The following article is the best we have to offer today as the conflict over who is is fighting whom over the Ukraine’s (and Europe’s) largest and most endangered nuclear power plant, and the danger continues to grow into the 4th day . . .
The following link is to an article evaluating what it will take for the world to triple its nuclear energy output by by 2050, which, by the way, does not solve the CO2 problem anyway even if we succeeded. The business-like approach points out all the typical ‘gentlemen’s’ points and how difficult accomplishing the pledge will be. But at the summary, there is some blurb about even if we don’t get there, it could make us more aware of the problem. I doubt that ‘awareness’ has ever been the problem, and I also doubt it ever will be. The only way to stop it from asphyxiating ourselves is to quit discharging it. But, for sure, nuclear power is not the answer and never will be.
Personally, I can tell you the day, as loosely planned, will never arrive, which is no different than any other kind of pact that is made at these various and sundry international get-togethers to tell the world how “they” will ‘save the world’ from global warming and climate change by some magical ‘alchemy’ that will allow nuclear power to somehow ‘blow’ CO2 away or dilute it enough, to thin the air of greenhouse gases (GHG), at least to some degree, by pretending that CO2 sort of just evaporates and disappears, but in reality they constantly accumulate for as long as it’s they’re being exhausted into the air we breathe. The nightmare will never be resolved with such a plan — especially by adding nuclear energy (which is even more deadly than CO2) to the mix. ~llaw
Here is the link to Bain & Company’s article. If anything, it is thoughtful and concerned . . .
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.
Iranian officials in charge of the plant, meanwhile, had begun talking openly about achieving “deterrence,” suggesting that Tehran now had everything …
The world-wide nuclear news is almost solely about the latest attacks on the attacks (this time with armed drones) on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other for the attack, but, to my own mind, it makes no sense that Ukraine would attack itself and its people even though Russia has long controlled the operation of the nuclear power plant. But the facts seem to be that whichever country is attacking the plant, it is putting Ukraine and surrounding countries in serious nuclear radiation danger.
At this point, since virtually all of the media stories are on this story today, I suggest that we all pick and choose the source of our information from our preferred media sources below, and hope this problematic situation plays out without a European nuclear catastrophe, that could rapidly spread around the world, including America.
The ultimate fact, regardless, is that the entire world is in dire danger of this territorial war between Russia and Ukraine could very easily spark WWIII if both the political and military disputes are not resolved poste haste — especially with NATO, other counties, and major watchdogs from around the world casting long shadows about the growing difficulties of resolving this grave standoff that is fast becoming an international potential powder keg of world-wide nuclear powers, including not only nuclear war, but of nuclear power plants becoming enemies of the very countries they were originally designed to comfort. ~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.
… Things to Do · All … about the plant amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. … All-State team · Girls’ basketball: 2024 Varsity Maine All-State …
… emergency meeting of the watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors over what it says are Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP)
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, is seen in the background of the shallow Kakhovka Reservoir after the dam collapse, in Energodar, Russian-occupied Ukraine, on June 27, 2023. LIBKOS/AP
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Sunday, (04/08/2024)
As I have said numerous times in earlier Posts on this nightly blog, the Russia/Ukraine war has long ago gone nuclear, and the threat of a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine and surrounding countries grows closer to a reality with every Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest and obviously most threatened nuclear power plant in Europe.
These attacks, war or no war, have to stop because they represent a never-before-considered threat of what a nuclear war is or can be. Is there any doubt that every military with access to nuclear weapons is no drooling at the mouth to essentially double their nuclear weapons of mass destruction by turning every nuclear power plant against the very same nation that built it? Russia, who controls and operates the plant, (although they blame Ukraine for the drone attack) appears to be experimenting with the various ways to do just that, including such a thing as creating meltdowns without so much as firing a shell at the plant itself, but by destroying, for instance, the incoming power lines that help to control the nuclear reactors (the ZNPP has four of them).
This situation leads to another overlooked issue of nuclear arms and their numeric availability relating to the so-called nuclear arms’ reduction in the amount of nuclear warheads that every news media ignorantly points out as a ‘good thing’. They couldn’t be more wrong.
The fact is, whatever nuclear armed nations have “honorably” given up in numbers they have more than gained in the sheer destructive power of each and every nuclear bomb itself.
(If you want an introduction to what a single one megaton nuclear bomb can do today, all you have to do is read nothing more than the “Prologue” to Annie Jorgensen’s new book on nuclear war called, “Nuclear War: a Scenario”. Your blood will run cold as you read only those few pages The world may have fewer nuclear weapons, but that does not equate to less nuclear mass destruction, nor does it included the massive possibility of death by radiation poisoning from nuclear power plants complementing nuclear bombs.)
Media story referenced from this link (or go to other media links below):
(There are several others discussing the same ZNPP situation.)
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.
MOSS: Well, I think we’re all curious about our future as a democracy. And I think these programs and these films are really tests of the proposition …
… Things to Do · All Things to Do · All PPH Events … The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, amid fears …
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has long warned of the risks of a disaster at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, and urged an …
Spending a relaxed, calm, and personally peaceful Sunday — a pleasant day — yet one filled with alternating thoughts of dark reality, and then consciously forcing my thoughts back to bright hopeful daydreams with repeated wishes that I was thankfully thinking and writing today and every day about a common world filled with a peacefully united human population enjoying a calm and quiet Sunday everywhere, without conflict.
But instead my thoughts keep flashing back to the reality of the everyday way on our lovely life-giving planet Earth, somehow filled with misguided, divided, and angry individuals who ought to know that a life of love and peace, rather than one of constant dissension and anger, will be the only way of life that will take us all the way to where we need to go . . . ~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.
… all the walls shattering with the near … The nuclear fireball that has consumed everything … about nuclear war – that they are entirely on their own.
Learn MoreSee All EventsAdd Event. 07Apr. Sun, Apr 7 @ 10:00 am. All Things Detroit Day – 10th Anniversary Celebration. Eastern Market. Learn MoreSee …
Russia declares emergency in flood-hit region as evacuation efforts continue · Drones attack Russian-held nuclear power plant in Ukraine, officials say.
It was not immediately clear what weapon was used in Sunday’s attack against the nuclear plant, which was taken by Russian forces shortly after their …
… Herd of American bison grazing during the cold winter in the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park. … Caldera, a supervolcano 50km wide and 70km …
In today’s world a nuclear war would be the end of the world as we have known it . . .
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Saturday, (04/06/2024)
I can save you a lot of research and stress about this old map and the discussion:: There is no place of refuge in the event of a WWIII style nuclear war. Perhaps you could find a temporary niche (in your basement or a cave) to live for a few days longer in a place where there were no direct strikes, but the inevitable radiation sickness might well be worse than, say, instant death . . . ~llaw
(Once again I have posted the “article” here rather than the link because the story is short, as it should be, since the map is useless.) The link is available in the World Nuclear News, Nuclear War Category 4 below.
Map reveals best places to live in the US if nuclear war breaks out
A map that has repeatedly circled on social media shows areas in the US that could be subjected to a nuclear strike
Key strategic areas in the US could be targets. A map shows the areas of the US that could be the most likely to be hit by a nuclear strike.
Areas like New York City, Washington, D.C. and key cities on the west coast are potential targets to an enemy attack. Americans wary of the potential threat from above may wish to look towards the rural Midwest for refuge instead.
The map appears to date back to 2015 and an article in CBS, but it has resurfaced a number of times on social media since.
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 About Brandy’s Daughter Sy’rai Smith. 13 minutes ago. The Telegraph. The Dublin bookmaker winning big with its bet on the US – for now. 13 minutes …
All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … nuclear weapons. “We will not falter until every single voice is heard, …
Some sirens will need to be tested more than once, according to a press release. Duke Energy Progress owns the plant. Emergency officials in Brunswick …
US warns China of ‘significant consequences’ over Russia support · Ukraine military chief’s chilling warning to the West about Russia’s threat · Ukraine …
… threats about using nuclear weapons on their enemies. But the … war he has been the main source of Russian threats of nuclear war if things don’t go …
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant just north of Los Angeles on the Map, the only nuclear power plant left on the entire Pacific Coast from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego
LLAW’s COMMENTARY, Friday, (04/05/2024)
For the following article, I have decided to Post the article itself instead of the link to it. You can see more similar propagandized nuclear power articles by clicking the link in the “Nuclear Power” Category in the nightly nuclear news section of this Post.
This particular article is short and to the point about telling us how well-run and ‘clean’ power is provided by ‘nuclear’ power plants, which is a definition that annoys me beyond belief. The article also mentions the multi-billion dollar resurgence of other nuclear plants, including (a gift provided by the Federal and California taxpayers) of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, which is the lone commercial power plant left in all of California or on the Pacific Coast from the Aleutian Islands to the tip of Terra del Fuego. The plant and its owner (PG&E) are also the subject of scorn that I and hundreds of thousands of others have been publicly complaining about along with other PG&E power plants and operations that have created years of grief for customers and the general public in California and other bordering states for years. I have posted governmental documents of their incredibly poor and dangerous record over the years elsewhere in this Blog. But suffice to say that they ‘blew up San Bruno’ and ‘burned down the small city of Paradise’ in California among literal dozens of other huge operational errors, mistakes, and perhaps sabotage, yet the author of this article to infer that the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is in the category of “well run”, mentioned in the same paragraph.
The PG&E nuclear power planet was scheduled, because of its infirm old age, to be decommissioned, shut down and mothballed next year (2025), but was given new life by potential power demands in California recognized by both state and federal governments.
Nuclear power is not only not clean, it is the dirtiest and most dangerous power providing substance on the planet, and yet our governments and the nuclear industry want nuclear power to become the world’s dominant source of commercial electricity, when, if we knew what we were talking about, ‘all things nuclear’ would not exist now or in the future. And here we are ignorantly pumping billions and trillions of dollars into something that will likely create the 6th Extinction the Earth, over it’s 4+ billions of years of existence is, but is now facing for the 1st time an extinction caused by its own inhabitants called human beings.
I am one of them, and I spent a good part of three decades working in the nuclear industry, and, though it took me several years to figure out what I was happily supporting, ‘all things nuclear’ is what financiers would call a ‘scam’ if they understood the background of the industry. As for the rest of us, if we were properly informed, we would be furiously protesting, demanding that ‘all things nuclear’ be forever removed from any and all associated existence with humanity and all other life on our beautiful green, blue, and brown planet that has sustained life for millions of years. ~llaw
News & Technologyfor the Global Energy Industry
Nuclear Energy Seeing a Resurgence Unlike Any Other
Nuclear energy is surging back in a big way. Case in point: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s comments last week on plans to restart the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. To bolster the effort, she announced a $1.5 billion conditional loan guarantee to cover work required to restart the plant after a two-year shutdown. And this is just the latest example of the nuclear energy industry’s re-emergence as policymakers and energy industry leaders again recognize its value in supplying reliable, scalable carbon-free energy.
COMMENTARY
Only a few years ago, well-run nuclear plants were shutting down across the U.S. Now, plants like Diablo Canyon in California that were headed toward shutdown have gotten a reprieve, and Palisades has been granted a chance for new life.
Meanwhile, the first new American nuclear plant in decades, Vogtle 3, came online last year, and Vogtle 4 is being finalized to come online this year. Apart from that, a plethora of advanced small reactor designs are in the offing, promising new ways to site plants and provide clean energy to power everything from server farms to steel plants.
Nuclear energy’s comeback is the result of several factors. There is rising demand for reliable clean energy and a desire to move away from fossil fuels. Nuclear energy checks all the boxes—nuclear power plants are carbon-free, they operate 24/7, and they form the backbone of a reliable electricity grid.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused spikes in natural gas prices and prompted countries, especially in Europe, to stop relying on imported fossil fuels, especially Russian gas. Countries looked again at their energy policies, recognizing nuclear power’s value to overall energy security. Suddenly, France’s reliance on nuclear looked prescient, compared to Germany’s shunning nuclear in favor of coal and gas.
All of this has led to greater support for nuclear energy worldwide. The most recent UN climate conference, COP28, held in December in Dubai, has become known as the “Nuclear COP.” While nuclear has traditionally gotten the cold shoulder at international events such as COP, today, nuclear has gone mainstream as a generally accepted way to address climate change.
The U.S. government has been more supportive offering incentives to nuclear energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, and other recent legislation. Amid political polarization, there is bipartisan support in the U.S., perhaps the only topic gaining strong support among both Democrats and Republicans.
Over its more than 60-year commercial history, nuclear energy has seen its fortunes rise and fall, but what is different this time is the wave of innovative ideas aimed at overcoming some of nuclear energy’s most vexing challenges. Small modular reactors are designed to be built faster and easier to finance. New nuclear plant designs may be used to meet applications beyond power generation, such as industrial heat for producing chemicals, hydrogen, and steel, helping to decarbonize new sectors.
New advanced fuels are being developed to improve the economics of existing as well as new reactors, introducing major innovation to gain greater efficiencies. Companies are also developing new approaches for effectively managing waste.
The nuclear energy sector has always focused on constant improvement. This focus led the U.S. fleet from capacity factors in the 50% to 60% range in the 1970s and early 1980s to above 90% today. Improved operations have made existing reactors more economical with vast efficiency improvements, with plants routinely safely exceeding their original design capacity.
There are examples of improving costs and timelines for building new plants when multiple units are built in a series. Now, with innovative new designs, approaches, and technologies, together with government support, we will begin to see improvements in the U.S.
The U.S. has long provided world leadership in nuclear energy technology, and now it is positioning itself to reassert that legacy. And next-generation nuclear technologies are in a good position to capitalize on the growth in demand we are seeing worldwide. Nuclear energy’s proven track record together with fresh thinking and rapidly growing demand has cleared the way for an era of unprecedented growth.
—Seth Grae chairs the International Council of the American Nuclear Society, serves on the board of directors of the Nuclear Energy Institute, and is CEO of Lightbridge Corp., a company focused on developing advanced nuclear fuel technology.
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.
Beshear said he supports an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes nuclear energy. … The debate about attracting nuclear energy … Analysis|The …
As an added bonus, working at Olkiluoto has taught him about the boiling water reactor (BWR) systems at the OL1 and OL2 plant units; he works for all …
A massive tsunami flooded the power plant, making it unable to cool the nuclear fuel. “That caused some damage that released some radioactivity,” said …
There is rising demand for reliable clean energy and a desire to move away from fossil fuels. Nuclear energy checks all the boxes—nuclear power plants …
This commentary concerns the following “Freethink” opinion/article today with this headline and link: Retired coal plants can aid the energy transition — by going nuclear. The article is at:
My thoughts: Why is it that a certain faction of humanity is so anxious to “cut off their noses to spite their faces”, which is, of course, a needlessly self-destructive overreaction to a problem?
The very idea that using nuclear power to replace old coal mines, followed eventually by replacing other fossil fuel power plants (gas, oil, etc.) is one of the stupidest and most ignorant “brainstorms” to come along since mankind discovered fire but didn’t know how to control it. And we still have no idea how to control the very worst kind of fire ever: nuclear radiation, quickly followed by CO2, and then the wildfire of nuclear war itself. We are, and have been for a long long time, on the verge of becoming the first “semi’-intelligent” animal to inflict itself with immanent extinction — the 6th Extinction on our incredible life-sustaining and giving planet, Mother Earth.
The first five extinctions were caused by what could be called today as “acts of god”, meaning uncontrollable by human standards, events such as meteorites from outer space, which likely killed off most all life, including cold-blooded dinosaurs, in the most previous 5th Extinction around 65 million years ago, probably long before some, but not all, warm blooded creatures like humans arrived, but we believe that a few, such as saber-toothed tigers, existed here on planet Earth at the time of the 5th Extinction. To me, the arrival of mankind on planet Earth is full of intrigue, mystery, and curiosity. ~llaw
(I have a theory about human arrival on planet Earth, already hinted at in the Preface or Introduction, but more clearly explained during the progress of my upcoming novel itself, “El Nuclear Diablo”, draft-written on a bi-weekly basis right here on “All Things Nuclear”. Chapter 2 will be available on Thursday, April 11th, with Post #s and dates about how to find the previous installments.)
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.
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.
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