“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 12, 2024

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Pathfinder Dam in Wyoming on the North Platte River was named for the explorer John C. Fremont, often referred to as “The Great Pathfinder.”

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (05/12/2024)

El Nuclear Diablo

(A novel by Lloyd Albert Williams-Pendergraft)

Chapter 4 (Original 1st Draft: Abridged and Unedited)

The short flight from Casper, less than 50 air miles to Pathfinder was uneventful. We landed into the usual light southwest wind using about half the runway and taxied on to the apron and hangers that housed the other Gulfstream, a four-seat Sikorsky helicopter, and two Piper Cubs – four hangers in all.

“Oh my, what a beautiful place you have here,” Sabrisse said looking out to the northwest landscape and buildings as we went on past the hangars to the apron in front of the main ranchhouse and the large sprawling two-story office/laboratory facility about 100 yards behind the ranchhouse. The huge white and gray satellite dishes and other communications towers and towering metal poles were spread haphazardly at short distances on the ascending slope behind the house and the workplace.

“Yes, we are proud of the buildings and facilities we have here, and both their appearance and their purposes. And we have the naturally beautiful scenery and two nearby rivers. I have often wished I could spend more time here than in California, but I do manage to split my time between the two places pretty much evenly, with Pathfinder, I believe, holding a small advantage.”

“How many people actually live and work here?” Sabrisse asked. “The home is huge – larger than the office and lab buildings.”

“Well, Sabrisse, counting me, there are the two pilots you’ve just met, Mariah and Davy, the two environmental lawyers I mentioned, and then there is Hannah, who, like me, splits her time between here and elsewhere, Tina, Aste, Pussy, Kelly, Jeannie,  and a half dozen others who you will soon get to know along with our staff, most of whom bunk out here during the week rather than commute all the way from and to Casper every day.”

“Those are all female names; are you and Davy the only guys who live around here?” Sabrisse laughed, her eyes twinkling, dancing curiously into my eyes.

“Pretty much, and the others you will meet today are mostly all of the feminine persuasion, too. I find working with the feminine way is the way to get stuff done quickly and accurately and do so without egos getting in the way.” Sabrisse’s smile widened just a little, and she offered a small nod my way, lowering her face and eyes to a more level look.

Mariah steered the Gulfstream onto a concrete parking area closest to a long walkway that led up a slope to the front porch of the huge house located about 50 yards up a wide concrete walkway with two steep sections of several steps of the ascent, with iron handrails the entire length of the walkway, but with center rails where the steps were located. Sabrisse noticed that there was no one outside waiting for them and that there were no automobiles in the parking area to the west of the apron for the airplanes, which seemed odd. And then she remembered that this mission was a secret mission, and the only people who would know where they all were now would be the two military generals and the pilots who would have escorted them to their original destination in Juneau, Alaska. Even the two replacement pilots taking the military jet to is Juneau destination would not know exactly where they had all disappeared to. She had been anxious to see Juneau, but now her thoughts about the opportunity had entirely escaped from her mind.

When the stairwell ladder began to open and descend to the tarmac apron, both Mariah and Davey emerged from the pilot cabin and motioned, uplifting her forearms with open hands, to Albert and all the rest of us that we could arise and deplane. I stood up first in order to lead my newly acquired entourage off the airplane and on up to the ranchhouse while Marah and Davey would take care of the Gulfstream and park it next to its appointed hangar. Sabrisse realized that the ranchhouse would be accommodating five new faces, including her own in a group that would substantially increase the male population of Pathfinder, if she guessed right, to seven.

As they reached the flat concrete apron with two steps at the entrance, the double doors suddenly burst open and two beautiful young women emerged on the run and flew over the two steps, rushing into my awaiting arms, and for the first time I realized that no one at Pathfinder except Mariah and Davy had any idea that I would be returning to Pathfinder for lord-knows-how-long, if ever. Embracing them, their eyes took in the faces of the five, all dressed in military uniforms of different ranks and styles.

“Why are you back, and where is Caroline, anyway?” I saw the concern and confusion in the eyes of Annie and Ranae. I felt guilty for not letting them know by phone earlier, but the opportunities had been rare.

“We all heard the Gulfstream coming in, and we had no idea why. Mariah and Davy told us they had to make a trip into Casper to pick up some new people who would be coming back here with them later today or tomorrow. But they never said anything about you. We all thought you and Caroline and the others were on your way by boat to Alaska somewhere. What happened, anyway?”, Ranae blurted out without stopping to take a breath. Annie nodded alongside her.

Annie is Caroline’s and my adopted daughter. Ranae is a girl we rescued a few years ago from a serious life and death situation in Utah and she has become one of our closest family members. I turned around and put my arms around their backs on either side of me.

“Okay,” I said looking from one of the girls to the other, “let me introduce you to our new people, as you referred to them. It’s a good time, because the introductions will get more confusing to everyone once we go into the house.”

But just at that moment, Kelly, Jeannie, Leah, and Juice walked out together to greet us. I knew the introductions had just become much more difficult to mean much of anything. At least the newcomers would probably remember Ranae’ and Caroline’s names for a few minutes at least.

I introduced all of them without difficulty, and the girls were all polite and attentive. I motioned toward the ranchhouse. “Well, then, now that we all know one another, let’s go on in and figure out how to get you all settled in.”

As we assembled to walk through the open doors I noted that all six of the girls had quickly taken to Sabrisse and that the generals and pilots would have to simply follow the crowd, so I took over the process of making the newly arrived men comfortable, taking care of educating them about the place. Then there was still the necessary introduction of household help and anyone from the the office/lab who might be inside, followed up by the layout of the entire ranchhouse and room locations, and finally assigning the private bedrooms with baths for the five new arrivals. Fortunately for all of us, space and privacy would not be a problem. As for other introductions, I wondered where our two Airedale dogs were off to because they had not returned from wherever as I would have expected when the Gulfstream was getting ready to land. But then, this was not unusual because they often went to the river to play and swim or off to hang out with the buffalo that roamed the ranch.

For a brief moment my thoughts turned to Caroline, hoping that she would adjust easily to my absence from the planned stay, no doubt a long one, in Juneau that was now for logistical sake split into two separate functions that we all now knew should have been set up earlier rather than the ad hoc later ‘kidnapping’ of me  on Vancouver Island leaving Caroline and me with just a brief part of that one short night before I was flying back to California on my way to our Pathfinder ranch in Wyoming and she traveled north to Juneau along with our scientific cadre and friends from the Bay Area. I could have used her organizational skills right about now, but those same abilities were sorely needed in the process of saving lives all across the North American continent from the west coast to the east coast.

Pathfinder would be the command center of the entire operation because the ranch and its communication continental, global and even orbiting spacecraft including the moon could be reached in places where there would be no one to communicate with, but would provide meteorological, global radiation, and solar activity that could affect both communications and weather all around planet Earth more than simply duplicating and complementing Spaceweather and NASA, but providing atmospheric, inner and outer space activity of all kinds, rocket and missile tracking data that might not be available from other sources making the limited meteorological data at Juneau fit into the global and, indeed, the entire solar system’s irregular and problematic conditions and the necessary data to go with it and provide it all from a centrally specific source. There was nowhere else on the planet that brought it all together yet could divide the massive data collection into the smallest and most meaningful localized pieces, allowing fast, accurate, and responsible decisions and exacting protective measures to be accomplished one hundred percent of the time, I there was the slightest possibility at all.

Although the name Pathfinder, popularly originated in 1840 by author James Fenimore Cooper, with its purpose and its name, dated back to the old West during the days of Lewis and Clark and other exploration it had retained its value from exploration of unknown North American territory to grow up to be a solar system exploration system that more than earned its credentials today. And today global exploration of a nuclear radiated world was needed and necessary to save the Earth from nuclear armageddon. Saving North America would be the first step to save the entire planet . . .

End Chapter 4  (Original, Abridged and Unedited) ~llaw

To find Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Thursday, (03/28/2024)

Chapter 2: LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Thursday, (04/11/2024)

Chapter 3: LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (04/28/2024)

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 three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)

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

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (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, (05/12/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

bets are off’: Russia has a massive arsenal of battlefield nukes, and there’s heated debate …

Yahoo Movies UK

“Every time Putin has talked about nuclear weapons in the last week, it has been with a view to warning NATO,” he said. “It has not been with any …

What is the U.S. endgame in Ukraine? – Little Rock Public Radio

Little Rock Public Radio

NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Emma Ashford, columnist for Foreign Policy, about her latest article “What Does America Want in Ukraine?”

Ukraine war latest: Russia claims it has seized more villages – Sky News

Sky News

Fighting is ongoing in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s governor for the region has said – as Russia claims it has taken control of multiple villages in its …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

South Korea’s KEPCO in talks to build UK nuclear plant, FT reports – Reuters

Reuters

South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) is in talks with the British government to build a nuclear power station off the coast of Wales, …

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons – two sides of the same coin – East Anglia Bylines

East Anglia Bylines

The government has admitted its push for nuclear energy expansion is linked to its strategic military interests.

Sizewell C nuclear power station not a done deal – campaign group – BBC News

BBC

The planned energy plant, on the Suffolk coast, has just been granted its nuclear site licence. But Alison Downes, director of campaign group Stop …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Florida Division of Emergency Management Issues Updates on Recovery Efforts Following …

Florida Disaster

Nuclear Power Plants Emergency Classification Levels · testpage02 · About … Effective immediately, emergency response vehicles such as, but not …

Putin is bluffing about the use of nuclear weapons – Lithuanian Foreign Minister

unn.ua

Today, power engineers have attracted …

Nuclear War

NEWS

U.S.-China Conflict: Will There Be a Nuclear War Over Taiwan? – Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

On the morning of April 5, 2023, Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, met with then-U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Simi Valley, California.

Experts call Putin’s nuclear threats bluff — Lithuanian FM – Yahoo

Yahoo

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats are likely a bluff, as engaging in a nuclear war would result in significant losses for him and …

Days After Putin’s Nuclear Drill Move, Macron’s ‘Don’t Want War‘ Clarification | Ukraine

YouTube

Amid the intensifying Russia-Ukraine war, the French President made a new remark on the West’s role. Emmanuel Macron, on May 11, while answering a …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Experts call Putin’s nuclear threats bluff — Lithuanian FM – Yahoo

Yahoo

“Because we are sending a very clear message to Putin: If you threaten us, we will back down.” Russia’s nuclear threats. Russian leader Vladimir Putin …

Vladimir Putin warned China will rip up alliance if Russia follows through with threat

Daily Express

However, a senior European official has warned that the Kremlin risks blowing up his alliance with China if he follows through on the threat. READ …

Putin’s nuclear threats could destroy relationship with China: EU diplomat – WION

WION

“But if the threats become a reality, the whole partnership will disappear in an instant,” Landsbergis added. “Putin has threatened to use nuclear …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

The Science Behind The Lightning Storm Over The Erupting Guatemalan Volcano

Cowboy State Daily

Mike Poland, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said the spectacular lightning storm above the erupting Guatemalan …

Mag. 1.7 quake – 59 km WNW of Toyah, Texas, on Friday, May 10, 2024, at 07:06 pm …

Volcano Discovery

Detailed info, map, data, reports, updates about this earthquake: Minor mag. 1.7 earthquake – 59 km WNW of Toyah, Texas, on Friday, May 10, 2024, …

Minor Mag. 2.6 Earthquake – Philippine Sea, 23 km Northeast of Bislig City … – Volcano Discovery

Volcano Discovery

Worldwide reports, updates on significant seismic events and more. Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes · Latest earthquakes under Yellowstone …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 12, 2024

1

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Old Faithful Geiser taking a much needed rest in Yellowstone National Park

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Saturday, (05/11/2024)

From the horse’s mouth in Wyoming this evening! It is true that there is nothing we can do to avoid what would happen if Yellowstone were to erupt, so we Wyoming born folks don’t worry about the future demise of us or the planet from that source. (Although I have read that NASA is studying a way to relieved pressure from the caldera, and one way to help do so is to harness steam for non-nuclear power plants, which might save ourselves and other life from extinction.)

Unlike nuclear war and nuclear plants there is nothing we can do to control the danger lurking in the old caldera of Yellowstone. (But I thought this Post would give me and other readers a break from my daily “All Things Nuclear” blog of possible impending disaster with a different kind of twist!) Don’t forget to click on the link below about ‘Find Out What Happens If Wyoming’s Super Volcano Blows| after you read the short article by Drew Kirby. ~llaw

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One question people who don’t live in Wyoming have asked me, way more than they should, is, “Are you worried about the super volcano erupting?”

My answer is always…” nope, it won’t matter anyway.”

Then I automatically start wondering what would happen if the super volcano erupted.

So, I went to YouTube to see what would happen if the super volcano under Yellowstone decided to rear its ugly head and erupt. The video I found from Koranos reminded me a bit of the movie Armageddon, without Bruce Willis becoming an Astronaut and saving the planet.

I can tell you that the science of volcanoes is fascinating, and the research that’s gone into something that may not happen in many lifetimes is quite detailed.

I discovered that the Yellowstone caldera is one of the few in the world capable of super-eruptions. I also found that if the super volcano were going to cause a super eruption, we would know about it in advance. It could be days, weeks, or years, but we will probably have some warning.

The warnings could also come from interesting places, like outer space. Satellites may be able to see ground deformations. Seismographs will detect steadily growing earthquakes, and the ground may leak with steam or gases in some areas.

If the pressure underground becomes too great, massive explosions will begin, and a vast amount of volcanic material will shoot into the air. The velocity of the explosion could be so high that it could reach the stratosphere, spreading the volcanic material to areas across the country.

As we all know, what goes up must come down. As the volcanic material starts to cool, large rocks, like volcanic bombs, could fall to the earth.

Ash could enter the air and cause parts of the country to become toxic and inhabitable. Communications and air travel could be affected. The volcanic ash could spread over roads, buildings, and land, damaging cars, buildings, and farmland and destroying thousands of acres of crops.

The explosions could end up being the loudest sounds ever recorded and able to be heard thousands of miles away. The energy created from the blast could send pressure waves at the speed of sound worldwide multiple times, causing extreme changes in weather patterns.

It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of people would die on the day of the blast and hundreds of thousands in the days after. The explosion would also change the climate worldwide for years to come.

The 11-minute, 25-second video was like watching one of the worst ‘end-of-the-world’ movies you’ve ever seen, but it was so fascinating I couldn’t stop watching. It made me think about living life one day at a time and making every day the best I can.

I recommend watching the video if you have a few minutes to spare and aren’t scared of the end-of-the-world talk.

What If Yellowstone Volcano Blows Up Tomorrow?

Read More:Find Out What Happens If Wyoming’s Super Volcano Blows| https://mycountry955.com/what-happens-when-yellowstone-blows-up/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

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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 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, Saturday, (05/11/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEW

LIVE: Canada Announces $55 Million for German Initiative to Bolster Ukraine’s Air Defence

YouTube

EAM Jaishankar talks Canada’s gang wars, political hitjobs & all things ‘Anti-India’ | ET Roundtable. The Economic Times New 87K views · 6: …

Mark Mills: Policy vs. Reality and the Coming Energy Storm | Financial Sense

Financial Sense

… all kinds of things. It’s not unanticipated … Well, so let’s be honest about nuclear power first. … 100% of the world’s economy, 100% of every product …

India’s Nuclear Journey: From Pokhran to Present the 7 Milestones | The News9 Plus Show

YouTube

EAM Jaishankar talks Canada’s gang wars, political hitjobs & all things ‘Anti-India’ | ET Roundtable. The Economic Times New 81K views · 14: …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

24/7/365 carbon-free electricity from America’s largest nuclear power plant! | Energy Central

Energy Central

Located near Waynesboro, Georga, Plant Vogtle is home to four nuclear reactors with a total generating capacity of 4,664 megawatts (MW). The plant is …

Nuclear Energy: The New Geopolitical Battleground | OilPrice.com

Oil Price

Russia’s declining influence in the global nuclear energy market due to the war in Ukraine is pushing power and profit toward China.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un supervises latest test of new rocket launcher – NBC News

NBC News

Experts say Kim’s goal is to eventually pressure the United States into accepting the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

South Carolina nuclear plant gets warning over another cracked emergency fuel pipe

Yahoo Movies UK

Nuclear Plant Cracked Pipe. FILE – The working nuclear reactor is seen at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, April 9, 2012, in Jenkinsville, S.C. On …

American crocodile population growing in Florida thanks to nuclear power plant – MSN

MSN

After decades of widespread hunting and habitat destruction in the US, the population of American crocodiles has seen an increase in numbers …

Nuclear War

NEWS

The danger of nuclear escalation: What would be the impact of dropping atom bombs on Germany?

WSWS

Since the release of the SGP’s TV election spot warning of a nuclear third world war, there have been increasing signs that NATO’s war against …

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: Should the world take North Korea’s war cries seriously?

YouTube

As North Korea continues to accelerate preparations for a potential nuclear test. Are we on the brink of another crisis?

Russia, China and US Are in a Slow Spiral Toward War – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

The danger of nuclear escalation: What would be the impact of dropping atom bombs on Germany?

WSWS

Russia is reacting to the increasingly direct NATO war preparations with the threat of counterattacks. Moscow has also announced military exercises in …

Russia launches surprise advance on Ukraine – but why has Moscow opened up second …

Sky News

Ukraine officials say the country expects to receive the first US-made F-16 fighter jets this summer to help it counter Russian air threats;.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim 2 attacks in Gulf of Aden as Iran official renews nuclear bomb threats

Jefferson City News Tribune

Meanwhile, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader again threatened Tehran could build a nuclear weapon if it chose to pursue atomic armaments. The …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Find Out What Happens If Wyoming’s Super Volcano Blows

My Country 95.5

I discovered that the Yellowstone caldera is one of the few in the world capable of super-eruptions. I also found that if the super volcano were going …

Clues from deep magma reservoirs could improve volcanic eruption forecasts | ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily

Volcano · Yellowstone Caldera · Volcanic rock · Basalt rock · Sedimentary rock. Story Source: Materials provided by Imperial College London. Original …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 11, 2024

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LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Friday, (05/10/2024)

The human world(s) are playing a very dangerous game of “Russian Roulette”, shooting ourselves and/or nuking ourselves to death. It’s like we have our pistols drawn from their holsters, pointed directly at both ears, tense but ready to pull both triggers at once. With one pistol there is an 83.3:1 chance that we will die; with both six-shooters there is is a 87.5:1 chance that we will die. So the chances are we will likely die and it really doesn’t matter much about how may pistols we draw on ourselves assuming the odds are the same with each weapon whether we have just one weapon for our demise or both of them, but multiple weapons do slightly increase our chances of dying.

We are betting that neither threat happens, allowing us to live our lives in comfort without nuclear war and nuclear power pulling the trigger, leaving us alone during our lifetimes. But with “Russian Roulette” we have only a 12.5% chance. And the odds are even worse if we include CO2’s climate change/global warming. You may doubt my ‘Russian Roulette’ theory, and you may be right to do so, but why on Earth are we so nonchalant about caring that it could happen — and at any time — and we may well, in fact, be using a single-shot pistol, unfortunately. We are no doubt coming closer every day of our lives by believing that nuclear ‘deterrence’ as defined by our nuclear-powered countries’ leaders in the war situation, and by “clean, safe, and necessary’ as defined by the nuclear industry and politicians in the nuclear power case. Both are all about greed, worshipping money more than life, willful ignorance, and thoughtless inattention. Yes, that’s right; collectively we don’t seem to even care, which is the root of all evil. Einstein, Plato, and many others in between them have been quoted as saying something like, “it doesn’t matter that we allow evil men to lead us, but they’re not the problem — we are the problem for doing nothing about it.”

Each and every day for 85% of my most recent two years of life (coincidentally much like the ‘Russian Roulette’ odds), every evening I have been pleading for the everyday people, like you and me, to band together and tell our leaders, “We ain’t gonna take it any more!” With the cyber world we have these days, using the Internet and just one Social Media network (Facebook, with 3 billion plus Monthly Active Users (MAUs) could handle the majority of the effort), we could tell our world leaders in every country to “cease and desist”. All we have to do is know how to reach them in our own country (there are dozens of ways to do that, including Google) and tell them in ‘so many words’ to STOP IT! (All of it — both Nuclear War and Nuclear Energy).

There is no way we can rely on either nuclear war deterrence nor commercial nuclear power to resolve our world-wide problems. The fact is, we are all, including other innocent life, on a one-way highway to self-destruction, creating the 6th Extinction on a dead planet Earth. ~llaw

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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 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, Friday, (05/10/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWSam Altman takes nuclear energy company Oklo public to help further his AI ambitions

CNBC

5 THINGS five-things-logo · logo … Oklo’s business model is based on commercializing nuclear fission, the reaction that fuels all nuclear power plants …

Former passenger jets bought by US firm tasked with creating next generation nuclear … – CNN

CNN

That economy-class seat you once occupied while flying in Asia might one day be the very place from where the United States nuclear weapons …

The case of the mysterious Montpelier molar | Vermont Public

Vermont Public

There are some questions that we get in the Brave Little State inbox that keep us up at night. Like this one, about a tooth that’s stuck in a wall …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

China and France aim to strengthen nuclear energy cooperation

World Nuclear News

China’s CGN and France’s EDF have signed a Letter of Intent on deepening and expanding cooperation on nuclear energy – it came as President …

Hungary and China sign nuclear energy cooperation agreement

World Nuclear News

A memorandum of understanding on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy has been signed by the China Atomic Energy Authority and Hungary’s Ministry …

Fixation on UK nuclear power may not help to solve climate crisis – The Guardian

The Guardian

These reactors, from tiny ones of the type that power nuclear submarines, to scaled-up versions that can, in theory, be factory produced and built in …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Medvedev says aim of nuclear exercises is to work out response to attacks on Russian soil

Reuters

Medvedev, a former president who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, warned the West that Russia could attack not only Ukraine in …

More Must Be Done to Prevent a Nuclear Nightmare – The Cipher Brief

The Cipher Brief

OPINION — The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the recent Iranian attack on Israel are two reasons why we should upgrade our missile defense …

Iran warns it will change nuclear doctrine if ‘existence threatened’ – Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

“In the case of an attack on our nuclear facilities by the Zionist … war on Gaza last October. On Thursday, Syrian air defences shot down what …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Putin’s threats of using nuclear weapons should not be seen as a bluff | Marc Bennetts

YouTube

Putin has threatened on numerous of using nuclear weapons. So far Western officials have seen it as a bluff. To me this is slightly risky.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim 2 attacks; Iran renews threat of nuclear weapon – VOA News

VOA News

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim 2 attacks; Iran renews threat of nuclear weapon … war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip. … “Recently, the military …

Days After Ordering Nuclear Drills, Putin Warns Of Rising Global Risks – Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe

Speaking on Moscow’s Red Square on May 9 to mark Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War … nuclear forces as well. … The threats to leave the …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone Supervolcano: Is An Eruption Really Overdue? – IFLScience

IFLScience

The Yellowstone Caldera is a 70- by 45-kilometer (43- by 28-mile) crater located in northwestern Wyoming, filled with hot springs, geyser basins …

Eyes on Earth Episode 118 – Preparing for Landsat Next, Part 2 – YouTube

YouTube

4:34 · Go to channel · Ship Wrecked in Yellowstone Lake? (Yellowstone Volcano Monthly Update – April 2024). USGS•11K views · 5:00 · Go to channel …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 10, 2024

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China’s plans to deploy floating nuclear reactors capable of powering military facilities

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Thursday, (05/09/2024)

Russia is constructing a nuclear power plant on the moon, and orbiting nuclear bombs in space; China is putting nuclear reactors on small floating islands to support their military facilities. Have we lost our collective minds? The answer is, “Yes!”

Don’t we realize that, already, every nuclear armed submarine is carrying kilotons of bombs; ICBMs are carrying kilotons of bombs, and these days every nuclear power plant has nuclear armed militaries slobbering with joy at the thought of assimilating nuclear power plants as weapons of mass destruction, not to mention that nuclear power plants are like live sitting-duck ‘traps’ threatening to catch humans anywhere and everwhere and eliminate us, and other living critters, if not as captives of war, but by terrorism, human error, earthquakes, tidal waves, creating lethal radiation poisoning on our once life-giving planet Earth. And we are insanely adding to all of this extraneous nuclear activity while directly staring possible or probable nuclear war in the face.

It took only two atomic bombs (popguns by today’s standards) to kill 100 thousand or more Japanese citizens to end WWII. We already have enough nuclear products of all kinds to destroy virtually every living thing on planet Earth with ‘all things nuclear’, but we can’t seem to break the habit — even in outer space. ~llaw

Following are the links to two representative articles in tonight’s nuclear news media:

China’s Plans To Deploy Floating Nuclear Power Plants | RealClearDefense

RealClearDefense

Russia reveals it has begun building a nuclear power plant to put on the MOON as part of its …

Daily Mail

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, (05/09/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Taking the toll of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s vicious, gripping psychological warfare

WUSF

All Things Considered · 1A · Here & Now · Fresh Air … nuclear arsenal. On For All the Dogs’ “Stories … “This ain’t been about critics, not about …

Fallout as a Process: Ryo Morimoto on Fukushima – Public Books

Public Books

… nuclear ghost” that resides with them. Here … all of us live with. … And I would just love to hear your thoughts about how that relates to your point …

Taking the toll of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s vicious, gripping psychological warfare | NPR Illinois

NPR Illinois

Next Up: 7:00 PM All Things Considered. 0:00. 0 … nuclear arsenal. On For All the Dogs’ “Stories … “This ain’t been about critics, not about gimmicks, …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Russia reveals it has begun building a nuclear power plant to put on the MOON as part of its …

Daily Mail

In March, Borisov said Moscow was considering the idea of powering the station using nuclear energy, on account of the fact that lunar nights last …

China’s Plans To Deploy Floating Nuclear Power Plants | RealClearDefense

RealClearDefense

China’s plans to deploy floating nuclear reactors capable of powering military facilities in contested areas of the South Pacific has raised …

Estonian parliament begins preparations for nuclear power programme

World Nuclear News

According to the Riigikogu, the draft is mainly based on the analysis conducted by the Nuclear Energy Working Group in 2021-2023 which concluded that …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Ukraine receives emergency electricity aid from the EU, restrictions for industry are possible again

unn.ua

Ministry of Energy of Ukraine · zaporizhzhya-nuclear–power-plant Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant · european-union European Union · Romania.

Ukraine to double power imports on Thursday after Russian attacks, ministry says

Yahoo News UK

Ukraine operated 10 hydro power plants … nuclear power plants, which produce about 60% of its electricity. … “Today, at Ukraine’s request, emergency …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Putin Ally Warns Russia’s Nuclear War Policy May Change – Newsweek

Newsweek

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Thursday that Moscow’s nuclear war policy is “constantly analyzed.”

Putin Renews Nuclear Threats Against West at Military Parade – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

… nuclear saber-rattling at the annual military parade in Moscow marking the victory in World War II … nuclear saber-rattling at the annual military …

Putin says there is ‘nothing unusual’ about tactical nuclear weapons drill – Reuters

Reuters

It is unclear if 12th GUMO is in Belarus, according to Western experts. Advertisement · Scroll to continue. No power has used nuclear weapons in war …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Putin Renews Nuclear Threats Against West at Military Parade – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

… War II … Putin Renews Nuclear Threats Against West at Military Parade … War II. “We will not let anyone threaten us. Our strategic forces are always …

Holding one’s nerve in the face of Russian nuclear threats – Brookings Institution

Brookings Institution

Ukrainians view this war as existential. If they lose, Ukraine as they know it is gone. The threat to use non-strategic nuclear weapons does not …

Ukraine recap: Putin celebrates Victory Day with nuclear threats to UK and … – The Conversation

The Conversation

… war in Europe. EPA-EFE/Johanna Geron/pool. Alarmed by Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons (the latest made just the other day, prompted …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

A hidden danger lurks beneath Yellowstone – Science News

Science News

This ancient volcano is a popular trekking site. A trail traverses its ash- and boulder-strewn ridges. There are several huts and a shrine. On …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 09, 2024

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A mining machine excavates alcoves and niches for exploratory scientific testing in September 2013 at Yucca Mountain. Thousands of studies of the site’s geology, hydrology, chemistry and climate to determine Yucca Mountain’s suitability as the nation’s first repository for commercial spent nuclear fuel. The project has stalled since the Obama administration attempted to withdraw the license application of the Yucca Mountain project in 2010. (Credit: US Energy Department, via Flickr)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Wednesday, (05/08/2024)

This story from “The Bulletin” is not included in the TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS below, but is an April 30 article about the never-ending ridiculous political argument to allow the long ago proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site to be approved. This fight has been going on since the 1980s and anyone who cares knows that Yucca Mountain is just about the last place on earth that such a geologically faulted place is okay for nuclear waste disposal. The reason I am posting it here this evening is because I have followed the ridiculous history of this political insanity for more than 40 years, not just the few that the article indicates, and like the headline for the story says, Congress needs to “stop trying to revive Yucca Mountain.” ~llaw

To find a place to store spent nuclear fuel, Congress needs to stop trying to revive Yucca Mountain

By David Klaus | April 30, 2024

A mining machine excavates alcoves and niches for exploratory scientific testing in September 2013 at Yucca Mountain. Thousands of studies of the site’s geology, hydrology, chemistry and climate to determine Yucca Mountain’s suitability as the nation’s first repository for commercial spent nuclear fuel. The project has stalled since the Obama administration attempted to withdraw the license application of the Yucca Mountain project in 2010. (Credit: US Energy Department, via Flickr)

A recent congressional hearing strangely resembled the film Groundhog Day. The hearing—titled “American Nuclear Energy Expansion: Spent Fuel Policy and Innovation”—not only rekindled a decades-old debate about whether to recycle spent nuclear fuel from reactors; it also provided a platform to relive yet again the fantasy that somehow the US government can resolve all of the political, legal, and technical issues necessary to build a permanent nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

The Republican leadership of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce clearly supported one path forward for commercial spent fuel. In her opening remarks, committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, urged the committee to “update the law and build state support for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain.” In his own opening remarks, Jeff Duncan, a South Carolina Republican and chair of the subcommittee hosting the hearing, lamented that “[u]nfortunately, the political objections of one state, NOT based on scientific reality, blocked the [Yucca Mountain] repository from being licensed and constructed.” Yucca Mountain was a recurrent theme in witness testimony and congressional questioning throughout the hearing.

But to really advance federal policy and innovation on spent nuclear fuel, Congress needs to learn the lessons of Yucca Mountain and to stop trying to revive it.

In the 2020 presidential campaign, Donald Trump and Joe Biden agreed there shouldn’t be an underground repository to permanently store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and that it was time for everyone else to accept that the project was finally off the table. As was the case four years ago, it is very unlikely the next administration, be it led by President Biden or President Trump, is going to reverse its position and attempt to revive a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project that has been dormant for over a decade.

Even if support were to emerge at the federal level, attempting to obtain permits for the facility would create an extraordinary legal and regulatory morass. The state of Nevada alone had filed over 200 objections to the Yucca Mountain construction and operating permits that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was considering before the process for considering them was suspended in 2011.

If the process were revived and those objections (or contentions, in NRC terminology) were somehow adjudicated in favor of the project, the state and other opponents would turn their attention to required NRC certification of transportation casks, emergency plans, evacuation routes, safety procedures, and operator training programs. Beyond these requirements, the project would have to acquire rights-of-way for the construction of an approximately 300-mile-long railroad and obtain a certification from the US Environmental Protection Agency of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and radiation-protection standards, as well as a host of other state and local approvals. Underlying these legal, regulatory, and political challenges are significant—and yet unresolved—technical issues associated with the repository design and the challenge of placing spent nuclear fuel canisters into a fractured rock formation located over a critical aquifer.

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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 are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)

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

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (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, (05/08/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Letter: There are no winners in war – The Portland Press Herald

The Portland Press Herald

… nuclear weapon use are on the rise. AI-controlled weapons are coming. Widespread death is all but guaranteed unless humans [ … Things to Do · All …

UN Nuclear Agency Chief Reveals What Was Found At Iran Facility In Isfahan During IAEA Checks

YouTube

EAM Jaishankar talks Canada’s gang wars, political hitjobs & all things ‘Anti-India’ | ET Roundtable. The Economic Times New 46K views · 10: …

Russia warns Britain and plans nuclear drills over the West’s possible deepening role in Ukraine

Jefferson City News Tribune

… about issues regarding nuclear weapons more and more recently. “Current nuclear risks are at an alarmingly high level,” Dujarric said. “All …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Holtec Aims to Lead a US Nuclear Power Renaissance – Bloomberg

Bloomberg.com

Holtec got its start making storage casks for radioactive waste. Now it wants to power the next generation of US nuclear reactors—and it’s …

France’s Next-gen Nuclear Reactor Gets Green Light | Barron’s

Barron’s

France’s nuclear safety regulator on Tuesday gave the green light for a next-generation EPR nuclear reactor in Normandy to be put into service, …

Ukraine war latest: Russia ‘developing nuclear power plant’ for joint moon base with China

Sky News

Meanwhile, Moscow fired some 50 missiles and 20 drones at Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight. Wednesday 8 May 2024 08:22, UK. LIVE …

Nuclear War

NEWS

The world must reject Russia’s nuclear posturing – but not ignore the danger – The Guardian

The Guardian

This underscores yet again that Vladimir Putin considers these weapons fair game in this war. To be sure, tactical nuclear weapons – sometimes …

US Supplying Missiles to Ukraine Triggered Tactical Nuke Drills: Moscow – Newsweek

Newsweek

“Putin is reminding people that Russia has nuclear weapons and they should think very carefully before getting directly involved in the war in Ukraine …

Russian nuke exercises: Would Russia really attack Ukraine? – DW

DW

For the first time since the invasion, Russia wants to carry out tactical nuclear weapons exercises near the Ukrainian border.

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

NATO Leader Mocks Putin’s Nuclear Threat, Says Ready To Send Troops To Ukraine – YouTube

YouTube

… nuclear threats. Lithuanian Prime Minister … NATO Leader Mocks Putin’s Nuclear Threat, Says Ready To Send Troops To Ukraine: Risking Open War?

Russia warns of nuclear weapon drills to ‘cool down’ West. Is it bluffing?

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Erath said the continued threat of nuclear weapons makes it all the more critical to ensure Ukraine’s victory in the war. That includes ensuring …

Russian nuke exercises: Would Russia really attack Ukraine? – DW

DW

Western officials have repeatedly criticized Russian leadership for making nuclear threats. Putin has not openly threatened a nuclear strike, though …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

The biggest volcano eruptions in recorded history – Yahoo Movies Canada

Yahoo Movies Canada

VEI-8 is a devastating explosive eruption every 50,000 years. The Yellowstone Caldera would reach this level if it were to erupt. Let’s all just keep …

Japan Sea, 60 km Northeast of Anamizu, Ishikawa, Japan, on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, at …

Volcano Discovery

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

7 km SW of Volcano, Hawaii, on Monday, May 6, 2024, at 02:23 pm (Honolulu Time)

Volcano Discovery

List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. Past Quakes · Past Quakes · Earthquake Archive Look up any …

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“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 08, 2024

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Atomic plant Vogtle, is a 2-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Tuesday, (05/07/2024)

Are we humans so simple-minded that we will pay the price necessary for Biden’s outrageous global nuclear power plan with new and godfathered nuclear power plants? The plan includes boycotting Russian nuclear fuel, irresponsible congressional relaxed construction engineering requirements for new nuclear plants, and also outrageous uranium prices associated with the new gold rush, er rather, uranium rush, for all of the above reasons mentioned and many more, of course..

My question are these: Will the USA bankrupt itself and those of us, including corporations, who will pay higher taxes and utility rates for both the increased utilities costs to recover their costs, of course, by passing them along to their customers? Or will ‘all things nuclear’, coupled with lack of human common sense and care, prematurely end collective life on planet Earth to its premature death — self inflicted victims of the 6th Extinction?

Men who knew and understood, like Albert Einstein and many others, have been warning us, even in death as their warnings live on beyond them, for 80 years, but we pay no heed. ~llaw

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U.S. Ban Could Spark Another 60% Hike In The Price Of Uranium

Tim Treadgold

Contributor

Australian-based finance journalist covering global resources

May 6, 2024,10:07pm EDT

The 75% increase in the price of uranium over the last 12 months took most investors by surprise just as the potential for another 60% increase is being overlooked despite clear pointers to the boom in uranium getting a second wind.

Last year’s uranium rush was a simple case of demand exceeding supply after a prolonged drought in the development of new mines and re-awakened interest in nuclear power as a low emissions source of base-load electricity.

Three recent events in the U.S. have built on interest in uranium and the nuclear fuel cycle as has the latest sabre-rattling over the war in Ukraine.

The first development which returned nuclear power to the front page was the start last week of electricity production at the fourth reactor of Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle, described as the last big nuclear build as the focus shifts to small modular reactors.

Then came bipartisan political support in Washington for laws which will speed the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.

Capping off this burst of activity focused on a once contentious power source was the passing by the U.S. Senate of a bill banning the import of Russian uranium which is now waiting on the signature of President Biden before it becomes law.

The ban, if enforced would be a progressive shut down of Russian material with power utilities allowed waivers until the end of 2027 to manage the shift to sourcing fuel domestically or from other suppliers such as Canada or Australia.

But layered on top of uranium-connected events in the U.S. was the latest threat from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to use short-range tactical nuclear weapons against the western world because of its support for 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 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.

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TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Tuesday, (05/07/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Warren Buffett compares AI to nuclear weapons in stark warning | CNN Business

CNN

The so-called Oracle of Omaha acknowledged to his audience that he has little idea about the tech behind AI, but said he still fears its potential …

Atomic vets are on the verge of losing federal benefits. Congress hasn’t helped – KACU

KACU

Weekend All Things Considered. Next Up: 5:00 PM … So-called atomic veterans who worked on nuclear weapons tests, like this one from … The dog that bit …

Russia plans nuclear drills over the West’s role in Ukraine – Spectrum News

Spectrum News

… about issues regarding nuclear weapons more and more recently. “Current nuclear risks are at an alarmingly high level,” Dujarric said. “All …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

U.S. Ban Could Spark Another 60% Hike In The Price Of Uranium – Forbes

Forbes

The first development which returned nuclear power to the front page was the start last week of electricity production at the fourth reactor of …

WEC panelists welcome growth in support for nuclear power

World Nuclear News

The public and political perception of nuclear energy has significantly improved over the past few years, speakers agreed in a panel session …

Republicans urge Biden to prevent French work with Russian nuclear power company

Reuters

Two influential Republican U.S. lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to prevent a French company from working on civil nuclear power projects …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Ginna Nuclear Power Plant to test emergency sirens. What you should know

Democrat and Chronicle

Public safety officials will test the emergency sirens at the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario on May 7. The annual test will include 96 …

Ginna Nuclear Power Plant to test emergency sirens. What you should know – AOL.com

AOL.com

Public safety officials will test the emergency sirens at the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario on May 7.

What’s that siren? R.E. Ginna Nuclear plant to test sirens this morning | Fingerlakes1.com

Fingerlakes1.com

Public safety officials will conduct an annual test of the emergency sirens for the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario this morning.

Nuclear War

NEWS

‘Nuclear Attack On London, Paris & Washington…’: Putin Aide Medvedev’s Big Warning … – YouTube

YouTube

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned the West against sending troops to Ukraine. He said if the West sends troops to Ukraine that would …

NATO escalation in Ukraine threatens nuclear war with Russia – World Socialist Web Site

WSWS

There are growing indications that NATO’s war against Russia is entering a new stage of escalation that threatens to lead to the use of nuclear …

Russia announces nuclear drills in response to perceived Western threats – VOA News

VOA News

No power has used nuclear weapons in war since the United States unleashed the first atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Will Putin Use Nuclear Weapons? How Serious Russia’s Threats Are – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Third Year of WarTransforming WarfareNuclear RiskHow Russia Dodged Oil SanctionsWhy Russia Invaded Ukraine … How Serious Is Putin’s Threat to Use …

Russia announces nuclear drills in response to perceived Western threats – VOA

VOA

Russia plans to perform drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, in response to what it called “provocative statements and threats from France, …

Russia Warns Ukraine’s F-16s Will Be Treated as Nuclear Threats – Newsweek

Newsweek

Russia-Ukraine War · F-16 · Ukraine · Nuclear weapons · Russia. Russia Warns Ukraine’s F-16s Will Be Treated as Nuclear Threats. Published May 06, …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Mag. 4.3 earthquake – Norwegian Sea, 409 km northeast of Haldersvig, Streymoy, Faroe …

Volcano Discovery

List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. … Its vast caldera has an amazing moonscape and several active …

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“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 07, 2024

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Pacific Ocean Coastal View of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear Power Plant

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

The following opinion piece from “Counter Punch” by Winslow Myers is an excellent short but powerful counterpunch to George Will, who apparently fails to understand that nuclear power plants are every bit, if not moreso, as likely to be a major issue in and contributor to the future 6th extinction of life on planet Earth than nuclear war,

If Mr. Will had actually carefully read Annie Jacobsen’s brilliantly researched scenario of a present day blow-by- blow view of what nuclear war would be like, he would know that any attack on a nuclear power plant would be additionally devastating all by themselves. There are already far, far, too many of them — there should be none — all around the world that could become incredibly powerful weapons of war and mass destruction. As demonstrated by her depiction of a North Korean ICBM delivering a nuclear bomb to the last commercial operating nuclear power plant in California (PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Station) near San Luis Obispo) and how one 300 kiloton nuclear bomb could permanently devastate life in all of southern California as well as other states as far east as Colorado caused from the destruction of just one power plant.

Incidentally, this is coincidentally the same actual currently operating nuclear power plant that I am writing a similar kind of a nuclear dystopian future about in my own imagined novel of ‘LLAW’s All Things Nuclear’ with abridged drafts of each chapter posted here once every two weeks. The next such post will be on Sunday, May 12th, with Chapter 4 of “El Nuclear Diablo”, telling the story of how nuclear power plants can create a dystopian world without nuclear war involved at all . . . ~llaw

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MAY 6, 2024

What the Analysts Leave Out

BY WINSLOW MYERS

The conservative columnist George Will wrote a very welcome column calling attention to a book, Nuclear War: A Scenario by historian Annie Jacobsen, a riveting must-read that details just how easily deterrence could unravel, how fast and irreversibly escalation would occur, and how compete the destruction would be.

But Will undercut the value of his review by contrasting nuclear war with the climate crisis, of which he is a denier. Climate deniers these days are as obsolete as Holocaust deniers and surely neither should be given space in major American newspapers.

The climate crisis is inescapable and the nuclear crisis is becoming more so. But it is essential and useful to see how the two are intertwined:

Both crises continue because of denial. The extreme kind is exemplified by Mr. Will and, from all indications, candidate Trump—neither of these thinks global climate change is an emergency at all.

A lesser degree of denial encompasses almost all the rest of us. We see the obvious indicators of climate and nuclear dysfunctionality but feel helpless. At the other extreme are the Bill Mckibbens and Greta Thunbergs and their millions of followers who have given their utmost to waking the rest of us up to the urgency, including the doctors in groups like International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, or the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017) who are doing the same for nukes.

The denial of the passive mass middle around both issues includes the political establishments of many nations. Some countries are doing more than others to mitigate global warming, even as the powerful fossil fuel industry fights tooth and nail against its own looming obsolescence. On the nuclear issue things are far worse, with the invasion of Ukraine and China’s ongoing threat to repossess Taiwan rendering new arms control initiatives seemingly impossible—just when the aggressive pursuit of such treaties is most needed.

This is too obvious to mention, but both crises represent existential threats. Global warming may be more gradual, but it is just as all-encompassing as nuclear war. In the Jacobsen book it takes only 72 minutes to pretty much change the planet we know and love into a world where the still living would envy the dead. But because global warming is not just somewhere over the horizon but here now, there are going to be far too many people who will die in the summer of 2024 from the effects of heat, while Mr. Will continues in comfortably air-conditioned denial.

Establishment thinking assumes that we have enough money and creativity to cope with both crises. For 35 years one member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War who is on the activist end of the spectrum, Dr. Robert Dodge, has been writing hair-on-fire editorials that apply a formula for determining how much of our tax revenue is poured down the nuclear weapons rathole. It’s mind-boggling. In tax year 2023, the town of Ojai where Dodge lives spent $2,742,698 funding U.S. nuclear weapons programs, just the one town. Ventura County where Ojai is located in California spent $253,174,999. The total U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs expenditure was $94,485,000,000. That’s 94 billion.

There are differences between the leaders of the nine nuclear powers. Mr. Biden has little in common with Kim Jong Un, though the other candidate for U.S. president, spending his down time in court at the moment even as he polls neck-and-neck, may have all too much in common.

But the leaders of the nuclear powers are all failing to put the interests of the planet above the interests of their sovereign nations: they know that a nuclear war cannot be won, that launch-on-warning is insane, that none of them is prepared for those fateful few minutes of decision described so powerfully by Jacobsen that would unfold out of a deterrence breakdown. But all refuse to act creatively upon the implications.

There is a way out, and, once again, it involves the interconnection between nuclear war and the climate crisis. Start by pulling our ostrich heads out of the sand and admit the crazy, suicidally dysfunctionality of nuclear deterrence. The nine nuclear powers need to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons even if they may be in violation of its provisions for some years yet. Make gestures which are quickly reversible if no other party responds, like bringing home a few submarines. Convene the generals and talk about the no-exit nature of the situation—and talk, loudly, about it even if some generals refuse the invitation.

And talk equally loudly about the need for a new level of cooperation on climate. Think outside the box: the military forces of all nations happen to also be the biggest polluters. How could they work together instead to help with the effects of climate already here, the refugees, the water crises, the conflicts over resources? It’s a proven fact that tensions decrease when adversaries cooperate on a common goal. We can all have conversations locally about the connections between the two challenges, conversations that would lead to probing questions of our representatives at every level.

Everything has changed in our world; we have begun to become aware that everything I do affects you and vice versa. The nuclear deterrence system and George Will-Donald Trump-style climate denial leaves out too much of our reality.

Winslow Myers is author of “Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide.” He serves on the Advisory Board of the War Preventive Initiative.

---

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 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, Monday, (05/06/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills in response to Western ‘threats’ – CNN

CNN

… all topics. Russian President Vladimir Putin has …

What the Analysts Leave Out – CounterPunch.org

Counterpunch

On the nuclear issue things are far worse … Global warming may be more gradual, but it is just as all-encompassing as nuclear war. … But the leaders …

Atomic vets are on the verge of losing federal benefits. Congress hasn’t helped – NPR

NPR

“An American issue” … New Mexico Democratic Senator Ben Ray Luján knows about the need for that lifesaving help all too well. He’s seen the scores of …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

China continues rapid growth of nuclear power capacity

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

In the past 10 years, more than 34 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power capacity were added in China, bringing the country’s number of operating …

Goldman bullish on nuclear power, sees upside for this uranium play – CNBC

CNBC

Goldman Sachs raised Cameco’s price 12-month stock price target by $1.

Private Investment Fuels Race For Nuclear Fusion Power In US | Barron’s

Barron’s

Spurred on by major technological advances and huge private investment, the United States’ nuclear fusion sector could be producing electricity …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Nuclear power safety (was – argument in the Woke thread) – Dropzone.com

Dropzone.com

… nuclear reactor in an emergency, and everything looked good. But then a tidal wave damaged – not the reactor, not the control room, but the power …

UN nuclear watchdog’s board sets emergency meeting on Zaporizhzhia attacks – MSN

MSN

Drones attacked the Russian-held facility in southern Ukraine, Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, on Sunday, hitting one reactor building, the …

UN nuclear watchdog’s board sets emergency meeting after Zaporizhzhia attacks – MSN

MSN

… Nuclear Power Plant, after the enemies accused each other of drone attacks. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said drones struck the …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Alarming! Putin Orders Mega Nuke Wargames; Ukraine War Set For Nuclear End?

YouTube

Amid escalating tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered nuclear drills involving troops near Ukraine, aimed at practicing the …

Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills in response to Western ‘threats’ – CNN

CNN

… nuclear weapon, in what would have been the first nuclear attack in war since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 80 …

Russia announces nuclear weapon drills after angry exchange with senior Western officials

The Washington Post

The war already has placed significant strain on relations between Moscow and the West. Story continues below advertisement. Tactical nuclear weapons …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

Russia announces nuclear weapon drills after ‘provocative’ Western threats – Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Since the war began, Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks – warnings which the US says it has to take seriously though its officials …

Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills in response to Western ‘threats‘ – CNN

CNN

… war is “going to take a while” and warned of the “increasing” threat of nuclear war.

Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon drills to deter the West – Reuters

Reuters

… threats in the way that Russia has. NUCLEAR RISKS. U.S. President Joe Biden said last year that he felt there was no real prospect of Russia using …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 06, 2024

Share

The world’s first deep geological storage facility for high-level nuclear waste will start operating later this year. CREDIT:POSIVA

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

The following stories, three related articles, demonstrate the risk that ‘All Things Nuclear’, including nuclear waste, represents to the irresponsible and foolish idea that nuclear energy, like nuclear war, is the great elixir and our life saving future, rather than the most poisonous and dreaded human product ever created by mankind. We have known that for more than 80 years, yet we ignore what is indelibly lodged in our brains after the Manhattan Project and the final results of World War II. Obviously, we know the dangers that all things nuclear represents, but we continue to ignore them and simply add to the possible (maybe probable) annihilation of all life on planet Earth. We have done this to ourselves, and only we can reverse what we done . . .

If we humans were wise, we would shut down all nuclear facilities and their products, including military, and store it all in this and other similar deep geological storage facilities for all nuclear waste everywhere nuclear anything exists on Earth’s surface starting today. But we are far from wise, and our collective witless god-like egos prompt us to blindly continue on on our march to what we often call today armageddon. ~llaw

The newest nuclear reactor on Olkiluoto, Finland, took more than 17 years to build.

On the tiny island of Olkiluoto on Finland’s Baltic Sea coast, just over three hours drive north-west from Helsinki, a minor miracle of engineering and science, planning and governance is unfolding.

On the far western edge of the little island – just 5 kilometres across – Finland has switched on the first new nuclear reactor in Europe in the past 15 years; it is the tiny nation’s fifth reactor. The reactor now generates 1.6 gigawatts, enough to supply more than 750,000 modern Australian households.

Drive back towards the mainland a kilometre or two and you will come to the gates of Onkalo, a Finnish word meaning something like “cavity” in English, which will soon open to become the world’s first deep geological repository for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste.

Soon robot tractors will begin the work of transferring Finland’s spent fuel rods 450 metres down into the bedrock along the 50 kilometres of Onkalo’s tunnels to be sealed in gigantic copper cylinders, packed in bentonite – an absorbent clay that swells when exposed to water and is the main ingredient in kitty litter – and finally entombed behind vast concrete plugs to rest in safety for 100,000 years.

Or that is the plan arrived at in Finland’s parliament in 1994, when the nation’s leaders decreed that the generation that benefited from nuclear power was responsible for safely disposing of it and set a timeline to get it done.

A site would be selected by 2000, operations would begin by the mid-2020s. And so it was that a site was chosen by that date and Posiva, the company that won the contract to bury the waste, has just won a licence to start operations later this year.

“This is also important for Finnish culture that we stick to the schedule,” says Mika Pohjonen, managing director of Posiva Solutions, a subsidiary that sells the company’s expertise internationally, as he talks through the extraordinary considerations of such a project.

The timelines, he says, as we speak in his Helsinki office on an unseasonably snowy spring afternoon, are impossible for human minds to properly grapple with.

The plant will operate for 100 years before it is sealed and returned to the state.

In 100,000 years the radioactivity of the waste will have reduced to background levels, but the facility is intended to last 1 million years.

“Any human being cannot really understand what this means,” says Pohjonen. “You understand 10 years, 100 years, maybe. The Roman Empire was 2000 years ago, OK. But then 10,000 years? 100,000 years? That is beyond comprehension.”

I ask him how long the facility would remain safe if due to some unforeseen future calamity there was no one left to maintain it.

“If there is no nobody in Scandinavia or Finland? Then in fact who would care?”

Besides, he notes, the next ice age will cover the entire area with a few kilometres of ice in less than 150,000 years.

The bedrock into which Onkalo is built is 1900 million years old. “So it is relatively stable,” says Pohjonen, who is possessed of a manner of speech so dry it is impossible to know whether he is always or never joking.

The site was selected not just for its stability but for its utterly unremarkable geological make-up. The designers wanted to be sure that no future civilisation would seek to disturb it, so they selected an area that not only had no known useful minerals, but one whose geological make-up was so common that there would be no reason to mine it for materials that might one day become valuable.

Posiva’s view is that it should be left utterly unmarked, says Pohjonen. There should be no reason for anyone to disturb it. (Just as no other deep permanent facility has yet been completed, there is no international consensus on this. A report by a major US nuclear research lab went as far as proposing wording to be inscribed upon such facilities. “This place is not a place of honour,” reads the proposed text. “No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here … nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. ”)

However unthinkable the timelines that Onkalo’s keepers are grappling with, Climate and Environment Minister Kai Mykkänen has no doubt about nuclear’s role in Finland’s economy.

Mykkänen represents a centre-right government installed in June 2023, more than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is more conservative and more West-facing than its predecessors and determined that not only should clean electricity help Finland meet climate targets, cheap and abundant energy should also bolster its economy.

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The Arctic ice between Russia and the US is melting. What’s at stake at the top of the world?

Finland’s climate targets are among the most ambitious on earth. It aims to have a net-zero economy by 2035 and after that to go negative. That is, it aims to have its forests absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than its economy pumps into it. So far it is having success in reducing its emissions but struggling to improve its forest emissions sink.

By comparison, Australia’s targets are to reduce emissions by 43 per cent compared with 2005 levels by 2030, and reach zero in 2050.

To reach Finland’s ambitious goals, nuclear is crucial says Mykkänen. Nuclear power, along with the mass deployment of wind and solar, will allow it to double its electricity production so it can power electrified green export industries. It plans to ramp up the production of green steel, synthetic fuels and hydrogen.

It has also allowed Finland to sever its energy lifelines with Russia, which until the invasion of Ukraine was a source of gas, wood and biomass for Finland.

So convinced of the efficacy of nuclear power is Finland that when it adopted its ambitious targets it lobbied for the European Union to recognise nuclear as a form of green energy.

Support for nuclear comes from across the political spectrum, too. While opposition to nuclear power is woven into the creation of the early Green political movements, particularly in Germany and Australia, MPs for the Green League in Finland now support it.

Partly this has to do with Finland’s typically pragmatic approach to policymaking, says Veikko Sajaniemi, a lead consultant with the Finnish sustainability advisers Third Rock.

Finland has a population of just over 5.5 million people, which is well-educated and well governed. In one annual global report, Finland was famously named the happiest country on earth seven times running, in part because it is among the least corrupt.

In other words, Finland’s nuclear energy policies are less contested than those in some other countries simply because Finns still have a faith in government and institutions that has withered in other nations.

Mykkänen boasts that in a recent survey 68 per cent of Finns voiced support for the nation’s nuclear industry.

Environmentally minded Finns were appalled when they saw Germany switch off nuclear plants only to ramp up coal use, says Sajaniemi: “Fossil fuels are the past. We are not going back to that.”

But all this does not mean Finland’s nuclear path has been without difficulty or controversy, or that there is universal support for expanding it further.

This takes us back to the island of Olkiluoto, where the government approved the construction of the so-called Olkiluoto 3 reactor on the same site as two older reactors in 2005, expecting it to begin delivering power in 2009.

In fact, the reactor was not switched on until April 16 last year, 17 and a half years after construction began, after a series of delays, breakdowns and outages.

As far back as 2009 Finland’s then-nuclear regulator, Petteri Tiippana, explained to the BBC that one of the reasons for the delay was that even though nuclear power was a proven technology, reactors remained infernally difficult machines to build and because so few were built, there was no experienced workforce.

“When they encounter a problem on site they usually follow their previous experience,” he told the BBC, “this is how we did it on a coal power plant and that just doesn’t work on a nuclear construction project.”

In the end the plant, which the French company Areva had agreed to provide for €3 billion ended up costing €11 billion ($18 billion), driving the company into losses and legal skirmishes with the Finnish operator, TVO.

Despite these blowouts Mykkänen tells this masthead he would like to see even more nuclear plants built in Finland, though it would be up to the private sector to do so. He says one of the reasons for the delays was that Olkiluoto 3 was new technology, a so-called European Pressurised Reactor, designed to be safer and more efficient than a Pressurised Water Reactor.

But over the years of its development, competing technologies such as wind, solar and batteries, have matured to the point where their components can be churned out of factory production lines at the push of a button.

RELATED ARTICLE

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Numerous hurdles block Dutton’s nuclear pathway

In 2020, the International Energy Agency declared solar to provide the cheapest electricity in history, while last year alone the cost of producing solar panels in China fell by 42 per cent.

In recent years, Finland has ramped up its deployment of renewables too, especially wind.

In 2022, wind power production in Finland increased by 41 per cent to 11.6 TWh, accounting for just over 14 per cent of the country’s electricity consumption.

Given the advances of renewables and the staggering cost and construction times of nuclear, it may well be that while the obvious solution to Finland’s future power needs when Olkiluoto 3 was commissioned nearly two decades ago, it is no longer, says Tuuli Hietaniemi, a specialist in sustainability solutions with Sitra, an influential Finnish think tank.

She now believes Finland should stick to the “basic recipe” of rapidly deploying more renewables until and unless the nuclear sector manages to make available the much vaunted small modular reactors, which supporters say will enjoy the same benefits of industrial scale as renewable technology. And when might that be? Hietaniemi shrugs.

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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 are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)

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

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (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, (05/05/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Warren Buffett compares AI to nuclear weapons, warns of scamming potential

Fox Business

… all time,” and comparing it, again, to nuclear weapons … nuclear weapons and warning about the potential for scams. … things,” he said. He also talked …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Underneath a tiny island, 50 kilometres of tunnels will house high-level nuclear waste

WAtoday

The newest nuclear reactor on Olkiluoto, Finland, took more than 17 years to build. Drive back towards the mainland a kilometre or two and you will …

Home – Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) – Home

Reaching ambitious net zero carbon emission targets requires a sizeable share of nuclear energy in the electricity mix. The value of nuclear energy as …

The next big breakthrough in power generation could happen beneath our feet – The Cool Down

The Cool Down

Molten salt reactors are part of a technology gaining traction that could solve several challenges facing the nuclear industry, as Power magazine …

Nuclear War

NEWS

U.S. must reconsider military spending, nuclear weapons – Everett Herald

Everett Herald

… nuclear war. A successful nuclear attack that we initiated would annihilate hundreds of millions of people-effectively ending life on earth as we …

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Heavy fighting around key eastern cities

Sky News

… nuclear attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin made ominous comments … “People in Russia are looking at him, not just those who are against the war …

What the analysts leave out – Fullerton Observer

Fullerton Observer

The conservative columnist George Will wrote a very welcome column calling attention to a book, Nuclear War: A Scenario by historian Annie …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Space War: Russia Could Deploy Nuclear Weapons Into Orbit | The National Interest

The National Interest

… threats. Concerns Grow Over Russian Plans for Space-Based Nuclear Weapons. Yesterday was “Star Wars Day” as in “May the Fourth” – but a real space war …

Russia’s nuclear threat on Finland border, EU’s €230 million support and a freak weather

Helsinki Times

Russia’s nuclear threat on Finland border … British army helicopters fly to Finland in ‘largest NATO exercise since Cold War‘ … The article highlights …

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Heavy fighting around key eastern cities

Sky News

We know there’s been a nuclear shadow over this, which Putin from time to time refers back to trying to put a threat of fear, understandably, in the …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Mag. 3.4 quake – Gisborne, New Zealand, on Friday, May 3, 2024, at 11:29 pm (GMT -12)

Volcano Discovery

Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes. Latest earthquakes under Yellowstone volcano … caldera and picturesque villages. Discover its fascinating …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 05, 2024

1

Share

In this April 29, 2015 photo, a home sits within view of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant cooling towers Unit 1, left, and Unit 2 near Spring City, Tenn. VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Saturday, (05/04/2024)

I have posted the 1st portion of this long article (the rest is well worth reading and I’ve posted the link to the full story below) here tonight to demonstrate the complications involved in trying to remediate and expand the very concept of nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere and how nearly impossible the effort will be to build and fuel these pie-in-the-sky efforts by overriding, ignoring, and avoiding Russian control of ‘everything nuclear’ via the supremacy of their own government owned and operated corporation called Rosatom. The sheer costs of these pipe dreams could bankrupt our federal government when added to the already out of control Department of Defense budget.

I have to wonder if we would not be wiser, and certainly humanity would be safer, if we invested in a grand and realistic program to help finance renewables and to seriously look into the idea of developing and generating massive use of electrical energy from already existing steam from geo-thermal resources from volcanic calderas (and other sources) such as Yellowstone, where logic tells us to begin. Many genuine experts in the technical, geological, engineering, and utility power industry believe such a grass-roots effort is possible both technically and financially and could solve — faster than expanding a single new full-scale nuclear power plan — virtually every serious difficulty we have in our need for more power including the CO2 global warming and climate change problem, and never build nor use another nuclear power plant again, much less build new ones. ~llaw

The link to this entire article from HuffPost is also provided here and also in the TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Saturday, (05/04/2024) below for your convenience:

POLITICSCLIMATE CHANGEENERGYCLEAN ENERGY

A Century-Old Company The Government Owns Wants To Solve A Big Energy Problem

If Congress lets it.

By Alexander C. Kaufman

May 4, 2024, 08:30 AM EDT

|Updated 3 hours ago

132 COMMENTS

The Biden administration wants the United States to triple the global supply of nuclear power, with American-designed reactors running on fuel enriched in the West. The goal: Usurp Russia’s near monopoly on atomic energy exports, and keep China from gaining control of yet another green energy industry.

But there’s one big problem: The U.S. isn’t even building any more reactors at home.

After nearly 15 years of billion-dollar cost overruns and delays, the utility giant Southern Company just hooked the second of two new reactors at a power plant in Georgia up to the grid this week — the only two atomic energy units built from scratch in the U.S. in decades. Developers are shopping around all kinds of novel designs for new-age nuclear plants. Yet few utilities can afford — or persuade investors to put up the cash for — projects that can take a decade or more to complete.

Luckily for President Joe Biden, the federal government owns a massive power utility specifically designed to deploy large-scale infrastructure that remains out of reach for the market’s invisible hand. But building new megaprojects means borrowing money — and Congress hasn’t bothered to adjust the utility’s credit limit for inflation in 45 years.

Established almost exactly 91 years ago to electrify rural parts of the American South too poor to attract profiteering utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority today generates and sells power to 153 local distributors that serve 10 million people in Tennessee and the surrounding region. The TVA’s seven reactors, spread out between three nuclear power plants, churned out 43% of its electricity in the past few months.

The TVA functions like any other independent power company. But the New Deal-era state corporation’s board of directors is appointed by the White House and its shares are owned by the federal government. That makes the TVA the closest thing the U.S. has to the kind of government-controlled entity that other countries have tasked with completing their own years-long nuclear megaprojects.

France, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Poland and Ukraine all use government ownership to build and operate nuclear energy plants. The Kremlin-owned Rosatom has only widened Russia’s lead over the U.S. in reactor and uranium fuel exports in recent years, while successfully deploying new technologies at home. China’s state utilities have built reactors at home faster than any other country, and the country now looks poised to begin exporting its reactor designs in direct competition with the U.S.

Putting the TVA at the cutting edge of the U.S. government’s nuclear revival strategy is not a new idea. But it’s gaining momentum. The utility is already working on two next-generation projects to build some of the country’s first small modular reactors. Now even the regulator who oversaw construction of the nation’s only all-new reactors in Georgia is encouraging the TVA to take up the challenge of constructing more. (Copy the available link to read the full article.)

“I think we need to do everything possible.”

– Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)

Arthur Delaney contributed reporting from Washington.

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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 are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)

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

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (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, Saturday, (05/04/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEW

Modern Marvels: UNBELIEVABLE Origins of Nuclear Warfare *2 Hour Marathon* – YouTube

YouTube

… all platforms. The network’s all … things we wonder about and that impact our lives. … Modern Marvels: UNBELIEVABLE Origins of Nuclear Warfare *2 Hour …

Q&A: What’s the Deal with Bill Gates’s Wyoming Nuclear Plant? – Inside Climate News

Inside Climate News

But in fact, a nuclear plant, everything else being the same, typically employs more people than a coal-fired plant. So there are several advantages …

New Era for Nuclear Power – Living on Earth

Living on Earth

CURWOOD: What about all the atomic weapons that people would like to see decommissioned? To what extent might that help the fuel situation for nuclear …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

A Century-Old Company The Government Owns Wants To Solve A Big Energy Problem – HuffPost

HuffPost

The Biden administration wants the United States to triple the global supply of nuclear power, with American-designed reactors running on fuel …

Nuclear Power in South Korea

World Nuclear Association

South Korea is among the world’s most prominent nuclear energy countries, and exports its technology widely. Today 26 reactors provide about …

AI investment boom extends to nuclear power generation and uranium – Nikkei Asia

Nikkei Asia

This reflects investor expectations that nuclear power-related companies will benefit from an explosive increase in electricity demand resulting from …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Ukraine conducts disaster response drills near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Yahoo Life UK

Yahoo Life UK

Ukraine conducts disaster response drills near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. An anti-radiation drills for case of an emergency situation at Zaporizhzhia …

The US fears China’s military use of its floating nuclear power plants | УНН

unn.ua

УНН War ✎ China is pushing ahead with plans to build floating nuclear reactors that could power military installations in the disputed South …

Nuclear War

NEWS

George F. Will: Voters, please think about the menace of nuclear annihilation | Columnists

Union Leader

Reading “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by reporter and historian Annie Jacobsen will take you much longer than the 30 or so minutes — 1,800 seconds — that …

Nuclear War Fears Drive New Market for Bomb Shelters – Business Insider

Business Insider

Joshua Jordan, an engineer in Texas, builds emergency bunkers for wealthy clients who are nervous about a nuclear disaster.

How Macron wants to ‘Europeanize’ nuclear deterrence – Le Monde

Le Monde

The French president is looking to extend France’s nuclear deterrent capability in light of Donald Tump’s possible return to the White House and …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

AI and Nukes: An unimaginable threat | WION Fineprint – YouTube

YouTube

The ultimate threat: Artificial Intelligence and the nuclear conundrum … China Threatens Nuclear Attack … Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War – a Second by …

World may be on brink of ‘hybrid World War 3′ – and could lead to ‘radioactive Europe’ report warns

The Mirror

… nuclear threat” in Russia’s hands after its withdrawal from nuclear deterrence treaties. Those nuclear threats may continue to grow as the …

Why the UK says Ukraine can now target Russia with British weapons

Washington Examiner

… war on Ukraine has already demolished the entire European security architecture. The U.K. and France recognize that just as Russian nuclear threats …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Complicated calculations reveal when Yellowstone is heating up – Billings Gazette

Billings Gazette

Yellowstone caldera and resurgent domes are outlined in black. Thermal areas in the inset images are annotated with geothermal radiant emittance …

Mag. 2.4 quake – 6 km S of Volcano, Hawaii, on Friday, May 3, 2024, at 07:57 am (Honolulu time)

Volcano Discovery

List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. Earthquakes 2016 · Earthquakes 2016 · Top 20 quakes in 2016

Mag. 3.9 earthquake – North Pacific Ocean, 70 km southeast of Shikotan, Sakhalin , Russia …

Volcano Discovery

… caldera and erupts every few years. … Do you know which is the biggest volcano in the world? Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes · Latest …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

MAY 04, 2024

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LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Friday, (05/03/2024)

The Nuclear Power News category (Category 2) of the ‘All Things Nuclear’ daily media headlines below is an accidental model of how media stories confuse the casual American or international citizen(s) by contradicting one another or themselves, even unintentionally. If you do nothing more than scan down and read the 3 headlines from the New York Times, WVTF, and the Iowa State Daily, you will plainly see what it is that continues to fracture any idea of understanding the past, present, and future of nuclear power plants and why they are claimed to be clean or dirty, cheap or expensive, and whether or not nuclear power plants are in favor or disfavor as a functional tool for becoming more or less popular for producing electricity.

Similar to the never ending media political division of opinion, nuclear media stories often lead to bitter misunderstandings about whether nuclear power of any kind is good or bad for human use, but in every case if one reads between the lines the reader will find that, no matter the issue, there is a dark side to the whole concept of nuclear power viability, including many that are seldom discussed at all, the most important of which is that nuclear power plants are easily subject to be used as extremely powerful and dangerous weapons of massive elimination of human and other life on planet Earth.

As an example, there is an international (Article 15 of the 1977 Geneva Convention) pact among armed nations that it is against all military powers-that-be to involve nuclear power plants in war, but still right now today we continue to see the war between Russia and Ukraine dangerously fighting over military control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine that is threatening the existence of not only Ukraine but other countries in Europe as well. As I have said many times before in this blog, human made agreements are useless because they are meaningless even before the ink is dry. Militaries and their countries’ leaders operate by this old WWII axion: “If you win, you don’t have to explain.” ~llaw

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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 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.

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TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Friday, (05/03/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

A new nuclear energy law will likely mean higher utility bills | WVTF

WVTF

All Things Considered · BBC World Service · Fresh … nuclear power facilities – things like permitting, for example. … Utility customers don’t usually …

Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko on the horror and absurdity of Russia’s senseless …

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

It holds beautiful and ugly things all together.” … nuclear threat. For … Now, I ask, what does he want the world to know about nuclear risk?

‘Doomsday’ plane to be built in Colorado

Colorado Public Radio

Part of the production for the next generation of the plane meant to keep U.S. military airborne during nuclear war will happen in Englewood.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Opinion | Nuclear Power as a Clean Energy Tool? – The New York Times

The New York Times

In fact, nuclear energy is extremely environmentally unfriendly. All nuclear power plants regularly emit low-level radiation into the atmosphere and …

A new nuclear energy law will likely mean higher utility bills | WVTF

WVTF

A new law signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin that allows for utilities to make customers pay for the costs of developing nuclear power facilities.

Nuclear energy education creates more favorable perception – Iowa State Daily

Iowa State Daily

The reactor’s closing signified a trend that nuclear power was not taking off at the rate that nuclear advocates hoped. The 1996 Daily interview with …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Shuts Down Again Due to Russian Missile … – VOI

VOI

The plant briefly switched to emergency diesel generators, the last line of defense to keep the reactor fuel cool and prevent a potential catastrophic …

Zelenskyy discusses air defense and safety of local nuclear power plant in Khmelnytskyi

unn.ua

УНН War ✎ President Zelenskyy visited Khmelnytskyy region to discuss security, air defense, safety of the Khmelnytskyy nuclear power plant, …

Ukraine again takes emergency electricity aid from the EU, restrictions still in place in two regions

unn.ua

УНН Society ✎ Yesterday, the electricity needs of consumers were covered by their own generation, commercial imports and emergency assistance …

Nuclear War

NEWS

In deterrence we trust? Cold War nuclear questions make a comeback. – CSMonitor.com

The Christian Science Monitor

American trust in nuclear weapons. In the nearly 80 years since the U.S. dropped the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war, movements to abolish …

Rewind and Reconnoiter: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s Crisis of Nuclear …

War on the Rocks

In 2022, Tyler Bowen wrote “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s Crisis of Nuclear Credibility” for War on the Rocks, in which he argued that …

World leaders must curb nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and beyond | Chatham House

Chatham House

The threat of nuclear weapons is resurging in a manner not seen since the height of the Cold War. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

In deterrence we trust? Cold War nuclear questions make a comeback. – CSMonitor.com

The Christian Science Monitor

The risks of nuclear weapons have reappeared in global headlines. Containing those risks may hinge on communication as well as a “peace through …

World leaders must curb nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and beyond

Chatham House

The threat of nuclear weapons is resurging in a manner not seen since the height of the Cold War. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made …

CIA Director Haines’s Testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Global Threats

YouTube

LIVE: CIA Director Haines’s Testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Global Threats U.S. Director of Intelligence Avril Haines and …