Where have all these wild and increasingly tense and frightening rumors and threats of nuclear war come from, and what on planet Earth is the actual reason for them? As near as I can tell the potential of nuclear war is only about nuclear war itself with maybe a few asides about geographic territory and control of natural and human resources.
But the entire world — including down under — now seems to be riled up over nuclear war and the nuclear nations threatening nuclear war to stop nuclear war, if that makes any sense at all, which it shouldn’t, yet does. Who are these guys and what are they thinking. Each country has to remodel their nuclear silos and build bigger and more powerful missiles with more powerful nuclear warheads — and maybe put nukes in orbit. Our governments call this “deterrence” which makes about as much sense as street gang fights or big kids beating up on the little kids on a primary school playground during recess.
Are our elected and appointed leaders of the various and sundry earthly world(s) actually that juvenile or childish? It seems so. America is rebuilding its entire nuclear arsenal, and no doubt Russia, China, North Korea, and the lesser radical nuclear nations are too, to the degree that they can. Listening to President Biden’s “State of the Nation” speech last night was built around the the basics of war and conflict, both defensively and offensive — as well as protective for some of our allies. But are we walking away from our help from Ukraine in order to conserve our pocket books and pacify Putin? We do this because he seems to say that if America and NATO actually send troops and military gear beyond what’s already there, Russia will attack three nations in NATO, and they will be nuclear attacks, or so the threat goes. No doubt this, if came to be, would quick-start the beginning of WWIII, because one offensive nuclear strike automatically would lead to an all-out defensive retaliation.
Wars and conflicts of any kind do not make eternal peace; they only ruin the quality of life for the losing nation(s) at the cost of doing the same to the winning nations(s). Both are filled with death ad destruction and are worse off than before. Retribution is always in the heart of the loser(s) even though a certain strained peace is managed until the loser(s) are once again strong enough to try to do their vengeance. Such is the way this has always been since the beginning of human history, but now it is an armageddon thing.
In the case of all-out nuclear war, all nations lose — even the ones that don’t even know that war is happening, including the animal kingdoms, nor do they understand that these wars will be their doomsday, too! ~llaw
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The United States, among other countries, is giving its nuclear arsenal—which contains about 5,000 weapons—a makeover. … Plus, to stay updated on all …
In the last 47 years, China, France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom have all developed the tools to recycle nuclear waste. The U.S., by contrast …
Biden announces emergency port for Gaza aid · Expanding Israeli settlements a war crime: UN · Russia & China Plan Building Lunar Nuclear Power Plant on …
Lithuania’s intelligence agencies publish their national security threat assessment reports every year. The latest document looks into key threats and …
In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Airman 1st Class Jackson Ligon, left, and Senior Airman Jonathan Marinaccio, 341st Missile Maintenance Squadron technicians connect a re-entry system to a spacer on an intercontinental ballistic missile during a Simulated Electronic Launch-Minuteman test Sept. 22, 2020, at a launch facility near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont. (Senior Airman Daniel Brosam/U.S. Air Force via AP, File)
These strains on people, from you and me as individuals, to corporate workers, teachers and other educators, independent shops and employees, soldiers, farmers, all of us, subjected to “nuclear modernization” (if there actually is such a thing) create significant concerns that are not only woefully inconvenient and costly, but also extremely dangerous. Yet, as always, our capitalistic societies worries far more about money and finance than the terrible invisible fear behind it all. We should all ask the question, why are we doing this? And why do we have to do it all over again? There is an answer, and it’s simple: We don’t have to do this and we are ‘dead’ wrong to do it.
The answer is the unification of peace in exchange for war by a motley group of separated countries and their leaders (I like to call them world(s) because, though similar, each is a world-apart from their neighbor. And the further apart they are the more their world(s) differ. But to survive, all of us from every country must bury the hatchet; otherwise we will eventually die at the hands of nuclear war and/or nuclear radiation poisoning, possibly with the help of CO2 and global warming/climate change.
We ought to be able to live peacefully together, even with different faiths and beliefs, skin colors, wealth, climate, GNP, and whatever else makes us jealous enough to despise one another. Humans were never meant to have nuclear power and until recently we had no idea what it was, and after we did we didn’t realize it would become the probable singular human-produced products that could or would annihilate all living life, humans and otherwise, on planet Earth, leaving Mother Nature also dead and barren for eons into the future.
We must understand that “All Things Nuclear”, not just weapons of mass destruction, are capable of destroying life on planet Earth, and the new desire to build more and more nuclear power plants to help resolve our constant need for more electricity will sooner or later come back to haunt us as we turn a viable world into a dystopian world of constant death. That’s if we’re lucky, but our luck has most likely dwindled from an ocean to mudpuddle. Our only way out of nuclear dystopia and eventual extinction is to somehow learn to honor one another, if not whole-heartedly, but enough to know that without Peace on Earth we have nothing. Have you ever wondered why our ungrateful hateful nation’s leaders never consider peaceful solutions in favor of eternal war, failing to acknowledge that if they kill off all of us, then they will be just as dead as we are. ~llaw (Read on . . .)
From his house near Great Falls, Mont., farmer Walter Schweitzer can see the frequent military convoys, sometimes large trucks with missiles as cargo, as they rumble toward their destination.
Schweitzer, 62, lives just 25 miles from Malmstrom Air Force Base. He’s spent his whole life around the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 400 of which are deployed across rural Western states, including Montana.
But Schweitzer has concerns about a vast effort from the Air Force to overhaul this land-based leg of the nuclear triad with a brand-new missile called Sentinel.
Schweitzer, the president of the Montana Farmers Union, said the Air Force has “danced around” community questions concerning public safety, housing and road maintenance, as the military prepares to bring thousands of workers to their city.
“We’re experiencing a shortage of affordable housing, and this would be a great opportunity if they had some public involvement and discussion on how they approached it,” he said. “There has been no public meetings discussing location or how this is going to be handled.”
While the U.S. is planning to modernize its entire nuclear triad, which includes bombers and submarines in addition to ICBMs, the Minuteman replacement effort is the most complicated.
The bulk of the Sentinel construction work will take place at three Air Force bases, in the rugged and rural northern U.S.: F.E. Warren outside Cheyenne, Wyo.; Minot, near the North Dakota city of the same name; and Malmstrom in Montana.
This effort will require the cooperation of local communities, who must work with an influx of up to 3,000 workers in the area for several years.
The project, which is being handled by defense contractor Northrop Grumman, will bring jobs and money into communities, so it’s generally being welcomed.
“This is a huge project,” said Minot Mayor Tom Ross. “It’s probably going to be the largest construction project in the history of the state of North Dakota.”
But the expected wave of workers is forcing community adaptation and bringing questions about public safety and housing.
Sentinel has also raised local environmental concerns involving fuel waste disposal and the easement of private property.
The Air Force did not respond to The Hill’s questions about public safety and housing but said it was engaged in ongoing discussions with local communities.
Public safety, housing concerns
Sentinel will swap out the 400 deployed missiles with new ones, which will host revamped warheads and new plutonium shells.
But the costliest part of the project — and the part that requires the most community cooperation — is the redevelopment of the 450 launch areas, which will entail refurbishing underground silos where the missiles are stored and their launch control centers.
Northrop Grumman will also construct close to 50 new support buildings, 62 communication towers and more than 7,500 miles of utility lines and corridors.
Preliminary work began last year at F.E. Warren, and construction is expected to start within the next few years, according to Air Force Global Strike Command.
The Air Force wants to begin deploying the missiles in 2030, though the military branch is facing an inflating budget that may delay the project by two years or more.
The construction workers are expected to arrive sometime in the late 2020s to early 2030s and will work at each base for two to five years. They will be housed in living facilities known as workforce hubs, commonly referred to as “man camps.”
The Air Force has said it will not place the hubs near schools, residential neighborhoods or other sensitive areas, noting it will work with local communities to comply with zoning laws.
A Northrop Grumman official told The Hill the workers are expected to be handled by a subcontractor on the project — a construction company called Bechtel — and that the work was still years away, considering that part of the Sentinel project has yet to be awarded.
The official, who spoke on background to discuss material not made publicly available yet, said it was “difficult to speculate about things not under the current scope.”
The flow of workers will impact states that house missile silos in the Midwest, including Nebraska.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said in a town hall meeting last year after he vetoed $10 million in funding for infrastructure related to Sentinel funding that the federal government was responsible for housing them, according to a local outlet.
“When you think about the infrastructure that takes place, we have to work day and night with them to make sure they hold their end of the bill up,” Pillen said, adding that he would not spend money on infrastructure that would be boarded up once the workers leave.
In Montana, work at Malmstrom is primarily going to impact two communities: Great Falls and Lewistown. The Air Force held town halls there in January to discuss Sentinel.
But Rick Tryon, a Great Falls city commissioner, said his concerns were not adequately addressed at the town hall and that the Air Force told him there was no money in the budget for public safety.
In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Brandon Mendola, left, with the 90th munitions squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming demonstrates how they train new missile maintainers to look for scratches on the top of a nuclear warhead. Even a hairline scratch on the polished black surface of the cone could create enough drag when fired to send the weapon off course, so maintainers inspect the devices closely. (Senior Airman Sarah Post/U.S. Air Force via AP)
“We are a little behind in adequately funding our public safety,” Tryon said, adding that his city has around 100 police officers in a community of roughly 60,000 people. “Everybody understands that before this happens, we’ve got to do something to beef up our public safety here, locally.”
“And the way it stands right now, there’s no plan from the Air Force or the federal folks to do that.”
Schweitzer told The Hill it was not clear how and where the workers would be housed, describing 3,000 workers as a “major city.”
“There needs to be a whole lot more discussion and planning,” he said. “Our county seat has half that population or less.”
Minot is in the vicinity of North Dakota’s Sentinel project. But in that city, it’s being largely welcomed with open arms.
Ross, the mayor, said the Air Force has not told his city to build housing. But he said the local government may allocate funds anyway to grow the municipality.
“We see it as an opportunity, and we’re going to build housing,” he said. “There’s a great potential for them to stay in Minot when the project is complete.”
Environmental and property concerns
The Air Force identified in its 2023 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that it must dispose of the Minuteman missiles, each of which weighs nearly 80,000 pounds and hosts three solid-propellant rocket motors.
The decommission plan includes the complete disassembly of Minuteman missiles and the burning of solid rocket motor fuel for release at the Utah Test and Training Range in a process that could last up to five years.
The Environmental Protection Agency asked the Air Force to study alternatives in the EIS. The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment on procedures for the disposal of fuel.
Sébastien Philippe, a research scholar with Princeton University’s program on science and global security, said releasing solid rocket fuel through detonation into the outside environment is not a safe and environmentally friendly option.
Philippe, who has released a website tracking concerns about Sentinel, added that the project will have a “massive impact” for the U.S. in environmental terms.
In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Airman 1st Class Jonathan Marrs, 21, left, and Senior Airman Jacob Deas, 23, right, work to dislodge the 110-ton cement and steel blast door covering the top of the Bravo-9 nuclear missile silo at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., Aug. 24, 2023. When the first 225-pound aluminum tow, or “mule” could not pull the door open, Marrs dragged down a second tow to give them more power. (John Turner/U.S. Air Force via AP)
“When you unpack [Sentinel], it’s such a huge project,” he said. “Even if everything goes well, there will be some degree of environmental impact.”
In the EIS, the Air Force said the “shipping, handling, disassembly, storage, and disposal of ICBM boosters and interstages have been routinely conducted by Air Force personnel following established protocol for approximately 60 years.”
For local communities, another concern is how private property will be affected by expanding Air Force needs, which has been a focus at town halls.
The Air Force said Sentinel involves negotiations with hundreds of private property landowners and that it has notified landowners whose property might be needed for Sentinel infrastructure.
Air Force officials said town hall meetings are ongoing and pledged to “answer all questions affected landowners may have and seek landowner cooperation regarding existing easements.”
Initial agreements before property acquisition allow the Air Force and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct real estate surveys on “limited portions” of private property, officials said.
Cooperation with landowners could allow for utility line installations without property acquisition, they added, and the surveys are crucial to determine the boundaries of any easements.
The Air Force has also told residents in Montana that it will need a 2-mile-wide corridor for utility lines, according to Schweitzer. He said local farmers are upset about the corridor because it will impose restrictions for building wind farms. The Air Force did not respond to a detailed question on that concern.
Schweitzer said the corridor is likely to amount to the restriction of 10 million acres around one of the windiest regions of Montana.
“Our national security, as well as our food security, is critically important to this country,” he said. “Our family farms provide food security, and yet we’re struggling economically to make ends meet.”
“We’re losing farmers every day, because they’re going bankrupt,” he added. “Some of my neighbors are making more money off their windmills than they are from their farms. If they were to impose this 2-mile corridor, I own about 30,000 acres, and none of it would be available.”
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“Even if everything goes well, there will be some degree of environmental impact.” In the EIS, the Air Force said the “shipping, handling, disassembly …
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the city of Enerhodar, in eastern Ukraine, is Europe’s largest nuclear facility. For decades, it has supplied …
The following article from Vox provides us with a perspective concerning nuclear war between Russia and the United States and what lies between the two countries in Europe. Although ICBMs might play the largest role in a nuclear war, it is not a pretty picture to see that nuclear warheads are everywhere — on land and in the sea and perhaps soon in space. Some nukes belong to the countries they are deployed in and many more nuclear warheads are provided by the United States. Not counting nuclear weapons deployed in Russian, the United States, and North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, it appears that there are enough nuclear weapons spread throughout Europe to destroy the world all by itself, yet most of these weapons are meant to stand as “deterrent” weapons to somehow “prevent” nuclear war by fear of the very same kind of weapons that are meant to destroy others.
Deterrence is an insane, almost childish, way to rely on keeping the peace, and in reality the only way to avoid the threat of these doomsday nuclear devices is to destroy them before they destroy us at the cruel hands of power-stricken self-aggrandizing leaders around the world(s). There are 8 or 9 of them, depending on who we include, but it takes just one to begin nuclear war, and the others will follow immediately, yet there is no adequate human defense against the power of nuclear weapons. The same rationale goes for nuclear power plants, which in the event of war, as Russia has proven in Ukraine, will only add to the abundance of deadly destruction and certain death of humanity along with our animal kingdom and planet Earth— our Mother Earth — too, who so kindly gave us life in the 1st place.
“We all die in World War III” (with a “No Symbol” around it) should be our international mantra and the motivation to prevent such a war. That slogan, all by itself, is certainly more powerful than nuclear “deterrence”. Let’s make and buy T-shirts, baseball caps, and other motifs all over the world . . . That will help some. ~llaw
Caught between Trump and Putin, are European countries ready to go nuclear?
Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images (For more images ee the full unedited story, linked below)
Joshua Keating is a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He is the author of the 2018 book, Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood, an exploration of border conflicts, unrecognized countries, and changes to the world map.
At the height of the Cold War in 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle famously questioned the value of American security guarantees, asking then-President John F. Kennedy if the US would really be willing to “trade New York for Paris” in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It was because of these doubts that, under de Gaulle’s leadership, France developed its independent nuclear deterrent, which it maintains to this day.
Lately, de Gaulle’s old question has started to seem disturbingly timely.
Just last week, after French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of European NATO members sending ground troops into Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western leaders that Russia has “weapons that can hit targets on their territory” and that they were risking the “destruction of civilization.” The takeaway was unignorable: After years in which it was a largely forgotten political issue on the continent, the continent’s leaders clearly can no longer afford to ignore the threat of nuclear weapons.
Thanks to a renewed threat from Russia as well as doubts about America’s security umbrella thanks to the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House next year, the topic of nuclear deterrence is back in a big way, and has some European leaders to talking openly about whether their countries should acquire nuclear deterrents of their own — independent from a suddenly less predictable US.
Leaders in Poland, literally on the frontline of the conflict between NATO and Russia, have proposed hosting NATO nuclear weapons on their soil. Manfred Weber, a senior German politician who leads the center-right European People’s Party, the largest grouping in the EU parliament, recently argued for Europe to develop its own nuclear deterrent. He told Politico: “Europe must build deterrence, we must be able to deter and defend ourselves …We all know that when push comes to shove, the nuclear option is the really decisive one.”
The idea of such a “Euronuke” is not new, but the fact that the discussion is being revived in a serious way is a telling indicator of Europe’s existential anxieties in the age of Putin and Trump.
Atom bombs for peace
There are already a large number of nuclear weapons on the continent. France and the United Kingdom both have arsenals of about 290 and 225 warheads respectively. The US also maintains an arsenal of around 100 warheads in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey.
These US warheads are B61 “gravity bombs,” which are among the smallest nukes in the American arsenal and are classified as “tactical” nuclear weapons, but they have a range of possible yields and in some modifications are much more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The weapons are kept in underground vaults and can only be used with “permissive action link” codes, which are kept in American hands, but they are officially designated as a deterrent for the NATO alliance. In NATO’s most recent “strategic concept,” its periodically updated mission statement, the members affirmed that they are still a “nuclear alliance” that maintains its arsenal in order to “preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression.”
All of this is in place because of Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal with more than 4,000 active warheads. Moscow has deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, though it is not clear if there are actual nuclear warheads based there. Russia also claimed last year to have moved some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Ukraine as well as several NATO countries, though it’s not known how many weapons were sent or how they are being deployed.
Despite the frequent threats and references to nuclear war by Russian officials including Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has shown no signs that it is actually preparing to useits nuclear arsenal in Ukraine. But the mere fact of Russia’s nuclear might has been sufficient to deter Western countries from certain actions, including sending their own ground troops to Ukraine (or at least publicly admitting to sending them) or imposing a no-fly zone over the country, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested when the war began.
As for Europe’s own nuclear weapons, their value as a deterrent has less to do with their number or strength than the political structure in which they are embedded. Article 5 of the treaty that established NATO in 1949 states that “an armed attack against one or more [member country] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that other members will assist the country that comes under attack, including by using military force. Therefore, even though most NATO member countries don’t have nuclear weapons, they benefit from the protection of being in an alliance with countries that do — the so-called nuclear umbrella.
In many respects, the war in Ukraine perfectly illustrated the value of Article 5. Even as NATO countries have ramped up support for Ukraine, with billions of dollars in military aid flowing across the country’s borders, Russia has refrained from any attacks on the territory of NATO states aside from some apparently accidental errant missiles. There are some lines that even Putin is wary of crossing.
But at least one country on the frontlines is looking for more tangible assurances.
A Polish nuke?
Since the war in Ukraine began, Poland, a NATO member that shares a 140-mile border and a bloody, painful history with Russia, has been bulking up its conventional military power: It now spends a greater percentage of its GDP on defense than any other NATO member, including the United States.
But wary of the possibility that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he might turn his eyes toward other countries that were once part of Moscow’s sphere of influence, senior Polish officials including President Andrzej Duda and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki have said they would support the basing of US nuclear weapons on their territory.
AD
As Morawiecki put it last June, “We do not want to sit idly by while [Russian President Vladimir] Putin builds up his threats of various kinds.”
Poland once hosted Soviet nuclear weapons on its soil — though these deployments were secret and most Poles only learned of them after the end of the Cold War. It seems unlikely for the time being that NATO nuclear weapons will be moved to Poland. Doing so would require agreement from all 31 NATO member states, which have been less than fully unified lately.
Basing American nukes in Poland would undoubtedly be seen as a highly provocative move by Moscow, and critics contend that doing so would provide little military benefit, as such weapons would be more vulnerable to a preemptive Russian strike than those based deeper in Western Europe. The move would also violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act, an agreement from the 1990s under which NATO countries agreed not to base nuclear weapons on any new member states — although that may be a moot point these days given that Russia has also violated a number of its commitments under the agreement.
Some analysts have gone further, suggesting that rather than host NATO nuclear weapons under ultimate American control, Poland ought to have full control of them. As Dalibor Rohac, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently wrote, “for deterrence to be credible, the weapons ought to be controlled by the party that bears the most risk of a direct Russian attack: Poland itself.”
For now, that idea looks even more unrealistic, and Polish leaders have mostly stayed away from explicitly backing it. But a recent comment by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski during an appearance in Washington suggested it’s not entirely off the table. “If America cannot come together with Europe and enable Ukraine to drive Putin back, I fear that our family of democratic nations will start to break up,” Sikorski said at the Atlantic Council. “Allies will look for other ways to guarantee their safety. They’ll start hedging. Some of them will aim for the ultimate weapon, starting off a new nuclear race.”
The Euronuke
It’s not just Moscow that has Western European countries rethinking nuclear deterrence — it’s Washington as well. The debate over “Euronukes” is not new, but recent events have given it greater urgency. “The French have been talking about this since the ’90s,” said Heather Williams, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What’s different now is a couple of things. The first thing that’s different is that there is a war going on in Europe. The second thing is Donald Trump.”
It’s not hard to understand why. Trump is an outspoken critic of defense guarantees in general, which he argues encourages free-riding and reckless behavior by allies at America’s defense, and NATO in particular. As president he discussed pulling the US out of NATO altogether and onetime advisers like former national security adviser John Bolton have said he would likely have done so if he had been reelected in 2020.
Last year, Congress passed legislation preventing a future president from pulling the US out of the alliance without congressional approval, but that wouldn’t prevent Trump from simply refusing to fulfill US obligations under the alliance, including Article 5. During a meeting in 2020, Trump reportedly told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you.” More recently, he has said he would let Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to European countries that were “delinquent” by not meeting their NATO-mandated 2 percent of GDP defense spending targets.
In light of this, the old Cold War question has returned. “If there were to be President Trump back in the White House next January, and if we [Europeans] were to ask ourselves the question, ‘Is Trump going to risk Chicago for Berlin?’ I think it would be quite difficult to answer that question except in the negative,” said Nick Witney, a defense policy analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “And then you really have to wonder what the US nuclear guarantee is worth.”
When it comes to a potential independent European nuclear deterrent, the key country is France, which, since Brexit, is the only country in the EU with its own nuclear weapons. While Britain’s nuclear forces — which have been having a rough few weeks with a second failed submarine missile launch tests — are assigned to NATO and experts question whether its program could even survive without US support, France has a fully independent deterrent, owing to de Gaulle’s old concerns about sovereignty and the value of US assurances. It does not participate in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, which sets deterrence strategy for the alliance. France’s nuclear deterrent is France’s alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish Prime Minister Andrzej Duda, and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris on June 12, 2023.
Andrea Savorani Neri/NurPhoto via Getty Images
But back in 2020, Macron raised eyebrows with a speech arguing that while France’s nuclear weapons are solely for the purpose of defending France’s vital interests, those interests “now have a European dimension.” He called for a dialogue with France’s European partners on the “role of French nuclear deterrence in our collective security.”
Macron has repeatedly called for Europe to shore up its own defenses and act more strategically independent from the United States, and in 2022, his office affirmed that he was still open to “Europeanizing” France’s nuclear deterrent, suggesting he was open to extending France’s own nuclear umbrella to its European partners. Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, expressed support for the proposal last month.
Meanwhile, a host of German politicians from across the political spectrum, including Weber, have been tentatively calling for Germany to seek a European nuclear deterrent, separate from the United States, a major shift for a country where public opposition to military force in general and nuclear weapons in particular has been high for decades.
Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister and leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party, recently argued in an op-ed that Germany should give serious consideration to France’s offer of dialogue on European nuclear deterrence and that “we should understand Donald Trump’s recent statements as a call to further rethink this element of European security.”
Of course, many Germans may not consider French security guarantees to be all that more reassuring than American ones. One anonymous official recently told the Wall Street Journal that Germany should be wary of a nuclear alliance with a country that was “one election away” from electing a pro-Russian president, referring to France’s increasingly prominent far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen. This has led some national security experts in Germany to argue that the country should look to acquire its own nuclear weapons, which would be held separately from the US arsenals in the country.
That idea would be a tough sell for the German public. While the war in Ukraine has caused many Germans to reevaluate their dislike of US weapons on German soil, 90 percent of Germans oppose the country acquiring nuclear weapons of its own.
At a meeting with reporters in Washington on Monday, Charles Fries, EU deputy secretary general for peace, security, and defense, acknowledged that the topic of an independent nuclear deterrent appeared to be garnering more interest lately but said that as of now, “the debate has not really taken place at the EU level.”
Nukes — what are they good for?
Underlying the Euronukes debate is the question of just how effective nuclear weapons really are as a deterrent. As countries including Israel and Pakistan have recently demonstrated, just having nukes is not a guarantee of perfect safety. But they can be effective at deterring the sort of threat — a massive conventional invasion aimed at seizing territory — that Russia potentially poses.
For evidence, many would point at Ukraine itself. At the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal on its soil. As Ukrainian leaders including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have frequently pointed out, Ukraine “gave up” those weapons to Russia in exchange for guarantees that its security would be respected.
This talking point is slightly misleading: The weapons on Ukraine’s soil were under Moscow’s operational control, just as the weapons in Europe today are under Washington’s, and Ukraine could not have actually used them. But it has nonetheless taken hold as a powerful narrative about the naivety of trusting diplomatic guarantees over hard military power. The governments of Iraq and Libya also likely regretted abandoning their nascent nuclear programs before being attacked by Western forces.
Europe is not the only place where these discussions are taking place. South Korea, like NATO countries, is under the US nuclear umbrella, having signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States in the 1950s. But with external threats growing (North Korea and China in this case) and doubts about US credibility in the age of Trump, public support for the country developing its own nuclear weapon is high. Leaders of Saudi Arabia have openly said they will seek a nuclear arsenal if Iran acquires one.
While these countries may not go nuclear overnight, these discussions seem to augur a world where nuclear strategy and brinkmanship are once again at the center of global politics. The dream expressed in a formerly Communist Central European capital by an American president just 15 years ago of a world without nuclear weapons has never looked farther off.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
“What’s different now is a couple of things. … Of course, many Germans may not consider French security guarantees to be all that more reassuring than …
I have posted the following article article from the “Office of Nuclear Energy” only to further demonstrate that the government and nuclear energy corporations and their representatives and propagandists don’t care about the absolute insanity of replacing ‘black lung’ from coal plant workers with radioactive poisoning from nuclear plant workers. It’s a great idea that we shut down all carbon reeking non-renewable coal, oil, and natural gas power plants, but they should always be replaced with solar, wind, hydro, and geo-thermal renewable resources. Nuclear replacement is equal to insanity.
Not one single word in this article expresses the idea that there may be far more risk to workers and surrounding communities that, given a nuclear accident, could destroy life in all of these ‘surrounding’ communities. This very situation is at the forefront of the lives of millions of Ukrainian and other eastern countries right now, and the situation there concerning the prevention of a massive meltdown of the Zaporizhia NPP still without back up power – Nuclear Engineering International concerning a potential tragedy far worse that Chernobyl that last week the world(s) had been led to believe that the power grid failure for lie-saving incoming power to the nuclear power plant had been successfully resolved. It appears now that that news story was in error:
The lead-in to the current situation begins like this … emergency diesel generators. In the history of nuclear energy, this is an unprecedented situation and clearly not sustainable.
The purpose of my nightly “LLAW’s All Things Nuclear” report and daily categoirzed nuclear headlines is to keep humanity abreast of how dangerous ‘all things nuclear’ are, and for me “The Office of Nuclear Energy” is seriously at fault for not bothering to mention the absolute ongoing danger of nuclear power plants, while at the same time telling the world(s) that a switch from coal to nuclear power will make a more healthy environment for long-suffering coal miners. Not only is that not true, it is intentionally written propaganda among others in the article that you can read for yourself, including the “buzz- phrase” that nobody can understand, but it sounds really good — the change to nuclear will help us reach “net-zero emissions by 2050”, which is another bit of nuclear propaganda and does not even mean what it seems to indicate. What it essentially means is that the CO2 (global warming/ climate change problem will still exist, but “should not” get any worse. The use of the term is laughable.
Office of Nuclear Energy
8 Things to Know About Converting Coal Plants to Nuclear Power
8 Things to Know About Converting Coal Plants to Nuclear Power
Nearly 30% of the nation’s coal-fired power plants are projected to retire by 2035 as states continue to prioritize a shift toward cleaner energy sources.
But with power demands expected to rise due to the electrification of more cars, appliances, and processes, something must help fill the void.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects we’ll need an additional 200 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and some of that could take place at or near retiring coal plants — creating new job and economic opportunities for these energy communities.
Here are 8 things you should know about transitioning coal stations to nuclear power plants.
1. The Majority of U.S. Coal Plants Could Be Converted
A 2022 DOE report found that more than 300 existing and retired coal power plant sites are suitable to host advanced nuclear power plants. Each plant could match the size of the site being converted and help increase nuclear capacity by more than 250 GW—nearly tripling its current capacity of 95 GW.
2. Coal to Nuclear Transitions Could Preserve and Create New Jobs
According to the same study, employment in the region associated with an incoming nuclear plant could increase by more than 650 permanent jobs spread across the plant, supply chain, and surrounding community. Occupations seeing the largest gains include nuclear engineers, security guards, and nuclear technicians.
The plants could also leverage the existing coal plant workforce in the community to help transition their current skills and knowledge to work in nuclear energy with wages that are typically 50% higher than those of other energy sources.
3. Converting Coal Plants to Nuclear Could Drive Economic Growth
The study also indicates that long-term job impacts of a converted coal to nuclear power plant could lead to additional annual economic activity of $275 million. This includes a 92% increase in tax revenue from the new nuclear plant for the local county when compared to prior tax revenue from a coal plant.
These tax payments would also increase the amount of money available to improve local schools, infrastructure projects, and public services.
Additional benefits would also be distributed throughout the community as the wages from good-paying nuclear energy jobs lead to increased household spending. Local businesses may also benefit as suppliers of goods and services in support of plant operations, while others may benefit from increased household spending in the community.
4. Coal to Nuclear Transitions Could Bring Environmental Benefits
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal plants account for 20% of the nation’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.
Replacing unabated coal combustion with fission, a physical process that doesn’t emit carbon, would dramatically reduce green gas emissions in the energy sector. It would also directly improve the air quality in the region by avoiding other harmful byproducts produced by fossil fuel plants that are linked to asthma, lung cancer, and heart diseases — helping to improve the over health of the community.
5. Converting Coal Plants to Nuclear Could Save on New Construction Costs
The DOE report also found that new nuclear power plants could save up to 35% on construction costs depending on how much of the existing site assets could be repurposed from retired coal power plants.
These assets include the existing land, the coal plant’s electrical equipment (transmission connection, switchyard, etc.) and civil infrastructure, such as roads and buildings.
6. Many States are Considering a Coal to Nuclear Transitions
More than 10 states have expressed interest in coal to nuclear transitions.
Interest in repurposing coal sites is growing.
TerraPower plans to build its Natrium reactor near a retiring coal plant in Kemmerer, WY with funding support from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
In addition to Wyoming, 10 other states have publicly expressed interest in repurposing their coal sites with nuclear energy. These states include: Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
The interest level varies from state to state and comes from different stakeholders such as state and local governments, transition planning groups, economic development agencies, and community members.
7. Coal to Nuclear Transitions Help Ensure Communities are Not Left Behind
Siting new nuclear power plants in coal communities is one way of ensuring that coal power plant workers and their communities are supported as their power plants retire.
In January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration signed an executive order to create an Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization.
This initiative honors the coal, oil, natural gas, and power plant workers and communities who have been essential to the growth of the United States. It also ensures that none of these workers or communities are left behind as the U.S. transitions to clean energy sources.
8. There is Help to Prepare for Coal to Nuclear Transitions
These studies are specific to the community and utility being studied but have been written with the idea that other potential transitions sites will be able to gain some insight.
The studies will hopefully be seen as a jumping off point for similar situated coal sites as they enter their own energy transition journey.
The GAIN team can also provide assistance to communities around the country as they consider advanced nuclear in their energy transitions.
This assistance can include providing information about nuclear energy plants, transition opportunities, and connecting communities to potential funding opportunities through the interagency working group.
Qualifying communities could also apply for technical assistance through DOE’s Communities LEAP program to help shift away from their historical reliance on fossil fuels. GAIN also supports public meetings, group work sessions, and strategizing forums in communities to help them learn more about the energy transition process.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… all, is it any wonder they failed for a decade on energy policy when … Judge Jeanine: Things are bad for ‘The Big Guy’. Fox News New 211K views · 6 …
It looks peaceful now, but this valley in Yellowstone is part of an ancient volcanic caldera (collapsed volcanic dome) that erupted in a supervolcano …
The road to a ‘Uranium 1’ mining operation — a Russian subsidiary of the Russian government owned Rosatom (a huge nuclear operator which also produces Russia’s nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Russia has cornered the market on production of both new reactor construction and nuclear fuel products. The U.S. is a distant 4th.
LLAW’s CONCERNS and COMMENTS, Monday, (03/04/2024)
This entire rebirth of uranium mining, if it ever happens, is not now or ever going to solve the CO2 problem from fossil fuel power plants that contribute the most to global warming/climate change. The uranium and nuclear product industries, through the uranium/nuclear industry’s constant harangue full of trumped-up propaganda has excited ignorant politicians who have no knowledge nor understanding of the nuclear industry and its dangerous and deadly (including nuclear weapons) products that could easily cause human and other life extinction on what would also eventually be a dead planet Earth. This possibility is a risk beyond the capability of humankind to handle. We need to destroy all nuclear products before they destroy us. How foolish we are to be going precisely in the wrong direction . . . ~llaw
Following article courtesy of Yahoo and Bloomberg:
Uranium Firms Revive Forgotten Mines as Price of Nuclear Fuel Soars
(Bloomberg) — Across the US and allied countries, owners of left-for-dead uranium mines are restarting operations to capitalize on rising demand for the nuclear fuel.
At least five US producers are reviving mines in states including Wyoming, Texas, Arizona and Utah, where production flourished until governments soured on the radioactive element following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Most of those American mines were idled in the aftermath of Fukushima, when uranium prices crashed and countries like Germany and Japan initiated plans to phase out nuclear reactors.
Now, with governments turning to nuclear power to meet emissions targets and top uranium producers struggling to satisfy demand, prices of the silvery-white metal are surging. And that’s giving those once-unprofitable uranium operations a chance to fill a supply gap.
Uranium has been used as an energy source for more than six decades, fueling nuclear power plants and reactors. About two-thirds of global production comes from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.
Uranium will be a topic of conversation as thousands of mining executives, geologists and bankers descend on Toronto for the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada gathering this week. The annual event has attracted at least 10 uranium firms, including Denison Mines Corp., Fission Uranium Corp. and IsoEnergy Ltd.
As countries increasingly consider nuclear power to address climate change, demand for uranium is expected to skyrocket. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates the world will need more than 100,000 metric tons of uranium per year by 2040 — an amount that requires nearly doubling mining and processing from current levels.
Canada’s Cameco Corp. and Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom, which together account for half of global supply, have struggled to ramp up production. They have warned of some operational setbacks that will result in less uranium output than expected in the coming years.
Read More: World’s Biggest Uranium Miner Warns of Production Shortfall
“We’re in an old-fashioned, plain-and-simple supply squeeze,” said Scott Melbye, executive vice president of Texas-based Uranium Energy Corp. “Demand is increasing again, with new reactors coming online.”
Production hasn’t kept pace due to years of underinvestment in mining and exploration, said Melbye, whose company is reopening mines in Wyoming and Texas that were idled in 2018.
Energy Fuels Inc. initiated plans late last year to restart operations in Arizona, Utah and Colorado, while Ur-Energy Inc. said it will dust off an idled mine in Wyoming. Mid-sized companies in Australia and Canada have announced similar plans.
To be sure, production from these mines — most of which are small and nearing the end of their lives — would comprise a small fraction of the world’s uranium supply.
“The industry is clearly trying to respond with smaller mines reopening, but when you have a mine that hasn’t operated for that long, it’s obviously not very substantive,” said John Ciampagli, Chief Executive Officer of Sprott Asset Management, which operates the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust.
Top Producers
Supply constraints should ease with top producers churning out the millions of pounds of uranium they left in the ground when prices were low. Kazatomprom has been increasing output after years of operating well below its capacity.
Cameco has been ramping up production at the world’s largest high-grade uranium mine and mill — MacArthur River and Key Lake in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan — after idling operations between 2018 and 2021 due to weak market conditions.
The two firms “will be very concerned about losing their market share to a bunch of juniors, and so they’ll want to claim that back,” said Tom Price, a senior commodities analyst at London-based investment bank Libereum. “That will take a lot of heat out of the market.”
Still, US mine reopenings mark a revival for an American industry that was at risk of disappearing only five years ago. American uranium production hit an all-time low of 174,000 pounds in 2019 — a drop from its 44-million-pound peak in 1980 — as the US started increasing dependence on imports from countries like Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Read More: The Long Arm of Russia and the Politics of Uranium
The US industry’s push is also political, with the government seeking to secure access to supply amid geopolitical uncertainty. Sanctions on Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine have posed challenges for uranium shipments en route from Kazakhstan, since the former Soviet state’s exports typically pass through Russian ports.
To keep up with demand, the Uranium Producers of America forecasts the US will need eight to 10 new, major mines to start production over the next decade.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Nearly everything flammable below ignites: wood, plastics, oil. Small animals burst into flame, then turn to ash. Ruptured gas and downed electricity …
The remains of Russian (USSR) built Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
LLAW’s CONCERNS and COMMENTS, Sunday, (03/03/2024)
The last thing we need on planet Earth is more nuclear power plants. The idea behind these extremely dangerous radiation spreaders, filthy dirty waste creators, and essentially no better than the other non-renewable resource resources like oil, gas, and coal. The false belief that nuclear power can solve the global warming/climate change CO2 problem is pure nonsense.
Why is it that intelligent folks who think they are intelligent enough to run this country’s governments, including the federal one, can’t spend a day or two to learn the facts about nuclear energy, the already-known-in-advance futility of the attempt, and that the growing advocacy for it is really nothing more than false, fictitious, or apocryphal propaganda from the nuclear industries themselves from the mining to the refining, to the burning. Anyone who understands basic mathematics can clearly see why the concept of building more nuclear power plants cannot help but fail.
(See my “LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #556, Friday (03/01/2024)” Post titled “Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution (Lesson #1” (from just 3 days ago, and also posted back on #246, on 04/24/2023, nearly a year ago) to easily understand why the whole idea is nothing more than nuclear industry hot air, oddly, in its own way, sarcastically adding to global warming! (And, as an aside, Russia controls the industry, including the construction and the fuel.)
The truth is that we humans do not understand the dangerous intricacies of nuclear energy well enough to keep it safe, nor do we understand that nuclear energy is the 2nd most ignorant idea on the planet ever (next to nuclear weapons), and, practically speaking, it is also a non-renewable resource, the uranium fuel (U235) for nuclear reactors being mined much like a super-complicated coal mine along with a complicated milling and the ultimate refining process. Both of these nuclear products need to be shut down immediately and forever before it’s too late — even if it’s too late already. ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Now, With governments turning to nuclear power to meet emissions targets and top uranium producers struggling to satisfy demand, prices of the silvery …
There are 14 supervolcanoes – that we know of. What will happen if one erupts? · Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser, Yellowstone · Map of the world’s …
Today’s nuclear news is all about Putin threatening to destroy human civilization, particularly in the West. But to try to do so, in my view, would cause retaliation, and of course Russia would be be demolished as well. Perhaps that is what Putin wants because he does not value human lives individually, and he is an old man who may be personally on the edge of death. Ukraine has to be factored in, but how and why is a mystery. Yet he, as the ‘experts’ seem to believe, may be just expounding on such threats that he has made many times over the years.
In glancing through the articles, I have copied the most brief and to-the-point article that I found. It is from “Business Insider” . . . but you can take your pick from several news sources in the overflow of articles in the “All Things Nuclear” categorized media round-up below . . . ~llaw
Putin is rehashing his nuclear threats — but this time, he may be threatening nuclear catastrophe in an effort to sway American voters
Vladimir Putin made an explicit nuclear threat against the West this week.
But experts remain skeptical of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling after three years of similar threats.
One expert suggested Putin is drumming up fear among American voters to cut US support for Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a new nuclear threat this week, threatening the West over its support for Ukraine in his most explicit intimidation tactic yet.
But a regional expert says Putin’s recent bout of nuclear saber-rattling is less a promise of mutually assured destruction and more an attempt to mobilize the American public against ongoing assistance for Ukraine.
In his annual state-of-the-nation speech on Thursday, Putin alluded to recent comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said earlier this week that he could not rule out NATO troops being sent to Ukraine to help fight Russia. (Though Germany and Poland quickly countered that suggestion.)
Putin warned that Western nations “must realize we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory.”
“All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization. Don’t they get that?” Putin said, according to Reuters.
The Russian president made several similar threats after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Most experts at the time, however, cast doubt on the likelihood that Putin would actually deploy a nuclear weapon, given the perilous global position in which doing so would leave Russia.
Two years later, experts still think the chance of nuclear warfare is low.
“Putin’s shtick is, at least, predictable at this point,” Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations, told Business Insider. “He’s repeating his same, tired nuclear threats.”
Putin is working to project an image of himself as a stalwart president whose leadership is the only thing protecting Russia from catastrophe with the West, Miles said, especially ahead of the country’s presidential election later this month — a race Putin is all but sure to win.
But there may be more than one election on Putin’s mind as he rails off his nuclear threats.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gives an interview with US talk show host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 6, 2024.
GAVRIIL GRIGOROV vias Getty Images
Putin may be speaking directly to Americans
“He is aiming these remarks at Western publics and Western civilian political leadership,” said Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven who previously taught planning at the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies.
“He’s trying to make sure that Ukraine does not get significant aid from the US,” Schmidt added, chalking Putin’s most recent nuclear threats up to an attempt to sway American voters against supporting politicians and policies that would result in further US funding for Ukraine.
Since the war began, the Biden administration has directed nearly $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, including military and financial support, according to The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute.
But further funding for Ukraine has been stalled in Congress as House GOP support for US aid wanes. Just this week, Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown but still made no progress on passing a $95 billion package with emergency funds for Ukraine, Israel, and other foreign allies.
“American politicians are already responding to this war in a way that helps Russia,” Schmidt said. “Putin is trying to create the conditions for that to continue happening.”
While military professionals and international relations experts may be rightfully skeptical of Putin’s threats, the average American voter likely doesn’t understand the nuances of nuclear politics, Schmidt said.
When a civilian hears that Putin threatened nuclear warfare as a result of American involvement in Ukraine, that civilian may respond by voicing their opposition to ongoing assistance at the ballot — at least, that’s what Putin is hoping for, Schmidt said.
Putin’s information warfare comes at a critical time for Ukraine, as Russia has racked up a series of military wins in recent weeks. Last week, Zelenskyy pleaded with Western allies for artillery and air defenses, saying Ukraine’s victory depends on continued support.
But Putin may ultimately have the more resonant message when it comes to American voters, Schmidt said.
“It’s far more complicated to explain why Ukraine is important to US voters than it is for Putin to threaten nuclear war,” he told BI.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… nuclear threats. … “It’s far more complicated to explain why Ukraine is important to US voters than it is for Putin to threaten nuclear war,” he told …
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, recently given new life from federal and state governments. The plant was supposed to be shutdown due to age in 2025.
LLAW’s COMMENTS, Friday (03/01/2024)
It is the constantly increasing numbers of headlines like these that prompt me to contradict what more and more factually conflicting, erratic and mistaken facts propaganda about how nuclear energy production can save us all from CO2, which causes global warming, and climate change because nuclear power is ‘clean’. This ‘Big Lie” is a daily event being shoved down our very scratchy human throats, and governments everywhere at every level are are buying into a sham of a scam scene that will never work because it is pure unadulterated fiction.
So to fight back I have resurrected a clear and concise contradictory Post from nearly a year ago, LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR #246 (04/24/2023), that positively blows this “pie-in-the-sky” bullshit completely out of our rapidly growing belief in this ridiculous nuclear concept fantasy full of nothing but hot air. These are today’s media headlines of the very kind I am talking about:
Al Jazeera: Nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance on Earth, and in space. Whether we’re talking about lunar bases or space exploration, nuclear might be …
The New York Times: It’s the latest sign that nuclear power, a once-contentious source of energy, is now attracting broad political support in Washington.
LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR #246 (04/24/2023)
Intentional or not, the whole world is falsely being told and beginning to believe that Nuclear power plants are safe, but also zero-emission CO2 facilities that will overcome climate change and global warming.
I have been saying continuously that all of that is a ‘world-class’ lie or an insane human delusion in the 246 consecutive days since I began this Post, and yet, during all that time, the media and the misguided nuclear propaganda machine has misinformed a huge part of humanity, convincing them to accept the belief that nuclear energy will save the world, including the global warming/climate change potential ‘apocalypse’ along with ‘all other things nuclear’ that in reality marches us ever closer (like thoughtless lemmings) to following the leaders over the edge of the cliff to our inevitable doom.
And somehow, too, we ignore the accumulation of nuclear waste, which no one has yet found a solution to containing this world(s)-wide killer called radiation — which will only grow more dangerous around the entire planet each and every day as more nuclear facilities of every kind, including converting nuclear power plants into weapons of mass destruction, during war or threats of war. In a nuclear world there will be only one war, and we humans and our other living friends on planet Earth will all be history . . .
Not even considering the incredible time it takes to build a nuclear power plant from drawing board to production (about 15 years on average, and a large enough uranium fuel source and legally allowed grade is also in question) we will still be contaminating our planet with CO2 status-quo with present day fossil fuel plants (as well as all those existing nuclear-reactor plants) building the asphyxiation levels while enduring disastrous climate change at the same time. This entire scam of a scheme being shoved down our gluttonous throats must be aborted and abandoned forever, before known life on planet Earth is over and done with, if, in fact, recovery from our self-destruction is not already too late.
(By the way, partly in order to express my qualifications to write these nightly columns, I worked in this industry for parts of three decades, ending that career by choice in the early 1980s when the industry ignored the dangerous meltdown situation and spoke out against the ‘3-Mile Island’ nuclear incident’ that included an industry war-like chant of “Let the bastards freeze to death in the dark” when those of us with an environmental protection bent, as well as many scientists, organized to begin speaking out against ‘all things nuclear’.)
Following is the essence of and the beginning of the absolute truth about nuclear energy as an initial or introductory 1st grade level-one lesson, with more to follow, but step-by-step, trying to keep it as simple to understand as possible by taking one baby-step grade at a time to higher levels of learning: We start here with the lie that nuclear power plants don’t create CO2 emissions or pollute Earth’s air (not to mention the most dangerous pollution of all – the nuclear waste radiation accumulation being spread around the Earth that we have no idea how to control. So in the grand scheme of things from a reality viewpoint, nuclear products are the dirtiest product of any kind on planet Earth. ~llaw
Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution (Lesson #1)
There is absolutely no such thing as a zero — or even a close-to-zero-emission nuclear power plant using nuclear fission in its reactors — nor will there ever be. When all things are considered, all existing nuclear power plants collectively use fuel from the continuous mining, milling, and refining of uranium needed for the plant, called U235. It will never stop so long as uranium, also a fossil fuel incase no one told you, must be mined, processed through milling and refinement, which creates pollution of its own, and reduced to the governmental controlled nuclear-grade fuel. This entire process alone sets it far apart from other fossil fuels in terms of complexity, but it does not completely eliminate CO2 emissions and of course there are other serious and dangerous facts about nuclear power plants, mostly related to securing radiation and constantly growing nuclear waste.
Emissions from proposed nuclear facilities are 78 to 178 g-CO2/kWh, not, as you probably have been led to believe, close to 0. Yes, Zero, they tell you. Of these emissions, 64 to 102 g-CO2/kWh over100 years are emissions from the background grid while consumers wait 12 to 19 years for nuclear facilities to come online or be refurbished, relative to 2 to 5 years for wind or solar, for example.
But, in addition, the easier to understand bigger lie, all nuclear plants emit 4.4 g-CO2e/kWh from the water vapor and heat they release. This contrasts with solar panels and wind turbines, which reduce heat or water vapor fluxes to the air by about 2.2 g-CO2e/kWh for a net difference from this factor alone of 6.6 g-CO2e/kWh. So, when you read or are told by the media and their industry “experts” that ‘nuclear’ is 100% carbon free, you are being lied to, even if the “expert” and the media reporter-guy has no clue that what they are saying is dead wrong (because they are told what to say). They get paid to lie – just like I did back in the day.
As an example, (according to research by One Earth),to help you understand how all this CO2 stuff works, “China’s investment in nuclear plants that take so long between planning and operation instead of wind or solar resulted in China’s CO2 emissions increasing 1.3 percent from 2016 to 2017 rather than declining by an estimated average of 3 percent. The resulting difference in air pollution emissions may have caused as many as 69,000 additional air pollution deaths in China in 2016 alone, with additional deaths in years prior and since.”
If you’ve been paying any attention at all to these posts, you will have read that CO2 in earth’s atmosphere accumulates or remains the same, but does not diminish over time, whether or not CO2 emissions are diminished, even if new emissions are ‘zero’ . . . ~llaw
Now back to this evening:
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:30 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of …
The technology has the potential to make nuclear power plants … small modular reactors Homeland Security Emergency Management Nuclear Power Generation …
This was the latest and most explicit in a series of nuclear threats made by Putin since he first ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over …
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on Avila Beach near San Luis Obispo, CA
LLAW’s COMMENTS, Thursday (02/29/2024)
Final Part of the Prologue to “El Nuclear Diablo”, a dystopian novel:
###
These last several days we have followed spring’s warming north along the western United States and British Columbia coasts by yacht. Any boat is ripe for the pickings of choice at any deserted marina, which would likely be most all of them, although two of our crew also happen to be the legal owners of our schooner, which offers us all some conscience relief.
California, Oregon, and Washington (other than the governmental delayed shutdown of the Diablo Canyon plant, have long been devoid of operational nuclear power plants with the exception of Washington’s inland Richmond plant (known as the “Columbia River Generating Station”), which, unlike Diablo Canyon was, is not in the process of closing, leaving it to eventually be the only functional nuclear power generation facility anywhere in the entire Pacific Northwest or anywhere else along the western Pacific coastline from the Aleutians to Tierra del Fuego. We very soon will be looking forward to scientific help from the governmental and corporate professionals in specialized expertise in eastern Washington who are still to this day handling and cleaning up the fallout from the infamous Hanford plutonium military arms manufacturing disaster that has contaminated wide swaths of earth and the Columbia River for decades. Oregon has not had an operating nuclear power plant since the mid-1990s when their only facility, near Mt. St. Helens, developed structural cracks forcing the plant to close, and British Columbia has, quite honorably, never built one. Alaska’s only nuclear facility was shut down more than fifty years ago, and today it uses diesel engines to generate steam. Juneau is the closest downwind haven from nuclear airborne protection and freedom from contamination that the climate and geography can offer, along with the fortunate absence of nearby previously operational nuclear power facilities, providing at least a temporary refuge from the eastern Asian Pacific together with the clusters of endangered nuclear plants in the central and eastern United States, eastern Canada, and European soon-to- become providers of world-wide extinction level atmospheric conditions.
Some of the oceanographers, atmospheric scientists and meteorologists who were already stationed here in Juneau are trying to determine the predicted world-wide safe zones and timelines, comparing Juneau’s and its surrounding weather patterns and wind history elsewhere around the United States and around the world. They have long understood the favorable high-altitude wind currents from the north and southeast creating wind havoc among the treacherous three-thousand+ foot mountain ranges rising from sea level, providing conditions that hopefully will carry airborne radiation far above and around us for a few months at least, giving us critical time to figure out just where the world’s few survivors will need to migrate and congregate. We know, too, that global communications will be inadequate to the point of probable futility, possibly requiring some of us to travel, sometimes long distances afoot, to gather these groups together and guide them to new promising safelands.
Our future could turn out to be very much like an extended encore and final Mad Max film, although, ironically, Australia has no nuclear energy power plants, which they banned officially in 1998. But true isolated tribalism will return everywhere to the few of us who are left to make our way on a mostly neutered and dead planet that will eventually consume Australia as well, although it may be the last bastion of life along with New Zealand, whose leaders have also banned nuclear reactors save for the joint U.S. military/Australia world-wide espionage Pine Ridge project near Alice Springs. Yet this death threat by inept and by nature outclassed human hands meddling with something akin to the power of the sun will eventually be a significant part of their survival story, if they are so fortunate, as well as our own.
A new way of life in a desolate lonesome world does not normally make for a pretty picture — nor a heart-warming romantic adventure tale. But still…so long as there is hope there is a story and an untold story has its own future… ~llaw (Spring, 2026)
End Prologue
“El Nuclear Diablo”, Chapter 1 will begin, serialized, on “LLAWs’ All Things Nuclear” on the evening of Thursday, March 14th. Reminders will be plentiful . . . ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories (including a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links to the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Instead, he expresses interest in the talking cartoon raccoon display, which informs visitors about Yellowstone’s caldera. … Yellowstone caldera again …
“We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within….” Russia’s President Nikita Khrushchev in 1956.
LLAW’s COMMENTS, Wednesday (02/28/2024)
Tonight’s lead article up for comment is from my Substack colleague Steve Schmidt who tells us what our failure to continue to protect Ukraine from Russia’s invasion may mean to the United States’ future, as well as the rest of the free world . . . Is this what the American citizens want to see happen with the crazed right wing Republicans’ desire to remove our democratic way of governing in favor of dictators like Putin and a Hitler-style copy-cat and demented lifelong criminal Donald Trump who barely remembers his own name? ~llaw
Multitudes of Americans have forgotten something that was once known by most all in our country, and certainly understood by presidents of both parties.
Take a look at this image:
An unarmed Trident II missile launches from the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Maine (SSBN 741) on February 12, 2020 (U.S. Navy/MC2 Thomas Gooley)
This is the USS Maine. Her mission is deterrence. She is one of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs in the American nuclear triad. Each stands as a terrifying peer of the other as the most powerful and deadly weapons platforms that have ever existed in human history. Each ship carries enough nuclear weaponry to classify them as the Earth’s 6th ranking nuclear power.
After the global cataclysm of the Second World War it was broadly understood that humanity would not survive another world war, and that humanity now possessed the power of the gods. Humanity had breached a threshold where it was capable of summoning its extinction and evaporating any trace of civilization in an instant. This is why Douglas MacArthur talked about the necessity of a “spiritual recrudescence” among man as the gateway to lasting peace. While awaiting mankind’s evolution into peaceful beings the fall back option for preserving the peace was massive deterrence based on mutually assured destruction, anchored by the nuclear arsenals of the United States, United Kingdom and France. These were the victorious powers that shattered and pacified Nazi Germany after appeasing its rise and ignoring its danger. The horrors of fascism were thought to be indelibly carved into human memory under banners such as “Never Again” and “Never Forget,” but those turned out to be slogans that whisked away for millions like puffs of smoke.
A great collective security treaty was signed by most all of the world’s most important democracies and bulwarks of liberty after the horror of war that promised an attack on one was an attack on all. The purpose of this was not belligerence, but rather peace. Peace through overwhelming strength was the basis of NATO. It has kept the world from spiraling into the apocalypse for nearly 80 years. The only time its collective security obligations have ever been invoked was on the occasion of the 9/11 attacks against the United States. Many Americans and the whole of MAGA seem utterly ignorant of the scores of dead who died defending America, and were buried under foreign flags most of us couldn’t name. Their families remember their names though, and they understand the price of defending freedom.
The great threat that united the free countries of the world was a vast, powerful and dangerous nation, ruled over by a ruthless dictatorship and security apparatus that exported totalitarianism, terror and menace. That nation was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the dominant power within it was Russia. Today a revanchist Russia is led by a dictator who rationalizes his war of conquest, murder, rape, kidnapping and destruction with the same ideology, same logic, same dogmas that the 20th century’s deadliest fascist employed. The difference between Hitler and Putin exists in the space between the known and unknown. The thousand-year Reich died in a dank Berlin bunker when the shattered Führer poisoned his dog, next his wife, and then shot himself in the head. We know where Hitler ended, and precisely what he did. We know the full tale from 1923 all the way through the final moments.
The whole world understood for decades the incomparable evil of humanity’s greatest nemesis. Where Putin’s story will end is an open question. Perhaps it is the case that he will be little remembered for his first 20 years in power. Maybe Vladimir Putin remains a figure of our future still. Perhaps it is his destiny, like that of his predecessors, to shatter the world again and test humanity’s capacity and resolve to survive the new slavery — again.
The war he began in Ukraine is estimated to have killed almost 400,000 Russians. This is a staggering number, as is the 32,000 combat deaths sustained by Ukraine as the war enters its third year.
What is happening in Ukraine is much closer than most Americans grasp. Kyiv is just a plane flight away. It is the capital of a European country that is being attacked by a larger country under an old dogma of nationalism that declares that the smaller country and its language, history and customs don’t exist, and never have. The war at hand is one where subjugation and eradication are the goals. A single man has dreams of empire and restorations dancing in his head, and he has the power to do anything he wants. His name is Vladimir Putin and this simple fact of human history should be remembered when his name is discussed. Each century of humanity’s recorded story has been deadlier than the last, and 75 per cent of the 21st century lies ahead of us.
A great hour of moral reckoning has arrived in the United States. Are we prepared to surrender a burden that has saved us all? Are we prepared to welcome the darkness, and next, the abyss? Are we ready to abandon a brave people fighting for freedom and survival against a tyrant? Are we ready to appease the tyrant? Are we ready to lure him into the next country? How about the one after that?
By the way, have you thought about what the world looks like as America abandons her friends, alliances, and turns toward Russia in admiration, as opposed to revulsion?
There should never be a world where there is a German, Japanese and South Korean nuclear weapon. Yet, as America abandons the realities of grave dangers facing us, and ignores the gathering threat, it is precisely what will happen.
The war drums are beating between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The situation in the Balkans is fragile. Conflict in the Middle East is escalating, and China is rapidly building the naval forces designed to take Taiwan by force.
Ukraine is the linchpin. Ukraine is Czechoslovakia in 1938, with Speaker Mike Johnson playing the latter day role of Neville Chamberlain.
A most dangerous hour has arrived at the doorstep of a fanatic who believes in fantasies, simplicity, power, dogmas and certitude. Speaker Mike Johnson is hostile towards democracy in America and around the world. Eighty-five years ago, America was blessed that such a man of meager abilities and extreme positions could never become the speaker of the US House of Representatives. This appalling hour is testimony to the irreducible truth that courage is the first virtue and its absence obliterates all others.
What is the right thing to do? What is the necessary thing to do? What is the American thing to do? What would our greatest leaders tell us to do?
Perhaps these words from John Kennedy’s presidential inaugural address on January 20, 1961, might help illuminate the question, and shine a light on the American path:
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
The abandonment of Ukraine will mark a moment of national shame and ignominy that will make our descendants shudder in anger and fear. The consequences will be catastrophic. The Ukraine War is the worst European war since World War II. Vladimir Putin has made clear wherever ethnic Russians may live, or where the Russian language may be spoken, is a border he refuses to abide. He has assessed American leadership, and found it wanting. He has gained the upper hand through a refusal to bend and blink. During the past 12 months he has faced down an armed rebellion and blew its plotter out of the sky before murdering his chief political opponent and most famous dissident. Now he sits enthralled to the slow motion strangulation of hope in Ukraine, as the world’s most powerful nation and force for freedom turns its back with indifference towards people who are making a stand for their existence. What has happened to the American spirit that would ever allow such indifference toward the fate of tens of thousands of kidnapped children?
The price of 21st century global war will be more than we can comprehend. When it comes, the violence will be shocking. When a small child looks up, and asks why things are the way they are, the answer will be simple.
Appeasement.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories (including a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links to the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
The International Atomic Energy Agency projects nuclear generation will increase 50% by 2050. Meanwhile, many nuclear power plants that were scheduled …
The Yellowstone River in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Photo by Rico Gore on Unsplash … The chamber of the volcano collapsed, leaving a caldera …
