The Government Accountability Office is warning that nuclear regulators may be relying on outdated information on climate change.
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Wednesday, (04/03/2024)
Climate risks are important, and incidents like the Fukushima nuclear disaster prove that, but the obvious problem is human activity of any and all kinds including using them as weapons of mass destruction in war, attacks from terrorists, sabotage by disenchanted protestors, human operator error, AI and other computer failures, fires and radiation leaks, mishandling of nuclear waste, and grid power malfunctions for all the reasons above, including weather and other climate malfunctions that turn can turn nuclear power plants into ‘tinker toys’.
If we humans were as wise as we think we are, we would immediately ban ‘all things nuclear’ from existing in this world, and begin a global priority to dismantle all nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, fuel and waste storage and their containment, and all associated buildings, facilities, and infrastructure everywhere, burying it all in deep underground vaults where it can never be accessed by humans or any living creatures again. So, when you consider all the risks of ‘all things nuclear’, climate risks are just one of many. We, and even Mother Earth are incapable of living with the never-ending risk of ‘all things nuclear’. (A short introduction follows, and this link is also available here or at the end of the first part of the article): NRC underestimates climate risks to nuclear power, watchdog says – E&E News ~llaw
NRC underestimates climate risks to nuclear power, watchdog says
By Zach Bright | 04/03/2024 06:19 AM EDT
The Government Accountability Office found regulators rely on historical data when assessing how floods, wildfires and extreme weather could affect plants.
The Government Accountability Office is warning that nuclear regulators may be relying on outdated information on climate change. Mary Ann Chastain/AP
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not fully consider the risk climate change poses to the country’s nuclear fleet, according to a top congressional watchdog.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that the NRC uses historical data — rather than climate projections — to identify and assess risk in initial licensing processes and during safety reviews for plants. That may underestimate how droughts, floods, wildfires and extreme weather could affect nuclear power plant operations and safety, the GAO warned.
“Commercial nuclear power plants in the United States were licensed and built an average of 42 years ago, and weather patterns and climate-related risks to their safety and operations have changed since their construction,” the GAO analysts wrote, adding that some climate impacts “are already occurring, and many are expected to continue to worsen.” (The rest of the article has been truncated, but to see it all you can pay the price and go to this link: NRC underestimates climate risks to nuclear power, watchdog says – E&E News ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
The sea is blue and sparkling. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in the background, in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan on August 24 …
The United States deployed these missiles on SSNs during the Cold War, but they were removed from service (along with most US tactical nuclear weapons) …
Power transmission lines near Dixon, California on August 12, 2012. A widespread collapse of the US power grid system could threaten nuclear facilities, including overloaded spent fuel pools. (Credit: Photo by Wendell/intherough, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr)
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Tuesday, (04/02/2024)
The following article from “The Bulletin” is an extremely important multiplicity of serious nuclear problems that I have long recognized — massive long ago recognized, with serious life-threatening consequences that are just now coming into the public light and being recognized for their doomsday potential. I briefly mentioned the potential horror show that could shroud us with nuclear darkness that could end human and other life without so much as a nuclear war in Chapter 1 of “El Nuclear Diablo” being written right here on “All Things Nuclear”. So with all that in mind we have all the more need to get out of every kind of ‘all things nuclear’ now. Sooner-or-later is too late.
My fictional story opening chapter, with following plausible facts as enhancements, is the nucleus of the beginning part of my new novel that I am writing right here on my “All Things Nuclear” nightly report and opinion, with the best and broadest categories of nuclear media news all in one place that you can find anywhere. A chapter of my novel, draft titled, “El Nuclear Diablo” will be posted here once every two weeks. The “Introduction” and Chapter 1 have recently been posted, and Chapter 2 will be available on April 11th, “gawd willin’ and the crick don’t rise”.
(So, as a primer, read this well-written and critically meaningful article with utmost care; it is beyond important.) ~llaw
Spent nuclear fuel mismanagement poses a major threat to the United States. Here’s how.
Power transmission lines near Dixon, California on August 12, 2012. A widespread collapse of the US power grid system could threaten nuclear facilities, including overloaded spent fuel pools. (Credit: Photo by Wendell/intherough, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr)
Irradiated fuel assemblies—essentially bundles of fuel rods with zirconium alloy cladding sheathing uranium dioxide fuel pellets—that have been removed from a nuclear reactor (spent fuel) generate a great deal of heat from the radioactive decay of the nuclear fuel’s unstable fission products. This heat source is termed decay heat. Spent fuel is so thermally hot and radioactive that it must be submerged in circulating water and cooled in a storage pool (spent fuel pool) for several years before it can be moved to dry storage.
The dangers of reactor meltdowns are well known. But spent fuel can also overheat and burn in a storage pool if its coolant water is lost, thereby potentially releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the air. This type of accident is known as a spent fuel pool fire or zirconium fire, named after the fuel cladding. All commercial nuclear power plants in the United States—and nearly all in the world—have at least one spent fuel pool on site. A fire at an overloaded pool (which exist at many US nuclear power plants) could release radiation that dwarfs what the Chernobyl nuclear accident emitted.
Many analysts see very rare, severe earthquakes as the greatest threat to spent fuel pools; however, another far more likely event could threaten US nuclear sites: a widespread collapse of the power grid system. Such a collapse could be triggered by a variety of events, including solar storms, physical attacks, and cyberattacks—all of which are known, documented possibilities. Safety experts have warned for decades about the dangers of overloading spent fuel pools, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Congress have refused to act.
The threat of overloaded spent fuel pools. Spent fuel pools at US nuclear plants are almost as densely packed with nuclear fuel as operating reactors—a hazard that has existed for decades and vastly increases the odds of having a major accident.
Spent fuel assemblies could ignite—starting a zirconium fire—if an overloaded pool were to lose a sizable portion or all of its coolant water. In a scenario in which coolant water boils off, uncovered zirconium cladding of fuel assemblies may overheat and chemically react with steam, generating explosive hydrogen gas. A substantial amount of hydrogen would almost certainly detonate, destroying the building that houses the spent fuel pool. (Only a small quantity of energy is required to ignite hydrogen gas, including electric sparks from equipment. It is speculated a ringing telephone initiated a hydrogen explosion that occurred during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.)
A zirconium fire in an exposed spent fuel pool would have the potential to emit far more radioactive cesium 137 than the Chernobyl accident released. (The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has conducted analyses that found a zirconium fire at a densely packed pool could release as much as 24 megacuries of cesium 137; the Chernobyl accident is estimated to have released 2.3 megacuries of cesium 137.) Such a disaster could contaminate thousands of square miles of land in urban and rural areas, potentially exposing millions of people to large doses of ionizing radiation, many of whom could die from early or latent cancer.
In contrast, if a thinly packed pool were deprived of coolant water, its spent fuel assemblies would likely release about 1 percent of the radioactive material predicted to be released by a zirconium fire at a densely packed pool. A thinly packed pool has a much smaller inventory of radioactive material than a densely packed pool; it also contains much less zirconium. If such a limited amount of zirconium were to react with steam, most likely too little hydrogen would be generated to threaten the integrity of the spent fuel pool building.
A spent fuel pool at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on December 1, 2014. (Credit: US NRC, licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).
After being cooled under water for a minimum of three years, spent fuel assemblies can be transferred from pools to giant, hermetically sealed canisters of reinforced steel and concrete that shield plant workers and the public from ionizing radiation. This liquid-free method of storage, which cools the spent fuel assemblies by passive air convection, is called “dry cask storage.”
A typical US storage pool for a 1,000-megawatt-electric reactor contains from 400 to 500 metric tons of spent fuel assemblies. (Dry casks can store 10 to 15 tons of spent fuel assemblies, so each cask contains a far lower amount of radioactive material than a storage pool.) Reducing the total inventories of spent fuel assemblies stored in US spent fuel pools by roughly 70 to 80 percent reduces their amount of radioactive cesium by about 50 percent. And the heat load in each pool drops by about 25 to 30 percent. With low-density storage, a pool’s spent fuel assemblies are separated from each other to an extent that greatly improves their ability to be cooled by air convection in the event that the pool loses its coolant water. Moreover, a dry cask storage area, which has passive cooling, is less vulnerable to either accidents or sabotage than a spent fuel pool.
In the aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, in which there was a risk of spent fuel assemblies igniting, the NRC considered forcing US utilities to expedite the transfer of all sufficiently-cooled spent fuel assemblies stored in overloaded pools to dry cask storage. The NRC decided against implementing such a safety measure.
To help justify its decision, the NRC chose to analyze only one scenario that might lead to a zirconium fire: a severe earthquake. In 2014, the NRC claimed that a severe earthquake with a magnitude “expected to occur once in 60,000 years” is the prototypical initiating event that would lead to a zirconium fire in a boiling water reactor’s spent fuel pool.
The NRC’s 2014 study concluded that the type of earthquake it selected for its analyses would cause a zirconium fire and a large radiological release to occur at a densely packed spent fuel pool once every nine million years (or even less frequently). Restricting its analyses to a severe earthquake scenario allowed the NRC to help allay public fears over the dangers of spent fuel pool accidents. (At the time of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the New York Times and other news outlets warned that a zirconium fire could break out in the plant’s Unit 4 spent fuel pool, causing global public concern.)
There is good reason to question whether severe earthquakes pose the greatest threat to spent fuel pools. A widespread collapse of the US power grid system that would last for a period of months to years—estimated to occur once in a century—may be far more likely to lead to a zirconium fire than a severe earthquake. The prospect that a widespread, long-term blackout will occur within the next 100 years should prompt US utilities to expedite the transfer of spent fuel from pools to dry cask storage. Utilities in other nations, including in Japan, that have overloaded pools should follow suit.
Solar storms, physical attacks, and cyberattacks have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario in which the US power grid collapses, along with other vital infrastructures—leading to reactor meltdowns and spent fuel pool fires, whose radioactive emissions would aggravate the disaster.
Vulnerability to solar storms. In 2012, the NRC issued a Federal Register notice stating that an extreme solar storm (with its accompanying geomagnetic storm at the Earth) could cause the failure of hundreds of extra-high voltage transformers—with a maximum voltage rating of at least 345 kilovolts—precipitating widespread, long-term blackouts. The NRC posited that such a solar storm might occur once in 153 years to once in 500 years and initiate “a series of events potentially leading to [reactor] core damage at multiple nuclear sites.”
The NRC’s Federal Register notice announced the agency had determined that the threat of prolonged power outages leading to at least one spent fuel pool fire must be addressed in its rulemaking process. The NRC decided to consider enacting regulations that Thomas Popik of the Foundation for Resilient Societies, a non-profit organization focusing on infrastructure reliability, requested in a petition for rulemaking. Popik asked the NRC to require plant owners to ensure spent fuel pools would have long-term cooling and a replenished supply of coolant water in the event that an extreme solar storm collapsed large portions of the US power grid for a period of months to years. Among other things, Popik was concerned that emergency diesel generators would not be able to supply the onsite electricity needed to cool the spent fuel pool for more than a few days.
Electrically-charged particles from solar storms can be strong enough to breach Earth’s magnetosphere and induce electric currents in the power grid. Artist illustration (not to scale). (Credit: NASA, licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Flickr)
Over the past 160 years, the Earth has been hit by two solar superstorms—the 1859 Carrington Event and the 1921 New York Railroad Superstorm—that would be powerful enough to disable large portions of today’s global power grids. Scientists estimate that such extreme solar storms may hit the Earth once in a century, so the odds are that the Earth will be hit by a solar superstorm at some point during this century. In July 2012, a solar superstorm, estimated to have been more intense than the Carrington Event, crossed the Earth’s orbit, missing the Earth by about 1.8 million miles, or by one week’s time.
Solar superstorms are caused by coronal mass ejections: Eruptions of billions of tons of electrically-charged particles spat from the Sun’s corona, which travel at velocities as fast as several million miles per hour and can reach the Earth within 24 hours. Most coronal mass ejections, however, miss the Earth because it is a relatively small point within the solar system.
When a solar superstorm’s electrically-charged particles envelop the Earth, they cause extreme geomagnetic storms—mostly affecting high northern and southern latitudes. In a geomagnetic storm, the Earth’s geomagnetic field varies in magnitude, creating electric fields in the ground that induce electric currents in the power grid. Extreme geomagnetic storms may induce electric currents strong enough to melt the copper windings of extra-high voltage transformers, which may become damaged beyond repair and need to be replaced.
Extra-high voltage transformers are mostly manufactured overseas and difficult to transport. (Such transformers weigh between 100 and 400 tons.) In the United States, only a small number of facilities build extra-high voltage transformers. They cost several million dollars to manufacture and install; each is custom made to fit the specifications of its substation. Different designs are not typically interchangeable with one another, and few spares are manufactured. Manufacturing and installing even one such massive transformer can take over one year.
Solar storms that were far less intense than the New York Railroad Superstorm have collapsed modern power grids. In the early hours of March 13, 1989, on a freezing night, a geomagnetic storm caused Canada’s Hydro-Québec grid to collapse within 90 seconds, leaving six million people without electric power for about 9 hours. (The magnitude of geomagnetic storms can be measured in nanoteslas per minute, where the tesla is a unit of magnetic flux density.) The New York Railroad Superstorm is estimated to have reached a magnitude of approximately 5,000 nanoteslas per minute, and the March 1989 Storm was one-tenth as intense, reaching approximately 480 nanoteslas per minute. In late October 2003, geomagnetic storms less intense than the March 1989 Storm caused a blackout in southern Sweden and permanently damaged 15 extra-high voltage transformers in South Africa by overheating them.
Solar storms can cause large geomagnetic field variations to suddenly materialize over vast geographic areas, precipitating multiple, near-simultaneous failures at different locations of the electric power grid system. Over the past half century, the United States and other nations have dramatically expanded their power grids—adding more long-distance transmission lines and high-voltage infrastructure—thereby increasing their vulnerability to geomagnetic storms. Moreover, the aging of vital power-grid infrastructures also increases the grid’s vulnerability.
Vulnerability to physical attacks. On April 16, 2013, gunmen attacked the Metcalf Transmission Substation in San Jose, California, rendering it out of service. The gunmen shot 120 rounds from semiautomatic rifles, hitting 17 extra-high voltage transformers. The transformers leaked more than 50,000 gallons of cooling oil. They overheated, without exploding, and shut down. According to Jon Wellinghoff, a former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Metcalf attack nearly caused a blackout in Silicon Valley; one that may have persisted for a period of several weeks.
Snipers attacked a power substation in in San Jose, California on April 16, 2013, an attack that nearly caused a blackout in Silicon Valley. (Credit: CNN)
In response to the assault on Metcalf, its owner—Pacific Gas and Electric—decided to spend $100 million over the course of three years to help fortify its substations. That did not prevent thieves, in August 2014, from cutting through a fence at Metcalf and pilfering construction equipment that was intended to bolster security. It took utility workers more than four hours to realize the substation had been burgled.
In January 2022, the Department of Homeland Security warned that domestic terrorists have been devising credible strategies for sabotaging the US power grid over the past few years. Protecting all 55,000 substations that make up the US grid, however, is a difficult task. In December 2022, at least one malefactor shot at and severely damaged two substations—owned by Duke Energy—in North Carolina’s Moore County, located about 90 miles east of Charlotte. Around 45,000 homes and businesses lost electricity as a result, and tens of thousands of customers got their power restored only after several days. Commenting on the Moore County attacks, Wellinghoff observed that “most [substations] don’t seem to be very well protected. Many of them still have chain link fences, like the one in North Carolina.”
In 2014, The Wall Street Journalreported that a US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission analysis had concluded that if saboteurs synchronized physical attacks and disabled as few as nine critical power substations, especially on a hot summer day, the entire US mainland could lose electric power for several months. Unfortunately, determining or simply procuring information about the locations of the most critical substations in the continental US is a relatively easy task.
Malefactors can also physically attack substations remotely. For instance, drones armed with improvised explosive devices could target US substations in synchronized swarms, potentially collapsing the power grid. In September 2022, Russia attacked civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, including the Ukrainian power grid, with waves of Iranian Shahed-136, “kamikaze” drones. These drones can carry up to 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of explosives over hundreds of miles. Kamikaze drones explode on impact. In October 2022, Russian kamikaze drones partly disrupted the delivery of electricity in the three major Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv.
Vulnerability to cyberattacks. In December 2015, Russian hackers caused power outages in Ukraine by remotely opening circuit breakers, thereby cutting off the flow of electricity, at dozens of substations. It is the first confirmed instance, worldwide, that a cyberattack caused a blackout. Within minutes, the hackers targeted three energy utilities, causing outages that lasted six hours and affected nearly a quarter-million people. Fortunately, the Ukrainian power grid has the odd benefit of being partly antiquated. It is not completely dependent on computer control systems; that is, industrial control systems and supervisory control and data acquisition (also known as “SCADA”) systems, which monitor and command an electric grid’s physical equipment. Ukrainian grid operators were able to turn the power back on by bypassing their compromised control systems and manually closing circuit breakers at affected substations. One year later, in December 2016, another Russian cyberattack would cause a second blackout in Ukraine.
The 2016 cyberattack was more sophisticated than that of 2015. Power was restored after one hour; however, the hackers shut down a large Kyiv substation that handled a greater electric load (200 megawatts) than the total load handled by the dozens of substations that had been successfully targeted the previous year. The hackers deployed malware—later named “CrashOverride”—that analysts have characterized as “an automated, grid-killing weapon.”
CrashOverride was designed to communicate with the Ukrainian power grid’s particular computer control systems, enabling it to manipulate the behavior of physical equipment at substations. At a preset time, CrashOverride opened circuit breakers at targeted substations to precipitate the blackout, without requiring oversight from hackers.
A cyber warfare operator monitors live cyber attacks at Warfield Air National Guard Base in Middle River, Maryland on June 3, 2017. (Credit: US Air Force / J.M. Eddins Jr.)
Malware programs like CrashOverride can also be tailored to attack European and North American power grids. Some analysts have posited that Ukraine is “Russia’s test lab for cyberwar,” noting that “in the cyber world, what happens in Kiev almost never stays in Kiev.” The US power grid is more computerized and automated than Ukraine’s grid, providing many openings for cyber infiltration. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has warned that the interconnectivity of SCADA systems exposes the US power grid to cyberattacks.
Given enough time, hackers could penetrate US transmission networks and plant CrashOverride or another tailored malware at any number of desired locations. CrashOverride can automatically execute the task of scanning transmission networks and selecting multiple targets, including those that control automated on-off switches for circuit breakers. Once entrenched, CrashOverride is set “like a ticking bomb,” ready to sow chaos in power grid systems at any specified time.
Analysts at Dragos and Eset, two cyber-security companies for critical infrastructure, have pointed out that CrashOverride contains some code indicating it has the capacity to disable protective relays, which protect transmission lines and transformers against electric surges by opening circuit breakers. If hackers rendered protective relays inoperable while increasing local electric loads, they could cause transmission lines to melt and transformers to burn. Wide portions of the US grid could become disabled for months to years if hackers managed to destroy many extra-high voltage transformers.
In 2016, Idaho National Laboratory analysts came to similar conclusions as those at Dragos and Eset, warning that a major cyberattack on the US grid could seriously damage critical equipment, including extra-high voltage transformers, and lead to cascading blackouts. Some substations have networks that are incapable of detecting hackers’ intrusions and planted malware. INL analysts have cautioned that hackers could exploit such vulnerabilities to launch a coordinated cyberattack against multiple substations. Five years later, in June 2021, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm acknowledged that hackers have the capability to shut down the US power grid.
Insufficient public safety. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the US nuclear industry established the Diverse and Flexible Mitigation Capability (FLEX) strategy, which is intended to help workers at nuclear plants manage a severe accident. The FLEX strategy stipulates that plant sites store portable equipment, such as backup generators and battery packs that can provide emergency power and pumps that can inject coolant water into the reactor or spent fuel pool. Such equipment is also stored at two national response centers, located in Memphis, Tennessee and Phoenix, Arizona. The response centers must be capable of dispatching required equipment to any nuclear plant located in the United States within 24 hours. However, each center only houses five complete sets of FLEX equipment, not nearly enough equipment to simultaneously service the entire US nuclear reactor fleet.
In a long-term, nationwide blackout, US nuclear power plants would lose their supply of offsite electricity. Emergency diesel generators, which provide onsite electricity, are back-up systems designed to power cooling pumps and other safety equipment only for a relatively short period of time. Such generators would likely fail to operate continuously for a period of months to years. The longest loss-of-offsite power events in the United States all lasted less than a week.
Most US nuclear plants are required to have at least a seven-day onsite supply of fuel for emergency diesel generators, and many have arrangements to receive prompt deliveries of fuel. Yet amid the logistical challenges and social disruptions of a nationwide, long-term blackout, it appears unlikely that a steady fuel supply could be transported to and maintained at every nuclear plant in the US fleet.
Overloading spent fuel pools should be outlawed. Safety analysts have warned about the dangers of overloading spent fuel pools since the 1970s. For decades, experts and organizations have argued that in order to improve safety, sufficiently cooled spent fuel assemblies should be removed from high-density spent fuel pools and transferred to passively cooled dry cask storage. Sadly, the NRC has not heeded their advice.
In the face of the NRC’s inaction, Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced The Dry Cask Storage Act in 2014, calling for the thinning out of spent fuel pools. The act, which Senator Markey has reintroduced in subsequent congressional sessions, has not passed into law.
The relatively high probability of a nationwide grid collapse, which would lead to multiple nuclear disasters, emphasizes the need to expedite the transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage. According to Frank von Hippel, a professor of public and international affairs emeritus at Princeton University, the impact of a single accident at an overstocked spent fuel pool has the potential to be two orders of magnitude more devastating in terms of radiological releases than the three Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns combined. If the US grid collapses for a lengthy period of time, society would likely descend into chaos, as uncooled nuclear fuel burned at multiple sites and spewed radioactive plumes into the environment.
The value of preventing the destruction of US society and untold human suffering is incalculable. So, on the issue of protecting people and the environment from spent fuel pool fires, it is surprising when one learns that promptly transferring the nationwide inventories of spent fuel assemblies that have been cooled for at least five years from US pools to dry cask storage would be “relatively inexpensive”—less than (in 2012 dollars) a total of $4 billion ($5.4 billion in today’s dollars). That is far, far less than the monetary toll of losing vast tracts of urban and rural land for generations to come because of radioactive contamination.
One should also consider that plant owners are required, as part of the decommissioning process, to transfer spent fuel assemblies from storage pools to dry cask storage after nuclear plants are permanently shut down. So, in accordance with industry protocols, all spent fuel assemblies at plant sites are intended to eventually be placed in dry cask storage (before ultimately being transported to a long-term surface storage site or a permanent geologic repository).
If the NRC continues to allow the industry’s mismanagement of spent fuel to pose an existential threat to the United States, Congress must be compelled to pass legislation requiring utilities to swiftly thin out spent fuel pools.
Editor’s note: The author thanks David Lochbaum, Frank von Hippel, and M.V. Ramana for their review ofandcomments on an earlier version of this article.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
… Nuclear-capable’ Ballistic Missile Test After Russia’s Shield At UN · Content Warning: All about new horror game that can make you go viral · About Us …
Launching a limited nuclear strike to quickly degrade Chinese capabilities in an effort to terminate a war on terms favorable to Russia is consistent …
In a shift from last year’s threat assessment, the report placed special emphasis on chemical and biological threats. It highlighted the growing risk …
European and U.S. officials threatened to pursue action against Iran at the next International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting …
… nuclear and missile threats‘. Shreyas Reddy April 2, 2024. Share Icon SHARE … threatened to respond in kind in the event of a “nuclear war.” Edited …
There is no need for me to comment on what Annie Jacobson has to tell us in this interview. We are both on the same wave-lengths, and I would recommend that a whole living world of us needs to recognize that her “scenario” exists on a day-to-day basis, but, though self-extinction can be avoided, even without some unknown kind of help, it will take us, you and me and a world of common peace-loving citizens, to demand that in order to survive we must all live in a world of peace, which of course means no wars ever again . . . ~llaw
An interview with Annie Jacobsen, author of ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’
This article was originally published by Mother Jones.
Nuclear war is a topic few care to think about. We sometimes call it unthinkable. But we need to think carefully, and to talk—particularly with high-ranking foreign officials whose motives we may have reason to distrust, just as they distrust ours—about how we can collectively avoid launching a weapon that would end our civilization.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s timely new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is a lightning-fast read intended to put the nuclear threat squarely back on everyone’s radar. Her narrative thread, as the title suggests, is a fact-based (though thankfully fictional) scenario that shows how a nuclear launch can escalate into World War III at dizzying speed.
Jacobsen tees up her cinematic approach with chapters describing how we got here, including a discussion of America’s Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) for General Nuclear War—which was devised in the 1960s and, as Jacobsen details in this book excerpt published today by Mother Jones, was more or less a recipe for the end of the world.
Because that’s nuclear war: One bad assumption, one shot, one retaliation, and it’s unstoppable.
Your book is frightful. What made you want to write in such detail how a nuclear war could unfold?
As a national security reporter, I have written six previous books on military and intelligence programs—CIA, Pentagon, DARPA—all designed to prevent nuclear World War III. During the Trump administration, amid the “fire and fury” rhetoric, I was watching STRATCOM commanders and deputy commanders speak freely on C-SPAN about the dangers therein. I began to wonder, My god, what would happen if deterrence failed? I began to interview people during COVID, when people had more time on their hands for someone like me—and that began the terrifying process of learning that nuclear war is, in essence, a sequence of events, and that once it starts it almost certainly will not stop.
The US public hasn’t thought a whole lot about nuclear weapons since the Cold War. We have more nuclear nations today, but far fewer weapons in the global arsenal. Are we safer now?
Well, as I show in the book, it doesn’t take but one weapon to set off a chain reaction to unleash the current arsenal, which is forward deployed in launch-on-warning positions and could be fired in as little as a minute—15 minutes for the submarines. There are enough weapons in those positions right now to bring on a nuclear winter that would kill an estimated 5 billion people.
Are there too many? Absolutely. Have we made progress? The all-time high in 1986 was 70,481 nuclear weapons. Now, there are approximately 12,500. But to your point, there are nine nuclear-armed nations, not just two or three superpowers. And that presents a lot of unknowns that create serious unease and room for catastrophe.
So we may be less safe because we don’t really know how certain nations might behave—notably North Korea.
Absolutely. Reporting and writing this book was one surprise after another. For example, I did not know until I had it confirmed with US nuclear experts that North Korea does not announce any of its missile tests, whereas the other countries do. North Korea has launched 100 missiles since January 2022. After you read my book, you realize what happens to the US nuclear command and control apparatus in the seconds and minutes after a launch is seen by the advanced super satellite system we have. You can now imagine what goes on in those command centers.
A total frenzy.
Imagine!
One thing that really struck me is the unbelievable speed at which nuclear war is waged.
Gen. Robert Kehler, the former commander of STRATCOM, said to me that the world could end in the next couple of hours. It took me a minute to ask my next question, because coming from someone in that position of authority—the most significant role in the entire nuclear apparatus—that really blew my mind.
Ditto goes for an interview I did with President Barack Obama’s FEMA chief, Craig Fugate. Of course, FEMA is the agency in charge of what’s called population protection planning for American citizens in the event of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. Fugate told me that after a nuclear war, there wouldn’t be any population protection planning because everyone would be dead.
Help is not coming.
I said, “Well, what should people do?” He more or less said, “Self-survive, and don’t forget your morals, and I hope you stocked Pedialyte”—because radiation poisoning makes you vomit and have diarrhea and away go all of your electrolytes, which leads to secondary problems.
I learned from your book that FEMA plays a unique role in the event of a nuclear attack, and it’s not what one might expect.
That’s right. In the ’50s and ’60s, the US position was that a nuclear war could be fought and won. That is no longer the official position. But plans were put in place for the continuity of government programs—the idea that the government must continue functioning no matter what. That is also a fantasy.
To hear from former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry about the madness and mayhem and anarchy that would follow, in his mind, in the event of a nuclear war, you really get the sense that civilization will fail. I believe one of the reasons so many of these sources went on the record for me is because they know that this is the truth. And they know it is up to the people to change the trajectory of where we’re headed. I mean, my god, look at the saber-rattling going on as we do this interview.
Potential nuclear nightmares range from an accidental detonation to a massive “decapitation” strike to someone using a small nuke on the battlefield. You picked the madman scenario: North Korea inexplicably launches a long-range missile at Washington, DC. Why that one?
I did a series of interviews with [physicist] Richard Garwin, who is now 95. He is arguably the most knowledgeable person about nuclear weapons on the planet, and he probably knows more about policy over the long lens of history because he was 23 or 24 years old when he designed the first thermonuclear bomb.
In the “Ivy Mike” test, it exploded with 10.4 megatons of power—about 1,000 Hiroshimas. Garwin said to me that his biggest fear was now, and always had been, the madman theory you referred to. He used the French phrase Après moi, le déluge—after me, the flood—referring to this idea that a maniacal, egotistical, narcissistic madman leader could launch a nuclear weapon for reasons no one would ever know.
And to counterattack North Korea, as in your scenario, the US would need to send missiles over Russia, which has a very unreliable early warning system.
That’s right. Learning about the technological limitations of some of the Russian systems was just as terrifying as any part of reporting this book.
It’s almost like you’d want to reach out to the Russians and say, look, just take our technology so you won’t launch on a false alarm—but the US would never do that.
There have been many opportunities to have a dialogue with the Russians—Putin inquired about joining NATO back during the Clinton administration. One really has to lean upon one’s leaders to think about communicating rather than saber-rattling, because I hope that my book demonstrates in appalling detail how horrific nuclear war would be. And we know from the Proud Prophet war games that no matter how it begins, it ends in nuclear apocalypse.
For context, Proud Prophet was a classified series of war games President Ronald Reagan ordered in 1983. Civilian and military planners convened for two weeks to run through scenarios that could spark a nuclear war and see how they played out.
That Proud Prophet was declassified is interesting. Nuclear war games are among the government’s most jealously guarded secrets. I printed a copy of what a couple pages of the declassified war game look like—95 percent is redacted. It’s literally a couple of headers and a few numbers.
But when something like that gets declassified, it becomes very valuable to the people. An individual like Paul Bracken—a civilian professor at Yale who participated in Proud Prophet—can now speak about it in general terms. He wrote in his own book that everyone left very depressed, because no matter how the nuclear scenario begins—if NATO is involved or not involved, China is involved or not—it always ends the same way, the most terrible way, because America has a “launch on warning” policy.
We do not wait to absorb a nuclear blow. Once a missile is on the way and there is secondary confirmation from ground radar, the president is asked to launch a counterstrike. In the book—I have the president asking this because it came up in my discussions with sources—he says, “How do we know it’s a nuclear weapon?”
And we don’t.
That is a fact. The answer is, Well, it could be a biological weapon. Another answer I was told is that no one launches a ballistic missile at the United States unless they’re expecting a counterattack. So now you are looping into the Orwellian world of: This is deterrence. Deterrence will hold. Don’t you dare launch at us or else! Which becomes part and parcel for why the counterattack is required, per the deterrence doctrine. There is no room for saying, well, maybe we’ll wait and see.
Once you break deterrence, everything else goes out the window.
Correct. One of the most haunting quotes in the book is from the deputy commander of STRATCOM, Lt. Gen. Tom Bussiere. I located an unclassified discussion he had with insiders, and the quote is along the lines of, When deterrence fails, it all unravels. In seconds and minutes and hours—not days and weeks and months.
Twelve thousand years of civilization extinguished in a few hours.
General Kehler was not speaking hyperbolically when he said that.
Say more about “launch on warning.” You cite Paul Nitze, a former defense secretary and later presidential adviser, calling the policy “inexcusably dangerous.” Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden wanted it scrapped. So why is it still in place?
I’d like to shout out William Burr, who runs the National Security Archive at George Washington University, because many of those quotes and documents come from that organization, which made them accessible to journalists like me. Nitze was one of the biggest hawks across the Cold War. To have a guy like that go on the record and say this is inexcusably dangerous says a lot.
Multiple presidents have campaigned on the promise that they will change this dangerous policy, but then they become president and you never hear of it again. That speaks to the kind of secret-keeping that is dangerous and can be changed. I wrote Nuclear War: A Scenario for the layperson to be able to rip through it in a night, no matter how terrifying. I do not bog the reader down with polemics or jargon, because this is an issue everybody should know about. Because only in knowing about it is change possible. We can look to The Day After battle, what’s known in inner circles as the Reagan Reversal policy of 1983.
Wait, what’s that?
So in 1983—I’m dating myself here—I was a high school student. And I watched the ABC movie The Day After.
I was the same age, and watching it too.
It’s a fictional account of a nuclear war between America and Soviet Russia, and half the country watched it. Interestingly, behind the scenes, ABC got a lot of pressure not to air it. Well, one very important American watched it: Reagan had a private screening at Camp David. His chief of staff tried to suggest that he shouldn’t watch it, but he did. And he wrote in his diary that he became “greatly depressed,” and he picked up the phone and called [then–Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev, and the two leaders communicated—which is really the only solution for any of this.
Because of those communications and because of their conference and because of the treaty, the insane nuclear arsenal has been reduced to the approximately 12,500 we have now, which is a considerable reduction. The president’s position prior to seeing The Day After was a much harder, more saber-rattling approach. He changed his position and became much more dovish.
“Launch on warning” puts extraordinary pressure on a president. The one in your scenario is pretty clueless. He hasn’t ever rehearsed. Nobody told him he’d have just six minutes to choose from a Denny’s breakfast menu of existential options in response to what may or may not be an incoming nuke. It’s hard to believe the Pentagon doesn’t put every new president through a series of war games.
I was just as surprised as you are. But that’s coming from multiple secretaries of defense and national security advisers—people in a position to advise the president on a nuclear counterattack. The best summation came from Leon Panetta, who explained that as White House chief of staff he was witness to the fact that the president is primarily concerned with domestic issues—like his popularity. I asked Panetta how clued in he was when he was the CIA director, and he said almost not at all, because the CIA is about intelligence, not nuclear operations.
Only when he became secretary of defense did it really hit home, the weight of all of this. He spoke about visiting missile silos, submarine bases, and nuclear command bunkers—once you go to places like that, your entire perspective changes. And that is why I believe he was willing to go on the record. You really get the sense that things are precarious once they begin, and decisions follow that are out of everyone’s control.
Right. And our continued existence depends not only on our internal communications and processes, but those of our adversaries, about which we know little.
Absolutely.
Your book busts some common myths, for instance the belief that the US could shoot down an incoming nuclear missile. We really can’t defend against nuclear weapons, can we?
We can’t. That is pure fantasy. During the final fact-checking incantations, I had the book read by a lieutenant general who ran these scenarios for NORAD. I was almost hoping someone would say, Annie, you should take this part out of the book, because we have a secret Iron Dome that you can’t report on. No. The truth is that the United States relies upon 44 interceptor missiles to stop any incoming missiles. Russia alone has 1,674 nuclear warheads in “ready to launch” position. Adding to that, according to congressional reports, the interceptors are only approximately 50 percent effective.
Under the best of circumstances.
Absolutely, like when you’re doing a test and you know precisely where the missile is going to be. It’s a curated test. So people have this idea that we have an Iron Dome–type shield. And we don’t.
The Reagan Reversal bit reminds me of a moment from your scenario. Your secretary of defense is sworn in as president because the president and others in the line of succession are dead or AWOL, and he has this moment of humanity. Russia has launched all its ICBMs at us, so we know we’re goners. And the new guy asks: Why respond now if all it will do is kill millions more people? The STRATCOM commander is like, Nope, we’re doing this. Humanity is already doomed, yet Russia and the United States keep launching their weapons until practically none are left. It’s nonsensical. But is it realistic?
It is if you talk to the sources I spoke to. A lot of the decision-tree situations involving the defense secretary came from my multiple discussions with former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, who has thought a lot about this—and what an individual’s thought process would be. The point of including that question was to demonstrate how the madness of MAD—mutual assured destruction—takes over.
I asked [retired weapons engineer] Glen McDuff—the curator of the classified museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory—the question you’re kind of asking me: What did he think, as an insider, about the notion that people would not follow orders? He basically said: Annie, I would suggest betting on Powerball, because you’d have a better chance of winning than betting on a high-ranking individual in the nuclear command and control system not following orders.
Right. It seems like folks in the nuclear command and control structure have rehearsed these scenarios over and over. They’re on autopilot to a degree. Which gets at the notion of “apes on a treadmill” that you write about late in the book: We’ve made this plan, and we’re going to follow it—even if it’s completely bonkers.
Apes on the treadmill was just such a brilliant concept. It goes back to the Cold War when it was used as a metaphor for people slavishly following away in this nuclear arms race.
But even more interesting was the present-day anecdote I found. It was a scientific experiment having nothing to do with the original metaphor but was literally apes on a treadmill. The researchers were studying bipedalism: They put humans on the treadmill and they put apes on the treadmill. Anecdotally, one of the scientists said, and I’m paraphrasing, that some of the apes got fed up with walking to nowhere and got off the treadmill.
I thought, my god, the apes are smarter than the humans when it comes to mutual assured destruction.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
… all designed to prevent nuclear World War III. … The US public hasn’t thought a whole lot about nuclear weapons since the Cold War. … You really get …
And the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, which has two active reactors and one that was decommissioned, is also storing spent nuclear fuel …
The poll found only 45% of voters are confident in Biden’s ability to manage a nuclear emergency … nuclear emergency. … power. The need for fact-based …
Dinosaur bones are often radioactive and geologists searching for uranium get it! Alley Oop and Ooola figured out they might harm humans eons ago. lolloll! Actually it’s not funny that we still haven’t figured it out! . . . ~llaw
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Sunday, (03/31/2024)
The media headlines today are too ridiculous to allow me to stop laughing. I am pretty sure we are all insane by now, myself included, and we’ve all taken the red or blue pill and drank (drunk) the water. Following is my review of today’s “All Things Nuclear” media articles . . .
“Voters believe Trump is better equipped to handle nuclear emergencies.” Trump is not capable of handling anything, including his own legal life, or so it appears to me! Just know it would be darn hard to handle anything, especially all things nuclear, from a prison cell . . . lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
The amazingly insane idea, still being quoted and evidently bankrolled, international agreement to triple nuclear power worldwide? lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll! Spending billions to create new nuclear power plants, or to restart others and keep still others operating that should be forever shutdown and mothballed before we contaminate the earth with radiation/nuclear fallout? That is pure insanity. There is a reason these nuclear reactor plants are shut down and that all others should be shut down, too . . . lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
Rethinking the dumping of nuclear waste from Fukushima after the fact? When the deed is already done? lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
A Republican congressman from Michigan wants to nuke Gaza and be done with it? lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
Annie’s book, ”Nuclear War: A Scenario” will make you start worrying? We should have started worrying many, many, years ago. lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
Uranium mining for refining nuclear fuel provides an unlimited supply? Uranium is not renewable energy, plus it is radioactive, meaning it is not “clean”. lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll, lolloll!
The Ukraine/Russia war may spark WWIII? Stay tuned! But to think we can survive and rebuild a better world? Ridiculous! WWIII would, if it was truly WWIII, would be the end of us and most all other life on Mother Earth. But I can’t laugh at this one; we are doing all this to ourselves despite being told 80+ years ago by the most brilliant minds on the planet to stop it, yet no one seems to have paid any attention. I suspect that these scientists/teachers/philosophers are not laughing in their graves, but rather pitying the ignorance of humanity, of which my own ignorance once also ruled . . . Sorry, but I am trying my best to help us all see the light now that the eleventh hour has arrived! ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
… same thing of Biden. Missile strikes take out power plants in Ukrainian city Kharkiv. Loaded: 0%. Progress: 0%. 0:00. Previous. Play. Skip. LIVE. Mute.
Expert warns ‘there will be a third world war‘ after Putin’s latest threat … Putin’s latest threat to unleash nuclear … The threats and warnings from …
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant — the last commercial plant in California.
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Saturday, (03/30/2024)
Don’t count on this nuclear power plant to provide much more than trouble to the already problematic, was scheduled for retirement in 2025 due to old age, has had trouble with cracks leaking in the reactors and is owned by the most accident prone power company, Pacific Gas & Electric, in the United States, causing major damage and human suffering wherever it has operated over the years. It is also a principal subject of my new book, “El Nuclear Diablo”, that I am serializing here on my nightly blog, “All Things Nuclear”. Chapter 2 is schedule for April 11th. ~llaw
Read the PG&E article selected from today’s Categories. Here is a convenient link:
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
All Things Considered · Ways To Listen · All Radio … TOKYO — “Oppenheimer” finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 …
But as the U.S. pursues its nuclear power potential, environmentalists and Native American leaders remain fearful of the consequences for communities …
Putin and senior Russian officials have repeatedly threatened nuclear escalation against Kyiv and its Western partners since Moscow launched its full- …
These two short combined articles (linked just below) may help us to understand the meaning of ‘nuclear-threat, which to my mind is a system of fabricating lies from one country to another until someone feels cornered and is power-driven to react. However, such threats could continue to go on for years, never happen, or carried out tonight. The truth is that the spoken words of desperate leaders (and their sympathizers, including militaries) are fabrications and lies until one day they are not . . . ~llaw
Lead “All Things Nuclear” story for today:
Nuclear War: A Scenario is a breathless, minute-by-minute description of one way in which, thanks to apparent North Korean paranoia, a global …
I hope those of you who read Chapter 1 of my 1st draft of “El Nuclear Diablo” are curious about what is to come. Early chapters are often hard to write because they have to deal with getting acquainted with principal characters, establishing some kind of hint about the later details of plots and events and clues to what the major storyline will be, for the most part, about for the entire novel.
(You might like to get an early idea of how I tell my tales by buying my recently published “Old West” two-volume historical tome (based on an actual incident) of the Wyoming conflict at the early beginning of the Range wars between the Cattle Ranchers and the Homesteaders when it was tragically between a treacherous vigilante group of cattlemen against a single young female homesteader who had the audacity and courage to homestead alone. The novels, available on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble websites are called “The Sweetwater Conspiracy”, with subtitles “The “Emergence” and “The Conspiracy”)
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
All Things · Culture · Food and Drink · The Guide … TOKYO — “Oppenheimer” finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 …
… all aid, including the billions and billions … things. There is a notion among many Israelis … If its leaders want to secretly explode nuclear weapons …
Nuclear energy provided 50% of America’s carbon-free electricity in 2023, making it the largest domestic source of clean energy. Nuclear power plants …
… Nuclear Emergency Committee and Vice Governor of the Provincial People’s Government. … No leak at Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, Wong says December 13, …
W.J. Hennigan, a correspondent for the Opinion section of the New York Times, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the risk of nuclear war in an …
… threats, likely seeking to delay and influence … attack will increase domestic support for the war in Ukraine. … nuclear submarine strategic missile …
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on Avila Beach near San Luis Obispo
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Thursday, (03/28/2024)
Today’s Post is dedicated to Chapter 1 of my new, in-progress, novel dubbed “El Nuclear Diablo”, which is being serialized here in a bi-weekly Post . . .
El Nuclear Diablo
(A novel by Lloyd Albert Williams-Pendergraft)
Chapter 1
We have reached Canada and passed through customs, mooring on Vancouver Island for the night, happy to find an open restaurant at the harbor, although we have more than ample food and other supplies on board the schooner, which, by the way, bears the title “The Pacifier”. It has certainly lived up to its name during the early days of our journey north. It will take us four or five or more days to travel the additional 800 nautical miles along the coastline to reach Juneau.
At dinner we are delighted to meet a team of six employees, four men and two women, from the Hanford Project, who are also on their way by boat to Juneau for essentially the same reasons we are and we agree to travel together, in our separate schooners, the rest of the way, giving us a safer and a more comforting feeling during the remainder of our trip. Over our dining, we discuss the implications and share our knowledge about the future of North America and, indeed, the world and what the prospects are to provide pockets of preservation for human life, and in general where we think those places might be. The discussion is not a confident one, nor is it at all pleasant. But we all realize that we have to do our best to have some success in our unexpected new mission in life.
After dinner we retire to the barroom for a nightcap, the younger set returning to their rooms. The rest of us would not be far behind, intending to depart by 8:00 in the morning. We chatted about the weather, the tides, and other mundane subjects, none of us wishing to discuss the nuclear situation nor other world issues. The burden on us all is just too heavy to discuss, but we all know that each of us would not be here if not for some important role that we have professionally played previously in the nuclear world. And the very idea of even thinking about the loss of human lives, for now limited to parts of the United States, but still with no doubt multi-millions already dead or dying, the sheer idea of such a discussion is unbearable.
No one is in a drinking mood, but we sip our way through after dinner Brandies continuing with the small talk when we are suddenly approached by two men, wearing Army and Air Force military uniforms, with their 4-star rankings on their shoulder patches. They stride directly to our table, mentioning our names, one by one, all of the names cordially directed to the proper person, before introducing themselves after we all shake hands, immediately wondering what is happening and why they are here even though it’s obviously solely because of us. They point to a larger table well away from the bar and suggest we all move over there for privacy, which puts me, and I’m sure, the rest of us on high alert. It does not take long to hear more.
#
“We have orders to divert you from your destination to Juneau, Mr. Williams,” the Army General said looking directly, piercingly, into my eyes. Your wife and children and the others will go on to Juneau as planned, but we will be escorting you to a hastily called meeting by the President. I cannot tell you where, but you will be able to contact your family as soon as the meeting is over, which will take place in the early afternoon or later tomorrow, allowing time to gather everyone else we need to attend.”
I found myself confounded, staring into my wife’s frightened wild eyes. At a loss for words, I took her hand in mine and remained silent. In seconds the military officers once again shook hands with the rest of them, detaching my hand from my wife’s, shaking hers as well, said goodbye, and led me from the bar. Yes, it happened that fast; I felt as though I was being kidnapped or marched off to jail somewhere unknown for reasons unknown. Why would they want only me? My two friends and at least one of the Hanford group were as familiar with all things nuclear as I was, so my mind was having trouble obeying my ability to remain calm, my thoughts spinning in elliptic circles. But I forced myself to remain silent as the Generals, the Air Force General on my right and the Army General on the left, ushered me out of the building into the darkness.
Approaching the parking lot, I saw a limousine idling with its lights on, the engine just loud enough to hear its quiet purr as the three of us walked toward it with me still in the middle. “Where are we going and why? You mentioned a meeting with the President . . .”, I asked unable to maintain my curiosity silently any longer.
“We will tell you after we are on the airplane,” the Air Force officer said amiably enough. We have a pilot, so we will be alone in the cabin. The driver, also in military uniform, had opened both doors on the passenger side of the limo, and closed them after we had settled into our seats, The Army General climbed into the front passenger seat and the Air Force General and I shared the rear bench seat.
We drove north a few miles in total silence, most of it among tall cedars and soon came to a locked chain link gate, which the driver, without stopping, opened with a hand held instrument, something like a garage door opener, but with colored lights he pressed with his fingers, with the gate closing automatically after we passed through and drove through another small forest of cedars. Suddenly, to my surprise, a well-lighted airport appeared with a concrete apron, several hangars, and an office or small passenger terminal arranged in a straight line to the left of a full-sized lighted runway. There was a 737 Boeing passenger jet under power idling at the near end of the runway, perhaps fifty yards from the passenger building. No doubt, I thought to myself, this is a top-secret military airport.
We exited the limo in the small parking area in front of the passenger building and walked through the unlocked building’s entrance door. A young air force officer sat behind an ‘L’ shaped counter where desks, electronic equipment, meteorological instruments and other computerized devices filled the space along the four foot high counters.
“If you need to relieve yourself, do so now, Mr. Williams,” the Army General said, pointing toward the well-marked rest rooms. He strode through a swinging gate into the office space and sat down at a radio instrument next to the desk of the young officer, and struck up a conversation just as the other officer who was driving the limo came in. There appeared to be no one else anywhere at the airport, except for the probability of a pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit of the 737, waiting for us. Seeing me standing in the middle of the lobby floor, he walked over to me and introduced himself.
“Mr. Williams, I am Captain Murphy Weston, and I will be your pilot tonight and tomorrow morning.” Pointing to the young officer conversing with the Air Force General, he said, and he is Captain Fred Gillis who will be your copilot. You will be travelling with the Generals whom you’ve already met, and your delightful acting Stewardess, who’s already aboard the airplane, is our Sergeant 1st Class, Mario-Ara Antionette, who we affectionately call Frenchie. We will be landing, if possible, to pick up a few passengers, in a few cities, as we cross the Continent to our destination. One or both of the Generals will explain the mission to you in flight, but I can tell you it’s going to be a long couple of days for you, and with little or no sleep. So you may want to sleep, if you can, on the first leg of the flight, which will be the longest and most quiet, I am sure.”
I thanked Captain Weston, and his presence full of positive confidence was reassuring to me, allowing my infinity-like figure-eight brain flow of thought to settle down into a usable tool for evaluating all that was so confusingly strange to me earlier. The whole mission, now that I knew that’s what it was called, became something that seemed reasonable and purposeful even though I had no idea what it was all about, and I was suddenly reassured further that we had a female passenger functioning as a stewardess to make the flight(s) feel reasonably comfortable with no demand for military décor. I assumed this was set up intentionally and that there would be other civilians joining me as we flew on toward, what I now assumed would be Washington D.C.. I wondered what damage the Capitol City had suffered from the nuclear accident (if it was an accident) and what this whole trip would tell me about the destruction, most of which I had hoped to find out by radio communications from Juneau. This trip was rapidly taking on a useful purpose for me personally, and I felt my entire body shift into the steady and smooth feeling of a higher gear. The relaxation suddenly felt positive and powerful, and I began to grasp a feeling about why the military had come looking for me and perhaps hoping that my knowledge and professional management of implicit understanding of the meaning of “nuclear power of many forms and uses” and its’ inherent dangers, especially now, would provide leadership at a much higher level than I most likely would have been assigned otherwise, by simply showing up in Juneau to help, even if I was returned there to do the work that I knew how to do. I had a reassuring feeling that I would have the opportunity to utilized my long nurtured and knife-sharpened tools that I had wedged between my ears over many years.
About 30 minutes later all of us were back together, ready to board the Boeing 737 where I was to be informed of the details of the mission, and I had to admit, I was a bit anxious to meet MarioAra, disguised as a lovely French stewardess, which made me smile for the first time in several days.
#
As we all left the passenger/office building together, the Air Force General turned off the lights, and the door closed behind us, locking itself. We crossed the apron as the access stairway opened and descended as we approached in the semi-darkness of the facility, the runway and the airplane lights. At the top of the stair-well I saw our “stewardess” dressed in military fatigues watching us approach. I was the first to climb the stairway, followed by the two Generals with the co-pilots following – the opposite of how I would have thought the procession to ascend. But upon second thought being that I was the only civilian in the proceeding, and a captive one at that, the order of our climb up the stairs seemed efficient, organized and logical. As I had often been, I was intrigued by the effective use of time and space that the military so matter-of-factly employed without seemingly a second thought. At the top of the stairway, Frenchie smiled at me, took my hand, and led me into the cabin while the two Generals followed and the pilots entered the cockpit, closing an automated door behind them. The Army General pointed to a seat in the 1st class area of the airplane and sat there next to the window while he sat down beside me in the aisle seat. The Air Force General sat across the aisle. Immediately we began to taxi toward the runway, and Frenchie arrived and took a seat in the 1st row, attaching her seatbelt. We buckled up as well, and immediately we were on our way down the runway, soon ascending to the north, and then turning west over the ocean and then south back toward the United States.
After a few minutes as the airplane reached cruising altitude, Frenchie vacated her seat and went forward to the Stewardess kitchen while the Army General extracted a folded map from his briefcase but did not open it. He looked at his fellow General across the aisle, shrugged, and turned his attention to me. “Okay, Mr. Williams, I have a lot to tell you about the situation and what we hope to do about it. We want you to work with us.” He paused and glanced across the aisle again, then turned back to me.
“You can call me Albert, if you’d like,” I muttered, not fond of being referred to as Mister nor, even worse, Sir.
He smiled and said, “Okay Albert. You can call me Daniel and my counterpart here, is Paul. No need for formality at all.”
He went on, “You may have guessed that this mission is a hastily planned, last minute, action and that’s why we had to catch up with you, track you down before you reached Juneau, and we’ve decided we had no time to waste while you’re sailing north some 800 miles wasting a few precious days. We want you to head-up a more formalized multi-faceted party of expertise and create a base of operations for what’s going to become a multi-national government with a new world order based on avoiding future war and as much death on the planet as humanly possible. You will have the final word in every decision made concerning, not only humanity’s survival, but also saving animals and nature to the degree possible. You can use every available resource, product, geographic location, and combination as you wish – with one exception, which I’m sure you know exactly what that is.”
“Yes,”, I said affirmatively, “and I am pleased you are not even using the term, but we, if there is a future we, must pledge now around the world that the product will be destroyed and/or buried in places where it can never again be accessed by humanity or whoever or whatever survives into Earth’s future, though I am not too sure anything will survive. All we can do is try our damndest. So what is the plan? And I do, genuinely, appreciate your confidence in me. In Juneau I would have had to campaign for this job, and there would’ve been no assurance that I would have been the popular choice.”
“We recognized that, Albert, and that’s why we intercepted you before you arrived in Juneau, which of course still remains as an atmospherics and meteorological outpost for what it is designated to do. Everyone will know by day after tomorrow that you are in charge there, here, and everywhere. But the instant problem is finding a safe, sound, radiation-free compound somewhere on the planet to allow thousands and thousands of specialized minds and personalities to work together to solve the problem before it dissolves us. Do you have any idea where such a safe zone could be?”
“No, and that’s the reason Juneau is so important to our future. The first mission there is to find and isolate areas, including caverns, and mountain peaks, even underwater safe zones, or any places where as much of humanity could survive as possible. But it will take months to make meaningful progress, and even then we will need many more safe zones, as I’m sure you both are aware.”
“Do you know what caused this terrible accident here in the United States, Albert?”, Daniel asked. “It seems that no one is sure other than it was almost like the spread of a seriously communicable disease, only the disease was unchecked nuclear reactor radiation.” We still have no idea how it spread all the way across the country so quickly, nor even where it originated. The only thing we know is that there is no place on the West Coast or in the Rocky Mountains that could have started it.”
“Yes, I know where it began, and I don’t know how or why, but it was like some kind of chain reaction that began to melt down reactors overriding computerized automated shut-down security associated via incoming electrical power grids to not only nuclear power plants but negatively affected fossil fuel plants, although most of them were able to restart in a few hours.”, I said.
“So, then where did it start?”, General Daniel asked.
“The first plant to be affected was PG&E’s nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, California, that was oddly allowed its longevity to be expanded beyond it’s shutdown date in 2025 by the U.S. and California governments. So you are wrong about where it began, but there is no evidence that PG&E was anything more than just another victim, although rumors are flying, mostly due to PG&E’s long history of fatal accidents or mistakes all over the west where they operate. I am sure, though, that this entire catastrophe, which probably is already turning global, is the result of some kind of viral-like electronic automaton, if you will, that has been carried on interactive grid systems everywhere that have even minimal connections to larger grids. It really doesn’t matter where or how it started, our only chance to survive is to fight off the incredible flow of radiation around the entire planet. It reminds me very much of the old 1959 – ‘60s movie “On the Beach” in its global affect where, rather incredibly, the fictional story was caused by a suspected but unknown nuclear plant failure. Of course the movie, and the required degree of radiation, had no idea of the magnitude of radiation it would take to create armageddon, but we have always known that such an event is possible. Oddly, the culprit, or a part of it, was insinuated to be a California power plant near San Francisco.”, I told them without a smile.
Silence and perhaps a bit of shock was the non-existent response from both military Generals. Finally, Paul, shaking his head, muttered something under his breath. “Jesus Christ, a mechanical virus spreading radiation through a power grid system? Who the fuck would be able or even inclined to build such an instrument of terrorism causing world-wide death?” He got no response from Daniel or me, but we shared our concerned eye-contact.
Chapter 2 will be Posted on April 11
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
Some 29 classified Russian military documents include discussions of war gaming and reportedly identify operational thresholds for the first use of so …
Annie Jacobsen’s long-awaited book “Nuclear War” subtitled “A Scenario” has finally arrived, and the whole world needs to read it, not just Every World Leader. I urge you to help make it the world’s best-seller in history. I duplicates and expands on what I have been writing about every evening for, let’s see now, 582 consecutive evenings. ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
Nuclear war is a topic few care to think about. We sometimes call it unthinkable. But we need to think carefully, and to talk—particularly with high- …
Deeply worried about its looming obsolescence in this new age of atomic warfare, it planned a live-action series of three atomic bomb tests for all to …
Copyright 2024 by Annie M. Jacobsen. Nuclear war is madness. Were a nuclear weapon to be launched at the United States, including from a rogue nuclear …
Comments19 · Kremlin blames MI6 for Moscow terror attack & is Russia committing genocide in Ukraine? · What Happens AFTER Nuclear War? · ABC World News …
… war in Gaza … Israel moves forward with modifications to its F-35s to confront iranian nuclear threats … war in Gaza, will not create obstacles. Some …
Global Nuclear Winter (by Achilleas Ambatzidis – Courtesy of Vanity Fair)
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Tuesday, (03/26/2024)
In an effort to shorten the length and avoid duplication of media stories and images, I will, as of this nightly Post, only reference a link to the story I am discussing or commenting about (whether or not it is listed in my “All Things Nuclear Daily Categories). This will save me copying, cutting, and pasting time, and you will have quicker and easier access to what I consider to be among the more important articles. (And I chose a day to make this change when the importance and quality of the Digest articles are, overall, the best I’ve ever seen in the 581 days this Blog has been operating. So I will probably be up most of the night reading about the world-wide nuclear mess we are in, even about what might happen to us all if Trump & Putin get back together, but that one is way down on the quality list to my mind . . .
As stated in the article, and an issue that I have often posted my concerns about in the the past, tells me that we can foolishly build all the nuclear reactor powered electrical plants we want, but if we have no fuel to run the reactors, they are just white elephants. So it seems to me have the cart way out in front of the horse. The reason is, as VOA states, in their lead-lines, “ Types of nuclear reactors. Courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy. Gov. Glenn Youngkin dropped one bombshell, figuratively speaking, when he announced … “Of those supplying nuclear fuel, Rosatom, Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, “is the biggest supplier of uranium enrichment.”
This is the real reason, not the Ukraine War, that Bill Gates’ TerraPower plant with its new experimental liquid sodium, called a Natrium reactor, instead of the usual water-cooled nuclear power plant reactors, being built at an old coal minesite in Wyoming. So it is that TerraPower is suffering through a two-year wait for the type of fuel the one-of-its kind nuclear plant, because Russia will not provide the fuel — which only Rosatom produces. And who among us who know a bit about the nuclear business world and our relationship with Russia would wonder if TerraPower will ever get that Russian-made fuel?You can’t just have a convention of politicians and presidents of corporations, full of optimism against common sense, get together for a conference, make an irrational determination based on ‘hope’ and ‘hot air’ that we are going to triple the output of nuclear power world-wide by a certain date, and ignore all the roadblocks, mistakes, setbacks, necessary engineering, planning, construction, and governmental approvals that are sure to come. And if none of it ever happens, that would probably be our salvation. Maybe we simply have to learn to live with less.
You may remember that CO2-caused climate change/global warming, if you are old enough to care, and have a good memory, was going to be totally under control and just a few short years away from being behind us not so long ago. However nothing has changed, except the CO2 problem has become more serious. And now we’re expecting uranium powered nuclear power plants to be our savior? Ya gotta be kidding! ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
Types of nuclear reactors. Courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy. Gov. Glenn Youngkin dropped one bombshell, figuratively speaking, when he announced …
First, the various threats or inducements by other powers that they not pursue nuclear weapons. Second, the nuclear umbrella already provided to them …
First, the various threats or inducements by other powers that they not pursue nuclear weapons. Second, the nuclear umbrella already provided to them …
When a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania went from a technological miracle to a pile of radioactive rubble in a matter of moments in 1979, the Portsmouth, New Hampshire office of the Clamshell Alliance became a hive of activity. I was working there at the time, fielding calls from activists and journalists from around the world. Everyone wanted our opinion since — over the previous few years — our nonviolent demonstrations to prevent the construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant put us at the forefront of a growing social movement.
From the arrests of 18 New Hampshire residents in our first act of civil disobedience in 1976 to more than 1,400 arrests the following spring to a permitted rally that drew some 18,000 protesters in 1978, the Clamshell Alliance touched off a grassroots anti-nuclear rebellion that brought the “No Nukes” message to communities across the country and into the popular culture.
With that groundwork in place, Three Mile Island took our message to the next level. The idea that “nuclear power is a bad way to generate electricity” soon became accepted knowledge across the United States. Everyone from Wall Street tycoons to congressional staffers to ordinary voters now understood that the nuclear industry’s promise of safe, clean and affordable power was a fraud.
Unfortunately, in recent years this understanding has slowly eroded, as the industry has worked to tout its product as the answer to climate catastrophe. With the Biden administration now sinking billions into nuclear energy — and Congress on the verge of passing legislation to ease regulatory precautions on new reactors — the nuclear fraudsters are aiming for a comeback.
Now the co-director of Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Takoma Park, Maryland, Gunter says “Nukes are just too expensive, take too long to build and feature too many pathways to catastrophic accidents.” What’s more, as he maintains, their continued use — along with building costly new reactors — make climate change worse and the world less safe.
With this in mind, “seasoned Clams,” as we jokingly call ourselves, have been holding regular meetings over Zoom — and occasionally in person — to strategize on how to bring our anti-nuclear message to younger generations, as well as fellow boomers, for whom Three Mile Island has become a faded memory. We ultimately want to refute the nuclear industry’s claims that it has solved the problems posed by the old reactors.
In a statement on our new website, we assert: “A tsunami of nuclear power propaganda is sweeping the globe.” According to Gunter, this propaganda is backed by a multi-billion-dollar nuclear promotion campaign funded by taxpayers via the Biden administration’s Department of Energy. “They even have a plan to convert coal-fired power plants to nuclear generation,” he said.
Billions of dollars in nuclear subsidies were loaded into Biden’s infrastructure bill, with billions more in the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act — which sailed through the U.S. House 365-36 last month — extends nuclear subsidies further by continuing the $16.6 billion cap on liability from nuclear accidents for the next 40 years.
“The still unrealized total damage costs of a severe nuclear accident, as evidenced by ongoing nuclear catastrophes at Fukushima (13 year ago) and Chernobyl (38 years ago), are already running into the hundreds of billions of dollars,” Gunter said, adding that Congress didn’t even hold a public hearing on the liability cap extension.
As the new Clamshell website maintains, new nukes are not needed to avert a climate crisis. “Far better options are being built much faster than nuclear power plants, at a fraction of the cost and without the grave hazards. They include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, efficiency and conservation.”
The idea for this statement came from Anna Gyorgy, author of the influential 1979 book “No Nukes: Everyone’s Guide to Nuclear Power.” And true to the Clams’ old principles, the statement was drafted by two writers after consultation with a larger group, reviewed by a committee and ultimately approved by consensus. We have also stuck to our belief that nonviolence is the best method for social movements to disrupt unjust systems and promote alternatives.
“Nonviolence, in the tradition of King and Gandhi, is an effective way to challenge institutional injustice,” said Gyorgy, who serves as communications coordinator for the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in Western Massachusetts. “Nonviolence is also the best way to build the communities we need to get through crises caused by violence, racism, predatory capitalism and climate disruption.” Nuclear power and its evil twin, nuclear weapons, have no role in the future Gyorgy has been trying to build for decades.
“Nukes just cannot compete with zero fuel cost solar and wind, and that means the era of base load plants running on fossil and nuclear fuel is ending,” said Roy Morrison, a former Clamshell staff member who has worked for years as a commercial solar energy developer. “Solar arrays combined with energy storage from home rooftops already are acting as virtual power plants to meet utility demands for peak power.”
According to Morrison, new battery technology and plunging prices for solar will displace fuels that produce carbon dioxide. “The future for our economy and our planet lies with renewables, not nukes, oil, gas or coal,” he said.
Morrison and I first met in 1977, when were among hundreds jailed in a National Guard armory following the mass arrests at Seabrook. In 1979, when Three Mile Island melted down, we were working together in Clamshell’s scruffy second-floor suite in downtown Portsmouth. With little money and a mimeograph machine — the most advanced technology in our possession — we did battle with a complex of utility companies, banks, engineering firms and government agencies that were doing their best to foist nukes on the American public.
When a reporter from a national news agency called for our comment on the unfolding accident in Pennsylvania, I was the one who happened to pick up the phone. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I do remember that, at roughly the same time, Dresser Industries — the company responsible for the valve that malfunctioned at Three Mile Island — was buying pro-nuke display ads featuring Edward Teller, the physicist known as “the father of the H-bomb” and a dedicated advocate for all things nuclear.
When the news story came out, it went something like, “Physicist Edward Teller says nukes are safe, but Arnie Alpert from the Clamshell Alliance says they aren’t.” It’s a good memory, but more than that, it’s a reminder that grassroots movements engaging in what John Lewis called “good trouble” can shake up power structures and bring about change.
In the current moment, when renewable alternatives to fossil and fissile energy are urgently needed, the Clams are trying to figure out how to make it happen again.
Arnie Alpert is a longtime nonviolent action trainer in New Hampshire. He blogs at inzanetimes.wordpress.com.
LLAW’s CONCERNS & COMMENTS, Monday, (03/25/2024)
We do need to stop this growing nuclear power plant and nuclear weapons of mass destruction created by the dark capital commercial, ignorant political, and fear-based military nuclear industries, who are peddling disgraceful propaganda from capitalists, and politicians at every level, who understand nothing at all about nuclear horrors, anything nuclear, and find world peace, making the world’s militaries, who understands all things nuclear all too well, impotent and useless, before they begin the 6th Extinction in earnest. We have very little time left to reverse our self-destructive direction and remove ‘all things nuclear’ from ourselves forever.
I departed from the nuclear industry in disgust over the industry attitude over the 3-Mile Island near meltdown and the fact that we in the industry (including me) were not sympathetic to the reality of what happened there, all of pretending that it was nothing, and that our rallying cry was “Let the Bastards freeze to death in the dark”, the words that turned me away from an entire industry that I had been mistakenly proud of since the 1960s. I left in May of 1980 and started my own minerals exploration corporation with a mission to evaluate useful metals deposits, including gold and silver.
I never looked back, but I also waited several years to begin speaking out against the nuclear industry in general and nuclear power specifically. But now I will spend the rest of my days speaking out (mainly in writing) against “All Things Nuclear” This nightly Blog Post is a beginning of my mission to help do away with public use of anything and everything nuclear. Tonight’s Post is #580 over a total of 580 days, so you, the reader, ought to be able to understand that I am serious about this project and also creating future projects to alert the world that uranium fuel with their reactors, bombs, and all other things nuclear are the most dangerous products on the face of the earth, especially in the irresponsible hands of us humans.
We are in the process of exterminating all of us, including all other life, with our own preferred uses of ‘all things nuclear’. It would sadly be the 6th Extinction, the 1st one that humans actually existed during such massive destruction of life, and we are solely responsible for the entire threat to all other life as well. ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
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.
Listen Live • Weekend All Things Considered. 00 … He did not specify how or where those jobs would be created, but said that increased demand for new …
“And nuclear delivers cheaper, cleaner home-grown energy for consumers.” “That’s why we are investing in Barrow, the home of UK submarines, and in the …
… nuclear power plant. Isar 1 and 2 (Image: Regine Rabanus / PreussenElektra). The Isar 2 plant – comprising a single 1400 MWe pressurised water reactor …
However, this principle that arguably prevented war for so many decades is now under the threat of becoming outright irrelevant. … threats. … nuclear …
