Category: Politics

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LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #518 (01/22/2024)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JAN 22, 2024

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LLAW’s THOUGHTS & COMMENTS:

Be sure to watch the 2024 Doomsday Clock adjustment tomorrow morning if you can! It is live on Facebook beginning at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time. I have read that the clock will be reset to 2 minutes to midnight, but given the ‘deterrence’ challenges and the verbal threat conflicts going on the past few weeks, perhaps the time will stay the same 90 seconds to midnight. We shall see tomorrow . . . ~llaw

May be an image of text that says 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2024 Doomsday Clock Announcement January 23, 2024 10:00 a.m. EST'

sdtSroponettglc30c0m21im4i5hl15929ua0t96ula4t9m7t489g7li8444  ·

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This year’s #DoomsdayClock announcement is tomorrow, January 23 at 10am EST.

Tune in to the livestream to hear what the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board have to say about the global state of existential risk.

Learn more

Doomsday Clock - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

THEBULLETIN.ORG

Doomsday Clock – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

It is 90 seconds to midnight.

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:

  1. All Things Nuclear
  2. Nuclear Power
  3. Nuclear War
  4. Nuclear Power Emergencies
  5. Nuclear War Threats
  6. Yellowstone Caldera (There 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 no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post.

(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.)

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS (01/22/2024):

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

North Korea fires artillery shells, drops reunification goal with the South | WVTF

WVTF

Weekend All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM Inside Appalachia. 0:00. 0 … nuclear-armed state. That, in my view, is Kim Jong Un’s ultimate goal …

North Korea fires artillery shells, drops reunification goal with the South – WAMC

WAMC

All Things Considered · Arts & Culture · Capital Region News · Commentary … And a few days afterwards, it claimed to have tested an underwater drone …

North Korea fires artillery shells, drops reunification goal with the South | NPR Illinois

NPR Illinois

All Things Considered. Next Up: 5:00 PM CV-X (Community Voices … And a few days afterwards, it claimed to have tested an underwater drone that could …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

IAEA stresses importance of maintenance at Zaporizhzhia – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

The International Atomic Energy Agency says “a well-established maintenance plan and its timely implementation are essential to ensure plant …

IAEA Delivers Report to Estonia on its Nuclear Power Infrastructure Development

International Atomic Energy Agency

The plans for nuclear energy are focussed on small modular reactors (SMRs), which are attracting growing global interest due to their ability to meet …

Nuclear phaseouts strike again – Competitive Enterprise Institute

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Photo Credit: Getty. While there has been some good news in the US recently on nuclear power issues, including a partial removal of the Illinois …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Ukraine war drives shift in Russian nuclear thinking – study | Reuters

Reuters

The war in Ukraine has dented Russia’s confidence in its conventional forces and increased the importance to Moscow of non-strategic nuclear …

Russia Ukraine war live: Donetsk market shelling leaves ‘at least 27 dead’ as gas plant hit …

The Independent

Russian Ukraine latest news today: Russia mocks British efforts to support Ukraine; Nato sends 90000 troops to deter Russia in largest exercise …

Nuclear deterrence is the existential threat, not the nuclear ban treaty

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

We are currently witnessing this kind of escalation among several nuclear weapon possessor states, which could result in nuclear war. Nuclear …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Repairs may take more than 6 months at Central Japan nuclear plant after quake

nhk.or.jp

The operator says electricity supply for the spent fuel pools and other important facilities is secure as it has emergency diesel generators and power …

Fortum considers Nordic sites for new nuclear power – Reuters

Reuters

Finnish utility Fortum is looking at several potential sites in Finland and Sweden to build nuclear power plants with small or large-scale …

Fortum considers Nordic sites for new nuclear power – MarketScreener

MarketScreener

Fortum coal power plant to act as reserve in emergencies. 23-10-30 RE. FORTUM OYJ – FORTUM AND FINNISH NATIONAL EMERGENCY SUPPLY AGENCY… 23-10-30 RE.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Nuclear deterrence is the existential threat, not the nuclear ban treaty

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

… wars, which allows nations to work together on addressing existential threats. … Climate change is—like nuclear war—an existential threat of great …

Ukraine war drives shift in Russian nuclear thinking – study | Reuters

Reuters

Moscow denies wielding nuclear threats but several of President Vladimir Putin’s statements since the onset of the war in Ukraine have been …

Are Nuclear-Armed Nations Entering a New Arms Race in 2024? Experts Weigh In.

Truthout

… war in Ukraine is driving militarization and increased support for NATO nuclear … Threats to use nuclear weapons are not very credible,” Erästö said.

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LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” #513 (01/17/2024)

”End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JAN 17, 2024

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In the 1960s, gentle, pot-smoking hippies believed that a new society could be created, a world filled with peace. The belief that nuclear weapons have changed human nature and made world war impossible, the author, Ward Hayes Wilson, writes, is essentially the same claim those hippies made. Photo credit: Wikiwatcher 1 via Wikimedia Commons.

(See the story, clearly in tune with my own heart, by Ward Hayes Wilson following my personal perspective and comments . . .)

LLAW’s THOUGHTS & COMMENTS :

If we laughed at the hippies in the 1960s, why the hell are we not laughing at the polictal concept of ‘deterrence’ — the concept that nuclear weapons will never be used beyond ‘threat’ level. The ‘60s hippies’ reasoning was no different than the highest levels of nuclear-armed governments today.

For about a year and a half now, I have been preaching each and every night to the multitudes that ‘all things nuclear’ must not only be abolished but also demolished or buried deep underground where none of it can ever be recovered for future use. There are millions of others who feel the same way I do, of course, but the problem is few of us take any positive action toward making that enormous effort to achieve the purpose. It can be done, but it takes a brave new world of a globally united human society to make it happen. I have defined in many other Posts how that could be accomplished. But will we ever listen? And will we ever learn? Do we not understand “reality”?

I have already written in a previous Post my rebuttal to Mr. Kallenborn’s article, and I become more pessimistic about our collective future as time passes, but I will continue on until I know in my heart that such a possibility of eliminating ‘all things nuclear’ will never happen. ~llaw

Following Article courtesy of “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” and the author:

A response to Kallenborn: Why realism requires that nuclear weapons be abolished

By Ward Hayes Wilson | January 17, 2024

In a recent piece in the Bulletin (“Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity”), Zachary Kallenborn argued that a ban on nuclear weapons would create serious risks, including unrestrained great power war and a hindering of global cooperation. He asserted that continuing to maintain small nuclear weapons arsenals for the foreseeable future is sensible.

What is troubling about this assertion is not so much that Mr. Kallenborn is wrong, but that he seems to have strayed from reality. Mistakes in a discussion about nuclear weapons policy matter because roughly 4.2 billion people depend on those policies for their safety and survival. With so much at stake, the discussion about nuclear weapons demands the highest levels of seriousness and an unflinching insistence on realism. Mr. Kallenborn has missed that mark in at least one important regard.

Nuclear weapons prevent all-out war? Kallenborn writes, “Nuclear weapons place a cap on how bad great power conflict can become and may deter the emergence and escalation of great power war.” In the world of nuclear weapons advocates, this is a common claim, viz. that nuclear weapons prevent large-scale existential wars similar to World War II. For example, John Lewis Gaddis a highly regarded historian of the Cold War, puts it this way: “As the means of fighting great wars became exponentially more devastating, the likelihood of such wars diminished, and ultimately disappeared altogether.”[1] In other words, “great” wars have disappeared altogether, and nuclear weapons are the reason.

This claim is essential for those who wish to keep nuclear weapons. After all, if nuclear weapons can stop World War II-type wars, then it is safe—even necessary—to keep them. If, on the other hand, they can’t, then all-out wars are more likely (because people wrongly think that nothing can go wrong as long as nuclear weapons are present). And when one occurs, the use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable.

Unfortunately, the faith in the peace-inducing powers of nuclear weapons is wishful thinking. Wars are decided by human beings, and as the history of our civilization demonstrates—Winston Churchill once called it “the dark lamentable catalog of human crime”—human beings have deep-rooted urges to make war. It is not pleasant to insist on this portrayal of human nature, but the stakes require that we be brutally honest with ourselves. We have been fighting wars with dogged persistence for at least 6,000 years. As President John F. Kennedy put it, “[T]he human race’s history, unfortunately, has been a good deal more war than peace.”[2] Every era of history and region of the world has experienced war with disheartening regularity. There are sometimes pauses and respites—sometimes for even a hundred years—but the lust for war always reemerges.

RELATED:

Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity

American philosopher William James explained the persistence of war this way, “Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won’t breed it out of us.”[3] War is a tenacious part of our behavior. If humans were to suddenly give up fighting wars, it would be a monumental change—a revolution in human behavior. Losing our taste for war would be to surrender something central to our natures—like renouncing our predisposition for religion, our love of beauty, or our tendency to overeat.

There’s no doubt that the risk of using nuclear weapons can restrain thoughts of war … sometimes. But can the “magic” of nuclear weapons dissuade us forever? Nothing else has. The hopeful (and somewhat naive) belief that nuclear weapons will always prevent all-out wars ignores one important fact: The evidence that supports this claim—the last 78 years—amounts to only 1.3 percent of the evidence. The other 5,928 years tell a different story.

Let’s get real. The claim that nuclear weapons have somehow permanently suppressed the heretofore unquenchable desire for war is not a realist position. Typically, it is idealists who optimistically say that we can change the world by simply changing our hearts. Idealists believe that changing human nature overnight is possible. For example, in the 1960s, gentle, pot-smoking hippies believed that a new society could be created, a utopian world where people would live in communes and value love above all other things. And with this new emphasis on love, there would naturally come a world filled with peace. And we could all hold hands and sing.

If you stop and think about it, the belief that nuclear weapons have changed human nature—what Kallenborn asserts—is essentially the same claim those hippies made. Nuclear believers say that the urge to make savage war has at last been overcome. They say we can now live in peace forever. Our darker, primitive natures will never again overwhelm our sensible, rational brains. There will be no more all-out wars. And they say this utopia of peace has already arrived (just without the singing). But rather than the power of love, it is a tool—a piece of technology—that has wrought this magical transformation.

Sadly, nuclear weapons have not transformed our warlike natures into calm and peaceful ones. Unbridled war, fought with savage abandon, is still likely, perhaps even inevitable. If you doubt that anger and violence are stalking the world, read some headlines. Around the world are sudden fires of passion that leap up first here, then there. War is raging in Europe and the Middle East. With so much hatred around as fuel, is there much doubt that a war that engulfs many nations and many peoples is far off? If you don’t think so, at least some of your neighbors do. An International Red Cross survey asked millennials in 2019 if they thought a worldwide war similar to World War II would happen in their lifetimes. More than 58 percent of respondents in the United States said yes.[4]

RELATED:

Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity

The belief that large-scale war has been banished forever by nuclear weapons is nothing more than a dangerous fantasy. All the evidence of history and everything we know about ourselves tells us that our warlike natures cannot change overnight. (That is the sound of genuine realism talking.)

Claims that we can change human nature are unsurprising in the mouths of gentle, pot-smoking hippies. On the lips of nuclear weapons proponents, they are realist heresy. The fact that nuclear weapons advocates can call themselves realists and at the same time claim that nuclear weapons make all-out wars impossible shows that they do not understand the assumptions that underlie their own position. Their “realism” is nothing of the kind.

The problem with relying on nuclear deterrence is that if it can’t be perfect—and perfect for all time—then it is too dangerous to rely on. Who’s to say that nuclear deterrence isn’t like a pressure cooker—able to hold off savage wars for a time, but when the top blows off at last, the destruction will be all the more far-reaching because it was held in for so long? Because of our primitive, warlike natures, nuclear weapons have to go. There are no safe hands for nuclear weapons. That is a reality that we all ignore at our own peril.

Editor’s note: Ward Hayes Wilson is the author, most recently, of It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons. The arguments here are based in part on chapter one of that book.

Notes

[1] John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), p. 52.

[2] “News conference, President John F. Kennedy,” State Department Auditorium, Washington, D.C., March 21, 1963, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/Press-Conferences/News-Conference-52.aspx (accessed May 24, 2023).

[3] William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War,” in War: Studies from Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, ed. Leon Bramson and George Goethals (New York: Basic Books, 1964), p. 23.

[4] https://www.icrc.org/en/document/majority-millennials-see-catastrophic-war-real-possibility

ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others 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 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:

  1. All Things Nuclear
  2. Nuclear Power
  3. Nuclear War
  4. Nuclear Power Emergencies
  5. Nuclear War Threats
  6. 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 at the end of this Post.

(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.)

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS (01/17/2024):

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

The 3 Best Nuclear Energy Stocks to Own for 2024 | InvestorPlace

InvestorPlace

BWX Technologies (NYSE:BWXT) is a one-stop shop for all things nuclear. The company does everything from nuclear-related environmental clean-up to …

A response to Kallenborn: Why realism requires that nuclear weapons be abolished

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

All the evidence of history and everything we know about ourselves tells us that our warlike natures cannot change overnight. (That is the sound of …

Nuclear ambitions in the push for renewable energy – The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe

I also wonder about the state of a nuclear fusion reactor in Japan, and … Nikki Haley was right all along. Her careful, clever challenge may not …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Nuclear power expansion plans highlight fuel bottlenecks | Business – Chemistry World

Chemistry World

Western governments look to overcome Russian dominance of key uranium processing steps. Nuclear energy shuffled into the spotlight in December …

The benefits of nuclear energy – Orano – Orano

Full Coverage

Fukushima nuclear plant operator in Japan says it has no new safety concerns after Jan. 1 quake

ABC News

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan says it has no new safety worries and envisions no changes to the …

Dutch initiative to boost nuclear workforce

World Nuclear News

Nuclear power currently has a small role in the Dutch electricity supply, with the 485 MWe (net) Borssele pressurised water reactor providing …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Putin Ally Issues Ominous ‘Red Button’ Threat Over NATO War Report – Newsweek

Newsweek

Sergey Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, said that as a nuclear power, Russia “will take all available forces and means to defend its territory.”

A response to Kallenborn: Why realism requires that nuclear weapons be abolished

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

In the world of nuclear weapons advocates, this is a common claim, viz. that nuclear weapons prevent large-scale existential wars similar to World War …

How Russia Is Building the Nuclear Weapons of the Future | The National Interest

The National Interest

Threatening a nuclear war of annihilation is one of Moscow’s favorite sports. High level Russian nuclear threats are commonplace. This is particularly …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Nuclear Disablement Teams visit commercial atomic power station in Pennsylvania – DVIDS

DVIDS

… nuclear infrastructure of commercial power plants. “The NDTs were able to expand their understanding of commercial nuclear power emergency …

U.S. Army Nuclear Teams’ Visit Enhances Preparedness – BNN Breaking

BNN Breaking

… Power Station to gain insights into commercial nuclear power plant operations, enhancing their capability for nuclear infrastructure emergencies.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

2024 could bring ‘a lot of ruin,’ but nuclear threat could be a stabilizing force – UPI.com

UPI

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are far from over. Little noticed was a nuclear threat sounded again by Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev …

The Urgent Need for Enhanced U.S. Missile Defense Amid Rising Nuclear Threats – Medriva

Medriva

Rising Nuclear Threats: A Global Concern. As the world becomes more volatile and uncertain, the threat of nuclear war looms larger in the minds of …

NATO’s Escalating Wargames Threaten a Nuclear Exchange With Russia | Stop the War

Stop the War Coalition

… threats outside its borders. CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said … Either of these wars could go nuclear and they have to be brought to a …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Are You Prepared? 12 States Where A Volcano Eruption Could Happen At Any Time

Green Building Elements

7. Idaho. Volcanos Idaho Image Credit: Green Building Elements. Idaho’s landscape includes four active volcanic features, part of the Yellowstone …

Lewotobi Volcano Volcanic Ash Advisory: VA TO FL100 OBS FM GND AT 16/1258Z EST VA DTG

Volcano Discovery

List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. Quakes Felt · Quakes Felt. See quakes that people felt in the last …

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LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #454 (11/18/2023)

LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #454 (11/18/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT
NOV 18, 2023
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LLAW’s COMMENTARY: (Foolhardy or Just Plain Foolish)

There is a substantial difference between a foolhardy person and one who’s just plain foolish. One is just heedless or reckless, the other is just misguided or naïve, but in the case of those who advocate for nuclear power or even nuclear arms are just plain ignorant or stupid. They are utterly unwise fools. Even those, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, James B. Conant, and even a couple of U.S. Presidents – Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman – who were directly involved in the “Manhattan Project” as they developed the first atomic bomb, knew better than to advocate for or believe in the purpose of the bomb, or to even support nuclear war, so what is it that makes the industry, the politicians, the bankers and corporations, and even the ignorant and foolish general public believe that ‘all things nuclear’ is a sound idea today based on the fake propaganda from an industry that has been wasting away and failing for years oddly recovering somehow – especially when the entire planet is faced with nuclear war that is more than capable of ending all life on Earth.

Even the original concept (perhaps) was to develop but use nuclear weapons only as a deterrence from war means nothing these days nor did it in the summer of 1945 when the USA dropped two atomic bombs on of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Deterrence is hardly iron-clad and and deterrence agreements these days are being ripped to shreds before our eyes. The U.S. and seven or eight other countries are back in the wishful thinking deterrent business of an arms race, suddenly building bigger and more devastating bombs than ever before instead of demanding a planet with no nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, or anything else nuclear at all. Destroying all things nuclear before all things nuclear destroys us (paraphrasing a JFK speech during the Russia/USA nuclear armed ICBM standoff in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Deterrence is just another silly political word, signifying nothing about the reality of the looming possibility of nuclear war, and you’d better believe that existing nuclear power plants will also become nuclear weapons of mass destruction, but the difference the countries who built them will have them used against themselves. North America, including Canada, has far and away the most nuclear power plants, most of them on or near the East Coasts of both countries.

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

As Albert Einstein said in his always prophetic and straightforward way, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” And just let me say for emphasis, it is highly doubtful that after WWIII their will be anyone left to wield a stick or throw a stone. What the hell is humanity thinking? Our leaders must be crazy!

And just why are the rest of us following along their doomsday path to oblivion and the 6th extinction? If 4 or 5 billion (over half) of us take to the Internet and say with conviction to these ignorant, crotchety, and foolish old men and their sycophants and cronies, “Not NO, but, “HELL NO!”, demanding a united one-world people without boundaries of any kind, including country, racism, religion, and pointless genocide. Nelson Mandela said it well in 2020: “Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, color, gender, or religion.” ‘Nuff said,” ~llaw

ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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. There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.

(Just a reminder: 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.)

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

If Nuclear War Breaks Out, This Will Be the Most Dangerous Plane in the Sky – Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics

If all goes well, the company will deliver three developmental aircraft … Things to Death · riddle. Solution to Riddle of the Week: Hen and the Egg.

China’s nuclear arms are behind U.S.’s but meet needs, expert says – Nikkei Asia

Nikkei Asia

Q: What do you think about the future of nuclear disarmament? A: The goal of nuclear disarmament is clearly under strain. The nuclear-armed states are …

Dismantling of California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant is more than 60% completed

Los Angeles Times

Once the dismantlement is complete, all that is expected to remain at the San Onofre plant will be two dry storage facilities; a security building …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

A Massive U.S.-Led Pledge Could Be A Global Gamechanger – Yahoo News

Yahoo News

Reactors for Units 3 and 4 sit at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant on Jan. 20 in Waynesboro, Georgia, as cooling towers of the older …

Dismantling of California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant is more than 60% completed

Los Angeles Times

Dismantlement work at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is expected to wrap up by the end of 2028.

Why Indian Point nuclear plant won’t close until 2041 – Lohud

Lohud

Indian Point’s owners say a state ban on the discharge of radiological waste in the Hudson River will delay the teardown of the nuclear power …

Nuclear War

NEWS

If Nuclear War Breaks Out, This Will Be the Most Dangerous Plane in the Sky – Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics

During the heightened nuclear tensions of the Cold War, the C-130 stepped into its most consequential role. That’s when the Navy initially equipped …

Two Ways Nuclear War Could Start, According to Chinese Scholar – Newsweek

Newsweek

Leading Chinese scholar Huang Renwei predicted two ways nuclear war could begin in an interview that was published Friday by Russian state-run …

China’s nuclear arms are behind U.S.’s but meet needs, expert says – Nikkei Asia

Nikkei Asia

TOKYO — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the warfare between Israel and Hamas are making the world more unstable and a nuclear war likelier, …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Update 194 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine

International Atomic Energy Agency

A reactor unit of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) temporarily lost power earlier this week, forcing it to rely on an emergency …

Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to test emergency sirens – KTAR News

KTAR News

West Valley nuclear power plant testing emergency alert system Friday. Nov 17, 2023, 11:00 AM.

West Valley residents to receive emergency test alert – AZ Family

AZ Family

… emergency alert test …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

HISF-Ipsos Threat Index finds natural disasters seen as fastest-growing threat

Ipsos

Cyberhacking is once again considered the No. 1 real threat after being overtaken by fears of a nuclear attack in 2022. … threats. In 2023, 63 …

Two Ways Nuclear War Could Start, According to Chinese Scholar – Newsweek

Newsweek

Israel Singled Out: Apathy on Campus Over Russian Crimes, MAGA Threats. By Tom Rogers · After 30 Years, Religious Freedom Restoration Act More …

Putin’s ally forecasts inevitable nuclear war – MSN

MSN

… nuclear war. According to Express, Vladimir Solovyov … The discussion on Russian state TV, led by figures like Solovyov, frequently involves threats ..

.

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LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #451 (11/15/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

NOV 15, 2023

1

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LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

So, what is this supposedly brilliant idea and ultimate usefulness of tripling nuclear energy production by 2050 as a silly long-term carrot and stick program? Its sole function has to be to bamboozle and pacify the common people for the next quarter century, who depend on their governments to bear some kind of responsibility and deliver some degree of actual honesty to the facts about global warming, climate change, and reducing CO2 levels that humans and other life can live with. There is only one way to slow it down or stop its growth, and more nuclear power plants are the very worst possible solution.

It appears to be that, since we are not willing to do away with the actual culprit, meaning the entire fossil fuel industry and sycophants, that we once claimed needed to be, er, had to be, replaced by solar, wind, hydro, geo-thermal, and other clean-air power plants. So now at this year’s COP28 climate summit, especially the USA, is coming on whole-hog claiming nuclear power plant capacity will be tripled by 2050. I guess we have forgotten that uranium (the fuel for all nuclear products including power plants and military weapons of mass destruction) is also a fossil fuel, albeit refined to a lower level of CO2 emissions. But uranium is not only still a CO2 contributor like coal, oil, gas, etc., but it is also by far the dirtiest and most dangerous commercial fuel on the planet, being far more destructive and dangerous whether long-term, yesterday, today, or tomorrow than all the other fossil fuels combined. Its fuel and its waste is highly radioactive, which instantly makes it infinitely more dangerous than CO2 alone.

According to today’s news from the “The Spokesman-Review”, “The U.S. will lead a push [actually, a mere ‘pledge’ to be signed on December 1st, meaning nothing] at the COP28 climate summit to triple the amount of installed nuclear power capacity globally by 2050, marking a major turnaround for the controversial technology at the climate negotiations.” That would seem to me to be impossible, and here is another impossibility: “the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions/carbon neutrality by or around midcentury,” There is no such thing as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and carbon neutrality is a moot point because we have no idea what carbon neutrality will be tomorrow, much less mid-century. This statement contains nothing but deceptive ‘buzzwords’ that make the average citizen happy because he has no idea what these words mean, but they sound good to him. It is what I call propaganda that others would call ‘hogwash’ or ‘bullshit’.

The text of the “Spokesman Review” article:

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“U.S., U.K. to push pledge to triple nuclear power by 2050 at COP28

Nov. 14, 2023 Updated Tue., Nov. 14, 2023 at 8:50 p.m.

By John Ainger, Rachel Morison and Akshat RathiBloomberg

The U.S. will lead a push at the COP28 climate summit to triple the amount of installed nuclear power capacity globally by 2050, marking a major turnaround for the controversial technology at the climate negotiations.

The declaration will call on the World Bank and other international financial institutions to include nuclear energy in their lending policies, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News. The U.S. will likely be joined by the U.K., France, Sweden, Finland and South Korea in the pledge to be signed Dec. 1 in Dubai, according to people familiar with the matter.

That will be followed a few days later by a nuclear industry commitment to triple generation resources from 2020 levels, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public.

The countries recognize “the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions/carbon neutrality by or around midcentury,” a draft of the declaration says. “Nuclear energy is already the second-largest source of clean dispatchable baseload power, with benefits for energy security.”

The declaration is the latest sign of shifting sentiment toward nuclear power, which doesn’t produce carbon dioxide emissions, but has often been criticized over the waste it generates, the cost of building plants and potential security issues. Support has gained traction especially as clean back-up for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The countries will also commit to new technologies, such as small modular reactors.

“Nuclear is 100% part of the solution,” John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last week. “It’s clean energy.”

The United Nations’ 28th Conference of the Parties, known as COP28, will take place in the United Arab Emirates, which is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula with a nuclear power program. It’s not clear if the hosts will sign.

The two-week summit due to start on Nov. 28 will include a “global stocktake” to track how far off course the world is to keeping global warming below 1.5C and what more needs to be done to close the gap. A report from the UN Tuesday showed that emissions are set to rise 9% by 2030, compared to 2010, putting the world potentially on course for warming of 2.8C.” End of Article

But, hey, if nuclear powered plants are too expensive and dangerous, which they are, we have other great ideas for ending global warming, including atmospheric style adjustable “venetian blinds” sunshine reflectors sprayed in the stratosphere to shade us from the heat of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, which means the fossil fuel industries could go on forever commercially selling their power plant products, except they will have nobody to buy it. llolloll! ~llaw

ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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. There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.

(Just a reminder: 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.)

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Who Would Take the Brunt of an Attack on U.S. Nuclear Missile Silos? | Scientific American

Scientific American

… things, the refurbishing of existing missile … The resulting nuclear explosions will generate gargantuan fireballs that will vaporize everything …

Behind the Scenes at a U.S. Factory Building New Nuclear Bombs | Scientific American

Scientific American

For years those secret scientists didn’t actually have any plutonium to study—it had to be painstakingly produced. “Almost everything was theoretical, …

The US and China re-engage on arms control. What may come next

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

For more than six decades, the United States has been worried about China’s regional influence, military activities—and its nuclear potential.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Top 10: Nuclear Energy Companies

Energy Digital Magazine

The top nuclear energy companies provide recyclable energy all around the globe, and include energy innovators NextEra Energy, Duke Energy and …

U.S., U.K. to push pledge to triple nuclear power by 2050 at COP28 | The Spokesman-Review

The Spokesman-Review

The U.S. will lead a push at the COP28 climate summit to triple the amount of installed nuclear power capacity globally by 2050, marking a major …

Small-Scale Nuclear Power Dealt Major Setback | Planetizen News

Planetizen

The company that made history in January when its ‘small modular nuclear reactor‘ became the first in the nation to receive certification from the …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Who Would Take the Brunt of an Attack on U.S. Nuclear Missile Silos? | Scientific American

Scientific American

These fallout maps show the toll of a potential nuclear attack on missile silos in the U.S. heartland.

Ukraine war latest: Russia raining ‘hell fire’ on Ukrainian troops on bank of river – Sky News

Sky News

North Korea’s missile programme, as well as its nuclear weapons, have been banned by the UN Security Council rulings, which also imposed sanctions on …

The Doomsday Clock warns the world about catastrophe – here’s why it stands … – The Conversation

The Conversation

… nuclear- or climate-induced) that the clock’s founders had designed it to prevent. Russia · Nuclear weapons · Vladimir Putin · Ukraine · Nuclear war …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

At UN nuclear conference, China, Iran, Oman decry Israeli minister’s comment on Gaza

The Times of Israel

… war, calling the remark a threat to the world. At Monday’s long-planned … Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Iravani told the conference the nuclear threats …

China, Iran, Arab nations condemn Israeli minister’s statement about dropping a nuclear …

The Hindu

… war, calling it a threat to the world. November 14, 2023 11:13 pm … Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Iravani told the conference the nuclear threats …

U.N. Command warns N. Korea – Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

… nuclear and missile threats. In the statement, the defense ministers … nuclear weapons to protect the South in case of a North Korean nuclear attack.

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Iceland Volcano | What movies have been released about volcanoes? – NationalWorld

NationalWorld

A Yellowstone supereruption would have global consequences. The release of an enormous volume of volcanic ash, gases, and lava could impact climate, …

Is it safe to move to Montana? – EnergyPortal.eu –

EnergyPortal.eu –

… Yellowstone Caldera. Residents are encouraged to be prepared for such events, with local governments providing resources and information on …

Posted on

LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #449 (11/13/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLAW’s COMMENTARY: 
LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #449 (11/13/2023)
“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT
NOV 13, 2023
LLAW’s COMMENTARY: 
On this Monday evening after a long Veterans’ Day holiday, it is a good time to update where I am on my “Blue Print” concept for destroying all things nuclear before all things nuclear destroys us along with most all other living critters on planet Earth. If you’re not familiar with the “Blue Print” plan that I have described in earlier Posts, I’m sure you will be aware of it at some point in the not too distant future. I will be updating information much more frequently as I work, along with others, toward the final draft over the next few months. And then we will submit the concept to the eight nuclear possessing governments around the world employing the USA as the designated leader. I have successfully done this, of course on a much, much smaller corporate scale, one time before back in the Reagan rein with the Department of the Interior, and we were successful. So I know, essentially or basically, how to go about presenting this issue to a government that can be forced to listen. And the United States’ government is where I intend to begin. If we are successful then, we will have a strong base to pass the “Blue Print” along to other countries.

Up until recently this has been a personal impossible pipe dream that I know how to construct and make happen, and though I will need help to perfect the “Blue Print” from everywhere, I know where to find that help when the time comes. But for now the basic idea you need to know involves changing our international concept of the corporate profit ideal (Capitalism), at least until the job is done, from manufacturing or producing commercial products for greenbacks and money-bags full of profits to the sole purpose of paying for and saving our planet (and us) from creating our own extinction.

The effort, from our normal viewpoint won’t look all that much different than now because many of of our present commercial businesses will still be producing and making much of what they have always produced and made - say producing food, clothing, housing, transportation, electricity, etc. as they’ve always done, but you won’t be paying them for it and the corporations won’t be profiting from it because, of necessity, all financial capital and monetary exchange or transactions will be controlled by what I call “The Organization” (of which each and every one of us will be a part) that will act and operate much like an old fashioned Farmers’ Market or a Co-Op controlling all financial transactions with all expenses and former profits going toward the cost of destroying all things nuclear, which essentially amounts to putting the uranium that fuels all things nuclear along with all of its supporting facilities (like nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons for instance), nuclear-related equipment (like reactors), and buildings or constructs containing nuclear reactors, and nuclear waste, for example. “Destroying” means putting all of everything nuclear or related to it back in the deep underground where uranium was mined, burying it forever back where it came from - never to be dug up again. It is a mammoth project and the expeditious need for it to be done immediately rather than sometime later will be the soul objective of us all. (I know that sounds insane, but insane or not, it must be done and done quickly if we are to survive.)

There is also one other important issue that must be solved to make this happen. We need objective and honest leadership and help - the kind of help that has no alternative or deviant ideas about how to ‘beat the system’ individually and profit from the “Blue Print” beyond the day it goes into effect until the day it is over and done with. (And it may be that, when the last day arrives and the dust clears, those kinds of grifters and carpetbaggers will no longer be acknowledged nor admired as nations’ leaders.) We presently have leaders and corporate presidents in all countries who know how to ‘play the game’ and find ways to ‘cheat’ the system for personal gain. For the “Blue Print” to work, such attempted personal greed must never happen. If that seems impossible, and it may be, then we will all end up as dust in the wind of the 6th Extinction. It may be that the help we need may come from an unexpected place. ~llaw

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are three Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.(Just a reminder: 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.)

And today’s nuclear world’s News:

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Illinois to lift moratorium on nuclear construction

World Nuclear News

The new bill, among other things, instructs the Illinois Emergency … nuclear technology and all of the benefits that it offers.” Researched …

China and the United States Hold their First Nuclear Security Talks in Years – UN Dispatch

UN Dispatch

I just don’t think, given everything else going on in the world, that the time is now. But my hope is that as time goes on, there will be more …

In new documentary, Ibram X. Kendi asks ‘What is wrong with Black people?’ | Boise State …

Boise State Public Radio

All Things Considered · We Are Idaho · Community Conversations · Morning … Idaho small nuclear reactor project canceled. November 10, 2023. Meet the …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

How to interpret a bad day for nuclear power – Axios

Axios

NuScale Power Corp. share price … It’s easy to over-interpret the death of small modular reactor firm NuScale’s Idaho project, but it nonetheless has …

Lockheed Martin tapped to build nuclear–powered deep-space probe – New Atlas

New Atlas

Under a US$33.7-million Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract, Lockheed Martin is developing a next-generation nuclear–reactor-powered …

U.S. Re-Enters the Nuclear Fuel Game – IEEE Spectrum

IEEE Spectrum

Centrus Energy delivers first batch of uranium that’s critical for advanced reactors.

Nuclear War

NEWS

The Collapse of Global Arms Control – Time

Time

The Collapse of Global Arms Control. Demonstration against ongoing war in Ukraine and nuclear weapons in Japan People attend the protest against the …

US and South Korea sharpen deterrence plans over North Korean nuclear threat – AP News

AP News

… nuclear ones, to defend the South in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack. He also said the document will provide a template for the allies …

US, South Korea revise deterrence strategy, boost drills over North Korea threat – Reuters

Reuters

… nuclear and missile threats, and vowed to maintain … nuclear planning discussions to better coordinate an allied nuclear response during a war.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Liquid Dataport and Intelsat Keep Businesses Connected During Emergencies

MyJoyOnline

Load-shedding distributes demand for electrical power across multiple power sources and is used to relieve stress on an energy source when demand for …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

US and South Korea sharpen deterrence plans over North Korean nuclear threat – AP News

AP News

… nuclear attack. He also said the document will provide a template for the … threats of nuclear conflict. Arriving in South Korea over the weekend …

US, South Korea revise deterrence strategy over North Korea threat – Reuters

Reuters

… nuclear and missile threats, South Korea’s defence ministry said. The Tailored Deterrence Strategy (TDS) is aimed at countering North Korea’s nuclear …

55th Security Consultative Meeting Joint Communique – Department of Defense

Department of Defense

He noted that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the United States or … nuclear and other WMD use and conventional threats. The two leaders …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

World’s First National Park, world record in Wyoming

World Record Academy

The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Well over half of the …

Plant health as a new effective monitoring system for volcanic activity – Phys.org

Phys.org

… Yellowstone Caldera, Wyoming, U.S., to determine their reaction to hydrothermal activity (circulating fluids in the vicinity of a magma source …

Reykjanes Volcano Update: Eruption in Coming Days Likely | VolcanoDiscovery

Volcano Discovery

… caldera, and Ijen. Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes · Latest earthquakes under Yellowstone volcano. List and interactive map of current and …

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war:

We’re pausing our live coverage

We’re pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine for now – but here are the key developments you may have missed over the weekend. 

Russian forces intensified attacks on positions in eastern Ukraine.

In Bakhmut, Moscow is attempting to regain lost territory, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces wrote on social media at the weekend.

“Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. Enemy attacks are being repelled,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said.

Ukraine also reported Russian troops are attempting to surround Avdiivka, south of Bakhmut, which is considered to be a stronghold.

Elsewhere, Russia has shelled Kherson, in the southwest of Ukraine, officials claimed, 62 times across the weekend, injuring four civilians.

On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainians to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure over winter.

“Russia is preparing for Ukraine. And here, in Ukraine, all attention should be focused on defence, on responding to terrorists on everything that Ukraine can do to get through the winter and improve our soldiers’ capabilities,” he said in his nightly address.

The warning came after Ukraine claimed Russia fired its first missile strike on Ukraine in almost two weeks.

There have also been reports over the weekend, from The Washington Post, claiming a Ukrainian officer coordinated the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline – which carries gas into Europe from Russia – though the officer in question denied any involvement.

Posted on

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

ALL THINGS NUCLEAR

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT
NOV 6, 2023

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach, California owned by PG&E

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

The above image of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant may remain as my masthead for quite sometime because it is very much like the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine”. I have been following PG&E’s merciless “accidental” terrorism on California’s human population throughout the State (living next door in Nevada) for several years, and this aging nuclear power plant may very well be PG&E’s last and most devastating accident of all. A nuclear accident at that! With PG&E running the ‘show’, what could possibly go wrong

The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is old, dating back to the ‘1970s, and has leaked radiation recently because of cracked containment walls. The plant is scheduled for decommissioning, shutdown, and to be mothballed in 2025, but the State of California and the Federal Government has decided to extend the old plant’s life by providing several billion dollars to ‘ensure’ it’s safety and continued operation. To me, knowing the ownership’s history, this is obviously a huge mistake on the part of both the state and the federal government.

In later Posts I will have more to say about this particular power plant and selected others around the planet. They all need to be shut down, destroyed, and part by part and piece by piece put back in the same ground where their nuclear fuel (uranium) came from.

Considering their history of ‘accidents’, neglect, and incompetence, the future possibilities could be disastrous beyond belief. What has PG&E done wrong in the past to make such a prediction? Let me count just a few of the ways of many disasters caused by PG&E. ~llaw

(Summarized, edited, and abbreviated from cited reports,)

PG&E Disasters:

1. Groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California

From 1952 to 1966, PG&E dumped “roughly 370 million gallons” of chromium 6-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California. PG&E used chromium “one of the cheapest and most efficient commercially available corrosion inhibitors” at their compressor station plants in their cooling towers along the natural gas transmission pipelines.

PG&E did not inform the local water board of the contamination until December 7, 1987, stalling action on a response to the contamination. The residents of Hinkley filed a successful lawsuit against PG&E in which the company paid $333 million— the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. The legal case, dramatized in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, became an international cause célèbre. By 2013, PG&E had cleaned up 54 acres, but it is estimated the remediation process will take another 40 years.

2. Metcalf sniper attack

(Included here for evidence of PG&E’s extended reputation of illegalites)

On April 16, 2013, a team of gunmen opened fire on the Metcalf transmission substation in Coyote, California. The attack damaged 17 high-voltage transformers, causing more than $15 million in damage. The team also cut a fiber-optic telecommunications cable owned by AT&T. PG&E and AT&T offered a $250,000 reward for anyone who had information leading to the arrest of the culprits, however, they were never found. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that it was not domestic terrorism and The Department of Homeland Security claimed they had evidence that it may have been an ‘inside job’.

3. Wildfires

PG&E equipment has often been the cause of wildfires in California. PG&E has been found guilty of criminal negligence in many cases involving fires. These include the 1994 Trauner Fire a substation fire in San Francisco in 1996, the 1999 Pendola Fire, a San Francisco substation fire in 2003, the Sims Fire and Fred’s Fire in 2004 an explosion and electrical fire in San Francisco in 2005, the 2008 Rancho Cordova Gas Explosion,[ the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, 2014 Carmel Gas Explosion,[ 2015 Butte Fire, 2018 Camp Fire, among others.[

Approximately 40 of the 315 wildfires in PG&E’s service area in 2017 and 2018 were allegedly caused by PG&E equipment.

PG&E was on probation after being found criminally liable in the 2010 San Bruno fire. Following that fire, a federally appointed monitor initially focused on gas operations, but his scope expanded to include electricity distribution equipment following the fires in October 2017. A separate case involved allegations the utility falsified gas pipeline records between 2012 and 2017, and as of January 2019 was still being considered.

4. Wildfire Liability

State law follows a principle of “inverse condemnation” for wildfire liability, which means that utilities are held responsible for damages resulting from any fire caused by their equipment, even if their maintenance on equipment and surrounding vegetation was done to standards. This policy resulted in $30B of liability for PG&E from the 2017 & 2018 fires and drove it to bankruptcy proceedings.  In July 2019, a new $21 billion wildfire trust fund was created to pay for damages from future wildfires, started with a 50-50 balance of utility and customer monies and also reduced the liability threshold for utilities to where customers must prove negligence before companies are held liable.

5. Sierra blaze

On June 19, 1997, a Nevada County jury in Nevada City found PG&E guilty of “a pattern of tree-trimming violations that sparked a devastating 1994 wildfire in the Sierra”. “PG&E was convicted of 739 counts of criminal negligence for failing to trim trees near its power lines—the biggest criminal conviction ever against the state’s largest utility.

6. San Bruno, California explosion

View of the San Bruno fire on September 9, 2010 at 11:31 pm PDT

On the evening of September 9, 2010, a suburb of San Francisco, San Bruno, California, was damaged when one of PG&E’s natural-gas pipelines that was “at least 54 years old, 30 inches (76.2 centimeters) in diameter and located under a street intersection in a residential area “…exploded sending a “28-foot section of pipe weighing 3,000 pounds flying through the air, fueled by blowing natural gas”.[235] The blast created a crater at the epicenter and “killed eight people and injured nearly five dozen more while destroying about 100 homes” The USGS reported that the shock wave was similar to a 1.1 magnitude earthquake. Following the event, the company was heavily criticized for ignoring the warnings of a state inspector in 2009 and for failing to provide adequate safety procedures. The incident then came under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). On August 30, 2011, the NTSB released its findings, which placed fault for the blast on PG&E. The report stated that the pipeline that exploded, installed in 1956, did not even meet standards of that time. Even in the years following the disaster, PG&E failed to implement legally mandated safety procedures aimed at preventing similar disasters.

7. Butte Fire

In September 2015, the deadly and destructive Butte Fire ignited in Amador and Calaveras counties. It killed two people and destroyed hundreds of structures. An investigation found PG&E responsible for the fire after a gray pine tree came in contact with one of their powerlines.

8. October 2017 Northern California wildfires

In October 2017, PG&E was responsible for their own lines and poles starting 13 separate fires of the 250 that devastated Northern California. These fires were caused by “electric power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles”. Pending further investigation, the following fires have been confirmed by CAL FIRE investigators to have been started by PG&E equipment:

8. Ghost Ship fire

On December 2, 2016, in Fruitvale, Oakland, California a fire broke out in a former warehouse that had been illegally converted into an artist collective with living spaces known as Ghost Ship. 80-100 people were at an event in the space and 36 were killed. The plaintiffs claim that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction. A civil case was put forward against PG&E, alleging blame.

In August 2020, PG&E settled a civil lawsuit for 32 of the victims, out of the 36 who perished in the fire.] The amount of the settlement was undisclosed, but it was limited to the amount available under PG&E’s insurance coverage for the year 2016.

9. Tubbs Fire

The Tubbs Fire was a wildfire in Northern California during October 2017. At the time, the Tubbs Fire was the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties, inflicting its greatest losses in the city of Santa Rosa. Suspicion for the cause of the fire fell on PG&E, but the company seemed to be cleared of responsibility in this incident after Cal Fire released the results of its investigation on January 24, 2019, upon which news the company’s stock price jumped dramatically. On August 16, 2019, the judge ruled that the trial can proceed “on a parallel track” because “it advances the goals of this bankruptcy.” After the judge’s ruling, the company’s stock price sank by 25%.

10. Camp Fire (The worst of them all)

In November 2018, PG&E and its parent company were sued in the San Francisco County Superior Court by multiple victims of the Camp Fire – the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 buildings, including 14,000 homes, being particularly devastating to poorer residents. Approximately 90% of the population of the town of Paradise, California as of June 2020 remains dispersed in other parts of the state and the country. The lawsuit accused PG&E of failure to properly maintain its infrastructure and equipment.

The cause of the fire, as indicated by PG&E’s “electric incident report” submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, was a power failure on a transmission line on November 8, just 15 minutes before the fire was first reported near the same location. Later investigation revealed that a “broken hook may have allowed a piece of electrically charged equipment to swing free and come close enough to the tower to arc, providing the spark that ignited the blaze.

. . . and the heat goes on . . .

11. Dixie Fire

On January 4, 2022, CalFire determined that “the Dixie Fire was caused by a tree contacting electrical distribution lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located west of Cresta Dam.” CalFire forwarded the investigative report to the Butte County District Attorney’s office, the same federal office that prosecuted PG&E in 2018 following the Camp Fire.

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one bonus Yellowstone Caldera story available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(Just a reminder: 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.)

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Jacobs Wins New Contract to Support UK’s Nuclear Power Plants – PR Newswire

PR Newswire

“I am proud of the teamwork across the fleet over the last eight years and look forward to the continued success and learning across all our program …

Opinion: Can America afford a new nuclear weapons buildup? | Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga Times Free Press

… things, provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel, a new congressional commission report has suggested spending even more … All rights reserved.

In Japan, overtourism is raising concerns about the environment at Mt. Fuji – WHQR

WHQR

All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster. See …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Staff levels at Zaporizhzhia in spotlight : Regulation & Safety – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is continuing to monitor the status, training and condition of staff at the nuclear power plant …

space nuclear power | Military Aerospace

Military Aerospace

Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse to develop on-orbit high-power electricity generation in future space missions. Nov. 6, 2023. Nuclear power may provide …

Climate and Russia – Does the world need nuclear power? – DW – 11/06/2023

DW

It’s crucial to make electricity production carbon neutral as quickly as possible. Is nuclear power the new game changer for achieving this ambitious …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Russia says it test-fired ICBM from nuclear submarine – Axios

Axios

… nuclear risks and raise tensions as it pursues its illegal war against Ukraine.” Details: The Russian defense ministry said it launched the Bulava …

Russia Rubs Salt Into U.S.’ Wounds; Putin’s Forces Fire Nuclear Missile From Submarine | Watch

YouTube

Comments678 · Russia’s star-wars weapon can hunt anything that flies | S-550 for India? · The Fall | The Russians Destroyed The Officers Of The 128th …

Ukraine war live updates: Russia launches nuclear-capable ballistic missile from submarine …

CNBC

Russia’s Ministry of Defense released a video Sunday appearing to show a nuclear-capable ballistic missile being test-fired from a new nuclear …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Is nuclear energy safer now? – EnergyPortal.eu –

EnergyPortal.eu –

These include enhanced reactor designs, improved emergency response plans, and stricter regulatory oversight. Modern reactors are equipped with …

The 23 Highest Paying Jobs Without a Degree – Newsweek

Newsweek

Job Requirements: Nuclear Power Reactor Operators need a reactor operator (RO) license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Some employers …

SA’s rural clinics to get emergency generators from China – IOL

IOL

Cape Town: Unit 1 of the country’s only nuclear power station, Koeberg, is still down and contributing to the current load shedding. Photograph: …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia says it test-fired ICBM from nuclear submarine – Axios

Axios

The big picture: Putin has made several veiled nuclear threats since his … Go deeper: A reality check on Putin’s threat of nuclear war. Share on …

‘Unacceptable’: Germany slams Israel’s minister’s nuclear threats on Gaza – Anadolu Ajansı

Anadolu Ajansı

Germany on Monday condemned statements by an Israeli minister who threatened to consider using nuclear bombs in the Gaza war. The remarks by …

Venezuela Condemns Nuclear Threat Against Gaza | News – teleSUR English

teleSUR English

Citizens of Gaza respond to Israeli nuclear threats “This is not a war … Tags. Israel War crimes Palestine Gaza Genocide Nuclear Threat. People.

The 23 Highest Paying Jobs Without a Degree – Newsweek

Newsweek

Job Requirements: Nuclear Power Reactor Operators need a reactor operator (RO) license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Some employers …

SA’s rural clinics to get emergency generators from China – IOL

IOL

Cape Town: Unit 1 of the country’s only nuclear power station, Koeberg, is still down and contributing to the current load shedding. Photograph: …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

New Insights: The Potential Devastation of a Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruption

TickerTV News

Yes, Yellowstone National Park in the United States harbors a supervolcano beneath its surface. It has remained dormant for over 600,000 years, but …

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war”:

Key points
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LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #441 (11/05/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

No photo description available.

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

An Analogy to Today’s World(s): Day Five of American Indian Heritage Month, 2023:

It is hard to believe that the American Indian Wars lasted off and on for over 300 years – from 1609 to 1924.

Yet now we are facing war over an entire planet called Earth, a massive futile and fatal concept of nonsensible wars with nuclear weapons of mass destruction. There is something desperately wrong with the whole concept of one man’s homeland being invaded by another man’s desires, mercilessly taking dominion over the weaker man’s territory that was never theirs. But power, greed, and domination seems to be our natural way of life. In order for humanity and other life on planet Earth, we must forget the eons of the past come together in unity and live as one. ~llaw

This link provides some of the history of a not so beautiful story:

The link is set as a cut and paste link only because it may be sensitive to some folks . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars?fbclid=IwAR05x5KkA5XC4gyB64jcqL5A7LF5i05z7Wmh8uUsEYrXXHeH58EkPGy8uVA

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one bonus Yellowstone Caldera story available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(Just a reminder: 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.)

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEW

Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Launches the Devastating Bulava Missile | News9 – YouTube

YouTube

… all digital platforms. It includes a publishing platform, viz. www … Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I …

Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week – Yahoo News

Yahoo News

A family rests in their at-home nuclear fallout shelter. Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a …

Breece Hall analyzes Austin Ekeler’s game compared to other RBs ahead of Jets-Chargers matchup

YouTube

… all things New York sports. SNY delivers the most comprehensive access to all of the Tri-State area’s professional and collegiate sports teams …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Arkansas man arrested after trying to crash through gates at South Carolina nuclear plant

AP News

The Oconee Nuclear Station has three nuclear reactors and started generating power 50 years ago on Lake Keowee. The Associated Press is an …

Person of interest in custody for nuclear plant incident – YouTube

YouTube

Investigators say that someone tried to drive through a gate at a major nuclear power complex in South Carolina. SUBSCRIBE to ABC News on YouTube: …

Video Person of interest in custody for nuclear plant incident – ABC News

ABC News

Investigators say that someone tried to drive through a gate at a major nuclear power complex in South Carolina.

Nuclear War

NEW

Israel-Palestine war: Netanyahu reacts to Israeli leader’s nuclear bomb remarks | WION

YouTube

An Israeli Minister has drawn severe criticism for suggesting dropping a nuclear bomb on the war-torn region. Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai …

Israel minister says nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an option’ – The New Arab

The New Arab

While the Israeli military pounds Gaza without relent, Israel’s far-right Minister for Heritage has said that a nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an …

Israel-Hamas war: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denounces Gaza ‘genocide’ in …

Euronews.com

The latest developments from the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli minister suspended after saying dropping nuclear weapon on Gaza ‘an option’.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Real nuclear threat in Ukraine is not Russia’s weapons, expert warns | World – Daily Express

Daily Express

A major threat in the ongoing war in Ukraine is represented not by … The Kremlin has issued nuclear threats multiple times since the invasion of …

N. Korea warns of nuclear capabilities as S. Korea, US, Japan up military cooperation

The Korea Times

… nuclear war and the third world war.” “Who can provide assurance that the … nuclear and missile threats. Last month, a joint maritime blockade …

Russia’s new nuclear submarine test launches Bulava missile – The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post

… threats, as ties between Moscow and the West have hit new lows over the war Russia launched in Ukraine in 2022.

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone supervolcano warning as 90000 would ‘immediately’ die in horror eruption

Daily Express

The US’s Yellowstone caldera is one such supervolcano and has for decades seriously concerned volcanologists who fear that humans won’t be able to …

Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine War:

Key points
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LLAW’S All Things Nuclear #440 (10/04/2023)

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

I’ve not said much to date about Small Nuclear Reactors (Cutely called SMRs), partly because they remain nothing more than pie in the sky, and there are just three operational SMRs – one each in Russia, China, and India. There are perhaps three more in construction and about 60 in the design stage. Heaven help us! llolloll!

But the current book on SMRs is that they are even more dangerous than the full-scale present day operational nuclear power plants that may well be the death of us without even needing the little ones. I have added a well-written media article from a German point of view to support my case, and if this one is not enough to convince you, there are dozens of others, including my own forthcoming “All Things Nuclear” ‘review’ of SMRs being just one more reason to remove all things nuclear from existence by returning them to the deep underground uranium mines (and the deserted copper mines as well) never to be seen nor heard from or even thought of again. Yes, it is that serious of a situation. I worked in nuclear industry management for parts of three decades, so I have a fair idea of that which I speak.

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

At this point all I can say about SMRs is that they are not small, they are in an experimental development mode, and they are poorly designed to avoid radiation leakage in the event of earthquakes, floods, espionage, and, most dangerously, a nuclear attack in the event of war. And, of course there are other issues as well, not the least of which is SMR spent fuel that is thermally hot and highly radioactive, requiring remote handling and shielding. A recent study led by Stanford University and the University of British Columbia tells us SMRs will generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants. And we presently have no idea how to safely dispose of nuclear waste that is already beyond our control to safely store. Japan is even in the process of dumping more than a million tons of so-called ‘treated’, but still radioactive wastewater, from the 2011 tsunami wreckage of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, blessed by, of all organizations, the ‘United Nations’. I’m wondering what happens the the ‘treated’ washes off . . .

And here we are stupidly and ignorantly wanting to create more nuclear danger we call, laughably ‘Small Nuclear Reactors’, including the probability of even higher grade nuclear fuel for some SMR plants that will only add to likely possibility that nuclear radiation from both nuclear war and nuclear power plants, which are already a special new military ‘toy’ for adding to the nuclear war arsenal on a kind of two-fer-one nuclear bomb scenario that will successfully help us humans prematurely destroy all life on planet Earth. The Russia/Ukraine war has already demonstrated how such a scenario could be achieved, and the reality is only one Russian bomb away.

The following is a well done tale about the deficiencies and potential travesties connected to the concepts of constructing and bringing these vastly overrated plants on line, and why renewable energy like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal is so much better for our future, should we have a future.

Like all other things nuclear SMRs are potentially a weapon of war and also an obvious future contributor to the Doomsday event if we’re fortunate enough to still be around when more of them become operational helping to reassure our demise. ~llaw

The following article is a primer Opinion piece: “The Big Problem With Small Nuclear Reactors” (BY PAUL HOCKENOS 07.20.2023

“The diminutive reactors are likely to be just as prone to delays and cost overruns as their behemoth predecessors.

Image not displayed here: (This is the Caption) Top: Mockup of a the top third of a small module reactor made by NuScale, the only SMR developer with a design approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Visual: Courtesy of NuScale/Oregon State University/Flickr

IN RECENT YEARS, the nuclear power lobby and its advocates have begun to sing a new song. They have bailed on the monstrous reactors of the 20th century — not because of safety or toxic waste concerns, but because of the reactors’ exorbitant expense and ponderous rollout schedules. And they have switched their allegiance to a next generation nuclear fission technology: small modular reactors, which they claim will help rescue our warming planet, as well as the nuclear power industry— once they exist.

Respected thinkers such as former U.S. president Barack Obama, French president Emmanuel Macron, and Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates have toasted the idea of small modular reactors, or SMRs, as a potentially reliable, almost-emissions-free backup to intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Advocates claim that because SMRs will be smaller than the giants that currently dominate horizons, they will be safer, cheaper, and quicker to build. Although SMRs will have only a fraction of the power-generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors, proponents envision that they will, one day, be assembled in factories and transported as a unit to sites — like Sears’ mail-order Modern Homes of the early 1900s.

Currently, half of the states in the EU, both major political parties in the U.S, and the five BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have indicated that they want to split atoms for the purpose of generating energy. U.S. President Joe Biden included billions of dollars in tax credits for nuclear energy in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Gates has gone so far as to invest a chunk of his fortune in a firm he founded, TerraPower, a leading nuclear innovation company. But despite the prodigious chatter, the endeavor to blanket the Earth with SMRs is a Hail Mary pass that’s very unlikely to succeed.

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Granted, it is certainly a step in the right direction that most observers now see the postwar, giga-watt-scale water-cooled reactors as obsolete. When constructed new, these behemoths generate electricity at up to nine times the cost of large-scale solar and onshore wind facilities, and can take well over a decade to get up and running. Perhaps for this reason, there has been one, and only one, new nuclear power project initiated in the U.S. since construction began on the last one 50 years ago: a two-reactor expansion of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia. The first of the reactors came online this year — seven years behind schedule. The staggering $35 billion cost for the pair is more than twice the original projection.

But SMRs are just as likely to face similar delays and cost overruns. Currently, there are just two existing advanced SMR facilities in the world that could be reasonably described as SMRs: a pilot reactor in China and Russia’s diminutive Akademik Lomonosov. More small reactors are under construction in China, Russia, and Argentina, but all of them are proving even more expensive per kilowatt than traditional reactors.

It’s worth noting that in the U.S., and everywhere else in the world, nuclear policy relies heavily on subsidies to be economically competitive. Starting next year, utilities operating nuclear facilities in the U.S. can qualify for a tax credit of $15 per megawatt-hour — a break that could be worth up to $30 billion for the industry as a whole. However, even these giveaways won’t reduce the projected costs of SMR-generated electricity to anywhere near the going prices of wind and solar power.

In the U.S., the only SMR developer with a design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is NuScale, which plans to deploy six modules at one site in Idaho that will together generate less electricity than a smallish standard nuclear reactor. So far, however, NuScale has yet to lay a single brick. Its biggest win to date is securing $4 billion in federal tax subsidies. In January of this year, NuScale announced plans to sell electricity not at $58 per megawatt-hour, as originally pledged, but at $89 per megawatt-hour, citing higher than anticipated construction costs. The new projection is nearly twice the average global cost of utility-scale solar and onshore wind, according to calculations by BloombergNEF. And without the government subsidies, NuScale’s price tag would be that much higher.

In fact, there’s a fair chance that not a single NuScale SMR will ever be built: The company has said it will not begin construction until 80 percent of its expected generation capacity is subscribed, and currently buyers have signed up for less than a quarter of the plant’s capacity.

Gates’s TerraPower has an even longer way to go, although it too is cashing in on subsidies. The U.S. Department of Energy has pledged up to $2 billion in matching funds to construct a demonstration plant in Wyoming. Yet TerraPower recently announced it’s facing delays of at least two years because of difficulties securing uranium fuel from its lone supplier: Russia.

Even if the unlikely rollout of SMRs eventually happens, it will unfold too late to curb the climate crisis.

Even if the unlikely rollout of SMRs eventually happens, it will unfold too late to curb the climate crisis. And the reactors will face many of the same safety and radioactive waste concerns that plagued their larger counterparts, if only at smaller scales. Meanwhile, the siren song of nuclear energy is diverting critical resources from the urgent task of building out clean technologies. And the idea that nuclear reactors would serve as “backups” for wind and solar is misguided because the reactors can’t be ramped up and down quickly.

One is left to wonder why it is that intelligent people like Gates and Obama are running down this rabbit hole?

I think it’s because they understand the chilling imperative of the climate crisis, and its scope. They’re panicked, and rightly so. In nuclear energy, they see a miracle-like, low-carbon power source that they know, and that can serve a million customers at a time. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, they don’t trust renewables and smart energy systems to get the job done.

But that is where they err. The technology of the future is already here. Clean wind and solar energy — coupled with updated smart grids, expanded storage capacity, hydrogen technology, virtual power plants, and demand response strategies — can work. Our energy systems of the future will look like a patchwork quilt, with diverse energy sources kicking in at different times during the day, and with the mix differing from one day to the next.

Bill Gates and like-minded innovators should put their minds and fortunes to work on this futuristic project of the present — and leave the 20th century relic that is nuclear power in the past, where it belongs.” ~Paul Hockenos

Paul Hockenos is a Berlin-based writer who covers energy and climate topics.

(Original Post, expanded here, was “All Things Nuclear” #420 dated October 15, 2023)

ACCESS TO MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are no bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(Just a reminder: 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 Nuclear

NEW

Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I Win In 2024

YouTube

Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I Win In 2024 … Car crashes through gate at South Carolina nuclear plant …

Victor Wembanyama is inevitable + Cowboys vs Eagles + Rangers repeat – YouTube

YouTube

Car crashes through gate at South Carolina nuclear plant, suspect on … FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright makes prediction Cowboys vs Eagles on Sunday.

Podcast PAWcast: Three Alumni on Ukraine, Putin, and the Threat of Nuclear War

Princeton Alumni Weekly | – Princeton University

… nuclear weapons, and Russia’s share of that is approximately half, so, 45% of all nuclear weapons in the world are in Russia. Now, we’ve been …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Person of interest identified after car crashes through nuclear power plant – YouTube

YouTube

Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, 66, has been identified as a person of interest in connection with the breach of the nuclear power plant in South Carolina …

South Carolina: Oconee Nuclear Station incident update

WYFF 4

We have learned new information about the situation at the Oconee County Nuclear Plant in South Carolina that happened Thursday night.

SMR power plant proposed in Norway – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

Norsk Kjernekraft has submitted a proposal to Norway’s Ministry of Oil and Energy for an assessment into the construction of a power plant based …

Nuclear War

NEW

Ukraine war latest: Russia’s assault in Donbas town ‘flounders’; Moscow makes ‘disturbing …

Sky News

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin signed a law revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CBTB), which the US signed but never …

Nuclear Talks With China Are Essential and Long Overdue – The New York Times

The New York Times

The landmark Cold War-era treaties between the United States and Russia have fallen by the wayside, one by one, with few meaningful restraints …

ICBM Test Failure Puts Nuclear Modernization Effort Into Focus

Air & Space Forces Magazine

… nuclear arsenal. “It has served our country well and we will continue to depend on it to deter nuclear war until the 2030s, but this week’s test …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Exercise of Clinton Nuclear Power Station – Juliana Stratton, Lt. Governor – Illinois.gov

Juliana Stratton, Lt. Governor – Illinois.gov

Emergency Plans Set for November 14th. SPRINGFIELD – An exercise to test emergency response plans for the area surrounding the Clinton Nuclear …

IAEA’s expert team conducts rotation at occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant – Yahoo News

Yahoo News

… nuclear safety and security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant … emergency diesel generators for unit 1, the 750-kilovolt power line’s …

Switzerland has distributed iodine tablets to residents for years, and not because of nuclear war

PolitiFact

If a radiation emergency occurred at the plants, taking the pills would protect the people from thyroid cancer. (The iodine pills, technically …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

New Kind of Nuclear Threat in Putin’s War on Ukraine Explained – Newsweek

Newsweek

… nuclear threats, but could atomic assets on the ground pose the same danger? … nuclear threat that has persisted since the start of the war. The …

Nuclear Bomb Map Shows Impact if Biden’s New Weapon Dropped on Russia – Newsweek

Newsweek

China gives US demands for preventing nuclear war · Even After the War in … threats from potential adversaries.” In the release, Plumb added: “The …

Oklahoma Won’t Be Spared From WW3 Nuclear Threats

KLAW 101

… nuclear bomber bases. It would honestly be the worst-case scenario of war to consider Oklahoma a legitimate nuclear threat from Russia. We’re …

Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war . . .

Key points
Posted on

LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #438 (11/02/2023)

☄️LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR”☄️ #438 (11/02/2023)

“End nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity ends humanity”

LLAW’s COMMENTARY: Republished from October 13, 2023 . . .

The Doomsday Clock remains set at its most critical level in history by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” . . .

“The clock hands are set by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”, a group formed by Manhattan Project scientists at the University of Chicago who helped build the atomic bomb but protested using it against people. The time of the clock is currently 90 seconds to midnight”. Midnight represents “Doomsday.

You can follow the world news concerning “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” at my daily Posts on both my website at LLAW’s WORLDS @albertlloydwilliams.com and/or at Substack to keep abreast of the world-wide nuclear situation, trends, threats, issues, and what could be done to prevent nuclear radiation from creating a dystopian world – or worse yet, a man-made 6th Extinction on planet Earth. Time is of the Essence. ~llaw

ACCESS TO MEDIA: Whenever there is a 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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are two bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(Just a reminder: 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 rarely happen.)

Yellowstone Caldera (Bonus non-nuclear coverage)
NEWS
Two supervolcanoes, a world apart, have the attention of scientists – NBC News NBC News … Caldera, a volcano in eastern California that sits adjacent to Mammoth Mountain. … And one of the most famous calderas in the world, at Yellowstone … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
peeling back the layers (Yellowstone Volcano Update – November 2023) – YouTube YouTube … Caldera Chronicles: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/caldera-chronicles?utm_source=2023-nov-1&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=nh … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
The complicated history of Ferdinand Hayden and the founding of Yellowstone | Opinion MSN Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. DONATE · Idaho … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
See more results | Edit this alert
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea AP News 1 of 4 |. FILE – This aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, northern Japan, on Aug. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the … – NY1 NY1 TOKYO (AP) — The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea ABC News The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea after … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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All Things Nuclear
NEWS
China and US reportedly agree to rare nuclear arms control talks – The Guardian The Guardian Russia and the US together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. … things‘. Pentagon’s UFO online reporting tool launches. 11h ago … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking Russian ratification of nuclear test ban treaty | CBC News CBC … nuclear posture or the way it shares information about its nuclear … TikTok’s paranormal queen CelinaSpookyBoo on why she loves all things eerie. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty – Spectrum News Spectrum News Things to Do · Community Calendar · Submit An Event · Tar Heel Treasures · The … All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear War
NEWS
AI could pose risk to humanity on scale of nuclear war, Sunak warns – The Guardian The Guardian “But there is a case to believe that it may pose a risk on a scale like pandemics and nuclear war, and that’s why, as leaders, we have a … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
U.S. and China to Hold Nuclear Arms Talks Before Biden-Xi Meeting | TIME Time … Nuclear War Would Actually Be. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in June that the Biden administration was prepared to engage with … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Russia Pulled Out of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Here’s What That Means. – The New York Times The New York Times In a landmark moment marking the closing chapters of the Cold War, Presidents Ronald Reagan of the United States and Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
US NRC approves changes to Indian Point emergency planning requirements Nuclear Engineering International This enables decommissioning and site release for alternate uses decades sooner than previously anticipated. Image: Indian Point nuclear power plant. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
ERCOT to increase limit of reserve power that triggers energy emergency – YouTube YouTube CBS News New 19K views · 15:10 · Go to channel · Is Small, Fast, & Cheap the Future of Nuclear Energy? Undecided with Matt Ferrell•546K views. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
CND: Nuclear war, conventional war and climate change are linked | The Herald The Herald Beyond the obvious common threat of our extinction, the three threats can share similar causes and chronic injustices. The legacy of colonial … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
The Threat from Within: An Overview of the Domestic Violent Extremist Threat Facing US … Stimson Center Domestic violent extremist threats to U.S. nuclear facilities prove that the nuclear security status quo is at risk … war” behind claims that it is … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking nuclear test ban treaty | The Hill The Hill … threat of nuclear weapons in the eyes of Western powers amid the war in Ukraine. Putin and his allies have increasingly threatened to use nuclear … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
China and US reportedly agree to rare nuclear arms control talks – The Guardian The Guardian Russia and the US together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. … things‘. Pentagon’s UFO online reporting tool launches. 11h ago … Facebook Twitter
Putin signs bill revoking Russian ratification of nuclear test ban treaty | CBC News CBC … nuclear posture or the way it shares information about its nuclear … TikTok’s paranormal queen CelinaSpookyBoo on why she loves all things eerie. Facebook Twitter
Putin signs bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty – Spectrum News Spectrum News Things to Do · Community Calendar · Submit An Event · Tar Heel Treasures · The … All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast … Facebook Twitter

The daily Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is posted below . . .

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-moscow-to-discuss-lifting-ban-on-nuclear-tests-after-putin-threat-12541713?fbclid=IwAR3jG-pZQTXT_E2mcEUYcciiuv9ZeJ7f2-oVo8ouBd8lZWU4BeSe5ajW80k

Posted on

☄️LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR”☄️ #436 (10/31/2023)

“End nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity ends humanity”
____________________
LLAW’s COMMENTARY: The following opinion piece is from LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” #425 (10/20/2023), intended to provide background commentary to those who follow our new media outlets unrelated to our former daily Posts (more than a year of them, but only a few will be reposted for this purpose). They will be helpful for new subscribers to follow some of the issues and opinions. There are also several technical Posts that describe how uranium mining, milling, refining, and finally reactor fuel, and waste that will provide new subscribers with a high level understanding of how the nuclear power plant industry operates. Oddly enough it is not significantly different than the military process of building a nuclear bomb, except instead of a nuclear reactor, the military builds a nuclear bomb.
The commentary from October 20 begins here:
What possesses us humans, who in truth know nothing about (or don’t care about) the mayhem and weaknesses of the major nuclear industries – principally known as 1) creators of nuclear weapons of war and 2) as commercial providers of costly, dangerous, and unreliable nuclear generated electricity. We continue to lie to ourselves (or at least listen to and accept the propaganda) that anything nuclear is of sound technology, good for us, cheap, safe, clean, and will last forever, when it is none of the above?
And now we are apparently considering moving (or adding to) ‘All things Nuclear’, of introducing nuclear warheads into outer space. Does that mean when one country’s leaders decide to ‘nuke’ another all it has to do is let the earth do the flying and when the target country is directly beneath them, simply electronically open the satellite’s Bombay doors and drop their bombs with no danger of retaliation – at least from the ground. Wow, that would make the ICBM (missile) obsolete as well as military aircraft! Also, obviously, then, once one country is busy planning on doing that, the rest of the nuclear capable ones will follow instantly in an arms race, many of which we have been going through for eons. It is a ridiculous joke we have played on ourselves since the stone age!
So it is the grand effort of ‘do unto others before they do unto you’ technology that goes right along in typical human warlike stupidity. What if we could just learn to love (or at least honor) one another, shake hands, destroy and bury all of this genocidal nuclear technology, and spend our resources (money) on taking care of the entire human race and our only home instead of trying to eliminate us and our Earth.
Do these ‘pillars of political and corporate power’ know something we don’t know about our future or of planet Earth’s? llolloll! Of course not, unless they, too, are being directed and advised by a higher and more powerful life form! But I doubt such a ‘higher’ life form would deal with humanity in such a potentially violent way. All we are doing is playing a foolish and childish game of playground tag that will end up in what we are referring to in advance called, “The 6th Extinction”.
The last extinction was caused by a meteorite colliding with planet Earth (65+ million years ago) long before humans entered the picture, and after Earth regenerated Herself with living organisms (and eventually humans) She returned to a special place in the cosmos where living things could live, reproduce, and prosper, and we humans became a part of it all.
But, now, looking back just a few centuries, it is plain to see that we cared, not about our only home, but only about what we could take for ourselves, and now the process of ‘playing god’ is instilled in us to the point that we seem to believe that we are superior to Mother Nature, and that we can plunder, pillage, rape, kill, as humans, human parasites or animalistic epiphytes, leaving only a vast wasteland behind even unto the precious oceans and our priceless atmospheres. We are, as Pogo inferred, our own worst enemies. And the hell of it is, we seem to have no presence of mind to change our ways by turning away from approaching oblivion. ~llaw
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ACCESS TO MEDIA:
Whenever there is a 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 links is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one Yellowstone Caldera story available in this post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.
(Just a reminder: 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 rarely happen.)
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All Things Nuclear
NEWS
America’s strategic nuclear posture review is miles off the mark | The Hill
The Hill
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic | The Hill
to supply nuclear fuel for the Dukovany nuclear plant, eliminating dependence on Russia for such fuel. Tags. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All …
October 31: Pentagon pursues new nuclear bomb. Rockets strike Israeli hospital 4 times.
NewsNation
Happy Halloween, the celebration of all things spooky and the semi-official beginning of the 2023 holiday season. The Federal Open Market …
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Nuclear Power
NEWS
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic – WOKV
WOKV
Nebraska lawmakers consider ways to expand nuclear energy production
The North Platte Telegraph
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic
AP News
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Nuclear War
NEWS
US wants nuclear bomb 24 times more powerful than one dropped on Japan
New York Post
US to build new nuclear gravity bomb – New Atlas
New Atlas
… nuclear weapon inventory with 3,708 commissioned warheads. That’s a small fraction of what it was at the height of the Cold War and only a few … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://newatlas.com/military/us-to-build-new-nuclear-gravity-bomb/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoUMTAyNTgwMzc2NzE0MTQ0NDczMDIyGmI4Yjg2NDVhMTQ5MGZlN2Y6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw2P2BOsjrXlRk_GwK0XXIMu
Australia must lobby US for ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons, says ex-minister Gareth Evans
The Guardian
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
Terms for Describing Advanced Nuclear Power Plants | IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
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Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Pentagon pursues new nuclear bomb 24x the power of one dropped during WWII
NewsNation
US wants nuclear bomb 24 times more powerful than one dropped on Japan
New York Post
Health Professionals: Reducing the Risks for Nuclear War – Medscape
Medscape
… nuclear weapons, the fact that there is a land war being waged in Europe just now, in which various threats have been made coming from the Russian … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/996959%3Fsrc%3D&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioUMTAyNTgwMzc2NzE0MTQ0NDQ4OTEyGmY2ODRlMjM4YmFjN2UzOTY6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw2erEWZXWwD084nTRlXMYjN
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Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Yellowstone supervolcano could be ‘gearing up to explode’ with consequences explained
Daily Express
Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine:
Analysis: Who is winning the war?
By Philip Ingram MBE, former colonel in British Military Intelligence and NATO planner
In July, the then Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said that he “believes that Ukraine will win the war by next summer and could be admitted to NATO in July 2024”.
The reality of what Ukraine has really achieved on the ground would suggest this was an overly optimistic assessment – but who is winning?
In early June, Ukraine launched its long-expected counteroffensive against the Russian defences having had some significant successes in late 2022 taking back huge areas of ground around Kherson in the northeast and then Kherson in the east of the country. They had tied Russia up around Bakhmut, exhausting the Wagner fighters to the point where they had to be withdrawn from the front line.
With the delivery of fresh Western-trained troops, equipped with Leopard and Challenger tanks, Bradley and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, HIMARS and 155mm artillery, the expectation was they would punch through Russian defences like a hot knife through butter and reach the coast with the Sea of Azov in a few short months.
HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System)
HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System)
However, they lacked air superiority, attack helicopters, sufficient air defence and, most significantly, enough combat engineering assets to enable the extensive Russian defences to be breached in any significant way. In reality they lacked sufficient troops, tanks, artillery, missiles, and infantry fighting vehicles as well. The went too early against the delivery timetables of Western equipment.
The Russian defences delayed and slowed the Ukrainians down. The Russian use of attack helicopters and well-planned defences showed the vulnerability of Western armour and stopped the Ukrainians making significant progress, meaning that at the start of the autumn mud season, the conditions for Reznikov’s winning remain a long way off.
An emboldened Russia even counterattacked the Ukrainians near Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast, but only after receiving 1,000 containers of ammunition and equipment from North Korea.
The current territorial picture in Ukraine has not changed much since June.
Today’s Image of Interest:
Supervolcano could be 'gearing up to explode' with consequences explained
EXPRESS.CO.UK
Supervolcano could be ‘gearing up to explode’ with consequences explained
Scientists have long warned abo