Why is New Zealand anti-nuclear? What is their Nuclear Free Zone? And will they remain nuclear free?
“New Zealand’s opposition to nuclear weapons is rooted in the belief that the proliferation of such weapons of mass destruction does not reflect an attempt to preserve peace in the form of a nuclear deterrent. New Zealand’s nuclear-free zone option looks to remove the nation from under the nuclear umbrella.” (from Google Sources)
The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone also includes nuclear power:
“Disadvantages are the relatively large capital cost of the plant, the long construction time, and dependence on security of fuel supply. Also, New Zealand currently has no expertise or infrastructure to support nuclear power reactors, and this would need to be developed.” (from Google Sources)
I whole-heartedly absolutely agree with New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance on all things nuclear – especially their reasoning about nuclear deterrence (which I have been protesting about its pure ignorance for three consecutive nightly Posts now) and their stance that there is no need for nuclear power plants. Their stand against ‘all things nuclear’ is today more important than ever to global disarmament, the shut down of all nuclear reactors, and eradication of all ancillary buildings, facilities, and products (including nuclear fuel), and advancing global peace on planet Earth.
Here is how the New Zealand “Nuclear Free Zone” came about. It was approved by the government(s) of the Free Zone after just 10% (330,000+) of the population signed the petition to ban nuclear weapons and power plants. (The following is courtesy of Wikipedia): “In March 1976 over 20 anti-nuclear and environmental groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, met in Wellington and formed a loose coalition called the Campaign for Non-Nuclear Futures (CNNF). The coalition’s mandate was to oppose the introduction of nuclear power and to promote renewable energy alternatives such as wind, wave, solar and geothermal power. They launched Campaign Half Million. CNNF embarked on a national education exercise producing the largest petition against nuclear power in New Zealand’s history with 333,087 signatures by October 1976. This represented over 10% of the country’s total population of 3 million.[17][18] At this time, New Zealand’s only nuclear reactor was a small sub-critical reactor that had been installed at the School of Engineering of the University of Canterbury in 1962. It had been given by the United States’ Atoms for Peace programme and was used for training electrical engineers in nuclear techniques. It was dismantled in 1981.[19][20]”
It is my heartfelt opinion that if such a campaign can be accomplished in New Zealand, it can be done internationally; but, yes, of course such a campaign on a global scale is the foremost goal of this nightly Post. New Zealand has set the basis of the procedure, and though a global effort would be much more demanding, it can be done. I am working on the basics of what I call “The Blue Print”, that outlines just how it can be done, what it will take in terms of changing humanity’s way of life and governmental leadership on a world-wide basis, including finance, labor, equipment and facilities, and how the world’s population can be governed and financed globally as a unified Co-Op much like the old agricultural co-ops not all that long ago, but far more complicated and broad-based, of course. I clearly understand how an effort like this could work successfully, but getting to the point of global agreement of a single united world-wide governmental coalition to accomplish such a massive undertaking seems impossible.
And it will be impossible until nearly half, about 3 or 4 billion people — including representing and speaking for our underaged children — of the common population of planet Earth insists that their own governments and leaders find themselves forced by global public opinion and our universal demand to do so. Otherwise humanity’s days are most likely numbered to expire sometime in the near future. I realize the enormous task sounds impossible, but via the Internet it becomes absolutely possible . . . ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available at the end of this Post.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… nuclear war threats US elections Kim Jong-un. If you’re seeing this message, that means JavaScript has been disabled on your browser, please enable …
This well-organized protest for Peace in Gaza is the kind of human protest against the possibility of nuclear war, nuclear power plants, and all things nuclear in general, that I have been advocating for well over a year now; but, of course, in the ‘nuclear case’ it must be a much larger protest than just millions of people (although this one is wonderful to see for its purpose and well may succeed).
But my “nuclear protest” concept is much easier to do because all it requires is billions (at least 4 to 5 billion and hopefully more of us) to personally send from their own home on this planet this kind of protest — “not on our watch” — with no or little travel involved, in direct Internet written communication to every major politician and political capitol on the planet, and preferably, as much as possible, in our own words. (I have long said that Facebook — with more than 3 billion of us signed up — along with email and any number of other Internet communications capability. It can be done, and it might just work if half or more of all human beings in every country on planet Earth inundated all nuclear-armed countries to immediately cease or desist, and lay down their weapons of mass destruction (which these days includes Nuclear Power Plants). ~llaw
My thanks to “Common Dreams” and writer Jake Johnson . . .
A protester holds photos of people who were killed by Israeli forces during a protest on December 28, 2023 in Berlin, Germany.
(Photo by Maryam Majd/Getty Images)
Millions Set to March for Gaza Cease-Fire as Threat of Regional War Surges
“It will send a powerful message not just to the Israelis but to the Western powers who are backing them that the public say, ‘Not in our name.'”
Millions of people are expected to take to the streets worldwide on Saturday to demand a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and denounce the U.S.-led bombing of Yemen, which pushed the Middle East even closer to a full-scale regional war.
Organizers said people in over 120 cities across 45 countries are planning to join the Gaza Global Day of Action, a mass demonstration that will begin days after South Africa presented evidence before the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave.
“This global day of action, from Australia through to Asia, Europe, and the Americas, is the first coordinated, international movement against the war being waged by Israel on the Palestinian people,” said Kate Hudson, general secretary of the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. “It will send a powerful message not just to the Israelis but to the Western powers who are backing them that the public say, ‘Not in our name.'”
Major protests are expected in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Cairo, Istanbul, Tokyo, and scores of other cities and towns.
Israeli forces have killed more than 23,000 people—including over 10,000 children—in Gaza in just over three months, devastated the territory’s infrastructure, and sparked a horrifying humanitarian crisis. Much of Gaza’s population is displaced, starving, and at growing risk of disease.
Hudson said Friday that in the face of such a catastrophe, “everyone with a conscience” should “join the millions of voices from around the world in demanding an end to endless war.”
“Your participation will amplify the call for justice for innocent Palestinians and every citizen of every country targeted by the missiles of Israel and the West,” said Hudson. “It will make it clear to those countries that they do not have their citizens’ support for their actions.”
“Saturday is going to be a very important day for the anti-war movement,” she added. “So let’s unite, make a difference, and show that together, we can create waves of change that echo globally. Let’s paint a picture of hope, unity, and lasting change.”
The Biden administration has insisted it hopes to prevent Israel’s assault on Gaza—which the U.S. has backed from the start with weaponry and diplomatic support—from spreading across the region, but it has launched airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen since October 7, targeting Iran-aligned militia groups and heightening the risk of a broader war.
The growing number of Biden administration and congressional staffers who support a cease-fire are expected to speak at a rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.
In a statement late Thursday announcing the Yemen airstrikes—which many U.S. lawmakers slammed as unconstitutional—President Joe Biden said he “will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary,” signaling that additional attacks on Yemen are on the table.
“Instead of working to end Israel’s massacre of Palestinians, the Biden administration is choosing war and further destruction,” IfNotNow, a Jewish American advocacy group, said Friday in response to the U.S. strikes in Yemen. “There is no military solution. We need a lasting cease-fire NOW.”
Ismail Patel, visiting research fellow at the University of Leeds, wrote in an op-ed for Middle East Eye last week that plans for Saturday’s global demonstrations were inspired in part by the inability of international institutions such as the United Nations to act as Israel and its Western allies operate with impunity on the world stage.
“A global day of protest thus serves as a powerful tool for exposing this unfair and ineffective order,” Patel argued. “It further sheds light on how the U.S. and U.K. governments hold justice hostage and the world at ransom as they continuously shield Israel from accountability.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are noYellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… threats we face will only become more urgent in 2024. We must raise … campaign for nuclear disarmamentceasefiregenocideisraelpeople powerstop the war …
More nuclear insanity about the idea of ‘nuclear deterrence’, aka building more and bigger nuclear weapons of mass destruction, saving the world tonight, this time from Australia, about how ‘deterrence’ can prevent nuclear war, but then, like the similar article from my post last night, spending the rest of the following interview talking about how aggressive nations, including Iran may be crazy enough to start nuclear war anyway, but if they do the USA will take them out. Of course ‘deterrence’ could, if there was even a semblance of respect and love among men, via its fear factor, prevent nuclear war, but that is not the question. Because fear of our neighbor is based on the opposite concept of ‘love the thy neighbor’.
The question is “Will ‘deterrence;’ prevent nuclear war?” Few of those in power and their governments (including their militaries of course) seem to realize, believe, know, or even entertain that that the only answer to prevent nuclear war is to remove all things associated with nuclear anything from human existence, including nuclear power plants as well because they would be used as double doses of nuclear weapons in today’s concept of war. Russia has already infringed on that once out-of-mind and off -limits concept for war.
Relying on the words, on the agreements, on the pacts, on the ‘laws’, or even the character and morality of mankind (especially of those in charge) will never be the solution, and, to my mind at least, eventually will be the end of us and most other life on our beautiful home, planet Earth, that we should be spending our days honoring, serving and appreciating rather than ravaging Her as we ravage ourselves with human hatred and greed, always wanting, by taking it with force, what someone has that someone else covets. Relying on ‘nuclear deterrence’ is like spitting into the wind . . . ~llaw
Click on the YouTube link below to listen to the Interview from an Australian point of view concerning ‘deterrence’ and how, or maybe not, they are little more than threats . . .
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available at the end of this Post.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Every job kills. How is it possible that nuclear energy kills so few people then? What about accidents like Three Mile Island, Fukushima, or Chernobyl …
With Pakistan recently joining India as a nuclear power, the conflict played out against a backdrop of fear that it could lead to nuclear war. Yet the …
The eruption that occurred 631,000 years ago largely emptied the magma chamber, and the ground collapsed into the resulting void. Yellowstone caldera …
An RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile on display at the Victory Day Parade in May 2023 in Moscow. Source: President of the Russian Federation.
LLAW’s THOUGHTS & COMMENTS :
The following article from the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” and author Zachary Kallenborn provides thorough debate points of view concerning the positive or negative concept of banning all nuclear weapons. While I absolutely disagree with the reasoning to not ban nuclear weapons, in a more perfect world of human cooperation it would be a possible answer to keep nuclear war at the present ‘threat level’.
The final two paragraphs in this fine “story”, but drastically overstated regarding the ability of human leadership (the root of the problem) to morally, critically, sensibly and kindly react honorably to each other globally, clearly erases the ridiculous argument this kind of wishful thinking makes in the rest of this well-written and optimistic view (wrongly indicating that a non-nuclear ground WWIII is more dangerous to our future than a nuclear war) , which is why nuclear deterrence, as I have pointed out dozens of times in my nightly Posts here on “All Things Nuclear” will never work because it basic tenet is based on fear rather than respect . . . and for good reason. ~llaw
Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity
On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force with 69 state parties. The treaty aims to ban nuclear weapons, bringing global nuclear weapons arsenals down to zero. Treaty states, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and other global zero activists that pushed for the treaty frequently highlight the existential harms from nuclear weapons, including in the second meeting of state parties to the treaty. The concern is legitimate. A 2022 study in Nature estimated a nuclear war between the United States and Russia would blast massive amounts of soot into the atmosphere, disrupting the global climate, and causing massive food shortages that could kill over five billion people.
But nuclear weapons are not the only threat to humanity. An asteroid over 1 kilometer in diameter striking the Earth, genetically engineered biological weapons, super volcanoes, extreme climate change, nanotechnology, and artificialsuperintelligence all could generate existential harm, whether defined as the collapse of human civilization or literal human extinction. To address those challenges, humanity needs global cooperation to align policies, pool resources, maintain globally critical supply chains, build useful technologies, and prevent the development of harmful technologies. Nuclear deterrence—alongside robust international organizations, laws, norms, alliances, and economic dependencies—helps make that happen.
Global governments and organizations aiming to reduce existential risks should support nuclear risk-reduction measures but oppose quick, complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Nuclear abolition creates serious risk of returning to an era of great power conflict, which could drastically increase existential risk. A global war between China, Russia, the United States and their respective allies risks the survival of the global cooperative system necessary to combat other existential threats, while threatening infrastructure necessary for risk mitigation measures and accelerating other existential risk scenarios. As Iskander Rehman wrote in his recent in-depth study of great power war: “Protracted great power wars are immensely destructive, whole-of-society affairs, the effects of which typically extend well beyond their point of origin, spilling across multiple regions and siphoning huge amounts of personnel, materiel and resources… Ultimately, protracted great-power wars usually only end when an adversary faces total annihilation, or collapses under the weight of its own exhaustion.” If the great powers collapse, the global system may collapse with them. Nuclear deterrence can help prevent that.
Nuclear weapons place a cap on how bad great power conflict can become and may deter the emergence and escalation of great power war. If China, the United States, or Russia faced a genuine existential threat, the nuclear weapons would emerge, threatening nuclear retaliation. As Chinese General Fu Quanyou, head of the People Liberation’s Army General Staff until 2002, once said: “The U.S. and Soviet superpowers both had strong nuclear capabilities able to destroy one another a number of times, so they did not dare to clash with each other directly, war capabilities above a certain point change into war-limiting capabilities.” Mutually assured destruction also helps prevent serious great power conflict from breaking out in the first place. During the current war between Ukraine and Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used nuclear threats to deter direct NATO involvement and keep the conflict local. The United States might wish to support Ukraine against Russia, but it’s not willing to risk a Russian nuclear strike on New York City or Washington, DC to do more than provide money and material. Removing that deterrence by banning nuclear weapons means a potential return to protracted, global great power war.
To emphasize: Opposing quick, complete abolition does not mean opposing reduction of nuclear arsenals or risk reduction measures like improved crisis management and ensuring human control over nuclear weapons. Massive nuclear war is the most likely scenario for existential harm to humanity in the near term. As the Chinese nuclear arsenal grows, and China potentially aims for nuclear parity with the United States in the coming decades, that problem is going to get worse. Current nuclear weapon strategies depend on targeting adversary nuclear weapons, which means as an adversary builds more nuclear weapons, the United States must build more too. If the United States builds more, so too will Russia and China. Unchecked, nuclear arsenal sizes could quickly spiral upwards, passing the heights of the Cold War when the United States had 23,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union had 39,000.
The risks of great power war. War among great powers increases existential risk in at least four ways. First, the global cooperative system necessary to combat existential threats may be seriously damaged or destroyed. Second, combatants might target and destroy infrastructure and capacity necessary to implement existential risk mitigation measures. Third, military necessity may accelerate the development of technologies like artificial intelligence that create new existential risks. Fourth, a great power war following nuclear abolition could touch off rapid, unstable nuclear rearmament and proliferation.
After World War II, the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and numerous other international organizations were built to stabilize the world and prevent such a global catastrophe from happening again. That cooperative framework allowed for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, enabled global partnerships on biosecurity through the G-7, and facilitated high-level discussions on the risks of artificial intelligence. However, a massive global war would undermine the very foundations of this order, because it would show the economic, political, and institutional ties between nations were never enough to prevent global conflict. Plus, World War III might result in the crippling or destruction of the powerful states and institutions that hold up global governance: China, France, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO, and others. The global community may lose the cooperative institutions necessary for climate change reduction, limiting or controlling risky biological research, prevent the creation and proliferation of artificial superintelligence, and generally defend the planet.
Great power war could accelerate a broad range of technologies that generate new and increase other existential risks. Russian President Putin noted in 2017 that, “[w]hoever becomes the leader in [artificial intelligence] will become the ruler of the world.” A great power war would almost certainly accelerate research, development, and implementation of artificial intelligence. One can easily imagine a Manhattan Project for artificial superintelligence, bringing together NATO’s leading artificial intelligence researchers and organizations to create a superintelligence (or close enough to it) to defend friendly cybernetworks and attack adversarial ones, manipulate adversary decision-making, or create and manage insurgent forces. Although quantum computing is not an existential risk, accelerating development to help break adversary encryption or other military purposes would exacerbate artificial intelligence-related risks, too. Quantum computing offers potentially millions of times more computing power than classical computers, and computing power is a critical resource necessary to train artificial intelligence models. Great power war might also spur massive investment in biotechnologies like genetic engineering to enhance soldier effectiveness. Improvements and proliferation in genetic engineering generate a range of biological warfare concerns from creating new biological warfare agents to making existing agents more harmful.
In a war for survival, infrastructure necessary to mitigate existential risks might be destroyed. Space launch capabilities constitute a prime example: On November 24, 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test from Vandenburg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara, California. If China and the United States were at war, Vandenburg Space Force Base would be a viable and desirable target for Chinese attacks. China has long recognized that the United States military depends heavily on space assets for communication, remote sensing, and position, navigation, and timing. And Vandenburg is home to the Combined Space Operations Center, the Space Force center responsible for executing “operational command and control of space forces to achieve theater and global objectives.” Damaging or destroying the base, including its space launch capabilities, could help China win the war. At the same time, damaging or destroying the base would make it harder for the United States to carry out asteroid deflection research and, depending on timing, prevent the United States from launching a planetary defense mission when an asteroid is inbound.
General loss of state capacity could also draw resources and policy attention away from existential risk mitigation. Research by, Greg Koblentz of George Mason University and King’s College London researcher Filippa Lentzos mapped 69 Biosafety Level 4 laboratories around the world. At these labs, research is conducted on the most dangerous pathogenic material, like the microorganisms that cause smallpox and Ebola. The United States and global community expends significant resources to secure those facilities: President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget provides $1.8 billion to strengthen biosecurity and biosafety. But in a World War III involving the United States and China, biosecurity may fall by the wayside. Even if the United States prevails, rebuilding Tokyo, Los Angelos, Seoul, or other major cities demolished during the fighting would command tremendous resources, and attention.
Finally, a World War III breaking out after nuclear abolition could trigger rapid, unstable nuclear rearmament and proliferation. The United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear powers would almost certainly realize that nuclear abolition was a mistake and rearm themselves. A post-abolition World War III would also likely demonstrate to many other states that nuclear weapons are necessary to defend their sovereignty. Rapid nuclear rearmament and proliferation could be highly destabilizing, with significant new risks of nuclear war, because new nuclear arsenals may not be accompanied by the necessary crisis communication, secure second-strike, and general deterrence doctrine necessary to ensure stability.
Even if nuclear abolition were achieved, the basic knowledge underlying nuclear weapons would not disappear. Even if all nuclear warheads were dismantled, weapon designs were destroyed, and enrichment facilities closed, the historical and scientific knowledge of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons would not disappear. Nuclear weapons knowledge would need to be retained even in a global zero world to support any monitoring or verification programs aimed at ensuring that a nuclear global zero stays “zero.” That knowledge could provide the seeds for rearmament. So, while nuclear abolition might reduce nuclear-related existential risks in the short-term, abolition might counterintuitively increase nuclear existential risk in the long-term.
Navigating the zone of uncertainty. Effectively managing the existential benefits and risks of nuclear weapons requires two questions to be addressed. First, how many nuclear weapons are minimally necessary to deter great power conflict? Second: At what point does a nuclear war go from just a moral horror and catastrophic loss of life to truly existential harm? Unfortunately, neither answer is clear and requires significantly more modeling and analysis than has been done.
Reducing nuclear arsenals only to the minimum amount necessary to deter great power war requires a nuclear state having sufficient, survivable nuclear weapons to reliably inflict unacceptable harm on an adversary. But how much harm is “unacceptable” will depend on the conflict context, leader personality, domestic and international politics, and other factors. Plus, nuclear forces might be destroyed in an initial nuclear strike; adversary air, missile, and submarine defenses might defeat delivery systems; and nuclear weapons might simply fail to cause expected harm. Finding that right balance will no doubt be hard and change over time, especially with nuclear-relevant emerging and evolving military technologies, but modeling and simulation, red teaming, war games, and similar exercises can all help. Global international organizations, alliances, and complex economic and social interdependence between great powers can also help to ensure nuclear weapons are not the only guarantor of great power peace.
The modeling of global cooling from nuclear war—often called nuclear winter—has been ongoing since Carl Sagan and team raised the concern in October 1983. The results of researchers vary drastically. When looking at the same regional nuclear war scenario, one group of researchers concluded the environmental harms could be globally catastrophic, while the other concluded the climate impact would be minimal. Assumptions regarding how much soot a nuclear war generates, how much soot reaches the upper atmosphere, how food consumption changes, effects on global trade, and the degree to which livestock feed is diverted to human use all affect estimated harm, sometimes drastically.
Unfortunately, political biases and agendas have often colored those assumptions. Fortunately, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine launched an independent study on potential environmental effects of nuclear war to assess the environmental effects and social consequences of nuclear war, including potential nuclear winter scenarios. The committee’s work continues, but the findings should merit significant attention. More generally, the global community should also invest financial, scientific, and computing resources to better assess the climate effects of nuclear detonations, connecting it with ongoing work on modeling climate change. Nuclear war would be a global problem that deserves global attention to understand and mitigate the effects.
The United States and global governments can also take action to reduce the risk of nuclear war causing existential harm by strengthening food security. Because the existential harm of a nuclear war that caused nuclear winter would come primarily through massive starvation, the global community can work together to build new and enhance existing long-term food reserves. In addition, the United States and others should think through and develop post-catastrophe plans for a broad range of extreme events, including nuclear war. For example, the United States could develop plans to use the military for emergency food supply, as in the Berlin airlift, when American and British aircraft delivered 2.3 million pounds of food, and other supplies to West Berlin. The United States and global community should also invest in research and development towards synthetic and resilient food sources like methane single cell proteins. These activities would not just be useful for life after nuclear war, but also enhance food security in the near term and be useful for a broad range of ecological and social disasters.
Of course, the best way to reduce the risks of nuclear war is to ensure it never happens in the first place.
The survival of humanity needs to be a global priority, because humanity’s survival transcends every social, economic, and political issue. What importance is war in the Ukraine, Taiwanese sovereignty, global poverty reduction, or Icelandic fishing rights, when all of mankind is in danger? For better or worse, ensuring human survival means keeping nuclear weapons for their deterrent effects, accompanied by diligent efforts to ensure that they are never used.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid? Practical Engineering•2.7M views … All Things Secured•645K views · 17:48 · Go to channel · How Railroad …
“All of those conditions would have to be applied to the reactor and that may not be something that’s easy to achieve. That is an immediate challenge …
Nuclear abolition creates serious risk of returning to an era of great power conflict, which could drastically increase existential risk. A global war …
1 reactor building of its Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa Prefecture. … emergency, in the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 complex suffering reactor …
Perhaps in a ‘limited’ nuclear war a few pockets of humanity could survive and live long enough until a nuclear winter created by the disturbance of the atmosphere and radiation sickness eventually affected human health until even the strongest and healthiest gave in to nuclear radiation and exposure. Some might be able to survive for a few years given enough food and potable water, most likely in caverns or very large caves where radiation would not be strong enough to cause severe illness and death. But, as depicted in the well-done (for its day)1959 movie “On the Beach”, all future human life would be temporary.
But a few shots across the bow nor a militarily confined war is hardly likely to be the kind of war that tomorrow’s nuclear war would most likely be given the concept of a World War III in a scenario where all powerful countries with nuclear weapons of mass destruction would use thousands of nuclear bombs indiscriminately delivered by ICBMs and huge military aircraft, not only to the enemies’ military sites and nuclear weapons silos, but to nuclear power plants along with all major cities, meaning all of humanity would be subjected to immediate or eventual death. Anti-missile missiles would no doubt add to the nuclear heat blasts from collisions with ICBMs as well as severe radiation. Water would eventually be contaminated everywhere as would the air. The two nuclear bombs that killed a quarter million Japanese in the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be like comparing firecrackers to dynamite in comparison to today’s nuclear arsenals.
If you have recently watched, or are thinking of watching or re-watching, the movie “Oppenheimer” (which, by the way, is not to be in any way construed as fiction), I beseech you to listen to the last conversation in the entire film when, during an informal outdoor friendly meeting, Oppenheimer and Einstein very briefly discuss the power and damnation of ‘all things nuclear’. Listen very carefully to the last words of Oppenheimer to Einstein at the end of their conversation. I will not mention those words here, but just let me say that they perfectly sum up in just a half dozen words or so the incredible message of the entire film’s definitive point as well as the likely future of humanity. ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… nuclear test. … He was really challenging us in terms of how he is now filming things with smaller cameras that are really portable and moving all the …
War among great powers increases existential risk in at least four ways. First, the global cooperative system necessary to combat existential threats …
Yemeni Armed Forces: We will not hesitate to deal adequately with all threats … The Looming Threat of Nuclear War. By Janna Kadri; Source: Al Mayadeen …
Tonight, I pass along this entire human interest article to memorialize and impress upon humanity that the world-wide uranium issue does not begin its life/death issues in the manufacturing of nuclear bombs nor the nuclear reactors of nuclear power plants. It begins in the mining, milling, tailings, and inadequate reclamation of the mines it came from, all of which have, can, and do result in the death of innocent men, women, and children (and even wildlife) who live, play, work, and suffer in communities like Uravan, Colorado.
I urge you to read this story because so long as we continue to operate nuclear power plants and build nuclear bombs, submarines, and lord knows what else, this story will be retold forever in mining communities all over the world . . . ~llaw
‘It lives in geologic time’: Nuclear contamination and health risks remain throughout Colorado
How the proposed expansion of a compensation program could impact the state, and the ongoing fight to make it happen
Buildings at the site of the former Cotter uranium mill, which were later demolished, are pictured in this 2007 photo, with Cañon City seen in the background. (Courtesy of Jeri Fry)
When Jane Thompson moved away from Uravan in western Colorado decades ago, it was still a quiet company town of about 1,000 residents, all of whom had some connection to the uranium mill owned by Union Carbide.
“It was a great place to grow up,” said Thompson, who helps keep the town’s legacy alive as president of the Rimrocker Historical Society. Her grandfather was a miner until retirement. Her father was, too, after her parents married. “They were the second-to-last to leave Uravan when they sent everybody out.”
Today, there is almost nothing left of Uravan, which was closed and leveled beginning in 1985. Former residents raised funds to preserve a boarding house and recreation center on the old town site, but Dow Chemical, which acquired Union Carbide in 1999, burned them down in 2007 due to ongoing contamination fears.
The company didn’t reimburse former residents, who today hold their annual August reunions on an old baseball field turned campground.
“You won’t find too many people that don’t think it was a shame, what they did,” said Thompson, who returned to the area in the 1990s and now lives in nearby Nucla. “I understand that everybody’s afraid of uranium, and everybody’s afraid of radioactivity, and nobody wants that liability. But it did seem like $229,000 up in flames was kind of a waste of money.”
To officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the former town as a federal Superfund site, the razing of Uravan’s last remaining buildings was one of the final phases in a “massive and challenging cleanup” that lasted 20 years and cost more than $120 million.
The mining and milling of radium, uranium and vanadium at Uravan — the town got its name from the latter two minerals — lasted for more than 70 years. But the most famous of them were the several years beginning in 1942, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built facilities there to secretly process uranium as part of the Manhattan Project’s efforts to develop the world’s first atomic bomb.
Uravan and the surviving mining towns nearby, including Nucla and Naturita, are just a few of the many places in Colorado where residents were caught up in — and in many cases bore the risks of — the Manhattan Project’s sprint for the bomb and the nuclear arms race of the Cold War.
An estimated 14% of the uranium oxide, commonly known as “yellowcake,” produced for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in those years came from mines on the Colorado Plateau in the Four Corners region. Uranium sludge produced in Uravan and other “yellowcake towns” was further processed at a refinery in Grand Junction. The Rocky Flats facility northwest of Denver manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons for nearly 40 years before long-running environmental concerns and an FBI investigation of its operator led to its shutdown in 1992.
More recently, research has shown that parts of southern and western Colorado were significantly impacted by radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations at the Trinity Test Site in July 1945 and the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s.
It’s an atomic legacy that stretches across much of the American West, and one that’s received fresh attention in the wake of “Oppenheimer,” the 2023 blockbuster film about the bomb’s development.
“That’s put us a little bit in the limelight,” said Thompson.
New scrutiny of the hazards of nuclear materials and radioactive waste, and the failure of federal government and private contractors to mitigate those risks, has followed in the wake of “Atomic Fallout,” an investigation published last year by The Missouri Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press. Reviewing thousands of pages of federal documents obtained through open-records requests, reporters found that private companies and the government repeatedly downplayed the potential health risks of contamination in the St. Louis region, writing off health risks from exposed nuclear waste leaching into groundwater and neighborhood creeks as “slight,” “minimal” or “low-risk.”
The investigation put new, bipartisan urgency behind a push to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a 1990 law that established a federal payout program for people who were impacted by atmospheric nuclear tests or employment in the uranium industry.
An expansion of the RECA program was passed by the U.S. Senate in July but was removed at the last minute from a congressional defense spending bill last month. Lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, have vowed to continue to champion it. The program is set to run out of funding in July.
“Coloradans developed serious health conditions from uranium mining and U.S. testing of nuclear weapons,” Hickenlooper wrote in an X post on Dec. 12. “There’s no excuse to deny these victims the compensation they rightfully deserve.”
RECA and its limitations
Since the federal government began issuing compensation payments under RECA in April 1992, more than 54,000 claims have been filed. Of those, more than 40,000 claims, or about 75%, have been approved, and roughly $2.6 billion had been paid out as of the end of 2022. Payouts for uranium workers is typically $100,000, and for “downwinders” — residents in close proximity to nuclear weapons test sites — $50,000.
Definitively proving that exposure to nuclear waste and radiation caused cancers and other diseases is difficult, but the RECA program doesn’t require that claimants prove causation. They only have to show that they or a relative had a qualifying disease after working or living in certain locations during specific time frames.
As passed by the Senate last year, the expansion of RECA would add eligibility for downwinders from five additional states, including Colorado, and the territory of Guam, and significantly expand eligible regions of three other states, potentially resulting in thousands of additional claimants and hundreds of millions in federal compensation.
With support from Missouri lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of St. Louis, the proposal would also expand compensation for the first time to workers and residents who were exposed to radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project in the St. Louis region.
Some of that waste made its way to Colorado, where it was dumped at the Cotter Corp.’s uranium mill in Cañon City. Nearly 6 million tons of nuclear waste in total are estimated to be buried underground near the old Cotter mill, which was declared a Superfund site shortly after ceasing operations in 1979.
“We call the moms in St. Louis, our sister city, because Cotter contaminated us both,” said Jeri Fry, a Cañon City resident and co-founder of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste.
Fry’s father, Lynn Boughton, was chief chemist at Cotter’s Cañon City mill for more than 20 years, and turned whistleblower over concerns about the company’s dangerous practices, including contamination of groundwater on the south side of town. Following a Colorado Bureau of Investigation report alleging a pattern of misleading workers and record-keeping violations, Cotter reached a settlement agreement with Colorado in 1983.
Boughton died of radiation-induced lymphoma in 2001. Though tests found more than 600 times the normal level of radiation in his body, a workers’ compensation claim he filed took more than a decade to resolve. An attempted class-action lawsuit against Cotter was dismissed by a judge, and other lawsuits against the company were largely settled out of court.
A 2014 federal health assessment by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded that elevated levels of uranium and molybdenum in drinking water wells near the Cotter site “is a past, current and potential future public health hazard.”
“We had anecdotal evidence through the years,” Fry said. “The survey went out to try and put some legs under that, and some of the things that we found were lots of autoimmune diseases, lots of thyroid diseases, lots of birth defects, cancers, various things like that.”
In the 2000s, activists with Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste successfully fought a proposal to haul more radioactive waste to the Cotter mill site from New Jersey. But to the group’s dismay, cleanup of the site has proceeded slowly. A company that took over the property in 2018 told the EPA last year that it was insolvent and unable to meet its cleanup obligations, raising further concerns for nearby residents.
“These sites require active maintenance,” Fry said. “And if they don’t have enough to cover the maintenance of the sites, then we’re putting these communities at risk.”
Colorado downwinders?
RECA expansion could also allow, for the first time, people who lived in Colorado to file compensation claims as downwinders impacted by the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas.
Fallout from the roughly 100 aboveground nuclear detonations carried out at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1962 heavily impacted nearby communities like St. George, Utah, where elevated cancer rates were recorded for decades — even after the atmospheric tests ceased.
RECA’s downwinder compensation program covers only claimants who lived in some two dozen counties in eastern Nevada, southern Utah and northern Arizona during the period in question. But evidence has mounted that significant deposition of radioactive material occurred well beyond the downwinder area established by the original legislation — including in Colorado.
A landmark 1997 studyby the National Cancer Institute found that exposure to high levels of iodine-131, a dangerous radioactive isotope and byproduct of nuclear fission that has been linked to increased rates of thyroid and other cancers, including at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster site in what is now Ukraine.
Using historical measurements collected at monitoring stations combined with meteorological modeling, the study found especially high levels of radiation exposure across much of the Mountain West and the Great Plains. Additional research estimated that radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site could be linked to 49,000 additional cases of thyroid cancer, not to mention other cancers and illnesses.
Colorado’s Gunnison County ranked in the top 1% of U.S. counties in estimated exposure, with an average dose of between 9 and 12 rads — or “radiation absorbed dose,” a measure of the amount of radiation absorbed by a material such as bodily tissue — according to the study. Several other counties in southwestern Colorado experienced an average fallout dose of between 6 and 9 rads, ranking in the top 10%.
Another comprehensive analysis published last year, using even more precise weather modeling, largely corroborated those findings, indicating that Colorado experienced significant fallout from both the Nevada tests and the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945.
“Our total deposition density estimates show that there are locations in New Mexico, and in other parts of the United States, including Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and Idaho, where radionuclide deposition reached levels larger than those we estimate in some counties covered by RECA,” the study’s authors wrote.
Unlike some other Western states, including Idaho and Montana, Colorado doesn’t have an organized downwinder community that has lobbied for RECA expansion. A spokesperson for Hickenlooper said his office has asked the Congressional Research Service to better quantify the impacts of a possible expansion on Coloradans, but wasn’t immediately able to identify specific communities or groups in the state who could be newly eligible for RECA under the proposal.
Along with former workers at the Rocky Flats plant, some ex-Cotter employees in Cañon City are covered by a separate federal compensation program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which was enacted in 2000.
After her father’s death, Fry’s mother successfully filed a claim through that program, and helped a handful of neighbors do the same. But it was a “tortured path,” Fry said, and awareness of contamination risks and compensation programs in the community remains low.
“A lot of people think that this is all old news,” she added. “A lot of people in our community if you ask them, they think, ‘Oh, I thought that was all cleaned up out there.’ Well, there’s 7 million tons of radioactive waste upwind and over the fence from Cañon City.
“And it lives in geologic time,” she added. “It’s going to outlive all of us.”
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
When Jane Thompson moved away from Uravan in western Colorado decades ago, it was still a quiet company town of about 1,000 residents, all of whom had …
… response changes proposed by NextEra Energy Resources, which operates Seabrook Station and three other nuclear power plants in Florida and Wisconsin.
Robert Rust is a China Analyst with the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He writes about China’s nuclear weapons program, …
North Korea: A Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Threat? North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government has threatened nuclear war and kinetic war …
Yellowstone is a caldera. The eruption that occurred 631,000 years ago largely emptied the magma chamber, and the ground collapsed into the resulting …
The Yellowstone Caldera, located in Yellowstone National Park, spans across Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It is the volcanic feature formed by the last …
We who believe and understand anti-all things nuclear and why they must be eliminated now and forever from human use, need to have more active voices in the media. I have written more than 500 Posts in the same amount of days concerning the how all things nuclear, together with nuclear use and waste from it coupled with waste and use of energy from greenhouse gasses is a very straight road to our human and other life’s extinction. The average everyday citizens of the world’s countries, including those with nuclear arms, fail to understand how our lives and life in general are being affected and put at risk everywhere on the planet because a huge majority of us have no idea how these twin threats to humanity’s demise relate to every one of us presently living on planet Earth.
But what is obvious to me is that we as an average group of humans who exist will never make that connection. It’s a huge leap to ‘know’ that just these two human-created products could remove virtually all life from planet. It would be the 6th Extinction in the 4.5+ billion years that the Earth has been here, but the 1st one where humans existed, and shamefully, we will be the cause of it if it happens. Other than world-wide pestilence of an unknown virus, it is doubtful that this would otherwise ever happen, and some life forms would likely not be affected. So to us, at least, the ultimate exterminator is radiation and/or atmospheric asphyxiation. Neither one cares about who or what you are, so when push comes to shove there is no way out once both are entirely out of control, and neither of them dies or goes away on their own.
We have to stop relying on demagogues and other politicians, capitalists, propaganda creators, and preachers. We must turn to educators and scientists, and find the ambition to do our own extended research — especially about ‘All Things Nuclear” if we expect to survive.
What I happen to know after a life of some successes, followed by rocky roads and dead ends, yet all that along with learning and absorbing from my own education, life’s work, effort, research, and knowledge is that the greatest threat to life on planet Earth is uranium and its nuclear power, either for war or peace, and the only way for life to survive here is to join together, reverse our common direction in life, and go back the other way. Nothing ‘nuclear’ will ever take us in that direction. Nor will the continued use of nuclear power plants and other fossil fuel power providers that will continue to temporarily comfort ourselves until they won’t. Either path we follow, forward or in reverse, Mother Nature will eventually have her way. Only one of those paths will include human life. ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Where Now for Nuclear Power? Despite some major setbacks, the technology remains vital to the nation’s energy future—but the U.S. needs to enact major …
However, officials do not appear to believe that the war in Ukraine could lead Russia to use its nuclear arsenal against a NATO state, however furious …
All the while, Russian government officials have threatened to launch a nuclear attack, as former President Dmitriy Medvedev did in July when he said …
(Getty Image of a small nuclear reactor under construction in China) . . .
LLAW’s THOUGHTS & COMMENTS :
The big nuclear news today is from “The Independent” with this story (see full article below in the “All Things Nuclear” category) :
”Nuclear fuel gets £300m boost as ministers say Putin will not hold UK to ransom
UK bids to be first European nation outside Russia to produce crucial uranium needed for the next generation of reactor
The UK is to launch a £300m drive to push Vladimir Putin further out of the global energy market through an investment in hi-tech nuclear fuel.
Ministers will vow to end what they say is Russia’s reign as the only commercial producer of a type of enriched uranium needed for the next generation of reactors.
It comes as the world prepares for the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine next month.
The UK has warned Russia that if casualties continue at their current rate it will have lost over half a million personnel in the conflict by the end of 2024.
The war also triggered a shock in the world’s energy markets leading the government to rethink Britain’s energy security.
Energy secretary Claire Coutinho said ministers would not allow Putin to “hold us to ransom on nuclear fuel”.
“Britain gave the world its first operational nuclear power plant, and now we will be the first nation in Europe outside of Russia to produce advanced nuclear fuel,” she said.
“This will be critical for energy security at home and abroad and builds on Britain’s historic competitive advantages.”
The government says the plans will help build new supplies of affordable and clean domestic power.
It will involve a £300m investment in high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
The programme will provide jobs and investment in the northwest of England, as part of plans to deliver a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs through nuclear power by 2050.
Another £10m will be used to develop the skills and sites needed to produce other advanced nuclear fuels in the UK.
Ministers argue the move will help the transition to net zero and will not mean higher prices for consumers.
The UK has agreed with other G7 nuclear partners to reduce global dependence on Russian fuel.”
My thoughts and comments: There are so many holes in this specialized uranium fuel concept that I hesitate to take this story seriously, but the UK must believe they can ‘make it happen’.
First and foremost, Russia already controls well over 80% of the entire world-wide nuclear power plant construction and associated nuclear fuels, including the USA, which ranks a lowly global 4th). This so-called ‘new generation of reactors, which, by the way, remain speculative in their designs including their radiation safety, may never become operational. Russia controls the marketing, availability, and pricing of the HALEU ‘prescription-developed’ fuel for these already controversial more compact power plants. In fact the Kemmerer, Wyoming, TerraPower (founded by Bill Gates) new-generation nuclear power plant, the 1st of its kind, is on a two-year (or perhaps longer) waiting list by Russia’s grip on these specialized fuels, so the experimental plant, like other small modular reactors (SMRs), has been indefinitely idled from even a demonstration mode and, along with the rest of their ilk, may never become operational. This fuel is not manufactured elsewhere, including in the USA. There is a reason for that that the UK seems to be intentionally ignoring.
Russia has its own one-of-a-kind Corporation that goes by the name of Rosatom that not only has virtually cornered the nuclear power market world-wide but also builds and controls all new nuclear weapons of mass destruction for Russia. Rosatom is like the winner of every Monopoly game ever in a version called ‘All Things Nuclear’.
So it is, that Russia, by controlling the market, not only for fuel, but a huge majority of new nuclear plant construction, they control the World Bank market finances, up or down, by their own optional choice, which controls the entire market for all things nuclear. So the UK’s statement about providing low-cost and clean power to consumers is pie-in-the-sky. Also, the term “net zero” tagged to CO2 and other green-house gasses (GHGs) over climate change and global warming is a fancy word for a silly mathematical transition away from fossil fuels.
There are other problems that could possibly never be resolved here that are based on historical and wishful thinking, so I need not elaborate, but I believe Energy secretary Claire Coutinho, who said ministers would not allow Putin to “hold us to ransom on nuclear fuel”. Russia is already doing so in other countries, including the USA.
Lastly: We all should keep in mind that 2050 is two and a half decades into an unknown future . . . ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (Especially with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
The Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang. [KOREA HYDRO & NUCLEAR CORP.] Others point out that nuclear power plants in the country …
Related articles. Kim Jong-un issues chilling nuclear war threat as he vows to step up tests … Xi Jinping’s empty threats exposed as Chinese missiles …
Today’s story comes from BNN Correspondents with a timely commentary on what they call ‘humanity’s twin threats’ — a moniker I absolutely agree with. I often say that if one doesn’t end life on our beautiful planet Earth, the other one will, or maybe they will join forces, eliminating humanity and our living partners in unison at the same time. ~llaw
Published: January 6, 2024 at 7:44 am EST | Updated: Jan 6, 2024 at 8:15 am EST
Two formidable apparitions cast long, menacing shadows across the globe: nuclear weaponry and climate change. These existential threats, born from humanity’s unyielding quest for supremacy and relentless industrialization, now hang ominously over our collective future. In the face of these twin dangers, the world teeters between the precipice of unprecedented catastrophe and the potential for unified action.
The Looming Specter of Nuclear Catastrophe
Since the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945, the threat of nuclear warfare has persistently haunted humanity. The destructive potential of these weapons, initially modest, has now ballooned to an unimaginable magnitude. Nine nations now wield the ominous power of nearly 13,000 nuclear warheads, each capable of inflicting cataclysmic damage on our planet.
The modernization of these arsenals perpetuates the risk of a nuclear catastrophe. This possibility is not merely relegated to the annals of Cold War history, but remains a very real and imminent danger. With international tensions simmering and conflicts escalating, the specter of nuclear devastation looms large.
The second existential threat, climate change, is a slow-moving but inexorable apocalypse. Recognized as early as the 19th century but largely ignored until recent decades, the planet’s feverish warming is now impossible to deny. Fueled by the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, atmospheric greenhouse gases have surged, pushing global temperatures up by nearly 1.5 degrees Centigrade.
Record-breaking weather events – scorching heatwaves, raging wildfires, and devastating floods – have become the catastrophic hallmarks of our era. Yet, the world’s response to this existential crisis has been woefully inadequate. International gatherings like COP28 have consistently failed to extract binding commitments to phase out fossil fuels, despite the urgency of the situation.
These twin threats – nuclear warfare and climate change – underscore a disconcerting paradox about humanity. On one hand, our species has demonstrated remarkable ingenuity, with astounding cultural and technological achievements. On the other hand, we seem to harbor an unsettling capacity for self-destruction, as reflected in our nuclear arsenals and our contribution to climate change.
As we stand at this crossroads, the choices we make will ultimately shape our collective destiny. The challenges are daunting, but so too are the opportunities for transformation and redemption. The question remains: will we rise to the occasion, or will we fall victim to our own destructive tendencies?
Founded by visionary entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal, BNN Newsroom has risen to prominence as a powerhouse in the international journalism landscape. With a global news desk that operates in over 200 markets, BNN provides up-to-the-minute breaking news, sophisticated data analysis, and thorough research to keep audiences informed and engaged. Upholding a commitment to integrity and unbiased reporting, BNN proudly operates a conflict-free platform, ensuring that its coverage remains free from external influences and dedicated to the truth.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none. The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
Kim also called on the military to accelerate war preparations due to the unprecedented anti-North Korea confrontation with the U.S. Kim declared that …
Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joe Detrani warns that the nuclear threat from North Korea is not something the U.S. can ignore in 2024. … War threats …
Tonight I want to tell you, even you of the utmost integrity, how worthless laws, constitutions, magna cartas, rules, agreements, contracts, sworn statements, handshakes, and every other form of written, spoken, or physical agreement among nations, territories, states, cities, groups, parties, and two humans such “contracts of honor” actually are.
They are political and financial tools that require the honor of those humans involved at whatever level such an agreement is made — from two major countries or territories down to the handshake between two well-intentioned individual humans — even including marriage for love or sexual purposes. The simplest way to appraise them in both terms of value and honor is to say, “they were made to be broken”. This once-upon-a-time ‘small’ problem with the ‘integrity’ or ‘word’ of men is what every dispute on our free and open planet Earth has always been all about. Such dishonesty of character has always been the problem between and among all aspects of humanity, and it is never going to stop, regardless of how politically or financially binding an agreement is made, nor by whom, so long as the ‘status quo’ remains.
And yet here we are, world(s) divided by political, ethnical, racial, religious, financial, geographical, geological, and otherwise argumentative differences, suddenly facing the prospect of annihilating ourselves with world-wide nuclear war, yet our attempt to resolve it all, even knowing what WWIII means, we continue to worry about our various and sundry past, present, and future “political agreements” that have absolutely no honorable humanitarian sanctity in them at all when we get down to the roots of the problems, basing our entire attempt to live together in peace on man-made absolutely worthless lies and acceptance of propaganda by each and every one of us because we all want to be the ones in control (at every social level) of our single-minded concepts of what “life and life-style” is all about — meaning yours is wrong and ours is right — so let’s destroy each other to prove we were right. There is not, when the chips are down, any such thing as letting adversarial ‘by-gones’ be ‘by-gones’ — in other words, there is no such thing as an iron-clad agreement among human egos, self-importance, and self-aggrandizement at any level.
And who are those elected or self-appointed political leaders we have at the top of each country’s pyramids of finance (aka greed) and power (aka despotism)? They are the ones who fit the definition of what “Capitalism” is all about. It has always been this way, but now it is like the biblical concept of “Armageddon”.
It is also like Pogo has long said, “We have found the enemy and he is us.” It is also, as Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to President Harry Truman, “”I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones“. Of course he knew what the weapons would be even then, and he also knew what the price to humanity (not to mention all other life) would be, too . . .
We have one possible solution of our own to stop this dystopian doomsday from happening — probably in the near future — and that is to band together (the nearly 8 billion of us) as a free people and denounce what these despotic madmen at the top of our earthly countries and societies are doing and somehow do away with them and/or their influence and power. The only other possibility is for some kind of intervention from unknown help because we were not able to take care of these issue(s) by ourselves . . . ~llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 5 categories (plus a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and others that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 linked most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none. The Categories are listed below in their usual appearing order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera(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 (per above). There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available at the end of this Post. If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today.
(Just a reminder: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
… about Israel’s nuclear targeting doctrine and the invulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces. … All. Most Popular. Trump’s lawyer confirms his concern …
At Pyongyang’s key year-end policy meetings, Kim warned of a nuclear attack … nuclear war provocative moves”. The military “should rapidly respond to …
The principal escalation dangers would be an Iranian use of radiation dispersal weapons or an Iranian rocket attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor …
