“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 12, 2024

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Bill Gates shakes the hand of Wyoming governor Mark Gordon (in the cowboy outfit) at the TerraPower groundbreaking ceremony a few miles south of Kemmerer, Wyoming. /image courtesy of WyoFile.com

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Tuesday, (06/11/2024)

Here is the latest on TerraPower’s intent to build this 1st of its kind plant and hopefully “mass produce” future ones by employing a new kind of state-of-the-art small nuclear reactor power plants (SMRs) that will cool the plant with, Natrium (the plants name), a sodium-based cooling system along with a molten salt waste storage system.

But there are plenty of pros and even more cons, including ensuring the kind of nuclear fuel it will use, which is refined uranium to near nuclear bomb standards. Russia (and perhaps a few military facilities) is the only market for this rare uranium fuel, and Russia may well refuse to sell the fuel to TerraPower — in fact Russia has already delayed TerraPower’s plans for two years by withholding the sale of this fuel to operate the planned 1st demonstration of the new power plant. And so it goes, but TerraPower says they are beginning construction now regardless of fuel availability and regulatory approval of the plant design, partly because the cooling system has never been used before.

But no matter how we frame, color, or present nuclear poser plants, nuclear bombs, and all other things nuclear, the unredeemable element is that they all use nuclear fuel (refined uranium), which I believe is the most dangerous product ever created by mankind, and if we continue to use it (in any form), it will eventually destroy humanity and other life on a global scale, and we are right now, this very day, staring it in the face. We ought to know better. We were put on notice in August of 1945. ~llaw

(My comments above are a refresher for those of you who may have read one or more of my Posts on this very subject in previous evenings of my “All Things Nuclear” blog. But there are also numerous related links, as well as two other same subject news stories in the “Nuclear Power” nuclear news section of today’s news below, to this and other stories, of course, at the end of this article.)

Bill Gates is breaking ground on a nuclear power plant in Wyoming

Nation Jun 10, 2024 6:34 PM EDT

Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is generated.

Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.

The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning.

READ MORE: Biden administration will lend $1.5 billion to restart Michigan nuclear power plant, a first in the U.S.

The work begun Monday is aimed at having the site ready so TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront for developing sodium-cooled reactors.

Gates told the audience at the groundbreaking that they were “standing on what will soon be the bedrock of America’s energy future.”

“This is a big step toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy,” Gates said. “And it’s important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed.”

Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.

It’s time to move to advanced nuclear technology that uses the latest computer modeling and physics for a simpler plant design that’s cheaper, even safer and more efficient, said Chris Levesque, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

TerraPower’s Natrium reactor demonstration project is a sodium-cooled fast reactor design with a molten salt energy storage system.

“The industry’s character hasn’t been to innovate. It’s kind of been to repeat past performance, you know, not to move forward with new technology. And that was good for reliability,” Levesque said in an interview. “But the electricity demands we’re seeing in the coming decades, and also to correct the cost issues with today’s nuclear and nuclear energy, we at TerraPower and our founders really felt it’s time to innovate.”

A Georgia utility just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.

READ MORE: Bill Gates and top investors launch $1 billion clean energy fund

The TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy. Levesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future ones would cost significantly less.

Most advanced nuclear reactors under development in the U.S. rely on a type of fuel — known as high-assay low-enriched uranium — that’s enriched to a higher percentage of the isotope uranium-235 than the fuel used by conventional reactors. TerraPower delayed its launch date in Wyoming by two years to 2030 because Russia is the only commercial supplier of the fuel, and it’s working with other companies to develop alternate supplies. The U.S. Energy Department is working on developing it domestically.

Edwin Lyman co-authored an article in Science on Thursday that raises concerns that this fuel could be used for nuclear weapons. Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the risk posed by HALEU today is small because there isn’t that much of it around the world. But that will change if advanced reactor projects, which require much larger quantities, move forward, he added. Lyman said he wants to raise awareness of the danger in the hope that the international community will strengthen security around the fuel.

NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell said the agency is confident its current requirements will maintain both security and public safety of any reactors that are built and their fuel.

Gates co-founded TerraPower in 2008 as a way for the private sector to propel advanced nuclear energy forward to provide safe, abundant, carbon-free energy.

WATCH: Bill Gates on vaccine equity, boosters, climate, his foundation and Epstein meetings

The company’s 345-megawatt reactor could generate up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough for up to 400,000 homes. TerraPower said its first few reactors will focus on supplying electricity. But it envisions future reactors could be built near industrial plants to supply high heat.

Nearly all industrial processes requiring high heat currently get it from burning fossil fuels. Heat from advanced reactors could be used to produce hydrogen, petrochemicals, ammonia and fertilizer, said John Kotek at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

It’s significant that Gates, a technological innovator and climate champion, is betting on nuclear power to help address the climate crisis, added Kotek, the industry group’s senior vice president for policy.

“I think this has helped open people’s eyes to the role that nuclear power does play today and can play in the future in addressing carbon emissions,” he said. “There’s tremendous momentum building for new nuclear in the U.S. and the potential use of a far wider range of nuclear energy technology than we’ve seen in decades.”

Left: File photo by Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters

Related

• Russia to build a small nuclear power plant in UzbekistanBy Associated Press
• Biden administration will lend $1.5 billion to restart Michigan nuclear power plant, a first in the U.S.By Ed White, Associated Press
• Iran announces start of construction on new nuclear power plantBy Associated Press
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights vulnerability of nuclear power plantsBy John Yang, Courtney Norris
• As climate talks continue, nuclear power remains in disputeBy Angela Charlton, Associated Press
• U.S. eyes building nuclear power plants for moon and MarsBy Keith Ridler, Associated Press
• Demand for clean energy inspires new generation to innovate nuclear powerBy PBS NewsHour
• Cheap natural gas is putting nuclear power out of business

Go Deeper

• bill gates
• energy
• nuclear power
• terrapower
• wyoming

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’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 (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Tuesday, (06/11/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

U.S. citizens detained abroad still face tax fines. Lawmakers want to change that | WVTF

WVTF

“But that is not indicative of what happens every day in Congress.” The Treasury Department — which includes the IRS — said in a statement it’s “ …

U.S. citizens detained abroad still face tax fines. Lawmakers want to change that – NPR

NPR

It doesn’t have to be a major nuclear policy treaty. … All Things Considered · Wild elephants may have … You may customize which cookies you accept in …

Savannah River Site looks to train thousands of workers on the job – Marketplace.org

Marketplace.org

… Nuclear Solutions. He pointed to the key … These 300 square miles — just about the same size as all … These days, it’s a place where you’ll want to do …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Bill Gates is breaking ground on a nuclear power plant in Wyoming | PBS NewsHour

PBS

Gates and his energy company are starting construction for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is …

Microsoft’s Gates breaks ground on novel nuclear power plant in Wyoming – WyoFile

WyoFile

The pilot Natrium nuclear power plant in Kemmerer will be the first of what TerraPower officials hope will be a worldwide fleet of new nuclear …

What’s New About America’s Next Nuclear Power Plant? Everything – Bechtel

Bechtel

Located near a retiring coal-fired power station, Natrium is an advanced nuclear reactor that uses a sodium-based technology developed by …

alert

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Jordan hosts first meeting of regional project to improve response to nuclear emergencies

Arab News

AMMAN: The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday hosted the inaugural meeting …

Amherstburg running training exercise for nuclear emergency – CTV News Windsor

CTV News Windsor

The worker centre would be utilized during any local large-scale emergency, including a Nuclear Emergency at the Fermi II Plant. The Emergency …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Russia’s New Threat To Attack NATO Military Bases If…: Nuclear War Risk Rising? | Ukraine | F-16

YouTube

Russia issues a severe warning to NATO as Ukraine prepares to receive U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets. Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the Russian …

Russia Doubles Down On Threat to Change Nuclear Doctrine – Newsweek

Newsweek

The warnings come amid rising tensions between Russia and the West over Putin’s ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine. Russia’s nuclear doctrine lays out …

Russia begins second stage of tactical nuclear weapon drills with Belarus – Reuters

Reuters

… War Two will not escalate into a nuclear war. Advertisement · Scroll to continue. Putin also said he did not rule out changes to Russia’s nuclear …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Russia Doubles Down On Threat to Change Nuclear Doctrine – Newsweek

Newsweek

“Putin stated that Russia’s nuclear doctrine calls for Russia to only use nuclear weapons in the event of ‘exceptional cases’ of threats to Russia’s …

How the Battle of Khasham Fueled Russia’s Nuclear War Threats in Ukraine – 19FortyFive

19FortyFive

How the Battle of Khasham Fueled Russia’s Nuclear War Threats in Ukraine. The Battle of Khasham, initiated by Russian mercenaries, only heightened …

Putin issues chilling threat as he claims Europe ‘defenceless and unprepared for nuclear war‘

GB News

Putin issues chilling threat as he claims Europe ‘defenceless and unprepared for nuclear war‘ … threats posed to both our country and the Union State …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 10, 2024

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A deactivated nuclear Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile / Photo by Brendan Smialalowski/AFP

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Monday, (06/10/2024)

This is the same incredibly morbid, costly, and deceitful fear-mongering method of ‘deterrence’ through increasing nuclear weapons of mass destruction and then threatening the rest of the world that you will use them in nuclear war that I have been alluding to for the past two days. It is all supposed to remain a necessary lie, just a threat and nothing more, but this kind of avoiding war inevitably has to stop sometime or else some country or other will eventually use their massive stockpile out of financial bankruptcy and/or sheer desperation. ~llaw

US Mulls Increased Deployment of Nuclear Weapons Amid Rising Threats

JOE SABALLA JUNE 10, 2024

1 MINUTE READ

The US has floated the idea of fielding more strategic nuclear weapons in the future to deter growing threats from Russia, China, and other adversaries.

Speaking at an arms control event last week, National Security Council official Pranay Vaddi said Moscow and Beijing’s rejection of nuclear arsenal limitation highlights the increased need to employ a more competitive approach to prepare for these threats.

He further stated that with the absence of an agreement, more nuclear weapons may be required to effectively deter adversaries and protect the American people and allies.

“We may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required. We need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision,” Vaddi explained.

At present, the US observes a limit of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads as stipulated in a 2010 treaty with Russia.

Moscow has already suspended its participation in the agreement because of Washington’s support for Ukraine.

‘At a Breakneck Pace’

In 2023, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he believed there was no need to increase the size of America’s nuclear arsenal to deter the combined forces of Russia, China, and other rivals.

He also announced that the US will abide by the nuclear weapons limits set by its treaty with Russia until 2026.

But Vaddi pointed out that these adversaries are all expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals “at a breakneck pace.”

China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are reportedly “cooperating and coordinating with each other in ways that run counter to peace and stability, threaten the US, our allies and our partners, and exacerbate region[al] tensions.”

Last month, Moscow fueled nuclear war concerns after President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to hold nuclear weapons drills near Ukraine.

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in this evening’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 (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Monday, (06/10/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Energy Is the Achilles’ Heel of Taiwan’s National Security | Opinion – Newsweek

Newsweek

Many Taiwanese associate all things nuclear with the island’s previous military dictatorship, which once led a drive for nuclear energy and atomic …

The Absence – and Presence – of Daniel Ellsberg – TomDispatch.com

Tom Dispatch

… all nuclear weapons. He was eager to awaken Congress to scientific data about “nuclear winter” and the imperative of shutting down ICBMs to reduce …

South Korea to restart loudspeaker broadcasts into North to combat trash balloons

Little Rock Public Radio

All Things Considered. Next Up: 5:00 PM … All Streams. Home · News · Arkansas COVID-19 · Local & Regional … nuclear ambitions. The resumption of South …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Italian interim storage facility takes shape : Waste & Recycling – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

Construction has started at the Garigliano nuclear power plant in Italy of a facility for the interim storage of wastes generated through the …

World’s Largest Nuclear Plant Remains Idle – RealClearEnergy

RealClearEnergy

We don’t think it’ll be long before nuclear power once again has a renaissance, as we’ve written about extensively.

Ukraine-France, EDF-Energoatom nuclear cooperation agreements

World Nuclear News

Thursday’s agreement between the two state-owned nuclear power giants covers the study of EDF’s gigawatt-scale EPR and Nuward small modular reactor …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEW

Radiation event preparedness exercise set for June 11 – Ellwood City Ledger

Ellwood City Ledger

… emergency at the Shippingport nuclear power plant. Beaver Valley Power Station seen in April 2023. “These drills are held every other year to …

FEMA to Conduct Emergency Preparedness Exercise at Beaver Valley Power Station – MSN

MSN

The program aims to protect citizens in the event of a nuclear accident and to educate the public about radiological emergency preparedness. REP …

Appeals filed over judgements | News, Sports, Jobs – reviewonline.com

reviewonline.com

LISBON – Columbiana County emergency responders can expect an emergency at the Beaver Valley nuclear power station … MOST READ. Biden honors US …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the west? | Rajan Menon

The Guardian

Besides, that document sets conditions, such as a nuclear attack on Russia or a threat to its existence, that aren’t pertinent to the war in Ukraine.

The YouGov Big Survey on NATO and war: Nuclear weapons and nuclear war

YouGov

Four in ten (41%) say they have considered what they would do in case of a nuclear attack, including 47% of men and 35% of women (35%). More Americans …

Belarus says it is joining nuclear exercises with Russia – Reuters

Reuters

… nuclear analysts said was a warning signal by Putin to deter the West from wading more deeply into the war in Ukraine. Belarusian Defence Minister …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the west? | Rajan Menon

The Guardian

Besides, that document sets conditions, such as a nuclear attack on Russia or a threat to its existence, that aren’t pertinent to the war in Ukraine.

U.S. nuclear weapons deployment might increase as threats grow – Fast Company

Fast Company

Growing threats from Russia, China, and North Korea could cause a shift … nuclear weapons to secure victory in Ukraine, where Moscow is waging war.

US Mulls Increased Deployment of Nuclear Weapons Amid Rising Threats

The Defense Post

The US has floated the idea of fielding more strategic nuclear weapons in the future to deter growing threats from Russia, China, …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

An Explosive History | idahofallsmagazine.com

Idaho Falls Magazine

Myth: The supervolcano could explode at any moment, wiping Idaho off the planet. Fact: Will the Yellowstone Caldera erupt during our lifetime?

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

 AND 

DEBORAH HART YEMM

JUN 09, 2024

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Poor Truth returned to the well and disappeared forever, hiding her shame. Painting by Jean-Léon Gérome, 1896

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (06/09/2024)

Note: Continuation with Chapter 5 of my in progress novel “El Nuclear Diablo” has been postponed to next Sunday.)

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

Our shallow and virtually useless dependence on human law and how easily cast-off treaties and agreements mean nothing between or among rival Nations, and how we depend on something called ‘deterrence’, which is little more than a mutually applicable governmental political and military money sink paid for by each country’s working taxpayers while we build more nuclear weapons for the sake of ‘deterrence’, constantly followed by more costly and more powerful nuclear weapons. Such inanity cannot last forever, of course.

The Gibran free verse presented below about truths and lies is an excellent existential truth about untruths! Gibran, no doubt unintentionally, clearly demonstrates how our human world functions these days, and his verse is incidentally an axiom of the threats of nuclear war. Our world leaders of nuclear armed Nations, use lies as threats to other leaders of nuclear armed Nations in order to avoid nuclear war out of imposing fear, which the governmental, military, and political worlds of today call “deterrence”. So it is that bald-faced lies rather than honest common sense apparently protect us (at least for now) from Armageddon! ~llaw

(Thank you Deborah Hart Yemm for your brilliant post at a time when the world needs it most!)

“The Lie said to the Truth-

Let’s take a bath together,

the well water is very nice.

The Truth, still suspicious,

tested the water and found out

it really was nice.

So they got naked and bathed.

But suddenly, the Lie leapt out of the water

and fled, wearing the clothes of the Truth.

The Truth, furious, climbed out of the well

to get her clothes back.

But the World, upon seeing the naked Truth,

looked away, with anger and contempt.

Poor Truth returned to the well and disappeared

forever, hiding her shame.

Since then, the Lie runs around the world,

dressed as the Truth, and society is very happy.

Because the world has no desire to know

the naked Truth.”

~ Gibran Khalil Gibran

Truth Coming Out Of The Well Painting by Jean-Léon Gérome, 1896

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’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 (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Sunday, (06/09/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

This TV movie from the 1980s helped change the course of the Cold War. Here’s how … – WRAL.com

WRAL.com

In its first hour, the people of Lawrence, Kansas, go about their lives as the threat of nuclear war looms. But when the nuke finally comes to …

That Time the Brits Nuked Us – Daily Kos

Daily Kos

Which is all well and good, except for when these things … We also knew a thing or two about low level flying in SAC. … payload (nuclear), 1 free-fall …

South Korea to restart loudspeaker broadcasts into North to combat trash balloons | WVTF

WVTF

All Programs A-Z · All Things Considered · BBC World Service · Fresh Air · Full … nuclear ambitions. The resumption of South Korea’s loudspeaker …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

MSP’s claim of support for nuclear power in Highlands challenged – John O’Groat Journal

John O’Groat Journal

An anti-nuclear campaigner has hit out at a claim made by Highland MSP Edward Mountain that people in the region want nuclear power.

Is Nuclear Power in America Reviving – or Flailing? – Slashdot

Slashdot

Last week America’s energy secretary cheered the startup of a fourth nuclear reactor at a Georgia power plant, calling it “the largest producer of …

Nuclear power plant unit put back into operation may improve energy situation in Ukraine

Yahoo

A 1000 MW unit at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been put back into operation after planned maintenance.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

FEMA to Conduct Emergency Preparedness Exercise at Beaver Valley Power Station

MyChesCo

REP responsibilities include state and local government emergency planning and preparedness activities beyond the boundaries of the nuclear power …

DoE sets goal for small modular reactors | The Manila Times

The Manila Times

These emergencies include severe weather … power plants and liquid fuel plants … Atomic Energy Agency when establishing nuclear power plants.

Nuclear War

NEWS

Europe defenceless and unprepared for nuclear war, warns Putin – Yahoo

Yahoo

Vladimir Putin has warned that Europe is “defenceless” and unprepared for a nuclear conflict with Russia … war with Russia. “Europe does not have a …

live: Biden says Putin won’t stop with Ukraine as ‘Moscow fails in Kharkiv offensive’

The Independent

Vladimir Putin is not going to stop with war in Ukraine, US president Joe Biden said in France, pledging to support Europe against Russia.

The lurking danger of nuclear confrontation – The Sunday Guardian Live

Sunday Guardian

… nuclear war amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis. That time the nuclear warheads were not as potent as now and the delivery systems were not as precise …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Putin Offers New Clues About His Red Line in Ukraine War: ISW – Newsweek

Newsweek

The Kremlin has even gone as far as suggesting nuclear action would be taken if there was an existential threat to Russia. The United States …

The lurking danger of nuclear confrontation – The Sunday Guardian Live

Sunday Guardian

instances before and after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the threat of use of nuclear weapons hang upon mankind as the Sword of Damocles. While the …

US considers expanded nuclear arsenal to ‘deter threats‘ from adversaries | ANC – YouTube

YouTube

US considers expanded nuclear arsenal to ‘deter threats‘ from adversaries | ANC. 1.3K views · 7 hours ago #ANCHighlights #ANCAlerts #ANCNews

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 08, 2024

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LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Saturday, (06/08/2024)

This is another recent update on the extremely tense issue in Ukraine centered around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), already located in an ongoing war zone, with the possibility of turning even more consequential as a war weapon of mass destruction, which could spread into European countries and around the globe creating serious aggravating already frazzled tensions relative to global war, or, quite logically, World War III. Therefore, and also because the IAEA has overseers onsite at the ZNPP itself, I will frequently be posting the IAEA’s updates concerning this frightening situation without any personal comment, except reminders that the situation is grave . . . ~llaw

Update 231 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine

Update 231 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine

06 Jun 2024

53/2024

Vienna, Austria

The challenging nuclear safety and security situation in Ukraine was in the spotlight again this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency, with its Board of Governors discussing recent developments detailed in a new IAEA report and Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi meeting the country’s energy minister.

Director General Grossi and Energy Minister German Galushchenko discussed the IAEA’s ongoing efforts to support nuclear safety and security in Ukraine in their meeting today on the sidelines of the regularly scheduled June Board session at IAEA headquarters, where the Director General earlier in the week made clear his continued deep concerns about the situation.

Nuclear safety and security remains especially precarious at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), and is potentially also fragile elsewhere in Ukraine following attacks on its energy infrastructure in recent months, including on electricity sub-stations which are vital in providing off-site power to the operating nuclear power stations, as well as to the ZNPP, Director General Grossi said after his talks with Minister Galushchenko.

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) need reliable access to off-site power in order to cool their reactors and for other essential nuclear safety and security functions, as underlined in the Seven Pillars of Nuclear Safety and Security. However, Ukraine’s electricity grid has been severely impacted by the conflict, with the ZNPP repeatedly losing connections to all its power lines.

“For the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in particular, the external power situation remains extremely vulnerable, prone to frequent outages. But it is also a wider concern in the current circumstances, where a loss of off-site power event has the potential to be even more serious given the higher nuclear fuel temperatures for reactors in operation in Ukraine.  We are continuing to follow the situation very closely in this regard, as I also informed Minister Galushchenko in today’s meeting,” Director General Grossi said.

Director General Grossi, who had met with Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev in the Russian city of Kaliningrad last week, reiterated to Ukraine’s energy minister that there was an understanding that the ZNPP would not be re-started as long as nuclear safety and security remained in jeopardy due to the conflict.

“In these circumstances, operating this major nuclear plant would not be advisable,” he said.

Ahead of this week’s Board meeting, the Director General issued the 11th report on nuclear safety, security and safeguards in Ukraine since the conflict began in February 2022, covering developments in the three months to 24 May this year.

At the ZNPP this week, the IAEA team of experts stationed at the site has continued to conduct regular walkdowns to monitor nuclear safety and security at the plant.

At the same time, the team has continued to hear explosions some distance away from the site, a regular reminder of the ZNPP’s frontline location.

A year after the destruction of the downstream Kakhovka dam disrupted the ZNPP’s supplies of cooling water, the team visited the site’s cooling pond and observed that its height was almost 1.5 metres below the level before the dam was destroyed.

The plant, whose six reactors are all in cold shutdown, receives the cooling water it needs, for the reactors in the current shutdown state, from 11 groundwater wells that were built to supply about 250 m³ of water per hour to the site’s sprinkler ponds.

The IAEA team continues to closely monitor the maintenance activities at the plant, another area highlighted by the Director General as posing a potential risk to nuclear safety and security in his Board statement on Monday.

As part of these activities, the IAEA experts visited the 750 kilovolt (kV) open switchyard and discussed ongoing maintenance on the relay protections for the transformer of reactor unit 2, among other activities.  

They saw that some of the switchyard components, for one of the 750 kV lines, that were damaged in 2022 had been dismantled. However, the ZNPP is not currently planning to complete repairs, at this time, as the line itself remains unavailable due to damage sustained earlier in the conflict, away from the site. The ZNPP had four 750 kV lines available before the conflict, but only one is remaining.

The IAEA experts were informed that western-supplied switchyard equipment, installed before the conflict, remained in good condition. The ZNPP also stated that some spare parts remain available on site from western supplies and, if required, it can order similar equipment through suppliers from the Russian Federation. 

The IAEA team of experts also visited the two fresh fuel storage facilities and the turbine building of unit 6, once again without being granted access to the western side of the building.

In addition, the ZNPP informed the IAEA experts on the status of its on- and off-site radiation monitoring stations. The team was informed that all four on-site radiation monitoring stations are operational, but that three of the 14 off-site stations remain damaged as a result of military activities in 2022.

The ZNPP said that manual radiation monitoring measurements are also carried out, and that there are plans to purchase new radiation monitoring stations consistent with the regulations of the Russian Federation, and a mobile radiation measurement laboratory for use in case of a nuclear or radiological emergency.

The IAEA experts present at Ukraine’s other NPPs – Khelmnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine – and the Chornobyl site continue to perform routine walkdowns and assess nuclear safety and security. The teams reported that nuclear safety and security is being maintained despite the effects of the ongoing conflict, including air raid alarms on several days over the past week.

One reactor unit at each of the Rivne and the South Ukraine NPPs were in shutdown over the last week for planned maintenance and refuelling, while one other unit at the South Ukraine NPP is in planned outage. 

Related resources

• Update 230 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine
• Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguards in Ukraine
• Rafael Mariano Grossi

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TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Saturday, (06/08/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

NASA astronaut Bill Anders, who took famous photo of Earth during Apollo, dies at 90

WGLT

… All Things Considered. WGLT. All Things Considered. Next Up: 5:00 PM … After NASA, he was the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission …

How Biden and Trump disagree over how to address the cost of health care – NPR

NPR

MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what does advertising for HealthCare.gov tell us about the two presidential candidates? SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Well, a lot. So we can …

Federal aid for those sickened by U.S. nuclear testing set to expire – TPR: The Public’s Radio

The Public’s Radio

All series · 2024 Elections · Listen Live: All Things Considered · Donate. Close. Skip to content. Listen Live: All Things Considered · Donate.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Nuclear micro-reactor capability could soon power US military bases

Interesting Engineering

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the US Army are seeking advanced nuclear power solutions to enhance installation resilience.

Drill to be held at the Beaver Valley nuclear power station next week – Salem News

Salem News

LISBON — Columbiana County emergency responders can expect an emergency at the Beaver Valley nuclear power station next week, but it’s only a …

Warning that ‘slow, risky and costly’ mini-nuclear could sap renewables investment | Recharge

Recharge

Policymakers and investors need to recognise that ‘renewables, not SMRs, are the near-term solution to the energy transition’, says think-tank.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Emergency responders to participate in nuclear disaster drill next week – Morning Journal

Morning Journal

LISBON — Columbiana County emergency responders can expect an emergency at the Beaver Valley nuclear power station next week, but it’s only a …

Norfolk Southern gives on-hand training to area first responders – Salem News

Salem News

… emergencies, responding to railroad … LISBON — Columbiana County emergency responders can expect an emergency at the Beaver Valley nuclear power …

Nuclear War

NEWS

live: Putin ‘invokes Cuban Missile Crisis’ as he moves ‘nuclear-capable’ ships to Havana

The Independent

… War. The Admiral Gorshkov is capable of carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, which the Kremlin has touted as being able to carry a nuclear warhead.

Putin says Russia does not need to use nuclear weapons for victory in Ukraine | Reuters

Reuters

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday Russia had no need to use nuclear weapons to secure victory in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s strongest signal to …

White House Issues Nuclear Weapons Update – Newsweek

Newsweek

Vaddi’s comments come against the backdrop of growing tensions between the U.S. and both Russia and China, sparking fears of an all-out war. In May, …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Putin May Change His Own Nuclear War Rules – Newsweek

Newsweek

The Russian official said that as long as Russia’s existence is not threatened, Moscow “will never use nuclear weapons.” “If there is a real threat to …

White House Issues Nuclear Weapons Update – Newsweek

Newsweek

Hosts and guests on Russian state TV have repeatedly threatened nuclear strikes on Western powers including the U.S., France, the U.K. and the …

U.S. Considers Expanded Nuclear Arsenal, a Reversal of Decades of Cuts

The New York Times

China’s expansion and Russia’s threats of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and in space have changed a U.S. drive to reduce nuclear weapons.

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 08, 2024

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This absurd cartoon, as well as the critical article, misses the more direct point of Annie Jacobsen’s new novel “Nuclear War: A Scenario” mistakenly believing that mankind is invincible because we seem to think that nuclear war is based only on the logic(?) of what “human beings plan to do to each other for human reasons”.

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Friday, (06/07/2024)

Of course the “problem is us”, and Amy Jacobsen, the author who is being criticized in the posted article below, obviously and clearly recognizes that. So do I get it, and there is no reason to dwell on it by turning a 400 page book up to 800 to explain the well known intellectual ‘frailty’ of misguided human beings who believe we are far more intelligent than we are. The author, Matthew Petti, has a very good head on his own shoulders, and he knows, like Ms. Jacobsen knows, that the we ‘humans’ foolishly built and build these atomic/nuclear bombs and also build nuclear power plants, which is just as arrogantly stupid. And we believe we are in control of it all when we have no clue.

Is Matthew Petti being overly critical and tough on Ms. Jacobsen for writing such a powerful book that more than gets its point across? Or is it just typical male ego making chest-beating noise. He uses the word ‘fails’ in a few places about how Jacobsen’s book, which is not science fiction by the way, and which helps to explain why she doesn’t concentrate on the misled villains and their actions as much as Petti would like her to. I can say I already was well-aware of the misguided ‘villains’ and who the instigators were and are, and I have no doubt that Ms. Jacobsen does, too.

In support of what Mr. Petti has to say, he clearly draws the same conclusion as Ms. Jacobsen, who says it in a more direct and matter-of-fact way, only implying that we are egotistically playing a game of chess that has never been played before, pretending we know how.

And, as for the turtle cartoon, there is no way to “find shelter”, as Annie Jacobsen so clearly points out, in a nuclear war — nor a seriously “damaged” nuclear power plant. ~llaw

WASHINGTON POLITICS

ANALYSIS | WASHINGTON POLITICS

1. Washington Politics
2. Book Review

MATTHEW PETTI

JUN 07, 2024

The most unsettling book I have ever read is “The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Attacks Against the United States,” by Jeffrey Lewis.

As the title suggests, it’s an alternative history in which the diplomacy between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un goes terribly wrong. While Lewis criticizes Trump and Kim’s style of governing, the story is not about a mad king destroying the world. Instead, it demonstrates how governments concerned with their own interests and survival can misread each other’s signals and accidentally escalate beyond the point of no return.

A new book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen, promises to provide the same kind of realistic, unsettling scenario. Based on dozens of interviews with former officials, Jacobsen plots out minute by minute and second by second how a nuclear exchange would happen.

She illuminates — at least as far as her sources are legally allowed to — the processes that govern American and Russian nuclear command and control. The reader learns what alarms would go off in which control rooms, what orders would have to be spoken to which officials, and which keys would have to be turned in which silos during an apocalypse. It is supposed to worry the readers.

The book falls short of that goal. It treats nuclear war as an incomprehensible horror, rather than something human beings plan to do to each other for human reasons, and focuses on the most unlikely scenarios. For all the action-movie details about nuclear weapons being deployed, Jacobsen fails to explain how or why a nuclear war might start. In other words, she treats nuclear annihilation like an asteroid strike or a bear attack, something that is scary to picture but fundamentally impossible to predict or stop. So why should the reader worry about it in day-to-day life?

“With time, after a nuclear war, all present-day knowledge will be gone. Including the knowledge that the enemy was not North Korea, Russia, America, China, Iran, or anyone else vilified as a nation or a group,” Jacobsen concludes. “It was the nuclear weapons that were the enemy of us all. All along.” Perhaps that’s a call to abolish nuclear weapons. If so, Jacobsen doesn’t provide any reason to believe that might happen.

And by juxtaposing the murderous insanity of nuclear war with the sleek efficiency of the institutions designed to fight one, Jacobsen might have hoped to jar her readers. Instead, the book comes off as a demented combination of anti-war pamphlet and U.S. military recruitment ad. (“The function of NATO is to further democratic values and peacefully resolve disputes,” comes right after a graphic description of everyone in Washington burning to death.) The only real coherent point it makes is how little time world leaders have to deliberate and react to a nuclear launch—which is certainly an important problem.

But again, Jacobsen does not explain why they might be faced with such a problem. “Nuclear War” focuses on a “Bolt out of the Blue” scenario, the U.S. military’s term for a complete surprise attack. Although that kind of attack might be “what everyone in DC fears the most,” according to a former assistant secretary of defense who speaks to Jacobsen, it is the least likely fear to come true. As Jacobsen herself admits, an unprovoked nuclear first strike would be “national suicide” for any country that launches it. What kind of a madman would do that?

Her answer is Kim, the North Korean ruler. “In this scenario, we don’t know why the North Korean leader chose to launch a Bolt out of the Blue attack against America, but paranoia almost most certainly played a role,” Jacobsen asserts. She throws out a theory about Kim feeling slighted by satellite photos of North Korea at night. To show how Kim fits the bill of a “nihilistic madman,” the book cites examples of how oppressive the North Korean system is. Oppressive, however, doesn’t mean suicidal. If Kim lives lavishly while his citizens starve, shouldn’t he want to keep that arrangement going?

Jacobsen misrepresents the purpose of the North Korean nuclear program by glossing over its history. The Clinton administration, she writes, tried to convince North Korea “to abandon the [nuclear] program in exchange for economic benefits. The result was nil.” In reality, North Korea did agree to the deal, which broke down a decade later. Believing that North Korea was about to collapse, the Clinton administration implemented it only halfheartedly. North Korea, of course, shirked its own obligations in return, provoking the Bush administration to tear up the deal completely.

The supervillain theory of geopolitics, in which America’s enemies are plotting to destroy the world for fun, doesn’t make sense. China, Russia, and North Korea all oppose the U.S.-led world order due to their specific national interests. For all of those countries, nuclear weapons are the ultimate life insurance policy. The real danger posed by North Korea lies in the Kim dynasty’s rational fears; they know that they are quite vulnerable to both internal and external enemies, so their threat calculus likely leaves little room for error.

The “2020 Commission Report,” on the other hand, lays out the kind of crisis that might push things over the edge. After a North Korean radar crew mistakes a malfunctioning South Korean airliner for a hostile bomber, fighting breaks out on the peninsula. The Trump administration believes that, through threatening bluster, it can force North Korea to stand down and restore calm. Instead, the threats convince Kim that a regime change war has already begun, and that he must show strength to force the United States to back off. That scenario — a series of “normal” mistakes adding up to an extreme outcome — makes more sense to worry about than an unlikely bolt out of the blue.

Strangely enough, Jacobsen also describes American policy as irrationally genocidal. She quotes John Rubel, a former U.S. defense official who sat through the secret unveiling of the Single Integrated Operational Plan, the 1960 plan for a “general nuclear war.” Years later, a guilt-stricken Rubel compared himself and the generals in the planning room to the Nazis who plotted the Holocaust, according to Jacobsen. After all, the Single Integrated Operational Plan called for the murder of hundreds of millions of civilians, many of them random bystanders in third countries, not counting the Americans who would be obliterated in retaliation.

Daniel Ellsberg, another defense planner from the 1960s, had a similar reaction when he read the death estimates. “This piece of paper should not exist,” he remembered thinking in “The Doomsday Machine,” his 2017 memoir. “It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project ever. There should be nothing on earth, nothing real, that it referred to.” Ellsberg, who died in 2023 and whose parents were Jewish, called it a scheme for “a hundred Holocausts.”

“The Doomsday Machine,” however, goes beyond his immediate reaction to explain why such evil does exist in the world. In the 1930s and 1940s, military planners around the world had come to accept that “strategic bombing,” the destruction of enemy cities from a distance, would be the best way to end wars quickly. When the atomic bomb was created, the U.S. military simply thought of it as a more efficient version of the firebombs it was already dropping on German and Japanese cities. For a couple decades after World War II, planners continued to believe in the possibility of a “damage-limiting” nuclear strike, of wiping out the enemy’s weapons in order to save cities at home.

After many close brushes with nuclear war, world leaders slowly developed the understanding that nuclear weapons were a completely different kind of weapon. And these close brushes, for the most part, were not random or irrational events. Incidents like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis were the result of politics, when one superpower pressed its advantage too hard and set off its rival’s survival instinct. Even a 1983 false alarm in Moscow that Jacobsen mentions, the closest thing to a real-life bolt out of the blue scenario, came amid rising U.S.-Soviet military tensions in Europe.

The knowledge that mass murder can be a product of normal human motivations is depressing. Yet it’s also a relief. Nuclear war is not an inhuman force like an asteroid or a bear. It is a political problem with political solutions. There are many steps that world powers can take — even short of abolishing nuclear weapons — to reduce the risks, by communicating and respecting each other’s existential fears. Ellsberg, for example, called on the United States and Russia to at least deactivate the weapons designed for a first strike and take forces off of hair-trigger alert.

The enemy is not, as Jacobsen writes, any specific vilified nation. But it is not the nuclear weapons, inanimate objects sitting in silos, either. The problem is us. Nuclear weapons, like every other nasty implement of war, are a means to a human end.

Matthew Petti

Matthew Petti is an assistant editor at Reason Magazine. He worked for various Jordanian news outlets as a 2022-2023 Fulbright fellow. Previously, he worked as a reporter at Responsible Statecraft and a national security reporter at The National Interest. His work has appeared in the BBC, The Intercept, The Daily Beast, and New Lines magazine.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

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There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

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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 (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Friday, (06/07/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

The Triad Is Not the Trinity – ScheerPost

ScheerPost

… nuclear war is all but unavoidable. And ominous things are happening right know that may soon lead to nuclear escalation of Ukraine proxy fight …

Cartoonish claims about nuclear war scenario are unhelpful – Responsible Statecraft

Responsible Statecraft

A new book falls short by treating nuclear war as an incomprehensible horror, rather than something human beings might do for human reasons.

‘Washington Post’ CEO tried to kill a story about himself. It wasn’t the first time – Hawaii Public Radio

Hawaii Public Radio

All Things Considered. Next Up: 1:00 PM The World. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … Funding for those sickened by U.S. nuclear testing is set to run out on …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

China And Russia Now Dominate The Global Nuclear Trade – Forbes

Forbes

… Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) to build a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan. It will be the first nuclear power plant in Central Asia …

Guinea signs floating nuclear power plants MoU with Russia

World Nuclear News

The floating power units developed by Rosatom are based on the RITM-200 reactors which have been used for the latest generation of nuclear–powered …

Army looks to bring nuclear energy to its installations – Federal News Network

Federal News Network

The service is heavily dependent on off-site electricity providers to obtain energy and conduct its missions. If successful, these micro-reactor power …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Federal Test Of State’s Nuclear Emergency Response Set For Next Week – West Virginia …

West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will conduct a Preparedness Exercise at the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pennsylvania …

Emergency preparedness exercise to be held at Beaver nuclear facility – WPXI

WPXI

FEMA created the Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program to ensure the health and safety of those living around commercial nuclear power plants …

FEMA scheduled to test nuclear incident preparedness at Beaver Valley Power Station

WDTV

The Federal Emergency …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Putin warns Russian missiles could be used against the West | Ukraine War – YouTube

YouTube

Vladmir Putin has told reporters he could provide Russian weaponry to countries that want to attack the West. He was speaking after the US and the …

Russia-Ukraine conflict: Putin sends nuclear warning to the West | World DNA Live

YouTube

Russia-Ukraine conflict: Putin sends nuclear … Russia-Ukraine conflict: Putin sends nuclear warning to the West | World DNA Live … Russia-Ukraine war: …

Ukraine-Russia war live: France to supply Mirage 2000 fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots

The Independent

Mr Macron did not specify how many single-engine jet fighters would be provided, by when or under what financial terms. He said France had proposed to …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Guterres warns humanity on ‘knife’s edge’ as AI raises nuclear war threat – The Guardian

The Guardian

Guterres warns humanity on ‘knife’s edge’ as AI raises nuclear war threat … Moscow has taken to making frequent threats of nuclear use, and Russia’s …

Putin Ally Threatens to Use ‘Entire Arsenal’ of Nuclear Weapons If Needed – Newsweek

Newsweek

… nuclear war is not imminent, it is a possibility. … The Russian official said that as long as Russia’s existence is not threatened, Moscow “will never …

Russia’s latest threat is troubling – Putin’s words feel like a step up in rhetoric – Sky News

Sky News

The war in Ukraine was like one giant elephant in the room that delegates seemed happy to ignore. That, and the threats themselves, may well be …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 06, 2024

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The remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant still in the process of being cleaned up since the deathly meltdown in Norther Ukraine in the spring of 1986.

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Thursday, (06/06/2024)

I’m wondering if Russia hasn’t been subtly using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) as an ominous potential nuclear weapon all along. I have mentioned as much many times in these “All Things Nuclear” Posts, and if Russia continues on with this ‘threat’ (that’s what it is) they will ‘accidentally’, but intentionally, create a meltdown that will be multiple times worse than the last one they had (Chernobyl in April of 1986), and that one was more than bad enough. One could say no one lives there anymore.

This one, in a war zone, could be a serious threat to a significant part of Ukraine and Europe. From my views of following the long story for well over a year now, it appears to me that Russia (who operates the plant) is gradually working toward the day when they can blame Ukraine for causing the travesty that could kill thousands if not millions of people depending on the wind currents. Both nations have accused each other of repeatedly firing conventional weapons in attempts to substantially damage the plant, and the same thing applies to recent sabotage to the incoming electricity power grid and lines that allows the 6 reactors to function without failing, thereby creating a meltdown. Transmission lines repairs and use of diesel power generators have so far kept the plant (when operating) from melting down, creating hell on earth for that part of the world. ~llaw

Despite the risks, Russia continues to use Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a source of leverage

By Darya Dolzikova | June 6, 2024

To minimize Russia’s leverage from holding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant at risk, Ukraine’s partners must press Moscow to keep all reactors shut down and help Kyiv to prepare for a possible nuclear safety incident at the plant. (Credit: Image by Florent via Adobe Stock)

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia may be planning to restart at least one of the six reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which Russia has occupied since March 2022. The reporting raised concerns about the safety of the plant, were such a decision to be taken. Then on May 28, Aleksey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear enterprise, Rosatom, stated that the restarting of the ZNPP would be conditional on guarantees of the facility’s safety, adding that “time will tell” how the requisite safety conditions will be met and that they could be achieved through the retreat of the front line “as far as possible” from the ZNPP.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has since confirmed that an understanding has been reached that the ZNPP’s six reactors “should remain in cold shutdown for the time being.”

But as long as the ZNPP remains under Russian occupation, Moscow will be able to continue using the plant as a source of blackmail to pre-empt any future Ukrainian effort to regain control. To counter Russia’s nuclear blackmailing, Western countries must intensify their military, nuclear safety, and emergency response support to Ukraine, as well as counter Russian disinformation in relation to the state of ZNPP operations and attacks on the facility. Such measures can help minimize the coercive value Moscow may believe it can draw from further threatening the plant’s safety.

Safety risks. Russia has demonstrated a clear disregard for nuclear safety since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, Likhachev’s comments about the need to guarantee ZNPP safety before restarting the plant must be taken with a grain of salt, and certainly not as any kind of assurance that reactors will not be restarted while the plant remains in a war zone. Moreover, so long as Russia maintains control over the ZNPP, Russian operators and regulators will want to dictate when they deem the facility safe for operation, even though the plant’s safety remains in a highly precarious state.

While the ZNPP is not currently in the vicinity of the heaviest fighting, it is still near the front line, with IAEA staff posted at the facility regularly reporting sounds of explosions. Recent drone attacks on the facility do not appear to have caused significant damage but they serve as a reminder of the persistent risk that a military strike—intentional or not—could trigger a safety emergency.

With the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in June 2023 and subsequent draining of the Kakhovka reservoir, the plant lost its main water supply for removing radioactive decay heat from the reactors and spent fuel storage pools and for cooling the emergency diesel generators that kick in when the plant loses external power. The plant regularly loses connection to external power because of attacks on Ukraine’s electric grid and damage to the power lines connecting the plant to the grid. In addition, the IAEA has reported on the presence of anti-personnel mines both around the perimeter of the plant and on the grounds of the facility. There is also a shortage of qualified staff operating at the facility, as many Ukrainian staff have departed due to the conflict or were forced to leave if they refused to take Russian citizenship and sign contracts with Rosatom.

Since September 2022, all six of the plant’s 950-megawatt-electric reactors have been in a shutdown state—alternating between cold and hot shutdown—which has been a key factor in reducing the likelihood of a major radiological disaster at the ZNPP. A unit in a shutdown state is subcritical, meaning that the nuclear fission in the reactor is not self-sustaining and therefore the reactor doesn’t produce power. The core of a reactor in shutdown is at a lower temperature, and the unit requires less cooling water and external power than a fully operating unit. In the case of cold shutdown, the core is at a lower temperature than in hot shutdown and the containment vessel is kept at atmospheric pressure. This allows for more time and options to deal with possible power and coolant loss. Should water or power supply to shutdown reactors be cut off or damaged, experienced operators would likely have several days to prevent escalation to a serious nuclear safety incident (depending on the nature of the damage). This safety margin could shrink to mere hours for an operating reactor.

---

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in tonight’s Post.)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Thursday, (06/06/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

The rising threat of nuclear war (Rebroadcast) – KASU

KASU

Visitors look at a model of a Soviet AN-602 thermonuclear aerial bomb. The reality of a nuclear war probably seems unimaginable to the average …

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin warns Russia could provide long-range weapons to attack West

Sky News

Vladimir Putin has warned he could supply weapons to other nations to strike Western countries in a meeting with international journalists.

‘It’s just laughable’: PM reduced to ‘blatant silly scare campaign’ about nuclear energy

YouTube

Sky News host Chris Kenny has reacted to a tweet on the Prime Minister’s X account, formerly known as Twitter. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

National poll shows shift in Australian nuclear opinion

World Nuclear News

… nuclear power to generate electricity, alongside other sources of energy? … nuclear power plants as part of its plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

What’s the deal with nuclear energy? – ABC listen – ABC

Full Coverage

US Public Opinion On Social Media Is Warming To Nuclear Energy, But Concerns Remain

Eurasia Review

The U.S. public displays more positive than negative sentiment toward nuclear energy but concerns remain about waste, cost and safety, …

US public opinion on social media is warming to nuclear energy, but concerns remain

University of Michigan News

300,000 X posts show 48 of 50 states have a more positive than negative tone about nuclear energy, with a national average at 54% positive.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

FEMA to test West Virginia, Pennsylvania response to potential nuke power plant incident

WV News

… nuke power plant … How would officials in Pennsylvania and West Virginia responde in the event of an emergency at the facility? … nuclear power plant …

Despite the risks, Russia continues to use Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a source …

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

To counter Russia’s nuclear blackmailing, Western countries must intensify their military, nuclear safety, and emergency response support to Ukraine, …

Ukraine’s energy chief to EU envoys: Russia seeks full blackout in Ukraine – Ukrinform

Ukrinform

Read also: Emergency power shutdowns in place across 12 regions of Ukraine … “Therefore, an important task is to protect nuclear energy, avoid …

Nuclear War

NEW

Putin threatens to arm West’s enemies as he talks up Moscow’s nuclear weapons | The Independent

The Independent

Vladimir Putin has threatened to retaliate against Western countries that are allowing Ukraine to hit Russia with their long-range missiles.

Putin says Russia could use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or territory was under threat

Reuters

President Vladimir Putin, asked about the risks of nuclear war over Ukraine, cautioned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use all available …

The rising threat of nuclear war (Rebroadcast) – 1A

1A

Visitors look at a model of a Soviet AN-602 thermonuclear aerial bomb. TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP via Getty Images. The reality of a nuclear war probably …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Putin Issues New Ominous Nuclear Threat – Newsweek

Newsweek

The Russian president said that his threats of nuclear war should “not be taken lightly” by the West.

Putin says Russia could use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or territory was under threat

Reuters

President Vladimir Putin, asked about the risks of nuclear war over … threats. “For some reason, the West believes that Russia will never use it …

A Slippery Slope to World War III? – FPIF – Foreign Policy in Focus

Foreign Policy in Focus

Nuclear war remains a global threat, particularly around flashpoints like the Taiwan Strait, between India and Pakistan, and around Israel.

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Hiking to Tiemman Shut-ins makes for a great Ozarks outing – Three Rivers Publishing

Three Rivers Publishing

The igneous rocks of the Saint Francois Mountains are interpreted to be a series of caldera complexes, similar in scale to the Yellowstone caldera …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 06, 2024

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Bill Gates’ TerraPower plans to build the first US next-generation nuclear plant

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Wednesday, (06/05/2024)

I’ve posted today’s You Tube video about the trouble with the entire nuclear industry (a good part of it clearly told in 12-1/2 minutes) that speaks beyond the ridiculous idea of building new nuclear power plants of all shapes, sizes, and power, including SMRs, and why the entire concept of nuclear power is absurd as I’ve been preaching to the choir every evening for 652 consecutive days in, of course, far more detail.

But this video summarizes it all perfectly well in a style that everyone can understand and the interview confirms many of my constant complaints for most all the reasons I’m trying to tell the human race that, hey, “World, we have a problem.”

The only difference of opinion I have with the interview is that the guest believes it’s okay to allow some well-managed currently operational nuclear power plants to continue to operate, which is extremely dangerous to humanity and other life. Everything else Mr. Schlissel says duplicates my own concerns, including recognizing that if current nuclear power plants continue to operate, there is the growing issue of continuing uncontrolled amounts of dangerous nuclear waste. Of course I have many other issues that are not dealt with in the interview.

This is what Mr. Schlissel says about existing nuclear power plants continuing to operate: “I think that where existing plants are managed well, that they can continue operating and provide a minor role in the transition,” Schlissel, director of resource planning analysis at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and co-author of a paper on the problems with SMRs told us in this interview with The Register’s Brandon Vigliarolo

The projected SMR plant (Natrium) they refer to near the end of the video will not be in Idaho, but rather in Wyoming, owned by startup company TerraPower. The major shareholder is Microsoft’s originator, Bill Gates. The story, told near the end of the interview, about TerraPower’s two year delay in bringing the plant online because Russian fuel is not available to them is true, and I have mentioned that issue several times over the year-and-a-half-plus that I have been providing these nightly posts. We will forever, if we continue down this path, be blaming our lack of uranium nuclear fuel on Russia when all nuclear power plants sit aimlessly idle because there is no fuel for our reactors, which could start a nuclear war all by itself. ~llaw

Click on the link just below to listen to this short but meaningful YouTube video:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/60UBiW4zuQA?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in tonight’s Post.)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Wednesday, (06/05/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

It’s not just SMRs – we need to abandon new nuclear projects entirely – YouTube

YouTube

10 years since the first corporate ransomware and things are only getting worse. The Register•357 views · 39:41. Go to channel · ‘Financial Crisis …

UN nuclear agency’s board votes to censure Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the watchdog

KSAT

The IAEA has said inspectors believe Iran used the Varamin site from 1999 until 2003 as a pilot project to process uranium ore and convert it into a …

Droning Russia’s nuke radars is the dumbest thing Ukraine can do | Responsible Statecraft

Responsible Statecraft

Attacks on the early warning system actually highlights the fragility of peace between the world’s nuclear powers.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

US may revive some shut nuclear plants to help meet emissions goal, energy chief says

WHBL

… nuclear power plants to help meet rising demand for zero-emissions electricity, or add reactors to existing sites, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granh…

US May Revive Some Shut Nuclear Plants to Help Meet Emissions Goal, Energy Chief Says

USNews.com

The administration of President Joe Biden believes nuclear power is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction goals and decarbonizing the economy …

Community discusses potential Palisades Nuclear Plant reopening – WNDU

WNDU

The community …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Strengthening Global Cooperation on Nuclear Emergency Preparedness | IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

Experts in nuclear emergencies are meeting in … Nuclear technology and applications · Energy … Emergency Conventions and in nuclear and radiological …

TheDay.com

… Nuclear Power Station in the town’s Emergency Operation Center Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (Dana Jensen/The Day) Buy Photo Reprints. 6. June 04, 2024 8 …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Nuclear war risk ‘goes up a little bit every year,’ Newt Gingrich tells Times’ forum

Washington Times

Some analysts fear that the other side of the Russia-Ukraine war could also be a danger. While Kyiv gave up its own nuclear stockpile in the 1990s, …

Russia-Ukraine war: Biden tests Putin’s nuclear threats in Ukraine – Vox

Vox

Allowing Ukraine to fire Western weapons into Russia strengthens an ally, but risks violating an unknown red line.

In Brief: How Close Is Iran to Building A Bomb? – War on the Rocks

War on the Rocks

… nuclear weapons? Read more below. Eric Brewer Deputy Vice President, Nuclear Materials Security Program Nuclear Threat Initiative The latest reports.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia-Ukraine war: Biden tests Putin’s nuclear threats in Ukraine – Vox

Vox

The US tests Putin’s nuclear threats in Ukraine. Allowing Ukraine to fire Western weapons into Russia strengthens an ally, but risks violating an …

Ukrainian military observer on NATO’s war with Russia and nuclear threats – Radio NV video – Yahoo

Yahoo

NATO’s preparations for a possible war with Russia and Moscow’s latest nuclear threats were discussed with military observer Denys Popovych in an …

Russian Official Floats New NATO Target for Nuclear Strike – Newsweek

Newsweek

… threats from France, Britain and the U.S.. The Russian Ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, has warned against underestimating the threat of …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

America’s most dangerous volcanoes

MSN

Yellowstone Caldera, WY. The volcanic eruptions that formed … The Yellowstone Volcano is sometimes called a supervolcano. You may also like …

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“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 05, 2024

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Illustration by Brian Stauffer.

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Tuesday, (06/04/2024)

This absolutely frightening article dovetails off of my “All Things Nuclear” Post from yesterday where I asked you, the reader, two simple questions concerning the possibility of another Trump presidency: . . . “who on planet Earth would want to allow this man access to the nuclear button?” and “who on Earth would want to go through Trump’s never-ending obsessive pathological lying again?”

Here is the ‘ultimate’ reason explained by “The Nation” writer William D. Hartung: If this well-documented article from “The Nation” concerning the right wing Republicans, who should not be referred to as Conservatives ever again, radical “Project 25” doesn’t provide you with an instant answer to my yesterday’s questions, while at the same time scaring the hell out of you, nothing will. ~llaw

Conservatives Are Gearing Up for a Major Military Expansion Under Trump 2.0

If Project 2025 gets its way, a second Trump term will funnel more money to the Pentagon, dwarfing even the Biden administration’s spending.

WILLIAM D. HARTUNG

Current Issue: June 2024 Issue

This article is part of “Project 2025: The Plot Against America,” a Nation special issue devoted to unpacking the right’s vast and chilling program for a second Trump term.

This article appears in the June 2024 issue, with the headline “Masters of War.”

When I dipped into the 195-page section on “The Common Defense” in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, my first question was how even the most hawkish of hawks could be disappointed with a Pentagon budget that is now soaring toward $1 trillion a year—hundreds of billions of dollars more than at the height of the Vietnam War or the peak year of the Cold War. I was particularly intrigued because the author of its chapter on the Pentagon is Christopher Miller, who, after a brief stint as acting secretary of defense under Donald Trump, wrote a memoir in which he asserted that our military is “bloated and wasteful” and argued that we could “cut our defense budget in half and it would still be nearly twice as big as China’s.”

Unfortunately, Miller the budget cutter is nowhere to be found here. Instead, Miller calls for expanding the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force and increasing the funding for nuclear weapons, missile defense, and offensive weapons in space. Perhaps that’s because, according to a number of veteran Pentagon watchers, he is the current favorite to serve as secretary of defense in the unfortunate event of a second Trump administration.

Miller conveniently fails to mention how much all of his proposals will cost. At a minimum, they would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon’s spending plan for the next five years—and they would do so at the expense of everything else we need to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people of America and the world, from promoting public health to addressing climate change to rebuilding basic infrastructure to reducing poverty and hunger.

The central component of Miller’s ultra-muscular approach to “defense” is to double down on efforts to create a military that can beat China in a potential conflict. “By far the most significant danger to Americans’ security, freedoms, and prosperity is China,” he warns, adding, with some redundancy, that “U.S. defense strategy must identify China unequivocally as the top priority for U.S. defense planning.” Far from ensuring this country’s safety, however, a military-first approach to China increases the prospects for a war between nuclear-armed powers that we should be doing everything in our power to prevent. (For more on Project 2025’s plans for the US-China relationship, see Jake Werner’s “A New Exclusion Act” in this issue.)

To its credit, Mandate for Leadership makes a frank admission of the severe split within the Republican Party over the conflict in Ukraine. It notes that one conservative faction argues for “continued U.S. involvement including military aid, economic aid, and the presence of NATO and U.S. troops if necessary” (emphasis added), while the other side wants a negotiated end to the conflict and “denies that U.S. Ukrainian support is in the national security interest of America at all.”

Meanwhile, Miller’s proposals for changes in nuclear policy, missile defense, and the militarization of space are both straightforward and extremely aggressive: building more nuclear-armed bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles than are currently planned, ensuring the viability of warheads on existing missiles, and developing new types of nuclear weapons. Keep in mind that these increases would come on top of the Pentagon’s current $2 trillion plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. It’s a recipe for an accelerated three-way arms race with Russia and China that will make a nuclear confrontation more likely.

Given Miller’s unalloyed militarism here, it’s not surprising that he calls for sharp increases in spending on missile defense and space war—items that have been near-sacred commitments of the Republican national security elite ever since Ronald Reagan’s 1983 “Star Wars” speech. The Project 2025 Mandate proposes the closest thing to a comprehensive missile defense program since that failed effort of the 1980s. Perhaps most important, Miller denies the very real likelihood that building up “defensive” systems will only provoke rival nuclear powers to increase their deployments of offensive weapons in return.

The flip side of such wholesale militarism is Miller’s call to jettison diplomacy. Among the chapter’s major proposals are plans to “streamline” the State Department by means of a deep restructuring; to issue a freeze on international agreements that are not enshrined in formal treaties; and to withdraw from international organizations like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and the World Health Organization.

While much of Miller’s chapter is a familiar right-wing wish list for US military dominance—albeit a Trumped-up version—there is one element that is decidedly new: the obsession with rooting out “Left” ideas like diversity, equity, and “gender radicalism.” Miller takes aim at these on the very first page, claiming that “the Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll” on the military—and he goes on to blame the current low recruitment numbers on Biden-era interventions. Never mind that potential recruits may be having second thoughts after looking at the disastrous wars of this century—wars that have resulted in the deaths or severe physical and psychological wounding of hundreds of thousands of US troops, to say nothing of the massive death toll, devastation, and destabilization of the targeted countries. For Miller, the blame lies with DEI and public health.

The degree of focus on these issues is so far over the top that it’s hard to know whether it’s cynical, delusional—or both. For example, one of Miller’s major recommendations is to “eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff.”

Elsewhere, Project 2025 proposes a litmus test for military leaders: The National Security Council “should rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s finest men and women from enlisting.”

Or, put another way, even modest efforts to root out racism, sexism, and anti-government extremism in the ranks of the US military are too much for the Project 2025 crowd to bear.

Along with its hyper-militarism, this call for a neo-McCarthyite cleansing of the military and the diplomatic corps is different in kind from what has come before. Advocates of a more peaceful world must vigorously oppose this approach to “the common defense.” But blocking these proposals is not enough. We also need to press for an alternative to current US policies, which prioritize force and the threat of force over nonmilitary tools of interaction like diplomacy, dialogue, economic cooperation, and cultural exchange.

Existing US strategy is premised on maintaining a posture of global military dominance, despite the overwhelming evidence that this approach has done far more harm than good in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. This is painfully evident in the Biden administration’s shameful policy of enabling Israel’s criminal attacks on Gaza.

We need to articulate a new vision for US foreign policy that not only refutes the validity of the hawkish policies proposed by Project 2025 but also advocates for a sharp departure from our current force-based approach to solving global problems. A short-term agenda should include pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza, pulling back from the brink of a potential war with Iran, halting the new nuclear arms race, reducing Pentagon spending, and taking a more constructive approach to relations with China. The fact that Project 2025’s recommendations would make things even worse than our current course is no reason to accept the status quo. It’s just another indication of how desperately we need to reverse course.

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: 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 (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Monday, (06/04/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Worries grow about Iran-Israel hostilities spiraling into a wider regional conflict

Little Rock Public Radio

All Things Considered. Next Up: 5:00 PM On the … nuclear facilities sent a sharp warning to … Professor Daniel Byman, senior fellow at the Center for …

Conservatives Are Gearing Up for a Major Military Expansion Under Trump 2.0 | The Nation

The Nation

… nuclear-armed powers that we should be doing everything in our power to prevent. (For more on Project 2025’s plans for the US-China relationship …

US Energy official uses Georgia visit to call for more nuclear power – WUGA

WUGA

Search Query. Donate. WUGA. All Things Considered. WUGA. All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:30 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things Considered. WUGA.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

CNNC extends cooperation with ENEC, EDF : Corporate – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

China National Nuclear Corporation has signed a memorandum of understanding with Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation on strategic cooperation in …

Public and private commitment needed for US advanced nuclear deployment

World Nuclear News

Factors including project cost uncertainties and the long and expensive development process for nuclear energy projects have meant that financial …

White House hosts summit on domestic nuclear energy deployment

Nuclear Engineering International

These include “signing on to last year’s multi-country declaration at COP28 to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050; developing new reactor …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

An Overview of Appropriate Medical Practice and Preparedness in Radiation Emergency Response

Cureus

… nuclear detonations, dirty bombs, and nuclear power plant accidents. In addition to the immediate risks of acute radiation syndrome (ARS) and …

UN Nuclear Watchdog’s Board Sets Emergency Meeting on Zaporizhzhia Attacks

aawsat.com

… nuclear power plant, on Sunday, hitting one reactor building, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said, adding that nuclear safety was

Nuclear War

NEW

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow warns US of ‘fatal consequences’ – Sky News

Sky News

It will be unsafe to restart the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine as long as war rages around it, the UN nuclear watchdog …

A Just-Released Watchdog Report Makes the Case for Eliminating Land-Based Nuclear Missiles

The Nation

… nuclear war. Being the good taxpayer protection group that it is, TCS … nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation. Bold action is required if …

Poland will be wiped off the map in 10 MINUTES with two nukes eviscerating each city, Putin …

The US Sun

… nuclear war. “Are there 20 big cities there? I don’t think so. If we allocate two nuclear missiles to each city, that’s only 30-40 missiles.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Are Putin’s Nuclear Threats Working? – Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

Are Putin’s Nuclear Threats Working? A new book examines the past and present of Russian thinking on deterrence.

Why Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats are a flop – AFR

AFR

Why Putin’s nuclear weapons threats are a flop. The Western alliance is intensifying support for Ukraine in a way that was unthinkable at the …

History Supports Senator’s Plan to Revive the Nuclear Arsenal | RealClearDefense

RealClearDefense

But the lessons of America’s first cold war with the Soviet Union support his conviction that a sea change in the threat environment requires a …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Swimming Pools at Yellowstone? (Yellowstone Monthly Update – June 2024) – YouTube

YouTube

… Caldera Chronicles — https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/caldera-chronicles?utm_source=yvo-swimming&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nh …

Kilauea eruption prompts red alert on Hawaii’s Big Island – MSN

MSN

… caldera and north of the Koa’e fault system and Hilina Pali Road, within … What If the Yellowstone Volcano Erupted Tomorrow? 05:02. What If the …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 03, 2024

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a press conference following the verdict in his hush-money trial at Trump Tower on May 31, 2024 in New York City. /Getty Images

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Monday, (06/03/2024)

Tonight I must digress from my usual direct voice and others’ voices relative to “All Things Nuclear” except to say that this man must never, ever, set foot in the Whitehouse again, elected or not. I have to wonder who on planet Earth would want to allow this man access to the nuclear button?

The article below by Ron Elving of NPR reporting on this man’s “News Conference” after being pronounced guilty in his infamous trial the day before, tells us in no uncertain terms (his own words) that this man is criminally insane, believing everyone on Earth who crosses his ego by speaking out against him is plainly seen by what he calls the presiding Judge in his trial: “He looks like an angel but he’s really a devil,” this man said of Judge Merchan. “He looks so nice and soft.” after, insanely, literally lying about what he and his legal defense were not allowed to do, as well as his verbal denigration and obvious hatred of Judge Merchan. Nearly every sentence (or phrase) that he spat out was, as his statements have always been, even long before he was President 45, were untrue. This man told over 30 thousand provable lies during the four years of his presidency, and that doesn’t count the ones when the media is out of hearing distance. Who on Earth would want to go through that again?

Given the world-wide anger and disparity among nations and an environment of potential nuclear war that we live with today, this man is in every possible way mentally unfit to be trusted or associated with any part of America’s future. ~llaw

Vintage Trump remarks after convictions renew dilemma for news media and voters alike

By Ron Elving

Published June 2, 2024 at 4:00 AM MDT

Former President Donald Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan Friday morning looking somehow ill at ease in his own building.

He wore his signature suit, shirt and tie and stood alone at a lectern with five American flags and a cold stone wall behind him. Gone was the usual human backdrop of flag-waving supporters seen at MAGA rallies. He stood alone, without script or teleprompter, armed only with two sheets of paper and a look of barely controlled rage.

It was billed as a press conference to respond to the jury verdict that had convicted him on 34 charges the day before. But it was more a speech than a press conference. A contingent of reporters with cameras stood a few yards away, but Trump spoke without interruption and took no questions.

Not far off, a small crowd of supporters including some family members applauded and cheered at intervals. Trump never quite settled on which group he was addressing, connecting only sporadically with the live TV broadcast camera. Some of the TV news channels eventually cut away while he rambled on for a total of 33 minutes.

It was the same location Trump spoke from nine years ago this month when he descended “the golden escalator” to the same lobby and announced his first campaign for the Republican nomination for president. The scene that day featured Melania and Ivanka Trump, both all in white, and a forest of cameras held aloft beneath Trump’s elevated stage. Everything about those theatrics described a different time in a different world.

Trump would recall that occasion on Friday when he almost immediately started attacking immigrants, as he had in 2015.

But first, he had to deal with the moment — and the reason he was here.

“This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump said, referring to the prosecutors and Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. “These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”

It was an echo of Trump’s frequent claim to his rally crowds that they and not him are the targets of all his legal woes and political adversaries.

But Trump reserved most of his vitriol for Judge Juan Merchan, who would not move the trial out of New York and denied most of the motions filed by Trump’s attorneys.

“We just went through one of many experiences where we had a conflicted judge, highly conflicted. There’s never been a more conflicted judge,” Trump said.

Trump has long tried to make an issue of Merchan’s total of $35 in contributions to Democrats in 2020 and the Democratic ties of the judge’s daughter. At Merchan’s request, both issues had been reviewed by the New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics and his refusal to recuse was upheld on appeal.

But Trump was back at it on Friday, and the accusations of bias were just getting started.

“As far as the trial itself, it was very unfair,” said Trump. “We weren’t allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances.”

Merchan actually did allow that expert to testify with the stipulation that the prosecution could also bring in its own expert. At that point, Trump’s team decided not to call the witness.

“You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side, they were literally crucified by this man,” Trump said, again referring to the judge.

“He looks like an angel but he’s really a devil,” Trump said of Merchan. “He looks so nice and soft.”

Hearing Roy Cohn in Trump’s words

Trump’s weeks of vituperating Merchan recall the maxim he had received half a century ago from a lawyer named Roy Cohn, who was known for saying: “Don’t tell me what the law says, tell me who the judge is.”

Cohn had a career matched by few in the legal profession. The son of a judge, he graduated from both Columbia and Columbia Law School at the age of 20 and went to work for the Justice Department. He helped to convict Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of helping the Soviets steal nuclear secrets. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover then recommended Cohn to Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who hired him to help with his hunt for communists in the government.

Cohn went on to spend 30 years representing many of the biggest names in New York, including athletes, entertainers, a cardinal and organized crime bosses. In the 1970s he represented Trump’s family real estate business when it faced federal charges for racial discrimination.

Trump himself continued to rely on Cohn for years thereafter. Even after reaching the White House in 2017, he complained that none of his many lawyers fought for him like “my Roy Cohn.”

Trump’s well-worn playbook of false statements

Trump did not let his most recent court reversal take up all his on-camera time on Friday. With live TV coverage rolling, at least for a while, he veered off his latest court reversal to attack the man he wants to replace in the White House in November.

Calling Election Day Nov. 5 “the most important day in American history,” Trump blamed Biden for all his legal travails. He said the trial in New York had been orchestrated “in Washington” to protect the incumbent administration, which he called “a fascist state.”

Trump has made these accusations before, offering no form of evidence, as he again did not on Friday. But he used the allegation of Biden involvement to pivot to attacking Biden on immigration.

It was a kind of reprise of what might be called Trump’s greatest hit. In his speech in this same venue in 2015, he had stunned the political world with his language about immigrants at the U.S. border with Mexico: “They’re not sending their best … they’re bringing drugs, they’re rapists.”

Trump on Friday broadened his assault to include a number of other specific countries and nationalities sending “millions” who were “pouring in” unchallenged across “open borders.” He mentioned Congo in Africa and China in particular.

He said the prisons of Venezuela had been “emptied out” and that countries were sending people from their mental institutions.

He offered no evidence or sources for any of these statements.

And while some of his assertions took the form of casual, unproven superlatives such as “record numbers of terrorists” entering the country, some were downright false statements starkly at odds with the facts.

Early in his Friday remarks, when he criticized the Manhattan district attorney, he had said crime was “rampant” in the city and painted it in apocalyptic terms. Crime statistics in New York City are actually much lower today than in the 1990s, a decade in which Trump ally Rudy Giuliani was elected to his two terms as mayor. Shootings and homicides are down in particular in the past two years.

But this species of misstatement or disinformation has been part of the Trump arsenal for some time. He often raises rhetorical questions and makes sweeping statements that seem to have sprung from an alternative reality.

His talent for selling his own version of reality posed a challenge to the news media as far back as his years as the star of a TV “reality show” called The Apprentice. Trump was in the middle of his 14 seasons with the show when he began publicly questioning whether President Barack Obama had been born in the U.S.

It was just this kind of falsehood — picked up and promoted by countless commenters on cable TV, websites and social media — that made Trump a political force before he was an actual candidate. And when, in the fall campaign of 2016, he informed the world that he had himself laid to rest the “birther” issue (which he blamed on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign), it forced many in the mainstream media to reexamine their longstanding aversion to the word “lie.”

By the end of Trump’s term in office, the news media had come to routinely label many of his claims as false — especially his denial of his defeat in the 2020 election. Some had also taken to labeling as lies the Trump statements they believed he had to know were false.

But Friday at Trump Tower was another reminder that as the November election gets closer and the political season comes to predominate, Trump can be expected to test and exceed the boundaries of fact and fiction one again.

Are we better prepared to deal with it this time?

Copyright 2024 NPR

NPR News

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in tonight’s Post.)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Monday, (06/03/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Vintage Trump remarks after convictions renew dilemma for news media and voters alike

Boise State Public Radio

Everything about those theatrics described a different time in a different world. Trump would recall that occasion on Friday when he almost …

Vintage Trump remarks after convictions renew dilemma for news media and voters alike

Nevada Public Radio

All Things · Culture · Food and Drink · The Guide … He helped to convict Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of helping the Soviets steal nuclear secrets.

Jon Lampley, a veteran of Stephen Colbert’s talk show, releases his debut album | WEKU

WEKU

This story first aired on All Things Considered on May 28, 2024. Listen • 3:37. Load More. Stay Connected. instagram · facebook · linkedin. © 2024 …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Last Energy to advise NATO on microreactors – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

US microreactor developer Last Energy has formed a partnership with the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence to jointly research military …

USA announces new cooperation to support Ghana SMR plans – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

The signature of two key arrangements facilitated by the US Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor …

US Energy Secretary calls for more nuclear power while celebrating $35 billion Georgia reactors

Yahoo

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called for a stronger move towards nuclear power as she toured two reactors built for $35 billion in …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEW

Limerick nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania to test emergency siren on June 3

CBS News

The emergency siren at the nuclear power plant in Limerick, Pennsylvania will be tested on Monday, June 3 at 2 p.m., Constellation Energy said.

Dept. of Health to distribute free nuclear emergency meds around power plants

NorthcentralPA.com

Berwick, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Dept. of Health has noted that potassium iodide (KI) tablets distributed to residents who live near nuclear power …

Full Siren Test To Be Held At Limerick Nuclear Plant Monday – Patch

Patch

LIMERICK, PA — The Limerick Generating Station will hold its regular semi-annual test of its emergency warning sirens on Monday afternoon.

Nuclear War

NEW

Keir Starmer says he would use nuclear weapons if needed – BBC News

BBC

… nuclear weapons system. If elected, Sir Keir said he would increase defence spending and update the UK’s nuclear arsenal. … World War Two soldiers …

UK defence chief doubts Russia wants war with NATO as he marks D-Day anniversary

Sky News

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin appears very confident the Kremlin is not looking for direct confrontation with members of the NATO alliance – and that …

NATO greenlights Ukraine’s use of weapons to target Russia, threatening nuclear war

WSWS

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, the US and its allies are directly targeting Russian territory.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Should US weapons be used against Russian targets? – The Week

The Week

… risks of escalating America’s tensions with a nuclear-armed Russia. Until … “During the Cold War, nuclear threats were not uncommon, but the U.S. …

Russia’s nuclear threats are losing their power – Financial Times

Financial Times

But Moscow has also taken actions recently to underline its threats, with Russian troops conducting nuclear drills near the border with Ukraine. These …

Russia’s Radioactive Submarines Remain a Toxic Arctic Threat – Bellona.org

Bellona.org

… nuclear submarines that were intentionally scuttled at sea. … Other threats lurk beneath the ocean. Moscow’s … War has Ukrainian environmentalists …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

McDermitt caldera: An early caldera of the Yellowstone hotspot track – USGS.gov

USGS.gov

Yellowstone caldera is the most recent in a series of volcanic structures that stretches across the Snake River Plain of Idaho and into northern …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

JUN 02, 2024

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An artist’s rendering of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor from GE Hitachi, which is slated to start operating in Canada in 2028 – GE Hitachi

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (06/02/2024)

There’s not much to comment negatively about in this excellent report that comes with a link to a PDF (at the end of the article) of the justifiable findings from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) But this short article captures the problems with the entire concept of Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs): They are too expensive, too slow, and too risky. ~llaw

ENERGY

Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report

By Michael Franco

May 31, 2024

VIEW 4 IMAGES

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A new report has assessed the feasibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors to meet increasing energy demands around the world. The findings don’t look so good for this particular form of energy production.

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) are generally defined as nuclear plants that have capacity that tops out at about 300 megawatts, enough to run about 30,000 US homes. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), which prepared the report, there are about 80 SMR concepts currently in various stages of development around the world.

While such reactors were once thought to be a solution to the complexity, security risks, and costs of large-scale reactors, the report asks if continuing to pursue these smaller nuclear power plants is a worthwhile endeavor in terms of meeting the demand for more and more energy around the globe.

The answer to this question is pretty much found in the report’s title: “Small Modular Reactors: Still Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Risky.”

If that’s not clear enough though, the report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”

Too Expensive

The cost of SMRs is at the forefront of the report’s argument against the deployment of the reactors. According to some of the data it provides, all three SMRs currently operating (plus one now being completed in Argentina) went way over budget, as this graph shows.

The report authors also point out that a project in Idaho called NuScale had to be scrapped because during its development between 2015 and 2023, costs soared from $9,964 per kilowatt to $21,561 per kilowatt. Additionally, the costs for three other small plants in the US have all skyrocketed dramatically from their initial cost assessments.

Not only are the excessive costs of building SMRs problematic in and of themselves, says the IEEFA, but the money being poured into the projects is money that is not being spent on developing other sources of energy that are cleaner, quicker to deploy, and safer.

“It is vital that this debate consider the opportunity costs associated with the SMR push,” write the authors. “The dollars invested in SMRs will not be available for use in building out a wind, solar and battery storage resource base. These carbon-free and lower-cost technologies are available today and can push the transition from fossil fuels forward significantly in the coming 10 years – years when SMRs will still be looking for licensing approval and construction funding.”

Too Slow

That last bit gets to another of the report’s findings: that building SMRs simply takes too much time. The Shidao Bay project in China, for example, was supposed to take four years to build, but actually took 12; the Russian Ship Borne project had an estimated completion time of three years, but took 13; and the ongoing CAREM project in Argentina was supposed to be done in four years, but it’s now in its 13th year of development.

The report also points out that the MPower PWR project, which was one of the first planned SMRs in the US, had its plug pulled in 2017 after it was clear it wouldn’t meet its 2022 deployment date – a decision that effectively wasted the $500 million that had already been spent on the effort.

“Despite this real-world experience, Westinghouse, X-Energy and NuScale, among others, continue to claim they will be able to construct their SMRs in 36 to 48 months, perhaps quickly enough to have them online by 2030,” write the authors. “GE-Hitachi even claims it ultimately will be able to construct its 300MW facility in as little as 24 months.

“Admittedly, there is a not-zero chance this is possible, but it flies in the face of nuclear industry experience, both in terms of past SMR development and construction efforts and the larger universe of full-size reactors, all of which have taken significantly longer than projected to begin commercial operation.”

Despite breakthroughs in SMR manufacturing, such as the welding advance that allows workers to put together an SMR reactor vessel in 24 hours instead of 12 months, the time it takes to get these facilities into the field will likely continue to be a major barrier to their adoption.

Too Risky

Both the unpredictable costs and the extraordinary building delays makes SMR development just too big of a risk, says the IEEFA. But that’s not the only potential peril. Because the technology for this small-scale nuclear facility is fairly new and untested, risks could exist in terms of functionality and safety as well. For example, the authors question if the new SMRs will actually be able to output the kind of power they claim. Based on cost and development estimates going so widely afield, the sense in the report is that power output claims could also be off.

In terms of safety, the report quotes a 2023 study for the US Air Force that said: “Since SMR technology is still developing and is not deployed in the US, information is scarce concerning the various costs for [operations & maintenance], decommissioning and end-of-life dissolution, property restoration and site clean-up and waste management.”

The authors also point out that because many SMRs are being built using identical technologies, if a component of that tech fails, it could easily affect reactors around the world.

For example, they bring up the fact that steam generators have needed to be replaced at more than 110 pressurized water reactors (PWRs), with half of those operating in the US, because of the denting and wall thinning of tubes made from a material called “heat-treated Alloy 600.”

“We’re not arguing that new SMRs will have these same issues,” they write. “We expect that the design and material decisions made for SMRs will reflect remedial measures taken at existing reactors. Our concern is broader in that a problem at one SMR might have serious repercussions at many other SMRs with the same standardized design.”

Conclusion

So: too expensive, too slow, and too risky. And not at all where we should be focussing our, um – energy – these days, as the study authors make clear in their conclusion.

“At least 375,000 MW of new renewable energy generating capacity is likely to be added to the US grid in the next seven years,” they say. “By contrast, IEEFA believes it is highly unlikely any SMRs will be brought online in that same time frame. The comparison couldn’t be clearer. Regulators, utilities, investors and government officials should acknowledge this and embrace the available reality: Renewables are the near-term solution.”

You can read the full report in PDF format online.

Source: IEEFA

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

There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Sunday, (06/02/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Vermont becomes 1st state to require oil companies to pay for climate change damages | NPR Illinois

NPR Illinois

All Things Considered. NPR Illinois. All Things Considered. Next Up: 8:00 PM Planet Money – How I Built This. 0:00. 0:00. All Things Considered. NPR …

Opinion: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s trash and tunes in the air | WVTF

WVTF

North Korean defectors living in South Korea release balloons carrying propaganda leaflets denouncing North Korea’s nuclear test at Imjingak, near the …

At a conference in Singapore, countries make competing claims to the South China Sea

WKU Public Radio

All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM BBC … He has reported from all … North Korean defectors living in South Korea release balloons carrying …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

U.S. energy secretary praises completion of Plant Vogtle, says US needs more nuclear reactors

WSB-TV

Chris Womack is the CEO of Southern Co., the Atlanta-based parent company of Georgia Power. He said he supports Granholm’s call for more nuclear power …

Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report – New Atlas

New Atlas

A new report has assessed the feasibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors to meet increasing energy demands around the world.

We can’t afford to cut America’s nuclear modernization program – The Hill

The Hill

… nuclear weapons than the United States. Meanwhile, China is the fastest-growing nuclear power on the planet, building 100 new nuclear warheads a …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Due to Russian attacks, there are consequences for the power grid facility

unn.ua

УНН Society ✎ Due to Russia’s attack on Ukrainian power grid facilities, emergency power cuts were carried out in most regions of Ukraine on 2 …

Yasno: there will be emergency blackouts across the country today | УНН

unn.ua

УНН Society ✎ Emergency power outages will occur today across the country without observing any schedules, said the head of the energy company …

Pennsylvania to Distribute Free Potassium Iodide Tablets Near Nuclear Plants – MyChesCo

MyChesCo

… nuclear power plants. This initiative is part of routine preventive efforts to prepare for potential emergencies. Many KI tablets previously …

Nuclear War

NEWS

‘Russia will be turned into cinders!’ Putin sent dire warning over nuclear war with NATO

Daily Express

Putin’s allies are continuing to threaten nuclear war with NATO as his forces continue to hit Ukraine with devastating strikes.

We can’t afford to cut America’s nuclear modernization program – The Hill

The Hill

Tensions with China and Russia are higher now than at any point since the Cold War. From Ukraine to the Middle East to the South China Sea to the …

Ukraine striking Russia to lead to nuclear confrontation, analyst says – Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen English

The United States allowing Ukraine to attack Russia will lead to a nuclear confrontation and a possible all-out collapse of NATO and the EU.

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Shangri-La Dialogue: Ukraine’s Zelensky urges China’s help in nuclear safety and ending the war

South China Morning Post

… threats? Yes,” he said. “This is a threat to the whole world. I would want China to be present, and we know their presence … There should be nuclear …

Russia not ‘bluffing’ with nuclear threats as Biden greenlights limited military strikes, Medvedev says

WFIN

The developments and threats of escalation came just weeks after Gen. Charles Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said NATO military …

Russia’s radioactive submarines remain a toxic Arctic threat – The Barents Observer

The Barents Observer

Far from the battlefields, in the country’s northwest loom radioactive threats that remain only half cleaned up and largely ignored. By. Charles …