Antinuclear

The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Children

Content warning: This report includes graphic stories, illustrations and photographs of extreme violence committed against children; detailed descriptions of children’s injuries, suffering and deaths; references to mental illness, suicide and child neglect; and stories of harm inflicted on pregnant women resulting in miscarriages and stillbirths.

Contents

Foreword

Executive Summary

Part I  The Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Part II  Children Harmed by Nuclear Testing

Every day, children are killed or injured in armed conflicts around the world. Thousands of children – including many babies – are now counted among the dead in the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine: a blight on humanity.

In both cases, the main perpetrators of violence against children are states armed with nuclear weapons; and in any war involving one or more such states, there is an inherent risk of nuclear catastrophe.

As this report shows in compelling and often gut-wrenching detail, it is children who would suffer the most in the event of a nuclear attack against a city today.

The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Children is a dire warning to the governments of all nuclear-armed states and to the global public that urgent action is needed to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

By sharing the stories of children killed or injured in the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and of children harmed by nuclear tests, we hope to honour them and ensure that no one else ever suffers as they have.

Hon. Melissa Parke, Executive Director, ICAN, August 2024

Executive Summary

Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities; to kill and maim whole populations, children among them.

In a nuclear attack, children are more likely than adults to die or suffer severe injuries, given their greater vulnerability to the effects of nuclear weapons: heat, blast and radiation. The fact that children depend on adults for their survival also places them at higher risk of death and hardship in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, with support systems destroyed.

Tens of thousands of children were killed when the United States detonated two relatively small nuclear weapons (by today’s standard) over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Many were instantly reduced to ash and vapour. Others died in agony minutes, hours, days or weeks after the attacks from burn and blast injuries or acute radiation sickness. Countless more died years or even decades later from radiation-related cancers and other illnesses. Leukaemia – cancer of the blood – was especially prevalent among the young.

In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the scenes of devastation were apocalyptic: Playgrounds scattered with the dead bodies of young girls and boys. Mothers cradling their lifeless babies. Children with their intestines hanging out of their bellies and strips of skin dangling from their limbs.

At some of the schools close to ground zero, the entire student population of several hundred perished in an instant. At others, there were but a few survivors. In Hiroshima, thousands of school students were working outside to create firebreaks on the morning of the attack. Approximately 6,300 of them were killed.

Those children who, by chance, escaped death carried with them severe physical and psychological scars throughout their lifetimes. What they witnessed and experienced on 6 August and 9 August 1945 and in the days that followed was permanently seared into their memories.

Thousands of children lost one or both parents, as well as siblings. Some “A-bomb orphans” were left to roam the streets, with orphanages exceeding capacity.

Many of the babies who were in their mothers’ wombs at the time of the atomic bombings were also harmed as a result of their exposure to ionising radiation. They had a greater risk of dying soon after birth or suffering from congenital abnormalities such as brain damage and microcephaly, as well as cancers and other illnesses later in life.

Pregnant women in Hiroshima and Nagasaki also experienced higher rates of spontaneous abortions and stillbirths.

In communities around the world exposed to fallout from nuclear testing, children have experienced similar harm from radiation.

Since 1945, nuclear-armed states have conducted more than two thousand nuclear test explosions at dozens of locations, dispersing radioactive material far and wide.

Among the general population, children and infants have been the most severely affected, due to their higher vulnerability to the effects of ionising radiation. Young children are three to five times more susceptible to cancer in the long term than adults from a given dose of radiation, and girls are particularly vulnerable.

In the Marshall Islands, where the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests, children played in the radioactive ash that fell from the sky, unaware of the danger. They called it “Bikini snow” – a reference to the atoll where many of the explosions took place. It burned their skin and eyes, and they quickly developed symptoms of acute radiation sickness.

For decades after the tests, women in the Marshall Islands gave birth to severely deformed babies at unusually high rates. Those born alive rarely survived more than a few days. Some had translucent skin and no discernible bones. They would refer to them as “jellyfish babies”, for they could scarcely be recognised as human beings.

Similar stories have been told by people living downwind or downstream of nuclear test sites in the United States, Kazakhstan, Ma’ohi Nui, Algeria, Kiribati, China, Australia and elsewhere.

We have a collective moral duty to honour the memories of the thousands of children killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as those harmed by the development and testing of nuclear weapons globally. And we must pursue the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world with determination and urgency, lest there be any more victims, young or old.

Under international humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, governments have a legal obligation to protect children against harm in armed conflict. To fulfil this obligation, it is imperative that they work together now to eliminate the scourge of nuclear weapons from the world.

In this report, we describe how nuclear weapons are uniquely harmful to children, based on the experiences of children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those living near nuclear test sites. We share their first-hand testimonies and depictions of the toll of nuclear weapons on their lives. And we explain how the ever-present fear of nuclear war – the possibility that entire cities might be destroyed at any given moment – causes psychological harm to children everywhere.

Finally, we make an urgent appeal to all governments to protect current and future generations of children by eliminating nuclear weapons, via the landmark UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 2021.

Key findings

So long as nuclear weapons exist in the world, there is a very real risk that they will be used again, and that risk at present appears to be increasing.

In the event of their use, it is all but certain that many thousands of children – perhaps hundreds of thousands or more – would be counted among the dead and injured, and they would suffer in unique ways and out of proportion to the rest of the population.

In a nuclear attack, children would be more likely than adults:

• To die from burn injuries, as their skin is thinner and more delicate and burns deeper, more quickly and at a lower temperature;
• To die from blast injuries, given the relative frailty of their smaller bodies;
• To die from acute radiation sickness, as they have more cells that are growing and dividing rapidly and are significantly more vulnerable to radiation effects;
• To be unable to free themselves from collapsed and burning buildings or take other steps in the aftermath that would increase their chances of survival;
• To suffer from leukaemia, solid cancers, strokes, heart attacks and other illnesses years later as a result of the delayed effects of radiation damage to their cells; and
• To suffer privation in the aftermath of the attacks, as well as psychological trauma leading to mental disorders and suicide.

Furthermore, babies who were in their mothers’ wombs at the time of the attack would be at greater risk of:

• Death soon after birth or in early childhood;
• Microcephaly, accompanied by intellectual disability, given the higher vulnerability of the developing brain to radiation damage;
• Other developmental abnormalities;
• Growth impairment due to the reduced functioning of the thyroid; and
• Cancers and other radiation-related illnesses during childhood or later in life.

These horrifying realities should have profound implications for policy-making in countries that currently possess nuclear weapons or those that support their retention as part of military alliances.

They should also prompt organisations dedicated to the protection of children and the promotion of their rights to work to address the grave global threat posed by nuclear weapons.

While children played no part in developing these doomsday devices, it is children who would suffer the most in the event of their future use – one of the myriad reasons why such weapons must be urgently eliminated………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.icanw.org/children?utm_campaign=2024_children_launch_an&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ican

August 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power in Australia – it’s absurd

 June 28, 2024 by Chris Simpson,  https://www.democrats.org.au/nuclear-power-in-australia-its-absurd/—

The Coalition finally has a plan and it is to build nuclear power stations at existing coal fired power station sites in Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Mt Piper in NSW, Collie in WA, Loy Yang in Victoria and Northern Power in SA.

Nuclear power may seem attractive to voters as a way to easily meet the greenhouse gas reduction targets. However, having worked on coal fired and nuclear power plant construction myself, I can see where ‘the plan’ will run into practical problems. 

About me: In late 2003 I was invited to Sydney to be mechanical works supervisor at Lucas Heights for the Replacement Research Reactor construction – INVAP. An Argentinian company was engaged for the Open Pool Australian Lightwater, state-of-the-art 20 megawatt multi-purpose reactor, predominantly built to replace the 50-year-old HIFAR reactor (1958–2007).  I supervised the mechanical works for the reactor pool, service pool and neutron shutters and then the high-density concrete installation works to encase the mechanical components.

INVAP produces isotopes primarily for nuclear medicine, not power generation. The new INVAP opened in April 2007 by the then PM, John Howard, but serious leaks were found and it was shut down in July 2007 for two months. So, you may want to think again if someone tries to give you an iron-clad guarantee that modern nuclear power plants are 100% safe.  

I am a proud Australian Democrat. Our party has a long history of fact-checking, and this is one way in which the party has been ‘Keeping the Bastards Honest’. This also applies to the nuclear power issue. For example, our party-leader, Lyn Allison (former Australian Democrats Senator and guest speaker at our upcoming Sandgate Town Hall meeting) was part of a Senate committee that reported in 2003 on regulating the uranium industry (mines). The executive summary speaks volumes in and of itself, and opens with: 

“This inquiry was initiated in response to numerous leaks and spills at the four uranium mines in question and its terms of reference require the Committee to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the current system of environmental regulation”. 

The proposal by the Leader of the Opposition is naïve and reckless. As experts know, Tarong has a capacity of 1400 megawatts of coal fired power. Compare this with the 20 megawat output of INVAP and it becomes clear that small nuclear reactors are not the solution. SMTs are claimed to produce 300 megawatts as an optimum. At this rate, five reactors would be required at Tarong to produce the 1500+ megawatts required!

‘The plan’ may sound attractive, but we are guided by evidence and expert advice. Australia lacks the knowhow and maturity in the industry. Ramping up the skills and knowledge required for nuclear power is unrealistic – a policy in search of a political party to peddle it! 

I welcome the opportunity to debate the Leader of the Opposition on this matter at our Sandgate Town Hall meeting on 30^th August 2024. Lyn Allison will be able to offer valuable insights into nuclear issues as former Democrats spokesperson on nukes in the Senate.

August 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Arundhati Roy: India Must Stop Arming Israel or ‘Forever Be Linked to Genocide’

“It is our responsibility to show that as people of India, we refuse to be complicit in that, even if our government wishes to continue with what it does.”

Brett Wilkins, Aug 02, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/arundhati-roy-israel

Acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy this week joined prominent jurists, diplomats, artists, and others in urging their government to stop selling weapons to Israel, which they called “abominable” and “a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our Constitution.”

Speaking Thursday at an event organized by the Press Club of India, Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—said that Indians must “at least show that we do not support that murder in Gaza, we do not support our government’s support of that.”

Acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy this week joined prominent jurists, diplomats, artists, and others in urging their government to stop selling weapons to Israel, which they called “abominable” and “a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our Constitution.”

Speaking Thursday at an event organized by the Press Club of India, Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—said that Indians must “at least show that we do not support that murder in Gaza, we do not support our government’s support of that.”

“What is happening in Gaza, it is not just the murder… of tens of thousands of women and children,” she continued. “It is the bombing of hospitals, the destruction of universities… the attempt to erase the very memory people have of that place. It is a genocide like no other because it’s taking place on live TV.”

“India used to be a country that supported the people of Palestine in their struggle for freedom,” Roy noted. “Everywhere, even in the United States… people are standing up against their government’s support for [Israel]. But we are not standing up… and that is such a shame.”

“We must stand up. We must refuse,” she asserted. “We will not support the export of weapons of any kind.”

Roy is one of more than two dozen former Indian Supreme Court justices and other judges, foreign service officers, academics, artists, activists, and others who on Wednesday sent a letter to Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to halt the licensing of arms sales to Israel, whose military forces have killed or wounded more than 140,000 Palestinians while obliterating and starving Gaza.

“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has clearly ruled that Israel is in violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention and further that Israel is in illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory,” the letter states. “In light of these rulings, any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India’s obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India.”

Among the weapons India has sent to Israel are Hermes 900 unmanned aerial drones, which are co-manufactured with Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. The letter notes that the drones “have been extensively used in the Israeli Defense Forces’ military campaign in Gaza.”

“Several [United Nations] experts have warned that the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws, and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately,” the letter’s signer wrote.

“In short, the grant of licenses and approvals for export of military material to Israel, coupled with reports of such exports by Indian companies, constitutes a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our own Constitution,” the letter stresses.

“International law aside, we consider such exports to be morally objectionable, indeed abominable,” the signatories added. “We demand, therefore, that India should immediately suspend its collaboration in the delivery of military material to Israel. Further, India must immediately make every effort to ensure that weapons already delivered to Israel are not used to contribute to acts of genocide or violations of international humanitarian law.”

The letter came ahead of planned nationwide protests by Indian leftists on Saturday calling for an end to arms sales and “all forms of complicity with Israel’s illegal occupation and genocide.”

India—which in 1971 invaded Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in large part to end a U.S.-backed Pakistani genocide mostly targeting Bengalis—voted in favor of the December U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Gaza cease-fire.

However, the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many lawmakers from his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party have expressed steadfast support for Israel and its Gaza onslaught. Critics have noted that both Israel and India are occupying Muslims, the former in Palestine and the latter in Jammu and Kashmir.

In an interview with Middle East Eye published Friday, Roy—who faces prosecution in India over comments she allegedly made nearly 15 years ago regarding Kashmir—said that India could “forever be linked to genocide” if it does not change course.

“India needs to stop the export of weapons to Israel and ensure the return of Indian workers who have been sent to Israel to replace Palestinian workers,” she said.

“If it does not do so at once, it is in violation of the orders of the ICJ,” she added. “It will forever be complicit in aiding and abetting a genocide that is being telecast live for the world to watch.”

August 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Australia should avoid small nuclear reactors until 2040s, engineers warn

 https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/australia-should-avoid-small-nuclear-reactors-until-2040s-engineers-warn/, by Adam Duckett, 3 Aug 24

ENGINEERS have warned that if Australia is to reverse years of opposition to nuclear power and begin installing reactors in the country, the least risky option would be to wait until the 2040s once small modular reactor (SMR) technology has matured.

The report comes as the opposition Liberal Party argues the government’s energy strategy is overly reliant on renewables. If elected to power, the Liberal Party would overturn Australia’s longstanding moratorium on nuclear power and develop a nuclear fuels industry.

Party leader Peter Dutton has proposed seven sites where a coal-fired power plant has closed or is scheduled to close that could host nuclear reactors. The ambition is to build two SMRs or conventional large nuclear plants by 2037 at the latest.

However, this could be too ambitious according to a new study from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).

“SMR technology could provide low carbon energy compatible with Australia’s current electricity system, however as an emerging technology, there is considerable uncertainty around commercial viability and some of these potential benefits,” said ATSE president Katherine Woodthorpe.

“Overall, the associated timescales, expense, skills gap, legal and regulatory barriers, and social acceptance of nuclear power means the technology is high-risk when compared to existing energy options.”

If Australia was to pursue SMRs, the least risky option would be to procure them after several designs have been commercialised and successfully operated in other OECD countries, the report concludes. Companies including Rolls-Royce and NuScale are pushing ahead with the development of SMR technology but there are currently no SMR designs licensed for use in OECD countries. ATSE estimates that while prototype designs might be built by the mid-2030s a market for SMRs might not be fully formed until the late 2040s.

If an Australian government pushed for a prototype SMR earlier than the 2040s, the country would need to build a nuclear workforce, work directly with reactor developers, and reform legislation. In 1998, Australia passed a law preventing the construction or operation of nuclear power plants, fuel fabrication plants, enrichment plants or reprocessing facilities. The Liberal Party is undeterred, with shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien announcing earlier this week that the party wants Australia to go beyond being the fourth largest producer of uranium and develop an end-to-end nuclear fuels sector.

O’Brien said: “As Australia establishes its own civil nuclear program, we should aspire to build sovereign capability beyond the mining and milling of uranium to include conversion and enrichment through to fuel fabrication for civil nuclear power plants,” The Australian reports.

While state premiers have said they will resist a push from the federal government to go nuclear, analysis published by parliament suggests that it has the power to override regional bans.

Australia would also need to gain public support for nuclear though recent polls hint at growing support for the technology. A decade ago, six in ten Australians were opposed to nuclear power but a poll conducted this year shows this has flipped, with 61% now in support.

August 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘True horror’: Japan’s Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor campaigns for a nuclear-free world

Bun Hashizume, 93, who has written poems about her descent into ‘hell’ after the bombing, has travelled the world to spread her message

Norman Aisbett, SCMP, 3 Aug 24,

What I feel the most about these days is human stupidity,” says 93-year-old Bun Hashizume, from her home in the Japanese temple city of Kamakura.

“I was a victim of the first atomic bomb in human history and I have advocated throughout my life for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but the world leaders still do not understand their true horror.

“Even my poems cannot describe it.”

Rewind to 8.15am on August 6, 1945 in the final throes of World War II.

A US atomic bomb named “Little Boy” was dropped from a B-29 aircraft and exploded at low altitude over the city of Hiroshima. With a blast force equal to 16 kilotons of TNT, it destroyed most buildings and caused mass death and injury.

Then aged 14, Hashizume was a war-mobilised school student working in the four-storey reinforced-concrete Savings Bureau building about 1.5km from the hypocentre of the blast.

Looking back, she recalls a third-floor window being filled “with a sudden flash of light that was so bright I thought the sun had fallen at my feet. A thousand rainbows all at once seemed to explode before my eyes”. And how, after being briefly unconscious and bleeding heavily from a head wound, she staggered downstairs among other workers looking “like a parade of ghosts with wildly dishevelled hair and sooty bodies”.

Once outside the building, it was a regular employee, Tomoyanagi, who “half-carried” her to a nearby Red Cross Hospital, where more shocking scenes and high drama followed.

Hashizume is today the author of The Day the Sun Fell – Memoirs of a Survivor of the Atomic Bomb – translated by Susan Bouterey – which closely details her and her family’s horrific experiences and also explains her present-day opposition to “dangerous” nuclear power plants, which she emphasises during this Australian writer’s long-distance interview with her, via a Japanese interpreter-admirer.

Her drive was such that, at age 70, she began her solo pilgrimages to many countries over 15 years to “become a citizen of the world” and share her anti-nuclear views. With only her aged pension to buy airline tickets and stay in youth hostels, she spoke to anyone or group willing to listen, including schoolchildren. Everywhere, people were also touched by her genuine personal warmth and quiet charm. A small booklet she handed out was entitled, “Fellow Humans! Let Us Foster Love and Wisdom.”

Right now, though, she is homebound due to A-Bomb-related health issues that have plagued her life. She tells of having endured “lifelong” rheumatism, chronic kidney disease, thyroid cancer and more. The past 20 years have also brought numerous breaks of radiation-weakened ribs, collarbones and three compressed fractures of her spine after a fall in Norway in 2003.

She is unable to go outside alone. There are twice-weekly visits to a hospital and three transports per week to a rehabilitation clinic. “Otherwise I’m on my bed reading the newspapers, with care from my eldest son and his family, who live with me.”

Her activist spirit nevertheless endures. She cites recent-times threats of nuclear strikes by North Korea if threatened; by Russia amid the Ukraine war; and an Israeli cabinet minister’s suggestion to nuke Hamas in Gaza The minister was promptly sacked by his embarrassed government which has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons – and subsequent high tensions and conflict between arch-enemies Israel and Iran.

{I believe that nuclear weapons should never be used, stockpiles should be completely abolished, and the Japanese government should join and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as soon as possible,” she says. “It’s no wonder they are being been used as a threat.” She further notes that nine nations have nuclear weapons, but the warheads of only two nations – Russia (5,890) and the US (5,224) – “are enough to destroy all life on Earth several times over”.

A major disappointment for her was the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop28) in Dubai when 23 nations including the US and Japan declared they would triple the generation of their nuclear power plants to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“It is shocking that Japan joined this dangerous proposal despite the fact that the world’s pervasive emphasis on economic growth, baseless absolute trust in science and technology, and limitless pursuit of energy collapsed in Fukushima in 2011,” she says…………………………………………

After Tomoyanagi left to find her own family, a 16-year-old boy Yoshiaki Iida, who was unknown to Hashizume, helped her outside just before flames engulfed the whole building.

However, she later heard that her brother, Hideo, seven, had died after his back caught fire in an instant when hit from behind by the scorching A-Bomb blast in a school playground. Her other family members survived but with bad injuries and other health problems. Younger sister Shizuko, nine, had been evacuated to a temple when she was struck by the blast wave. Years of radiation sickness caused her suicide at age 19. Older sister Mitsuko, 19, suffered “ghastly” facial wounds at her grandmother’s house.

What does Hashizume remember most after the explosion? She replies: “The complete silence and the smell of burnt corpses that filled the air.”………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Day the Sun Fell – Memoirs of a Survivor of the Atomic Bomb by Bun Hashizume (translated by Susan Bouterey) is published by Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd and also available on Kindle.  https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3273031/true-horror-japans-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivor-campaigns-nuclear-free-world

August 3, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant trips due to fire, and battery storage steps in to stabilises the grid

What happens when a giant nuclear power station
suddenly goes off line? It’s a question that market operators have to ask
themselves all the time.

The biggest units on the grid are generally
nuclear, in those countries that have them, and a considerable amount of
planning and expense needs to make sure that the back-up is on hand,
despite the insistence by some of the whackier pro-nuclear spruikers in
Australia that no storage or gas is needed.

According to Grid Status, which
monitors grid operations in the US, the frequency excursion was arrested by
a rapid response from the state’s rapidly growing portfolio of big
battery projects. “Immediately, grid frequency declined,” Grid Status
noted in a post on LinkedIn and X. “An excursion below critical levels
required a fast response by ERCOT to ensure stability of the grid. In this
case, ERCOT swiftly deployed ancillary services, including a significant
amount of batteries providing ECRS, to boost the frequency back to
normal.” ERCOT is the Electricity reliability Council of Texas, which
manages the grid. ECRS refers to the contingency reserve service. The big
batteries were back in action a few days later when one of the state’s
coal fired power station units also tripped.

Texas is expected to more than
double its battery storage capacity in 2024, adding around 6.4 GW of
battery capacity (with varying levels of storage), to the 5.5 GW that
existed before.

 Renew Economy 1st Aug 2024

https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-plant-trips-due-to-fire-and-battery-storage-steps-in-to-stabilises-the-grid/

August 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY. “People of a generally nervous disposition” worry about mishaps with nuclear bombs.

I just couldn’t resist that little quotation from an article today about an undetonated nuclear bomb lying at the bottom of a river. To be fair, I think that the writer might have been being sarcastic. He also mentions that “bomb-enthusiasts” worry, too.

Nevertheless, his statement is symptomatic of the comfortable attitude of the authorities to the whole subject of nuclear weapons – in this system, quaintly called deterrence. We’re all a bit worried that someone, like Putin, for example, might actually use one, some day.

But, in the “normal” course of events, nuclear weapons provide good, reliable jobs, and all sorts of government benefits to the community, and something to be proud of- “my strong country” etc. Don’t they?

So, it’s a bit annoying, when someone kicks up a fuss about the nuclear weapons that get accidentally dropped, and lost. They have all sorts of safety features, so they can’t easily explode. well, the land-based ones are supposed not to, anyway. The Atomic Archive lists for the USA 32 “Broken Arrow” nuclear accidents. Of course, that’s only the American ones. What about the others – French, British, Russian, North Korean, Chinese nuclear weapons? Russia was known to have 45.000 nuclear weapons up to 1986 – most of them on submarines – how many got lost undersea? Can they explode, undersea?

But that’s the thing. We are comforted by the reassurance from the experts, that explosion of a lost nuclear weapon is extremely unlikely. We are safe.

What they don’t talk about – is corrosion, leakage of radioactive materials. Over time, increased radioactivity in water and land will affect millions of people, – but don’t worry – of all those millions, only a few million will get cancer from this. So you see, a few million cancer deaths is nothing much really, to worry about. Or so the experts would have us think.

The nuclear lobby has achieved a wonderful global brainwashing. The only thing to worry about is a dramatic event, – an explosion with high levels of radiation released.

If you worry about those less dramatic millions of cancers, well, you must be “a person of a generally nervous disposition”. Hell – it’s your fault – you need psychiatric care, you poor thing.

August 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Dutton praises Canada to sell nuclear plan. But does Ontario really have cheaper power?

Guardian, Graham Readfearn, 1 August 24

Opposition leader’s argument is puzzling given Canadian provinces dominated by renewables pay less for electricity.

There’s a community in Ontario called Dutton which, right now, seems appropriate given the number of times Peter Dutton has name-checked the Canadian province over the last 12 months.

In dozens of media interviews and speeches, Dutton (the opposition leader, not the township) has said Ontarians are getting cheap electricity because of their 20 nuclear reactors.

The Coalition has announced it wants to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear electricity and put at least one reactor at seven sites around the country.

Last week, Dutton again deployed his favourite Canadian talking point, telling reporters: “We could be like Ontario, where they’ve got 60 or 70% nuclear in the mix, and they’re paying about a quarter of the price for electricity that we are here in Australia.”

Really cheaper?

So ubiquitous has Dutton’s talking point been that it has made its way to Prof Mark Winfield, a sustainable energy expert at Ontario’s York University. And he is puzzled.

“I have heard about this,” he told Temperature Check. “I must admit I find the notion of holding Ontario up as a model for electricity and climate policy more than a little bizarre.”

Winfield says Ontario’s electricity rates are not low by Canadian standards, but added “the situation is distorted by the [$8bn a year] subsidy the province provides out of general revenues”.

Those billions, Winfield says, would otherwise be spent on things like schools and hospitals, instead of “artificially” lowering electricity rates.

“That accounts for the bulk of the province’s annual deficit,” he says.

So does nuclear mean cheap power for Ontario?

First, let’s start with Ontario’s electricity mix. The province has 20 of Canada’s 22 nuclear reactors, providing about 59% of Ontario’s electricity.

But comparisons of electricity prices across Canada and North America don’t show that Ontario’s nuclear-heavy generation delivers particularly cheap power.

According to two analyses (here and here), Quebec, the province next door where almost all electricity comes from hydropower, gives the cheapest rates. British Columbia and Manitoba are also cheaper, and they’re also dominated by hydro.

Dutton has said Ontarians “pay around about 14 cents kWh. There are parts in Australia that will be paying up to 56 cents a kilowatt hour from July 1 this year.”

But making a fair comparison between Australian electricity prices and Ontario is almost impossible because – before we’ve even got to the subsidy – the structures and governance systems around electricity are very different.

Almost half of Ontario’s power generation is publicly owned and the prices people pay are set by a government board.

Ontarians pay for their electricity in a more sophisticated way than Australians – people can choose one of three price plans, and the price people pay for each kWh can depend, for example, on how much power they have used that month or what time of day they are using it. The cost to the customer per kWh can be as low as 3c/kWh and as high as 32c/kWh.

But Winfield says the $8bn annual subsidy that helps keep those costs down is also masking the cost of refurbishing Ontario’s existing fleet of reactors that were built between the 1970s and 1990s.

“Those projects have consistently run billions over budget and years behind schedule, and in some cases ended in write-offs,” Winfield says.

The provincial government wants to refurbish 10 of its reactors. Winfield says the cost of those refurbs isn’t known, but his own estimates stand at about $44bn.

Ontario’s government has a chequered recent history when it comes to energy policy.

Critics have pointed to the province’s “horrifically expensive” nuclear reactors that helped the collapse of the publicly owned generator in the 1990s with $42bn of debt, and ratepayers were asked to repay some of that with a charge they continued to pay until 2018.

In 2018, the provincial government cancelled 758 renewable projects, reportedly costing Ontarians about $250m.

Winfield says Ontario’s decision to sideline renewables and back nuclear will see the province relying more on gas, which he says will push up greenhouse gas emissions.

“The fundamental underlying problem, along with all of the other downsides with nuclear – waste management, major upstream impacts in terms of uranium mining and milling, security, catastrophic accident and weapons proliferation risks that just don’t exist in relation to other energy technologies – is that it hasn’t benefited from the kinds of learning curves you have seen with renewables and storage, where costs have fallen and performance improved,” he says.

“Rather, nuclear costs just keep rising.”…………………  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/01/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-plan-cost-price-canada-ontario

August 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment