale has run into a regulatory snag. The company replaced its NRC-approved 50-megawatt design and now needs to gain regulatory approval for the 77-megawatt module it plans to use in the UAMPS project. Utility Dive reported in November that the NRC has concerns about the new design, writing in a letter to NuScale that the company’s proposed module raised ​“several challenging and/​or significant issues” with its draft application. 

Small module reactor architecture is an unproven solution to the nuclear industry’s cost and schedule overruns. Scaling down new reactors in power output and size theoretically enables small modular and micro solutions that can be constructed less expensively off-site using fewer custom components with lower total project costs.

But even NuScale’s design, a small modular reactor that bears some resemblance to existing light-water reactors, poses challenges to the testing and approval processes of the NRC. NuScale says it has spent over $500 million and expended more than 2 million labor hours to compile the information needed for its design-certification application. 

And it’s not just the nuclear regulators, engineers and politicians who need to weigh in on this project. These days, it’s the nuclear accountants who have the final say. And so far, small reactors have not proven to be a financial or regulatory slam dunk. …………… https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/how-did-the-us-nuclear-industry-fare-in-2022

December 30, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Nuclear Sharing” – USA’s obscene system to turn non-nuclear weapons countries into nuclear attackers/targets.

The Steadfast Noon exercise will practice a controversial arrangement known as nuclear sharing, under which the United States installs nuclear equipment on fighter jets of select non-nuclear NATO countries and train their pilots to carry out nuclear strike with U.S. nuclear bombs.

NATO Steadfast Noon Exercise And Nuclear Modernization in Europe,

By Hans Kristensen • October 17, 2022,

Today, Monday October 17, 2022, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will begin a two-week long exercise in Europe to train aircrews in using U.S. non-strategic nuclear bombs. The exercise, known as Steadfast Noon, is centered at Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium, one of six airbases in Europe that store U.S. nuclear bombs. The exercise takes place midst significant modernizations at nuclear bases across Europe.

The arrangement is controversial because the United States as a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has promised not to hand over nuclear weapons to other countries, and the non-nuclear countries in the sharing arrangement have promised not to receive nuclear weapons from the nuclear weapon states. In peacetime the nuclear weapons are under U.S. control, but the arrangement means that they would be handed over to the non-nuclear country in war time. The arrangement was in place before the NPT was signed so it is not a violation of the letter of the treaty. But it can be said to violate the spirit and has been an irritant for years.

Steadfast Noon exercises are held once every year, but this year is unique because the exercise will take place during the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II with considerable tension and uncertainty resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moreover, Steadfast Noon is expected to more or less coincide with a large Russian strategic nuclear exercise. For NATO officials, other than Putin’s war in Ukraine, this is all routine. But for the public, it is but the latest development in rising tensions and unprecedented fears about nuclear war.

According to NATO, Steadfast Noon will involve 14 countries (less than half of the 30 NATO allies) and up to 60 aircraft. That involves fourth-generation F-16s and F-15Es as well as fifth-generation F-35A and F-22 fighter jets. A number of tankers and surveillance aircraft will also take part. Although the exercise is practicing NATO’s non-strategic nuclear forces, a couple of U.S. strategic B-52 bombers will also participate. Training flights will take place over Belgium and the United Kingdom as well as over the North Sea. There might also be flights over Germany and the Netherlands.

Practicing Nuclear Bomb Sharing

The Steadfast Noon exercise will practice a controversial arrangement known as nuclear sharing, under which the United States installs nuclear equipment on fighter jets of select non-nuclear NATO countries and train their pilots to carry out nuclear strike with U.S. nuclear bombs.

“If NATO was to conduct a nuclear mission in a conflict,” NATO says, “the B-61 [sic] weapons would be carried by certified Allied aircraft…However, a nuclear mission can only be undertaken after explicit political approval is given by NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) and authorisation is received from the US President and UK Prime Minister.” It is unclear why the U.K. Prime Minister would have to authorize employment of U.S. nuclear weapons, and unless NATO territory had been attacked with nuclear weapons first, it seems unlikely that the 29 countries in the NPG would be able to agree to approve of employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons from bases in Europe.

NATO disclosed earlier this year that seven NATO countries contribute dual-capable aircraft to the nuclear sharing mission. The countries were not identified but five are widely known: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and the United States. The sixth country is probably Turkey (despite rumors that it was no longer part of the mission), in which case some Turkish F-16s are still equipped to deliver B61 bombs. The seventh country is a mystery, but might possibly be the United Kingdom, in which case some British Eurofighters would have a nuclear mission with U.S. bombs [Note: a UK role has not been confirmed].

Nuclear Base Modernizations

During the past several years, the nuclear bases and the infrastructure that support the nuclear sharing mission in Europe have been undergoing significant upgrades, including cables, command and control systems, weapons maintenance and custodial facilities, security perimeters, and runway and tarmac areas.

There are currently six active sites in Europe that store U.S. nuclear bombs: Kleine Brogel air base in Belgium, Büchel air base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi air bases in Italy, Volkel air base in the Netherlands, and possibly Incirlik in Turkey. The estimated number of weapons at each site is based on the number of active vaults, aircraft, and other information:

Each of these bases have one or two dozen active vaults (Weapons Storage Security System, WS3) inside as many protective aircraft shelters. Ramstein air base in Germany used to be the largest storage site in Europe but only 7 vaults remain active possibly for training and transfer. All weapons were withdrawn from Lakenheath before 2007 but the United Kingdom was recently added to the nuclear infrastructure storage modernization program, which means there are now eight active WS3 sites in Europe:

The modernizations at the various bases vary depending on capacity, location, and host country. At Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium,…………………………

At Büchel Air Base in Germany…………………….

At Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands,…………

Ghedi Air Base in Italy………….

Upgrades of Aviano Air Base in Italy and Incirlik Air Base in Turkey……….

Weapons Modernization……………………..

Finally, the existing B61 nuclear bombs will soon be replaced by the enhanced B61-12 guided nuclear bomb. Development is essentially complete and full-scale production of about 480 B61-12s is expected to begin soon. The new weapon is thought to have the same yield range as the current B61-4: 0.3, 1.5, 10 and 50 kilotons. Training of the units in Europe to receive the new weapon is scheduled to begin in early-2023 and the first weapons potentially arriving at the first base in late-2023 or 2024.

In addition to the non-strategic fighter jets F-15E, F-16, F-35A, and Tornado, the B61-12 will also be integrated on the B-2 and B-21 strategic bombers. ecause of the increased provided by the tail kit, all the digital aircraft that can make use of it (all except F-16 and Tornado) will be able to hold at risk a wide range of targets. The combination of increased accuracy and lower-yield options on non-strategic and strategic stealth aircraft will significantly increase the capability of the gravity bomb mission.

December 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tucker “Gets It” – Putin Doesn’t Want American Missiles on His Border

Much as I hate siding with the Right Wing, and much as if I were an American, I would probably be a Democrat, I have to admit that Tucker Carlson and Fox News sometimes make a bit of sense.

It pains me to have to side with these Right-wingers.

But we are at a point where it is more important to THINK. And America’s Democrats don’t seem able to think. Indeed, Americans seem to slavishly follow the mindset of their political parties. And thinking seems to be an activity that is somehow treacherous.

The Unz Review, MIKE WHITNEY • DECEMBER 27, 2022

“Getting Ukraine to join NATO was the key to inciting war with Russia. We didn’t get it at the time. (But) Now it’s obvious. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because he didn’t want Ukraine to join NATO. Putin certainly had other motives as well; people always do, but that’s the main reason Russia invaded. The Russians don’t want American missiles on their border. They don’t want a hostile government next door. Now that is true, whether you are allowed to say it aloud in public or not. It has been true for a long time. A lot has been written about this over many years by serious people. No one who knows anything and is honest, will tell you Putin invaded Ukraine simply because he is evil. Putin may be evil, he certainly seems to be, but he also has strategic motives for doing that, whether you agree with those motives or not. That is irrelevant. Those are the facts.” Tucker Carlson, Fox News

Tucker Carlson is right about Ukraine. NATO membership for Ukraine was clearly a provocation aimed at luring Russia into an invasion. And, it worked, too. Putin could not take the risk of having “a hostile government next door” or “American missiles on his border,” so he acted to preempt those threats by sending the tanks across the border on Febrary 24, 2021.

Where Carlson is a little off-base, is when he he says that Putin’s actions were prompted by “strategic motives”. That’s not really wrong, it just misses the point. The point is that Washington’s combat troops and missile sites on Russia’s western border would pose a grave threat to Russia’s national security. Putin would have to be out-of-his-mind to allow a development like that. So, he did what any American president would have done if he had been in the same situation. He invaded. This is an excerpt from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:

The narrative in the media, which presents the invasion as an unprovoked action, is a fabrication that conceals the aggressive actions by the NATO powers, in particular the United States, and its puppets in the Ukrainian government.…

In Europe and Asia, the US pursued a strategy aimed at encircling and subjugating Russia. Directly violating its earlier promises that the Soviet bureaucracy and Russian oligarchy were delusional enough to believe, NATO has expanded to include almost all major countries in Eastern Europe, apart from Ukraine and Belarus.

In 2014, the US orchestrated a far-right coup in Kiev that overthrew a pro-Russian government that had opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO. In 2018, the US officially adopted a strategy of preparing for “great power conflict” with Russia and China. In 2019, it unilaterally withdrew from the INF Treaty, which banned the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Preparations for war with Russia and the arming of Ukraine were at the center of the Democrats’ first attempt to impeach Donald Trump in 2019.” (“The US-Ukrainian Strategic Partnership of November 2021 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine“, World Socialist Web Site)

This is a brief but excellent summary of events leading up to the Russian invasion on February 24, 2021. Putin and his advisors had been following developments in Ukraine with growing alarm after it became apparent that their worst fears were materializing. The CIA was not only arming and training paramilitaries in the east in preparation for a war against ethnic Russians in the Donbas, the US was also cultivating an explicitly anti-Russia political party –which contained openly fascist elements– that was designated to implement Washington’s proxy-war strategy. In short, the US fanned the flames of ethnic hatred in order to lay the groundwork for its “Great Power” conflagration with Moscow. Here’s more from the WSWS:……………………………………………………

For Russia, Ukraine’s membership in NATO was “the reddest of red lines”. Since the end of WW2, NATO had expanded from 12 to 30 countries almost all of which pushed further eastward towards Russia’s western border. When the United States indicated it would seek NATO membership for Ukraine at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, Putin’s response was uncharacteristically ferocious………………………………………..

The point we’re making is that the current conflict has nothing to do with claims that Putin is “an aspiring imperialist longing to reconstruct the Soviet empire.” There is no evidence for that at all. The real issue is NATO expansion and, in particular, the secret agreements between the United States and Ukraine that made Ukraine a full-fledged member of NATO in everything but name. Take a look at this excerpt from an article by Marcy Winograd :

The September, 2021, Joint Statement on the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership reaffirmed Ukraine as a de facto NATO partner,……………………………………………………………….

Brilliant analysis, and right to the point. Ukraine didn’t need to be formally entered into NATO because the US stealthily bestowed defacto membership on them out of the public eye. Naturally, Putin and his lieutenants knew what was going on, but the media made sure that everyone else remained in the dark. And all of this sleight-of-hand was going on just months before Putin was forced to invade. It’s actually shocking.

Does it sound like Ukraine snuck into NATO through the back door?

It does.

This summary helps to show that Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO is largely “a fiction.” Ukraine has been fully-integrated into the anti-Russia Alliance in every way except formal approval. Ukraine’s Strategic Partnership with the US, which was signed by both parties in 2021, underscores this point. It also helps “to clarify” –as Marcy Winograd notes– “that the United States and NATO provoked the war.” Indeed, Washington has put a significant amount of time and energy into a project that is aimed at crossing all of Russia’s redlines, directly challenging Russia’s basic security interests, and forcing Russia to invade a neighboring country. Simply put, Washington placed a gun to Russia’s head and threatened to pull the trigger.

Fortunately, Putin responded in the way that best ensured the safety and security of his own government, his own country, and his own people. We would expect any responsible leader to do the same. https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/tucker-gets-it-putin-doesnt-want-american-missiles-on-his-borde—

December 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Calling nuclear fusion a potential ‘climate solution’ may undermine actual solutions

The latest fusion breakthrough is scientifically important, but the technology’s timeline just doesn’t match up with the urgency of climate change.

Grid Dave Levitan 28 Dec 22 Climate Reporter

When scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced a “breakthrough” in nuclear fusion research this month, many eyes quickly turned to climate change. Stories from the BBC, CNN and other major outlets mentioned the potential for “limitless” clean energy and discussed fusion’s place as a global warming fix within their opening paragraphs. Even Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, in announcing the new result, touted its potential to provide “clean power to combat climate change.”

From a purely theoretical standpoint, this makes some sense. Fusion power, in an idealized, storybook form, turns the world’s energy system on its head, offering an emissions-free way to keep the lights on. And the latest advance sounds truly impressive: Using enormously powerful lasers, scientists at Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) managed to create a split-second fusion reaction — mimicking that which takes place on a massive scale inside the sun — that produced more energy than it consumed.

But the world doesn’t live in that storybook. On a practical, near-term level, nuclear fusion and climate change have almost nothing to do with each other. One remains in more-or-less scientific infancy, many years away from even a hint of usable form; the other gets more urgent by the day, requires immediate intervention and has some readily available tech being deployed as we speak.

“A lot of people are desperate for some sort of silver bullet climate solution that will help to bypass the hard work of actually getting political agreements and policymaking and sacrifice to eliminate fossil fuels,” said Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It would just be easier if there were this panacea out there that would transform everything, but of course that’s totally unrealistic.”

Celebrating scientific advances is important. But linking that science with an urgent global need that it cannot on relevant time scales address may offer false hope and potentially undermine the more banal climate progress — dramatic renewable energy expansion, efficiency improvements, vehicle electrification and so on — that is possible today.

Ignition achieved

The old joke about nuclear fusion is that it is always 20 — or 30 or 50 — years away. Taking hydrogen atoms and fusing them into helium, in the process releasing energy that theoretically can be used to power the electric grid, is so technically challenging that despite well over a half-century of advances, the joke still more or less holds true…………………. more https://www.grid.news/story/climate/2022/12/26/calling-nuclear-fusion-a-potential-climate-solution-may-undermine-actual-solutions/

December 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The 2022 nuclear year in review: A global nuclear order in shambles

The Bulletin. By François Diaz-Maurin | December 26, 2022

It is hard to find a year filled with more concerns about nuclear risk than 2022. There surely was 1986 and the Chernobyl reactor accident. There was also 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. And, of course, there was 1945 and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But this year, all sorts of nuclear risks coincided.

Russia, losing on the ground, contemplated the use of nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine—recklessly threatening the nuclear taboo, a 77-year tradition of non-use. Also in Ukraine, nuclear reactors and nuclear facilities became targets of military attacks. Elsewhere, North Korea test-launched more ballistic missiles than it ever had in a single year and even seems to be preparing for a nuclear test. Iran resumed construction of its underground nuclear complex, disconnected IAEA surveillance cameras, and accelerated its uranium enrichment program, leaving it only months away from possibly testing a nuclear explosive or deploying a crude nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, if it wishes to do so. In response, Saudi Arabia took further steps toward enriching uranium, also refusing IAEA inspections that would ensure the Kingdom does not conduct covert nuclear weapons-related activities.

Despite all these concerns, efforts of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament failed to achieve any meaningful result this year. Participants in the first meeting of states parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the ban treaty, could not agree on calling out Russia’s nuclear threats and rhetoric in its war against Ukraine. The long-awaited review conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) ended without an agreement after Russia refused to sign off on an outcome document that referred to the control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The international community, so far, seems incapable of finding ways to better protect nuclear facilities from attacks, even as the odds of a nuclear accident in Ukraine increase as the war drags on.

In August, the EU-mediated talks between the United States and Iran failed to revive the 2015 agreement limiting Tehran’s nuclear program, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which former President Trump abandoned in 2018. In the United States, the much-anticipated Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was finally released in October, only to deceive experts. The NPR has been invariably accused, at best, of maintaining the nuclear status quo and of passing on its chance to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy, if not of being a major step backward.

Finally, in late November, hopes that on-site inspections under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) could resume soon were cold-showered after Russia postponed a meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), the treaty’s implementing body, planned to be held the next day in Cairo, Egypt. New START is the only bilateral nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. It is set to expire in 2026.

2022 will certainly appear in textbooks as the year when the global nuclear order was unprecedentedly shaken, if not irreparably destroyed…………………….. https://thebulletin.org/2022/12/the-2022-nuclear-year-in-review-a-global-nuclear-order-in-shambles/

December 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

December 28 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “Climate Change And Bomb Cyclones: What Do We Know?” • Inevitably, there will be politicians who use events like winter storms to argue that global warming is not happening. This worldview is wrong. Dangerously wrong. Falsely equating a ball of frozen water to “disproof” of global warming is a snowball of ignorance. [The […]

December 28 Energy News — geoharvey

December 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Feverishly Racing Toward Our Own Destruction…

End of the American Dream December 22, 2022 by Michael

After months of feigned confidence and optimism from both the West and Ukraine’s senior military leadership, cracks are beginning to appear. During Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny’s recent interview with the Economist, Ukraine’s desperate need for additional arms and the consequences for not receiving them was made very clear.

The discussion revolved around the desperate need for resources – everything ranging from air defense missiles to tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces and artillery shells themselves – all things that both the West and now Ukraine are admitting are in short supply, and perhaps cannot be supplied any time in the near or intermediate future.

From “Extending Russia” to “Demilitarizing” NATO

We are careening directly into an abyss of war, pain and misery, and our leaders are thunderously applauding as it happens.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington this week because he wanted more money, and our politicians in Washington definitely did not disappoint him.  Even though we had already given Ukraine far more money than the rest of the world combined, our politicians agreed to give him another colossal mountain of cash.  On some level, we all have to respect Zelenskyy’s skills as a con man.  Even though he has banned the main opposition party in Ukraine, and even though he has banned all television stations that were critical of him, and even though he just banned an entire ancient Christian denomination, our politicians continue to worship him like some sort of a pop music star.  Zelenskyy has become an extremely oppressive dictator that has set himself up to rule Ukraine for as long as he wants, but members of Congress from both parties continue to hail him as a “champion of democracy” that deserves our unquestioning support.

What makes this so dangerous is that Zelenskyy has been trying very hard to pull the United States into his war with Russia.

Throughout 2022 the U.S. has been getting increasingly involved in the conflict, and at this point we are “providing most of the funding, most of the equipment, most of the ammunition, most of the high level intelligence and much of the training” for the international army that is fighting the Russians in Ukraine.

In other words, we are essentially a direct participant in the war.

For years I have been warning my readers that there would be a war with Russia, and now it is here.

If we had rational leaders in Washington, they would be trying to end this conflict before the nukes start flying.

But instead, they are pledging to give Zelenskyy whatever he needs for as long as it takes to defeat the Russians.

When Zelenskyy visited Washington this week, the White House literally rolled out the red carpet for him.

To see such an honor bestowed upon a cruel foreign dictator that is ruthlessly oppressing anyone that opposes him should nauseate all of us.

And when Zelenskyy arrived to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

It isn’t just the Democrats that have fallen for Zelenskyy’s act.

At this point, Mitch McConnell says that showering Ukraine with money should be our “number one priority”…………………………………….

 once a con man has identified a “golden goose”, he is just going to keep coming back again and again.

So even though we have already given Ukraine more money than everyone else combined, it will never be enough to satisfy Zelenskyy…………………………….

In addition to cold, hard cash, the U.S. also continues to give the Ukrainians some of our best military equipment.

The Biden administration just agreed to send Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, and that represents another huge escalation…………….

If both sides just keep escalating matters, we will eventually reach a point where somebody crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

We have been pushed to the brink of nuclear war, and the Russians are getting ready to officially deploy their new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles in January…….

The Sarmat is the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile in the entire world by a wide margin, and we have no way to defend against them.

So maybe we should think twice before getting into a nuclear war with Russia.

Unfortunately, our leaders seem to have gone completely mad at this point, and of course our leaders in Washington are simply a reflection of what has happened to the rest of our society.  http://endoftheamericandream.com/feverishly-racing-toward-our-own-destruction/

December 27, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Why all the hysteria over not clapping for Zelensky?

Tucker Carlson rips comparisons of Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill

Fox News 23 Dec 22 You can’t even really call it news anymore. It’s some kind of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” scenario on display every single day. Yesterday, last night, the president of Ukraine showed up in Congress wearing a green sweatshirt and cargo pants for maximum disrespect, and demanded the United States continue to spend more on his country’s border security than we spend on our own. That actually happened. 

It was a pretty cheeky performance if you think about it. But like Sam Bankman-Fried before him, Zelenskyy put a salesman’s gloss on what otherwise might look very much like a scam. So the tens of billions of dollars you’ll be sending me is not charity, Zelenskyy explained. It’s not a gift. It’s not like the 20 bucks you gave the homeless guy at Union Station this morning for a quart of vodka. No, it’s not that at all. This money, Zelenskyy said, is, quote, “an investment.” Oh, an investment. 

So what exactly are the terms of this investment now that we’re talking finance? When do we get our dividend checks? Well, Zelenskyy didn’t specify that. Though, at one point in his speech, he did provide a hint. Are the tens of billions of dollars you’re sending me with no audit and no concrete proof of what I’m actually doing with it, will all that money be “enough,” Zelenskyy asked rhetorically. Answer: “Not really.” 

“Not really.” In other words, the return on our investment in Ukraine will be more pitches for more investments in Ukraine. Give me money so I can demand more money. That’s what Zelenskyy promised us last night.

And under certain circumstances, that might actually be fine. If nothing else, Zelenskyy is quite an audacious young entrepreneur with the kind of pluck and fast-talking shamelessness where you think, “This guy is either going to wind up in prison or very rich, and maybe both.” And there are times when you might want to throw a kid like that a few bucks just to see where it goes. You don’t know. 

But unfortunately, this is not one of those times. The United States is flat out of money and not just in some abstract PowerPoint presentation kind of way, where we show you graphs of the national debt and we all pretend to be shocked and horrified. No, no, no. The United States is broke in a real way, meaning we can no longer afford to take care of our citizens.

For example, 15 million Americans are about to lose their healthcare coverage under Medicaid. Now, these are people who got coverage during COVID, but will now lose that coverage thanks to a provision in the $1.7 trillion spending bill that’s about to become law. As CNBC reports, governors of various states have informed the Biden administration that the cost of keeping all those people on Medicaid is “too high.” And it is high. Undoubtedly, it is high. 

How high is it? Well, over the last three years since COVID began, the federal government spent about $100 billion in extra Medicaid payments to Americans. That’s a lot of money. How much is it? Well, it turns out that $100 billion is roughly what Congress has sent to our fast-talking Ukrainian friend in the sweatshirt in less than a single year. Just for comparison, just you would know what the priorities are in Washington, your health care is just too expensive. Sorry. And your border is too. Can’t afford it. But for the strongman who runs Ukraine, no cost is too high……………………………………………

But here’s the interesting thing. Almost every person in the room clapped like a seal. So no matter what that man said — Send me more money! I command you! Send me more money! We’re taking care of it the most responsible ways — they applaud, all of them, almost like they have to. …………

Now there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, and they’re Republicans and Democrats. And famously, they don’t get along. They don’t agree on anything. They can’t even pass a budget because they disagree on everything very bitterly. And yet, when a foreign leader shows up in cargo pants to tell them lies and give them orders, they all applaud. That’s pretty weird behavior in a democracy if you think about it. The fractious debate we hear so much about doesn’t exist. And in fact, looking at the screen last night, it didn’t really look like a democracy, to be honest. 

Clapping is mandatory as long as Zelenskyy is speaking. Now there were a few who didn’t obey. That would include Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado. And when they didn’t stand up and applaud, they found out the hard way what happens to people who dare not to applaud. 

NBC News took off right after them. That was the headline for NBC. Its house “historian” Michael Beschloss declared this: “For any members of Congress who refuse to clap for Zelenskyy, we need to know from them exactly why. We need to know why.” Thought crime alert. You’ve been reported as not applauding. Explain yourself, pleb. And then Beschloss went on television to drive home the point. Our sources have reported you are not clapping. Watch this.[on original]

……………………………. Why wouldn’t you clap for a man who banned a Christian denomination? A man who arrested priests, raided monasteries, seized churches outlawed opposition media outlets, outlawed political parties that opposed him, threw his primary political opponent in jail. Why would you applaud for a man like that? Do you love Putin? Are you opposed to democracy? Explain yourself. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what they’re all saying.

It’s absurd. What they’re describing is the opposite of democracy. There’s no democracy in Ukraine, obviously. Banning a Christian denomination. Shut up. But he did. ………….

Is it possible that the more ludicrous the lie they tell you, the fewer questions they can tolerate about it, the less dissent they can put up with because they fear the whole edifice might crumble if they allow one person to ask one reasonable question. It’s possible that’s what’s happening. ……………………………………….

GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY: This is a historical figure. This guy actually can be compared to Winston Churchill, to Lincoln in 1860.

So that kind of solves a mystery from last night. How can any self-respecting American sit there when some foreign dictator shows up wearing his workout clothes in the US Congress and starts demanding, with a very apparent lack of gratitude, that we send him tens of billions of dollars when we’re running out of money? How could you sit and put up with that? And then drapes a Ukrainian flag in our Congress. How could you put up with that? 

Well, because you’re not a self-respecting American. You have no self-respect. You have no dignity. You don’t care. You’ll say anything. You’ll tell any lie. You’ll repeat any talking point. And when someone from the DNC or the White House sends you a note by text, saying, “Compare him to Churchill,” you do because you have no self-respect. That’s the problem. So while millions of Americans can’t afford to go to the doctor and we have no border, our leaders and our media are imagining they’re very close to Winston Churchill. ………………….

none of the lawmakers who clapped yesterday had any idea either. They’re clapping for regime change. They’re clapping for an uncertain and incredibly dangerous future. It’s not getting the Russian military out of Ukraine. It’s much more than that. And they don’t want to know more. 

And you know what they don’t care about? You, your health care, your southern border, your children, your schools, your country. They don’t care. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-why-all-hysteria-not-clapping-zelenskyy—

December 27, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In protecting the biosphere from plutonium and other wastes, the first step is to stop producing them.

paulrodenlearning 27 Dec 22, We have all of the wastes from the nuclear weapons and nuclear power program. We don’t know what to do with it and it and they must be kept out of the biosphere forever. So, the first step is to stop making more wastes. Shut down the nuclear weapons and nuclear power industry.

The second step is to store the waste in a secure, stable facility that can withstand earthquakes, accidents, terrorist, and or nuclear/conventional attack for billions of years. As the former Congressman John Hall and former rock star wrote in his 1980 solo album, “Power” in his song, “Plutonium is Forever.”

Has everybody forgotten about Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Nuclear power is too dangerous, too expensive and totally unnecessary for our energy needs. Just go to the Websites of The Solutions Project and the Rocky Mountain Institute.

We have the resources and the technology to transition to renewable energy now. All we lack is the political will to do so, because the elected leaders in Washington, DC and in our State Houses have all been bought off by the nuclear and fossil fuel industries by their unlimited and unregulated campaign PAC donations, which remain anonymous. They have the best Congress and State Legislatures that money can buy. “Money talks, B.S. walks and we are all running a “very distant” third.”

December 27, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment