The nuclear news is full of substantive, interesting, and useful articles tonight — a rarity! But in deciding which headline was the most significant to me, I chose this one, which is actually three short articles in one about one of my favorite subjects: The future of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is under review. This week, officials met to discuss options for the site after its decommissioning … from KCBX. As you cannot help but note as you read on, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is not at all respected by the public, which is no secret from anyone who knows the company’s history. ~llaw
The future of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is under review. This week, officials met to discuss options for the site after its decommissioning.
The Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel and the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), went over an environmental impact report that listed several repurposing options for the nearly 800-acre site.
Susan Strachan with the San Luis Obispo County planning department helped draft the report.
“We took information from the strategic plan, different sources and collectively came up with these concepts, but it did also include information provided by PG&E,” Strachan said.
Possible repurposing ideas include turning the site into an energy research lab for Cal Poly, a desalination plant, or an offshore wind area for the Central Coast.
Mona Tucker, tribal chairwoman for Yaktitutitu Yak Tilhini, said the land should be preserved.
“Everything that happens at Diablo lands is of special interest to our tribe, as this is land that was stolen from us,” Tucker said. “We were removed violently from there.”
Another proposed concept is turning the land into a local indigenous historic preservation site.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing PG&E’s application to renew the plant’s license for another 20 years.
KCBX Reporter Amanda Wernik graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a BS in Journalism. Amanda is currently a fellow with the USC Center for Health Journalism, completing a data fellowship that will result in a news feature series to air on KCBX in the winter of 2024.
Environment and EnergyNuclear Regulatory Commission hosts Oral Argument on Diablo Canyon License RenewalAmanda Wernik, May 22, 2024Mothers for Peace, Friends of the Earth, and the Environmental Working Group are asking for a formal hearing to challenge Pacific, Gas and Electric’s application to extend Diablo Canyon’s operations for another 20 years. Board members with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will consider these arguments in deciding whether to approve the requested hearing.
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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.
If Putin believes that NATO is reluctant to risk a war with Russia, he may take the opportunity to exploit the deterrence vacuum by launching a single …
The apparent and extremely dangerous ongoing sabotage of the subject nuclear power plant (Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine) in the article below has been going on for more than a year, and lately the incoming power lines that provide indispensable electricity to operate the plant and its nuclear reactors, forcing the huge nuclear plant (the largest in Europe with six reactors), to rely on inadequate power generation from diesel generators providing far less than full power from the incoming grid. It has become a war weapon unto itself waiting to win the war for Russia.
Several meltdowns have reportedly somehow been avoided by patching up the power lines just in the nick of time according to the news we get from many international news and watchdog agencies sources. Should this plant fail and suffer a meltdown, not only would Ukraine be dangerously affected by radiation from the failing reactors, but much of Europe would be threatened as well.
If we consider the tense world situation today, this kind of problem could, created not only by intensified war, but also by sabotage and cyber attacks from conventional warfare, but also from international terrorism, endangering human and other life wherever nuclear power plants are situated around the globe. The threat of nuclear war is bad enough, but terrorism could also easily contaminate much of planet Earth with lethal radiation.
And yet we are being encouraged by world governments and the aggressive nuclear industry to build more of them in order to defeat global warming and climate change from current use of fossil fuels contaminating the planet with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. We should be concentrating on renewable resources like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal energy around the world to achieve a safer, faster and far more economic solution. And an attempt at conservation might help as well. ~llaw
IAEA’s Grossi highlights continued Zaporizhzhia power supply concerns
24 May 2024
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has said concerns continue over the impact potential disruption to off-site power could have at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.
He was speaking after Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which has been under the control of the Russian military since early March 2022, had to rely on its last remaining 330 kV back-up external power line for more than three hours on Thursday.
According to the IAEA the disconnection of the 750kV Dniprovska line happened at 13:31 local time, about six kilometres from plant’s switchyard, in Russian-controlled territory. The plant told the IAEA that it was caused by a short-circuit and that it was reconnected at 16:49.
Before the conflict the plant had four 750 kV and six 330 kV lines, compared with one of each at the moment. It also has an expanded fleet of emergency diesel generators to provide power for essential safety functions in case all external power is lost.
Grossi said: “For Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to depend on one or two power lines is a deep source of concern and clearly not sustainable. Our concerns also extend to the operating nuclear power plants across Ukraine, where a disruption to off-site power supplies could have very serious implications for nuclear safety.”
He reported that the IAEA team stationed at Zaporizhzhia continued to hear explosions at various distances from the plant: “For the outside world, the situation … may have appeared relatively calm in recent weeks, since the drone attacks on the site confirmed by our experts in mid-April. But this is not the way we see the situation on the ground. The stark reality is one of constant danger. The nuclear safety and security situation at the site remains extremely vulnerable.”
The IAEA team has continued to carry out observations at the plant, and this week visited the main warehouse facility, outside the plant perimeter, where they saw spare parts and “the team noted that much of the electrical equipment originated from western suppliers and was delivered prior to the start of the armed conflict”. The IAEA said it was told by the ZNPP that the transition to a new procurement system was almost complete for procurement from potential suppliers in the Russian Federation.
The IAEA has had staff stationed at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant since September 2022 as part of efforts to reduce the safety risks to a facility which is on the frontline of Russian and Ukrainian forces. It also has experts present at the Khmelnitsky, Rivne and South Ukraine nuclear power plants and the Chernobyl site – they all report that “nuclear safety and security is being maintained despite the effects of the ongoing conflict, including air raid alarms on several days over the past week”.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
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:
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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 ability to induce the Leidenfrost effect at lower temperatures could lead to the development of more efficient cooling systems for everything from …
It’s got a touch of the negative gearings about it. Compounding all that, Dutton and Littleproud did not prepare the ground, either in the joint party …
The International Atomic Energy (IAEA) said that the power outage “underlines extremely precarious nuclear safety and security” at the plant. Yet the …
… power could have at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants … power for essential safety functions in case all external power … IAEA staff observe emergency …
With Russia starting nuclear exercises near Ukraine and disarmament negotiations in Geneva at a standstill, the question arises: can diplomacy address …
The following, carefully crafted for appearances, is one of most incomprehensible and irresponsible articles concerning the ‘war’ between renewable energy production and the slowly dying fossil fuel industry taking humanity and other life with it. There are so many hidden inaccurate comparisons in this story that one is tempted to believe that uranium mining is small, cheap, clean, and neat — and that its impact on the environment is minimal. Nothing could be more wrong. Uranium mining is an extremely costly business that includes toxic waste from required refining of milling to produce the basic radioactive product called yellowcake (U308), which also requires further refinement to create the actual fuel (U235) that is eventually used in nuclear reactors.
Uranium mining requires far more earth-moving equipment of specialized kinds for earth stripping of overburden and other waste, analytical engineering, drilling exploration for locating and recovering of ore grades of sufficient grade and quality to mine and mill economically. Mine waste stripping by huge mining equipment may have a stripping ratio to millable ore of 30+ to 1, or more, cubic yard of overburden waste to economic ore that can profitably produce U308 creating man-made hills surrounding multiple pits of uranium mining operations that must be reclaimed along with mill tailings ponds that environmentally takes an ominous toll on wildlife while milling activity goes on, so the huge ratio of waste to a millable uranium product for for further refinement is essentially doubled simply by the eventual reclamation costs.
And, then too, as a non-renewable product, uranium is limited in quantity — far moreso than coal, oil, and natural gas. So the kilowatt hour cost of producing electricity, like all fossil fuels, will continue to increase until there is no more. The costs are already beyond any reasonable economic value, and, as in all commercial products, the working classes ultimately foot the bills, almost always without having a clue what they are paying for.
I could go on and on about the ultimate cost and accompanying waste (which extends all the way through the nuclear process to the spent fuel that created the necessary nuclear reaction, which is a whole ‘nother nuclear issue. But that would be little more than a waste of breath.
The nuclear industry propaganda goes on — and on — and on — evidently until Doomsday . . . ~llaw
It’s Settled, More Nuclear Energy Means Less Mining
Clean Energy Minerals Are Challenging Traditional Environmental Dogmas
MAY 23, 2024
For decades, the environmental movement has lumped nuclear energy with fossil fuels as a mining-intensive, environmentally destructive technologies while extolling solar and wind as pillars of a more sustainable future.
“Nuclear energy is a carbon hog. Plant construction cement, steel, and complex electronics is carbon intensive” opines Greenpeace co-founder Rex Wyler in one rambling essay. Another report by Friends of the Earth condemns mining for nuclear fuel as unacceptable, while exonerating mining for solar and wind as worrying but manageable in the next breath. A graphic produced by the Japanese environmental think tank Climate Integrate groups nuclear power and mining under an unequal fossil-fuel system while enshrining wind and solar within an “equal” and “nature positive” future society, somehow blissfully separated from mineral production.
Claiming that nuclear power is more mining-intensive than renewables never made much sense to begin with, but such assertions have stubbornly persisted in environmental forums, simply because nobody had invested the effort into challenging them with modern data.
That debate is now settled. When considering how to best manage the mining footprint of a global shift to low-carbon energy, the math clearly shows that clean energy systems using relatively more nuclear energy will impose fewer mining impacts than systems using only solar, wind, and storage. A major research report from my team, building on recent U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, MIT, and United States Geological Survey analyses, finds that every unit of clean electricity from a nuclear power plant requires excavating just 30% or 23% the mass of rock and metal, compared to an equal unit of solar or onshore wind electricity.
But many traditional environmentalists and nuclear technology opponents remain determined to exclude clean nuclear power from consideration as a clean energy source by any means necessary. However, using mining as an angle of attack to label nuclear energy as “not sustainable” relative to solar and wind is to make arguments utterly unmoored from real-world data. Rather, insisting on a renewables-only nuclear-free energy system means accepting higher mining-related environmental tradeoffs. Anti-nuclear environmental thinkers must either grapple with that tension or embrace it, but they cannot deny it.
After the clean tech mining arguments
I do have some good news—both for wind and solar advocates and for all pragmatic environmentalists. First, blanket demonization of mining as a concept is misguided to begin with, given mining’s necessity to modern society and for global human development. Second, the extractive intensity of any clean energy system will likely prove considerably better than our existing fossil-based energy system, given the gargantuan scale of coal mining globally. Third, the mining impacts of solar, wind, or nuclear energy are flexible, not fixed, and can improve significantly as technology and practices advance.
To the pragmatic technological optimist, the moderately higher mining footprint of solar and wind energy is just one of many variables in the calculus and politics of achieving a better future, one in which society will probably employ both renewable and nuclear technologies together.
Figure 1: Material and rock moved per GWh of electricity from low-carbon electricity generation technologies, color-coded by raw material. Black dotted lines show total nuclear material requirements per GWh if assuming a higher 92% capacity factor and an 80-year lifetime. This assumes hardrock mining is 34.8% and 60% of global uranium and lithium production. Dashed lines indicate total height of bars if 100% hardrock mining were assumed for uranium and lithium. LFP battery storage considers battery cell mineral inputs only, and assumes 1 GWh of output from a 2 GWh, 500 MW battery system cycling once daily over a 25-year life.
Rather, the harshest rebuke from this data-driven discussion of clean energy mineral needs falls upon entrenched, incoherent environmental dogmas. International green groups and decorated sustainability scholars cannot claim to worship at the altar of empirical science while invoking the material footprint of nuclear energy to classify it “unsustainable”. Nor are calls from degrowth, ecosocialist, or traditional environmentalists to limit extraction through unrealistic and convoluted social measures logically reconcilable with their continued rejection of nuclear power’s potential to alleviate the mining impacts of the clean energy transition.
In one prominent example, the treatise A Planet to Win devotes thirty-odd pages to the importance of reducing energy demand, slashing car dependence, recycling more, restricting the global mining industry, and even supporting resistance at “mines linked to renewable energy” to “buy time” for better mining and recycling technologies (essentially blockading clean energy mineral production) as part of the authors’ vision for a Global Green New Deal. Yet the book’s only mention of nuclear power is a gesture of lukewarm support for running existing nuclear plants a little longer… until society can replace them with solar and wind.
It is time for climate commentators to acknowledge that nuclear technology could in fact aid the advancement of many of their fundamental aims—and in doing so begin the necessary work of rethinking their environmental worldviews in more ecomodernist terms.
At the very least, environmentalists must acknowledge the inherent tradeoffs of insisting on 100% renewable energy systems. The last 10% of an ultimately subjective 100% renewable grid aspiration not only comes withhigh and nonlinearcost increases from the additional solar, wind, and storage resources to cover all needs at all times and in all weather, but also necessitates greater land and mining footprints. Energy systems with high shares of wind and solar also require more geographically distributed infrastructure like transmission, substations, synchronous condensers, distribution upgrades, and more—important additional mineral demand drivers that our recent study does not capture. Producing low-carbon fuels like hydrogen, methanol, or renewable synthetic methane for use in power plants, vehicles, or industry would require yet even more expansive deployment of renewables and storage to power the requisite electrolyzers and carbon capture facilities.
The match between nuclear and better mining is strong
Some environmental commentators would counter that society will ultimately supply new solar, wind, and battery equipment through recycling rather than new mining. While this is possible in the long-term, the limited availability of many recycled materials like silver, rare earth elements, lithium, or graphite makes this infeasible in the near-term. Moreover, improved recycling would benefit nuclear technology equally if not more, enabling reactors not only built with repurposed steel and concrete aggregate but also powered with recycled spent fuel.
Others might emphasize that the avoided coal mining from a clean energy transition is so substantial that the relative differences in the mining footprint of nuclear, wind, or solar are minor and negligible by comparison. This argument has some merit, but falters somewhat upon considering important nuances.
First, coal-fired electricity is already diminishing, extinct, or was nonexistent to begin with in many regions like Western Europe, California, the Middle East, or much of South America. Coal mining impacts are entirely irrelevant to the mining-related implications of the energy transition in these regions, which are effectively choosing between renewables, gas, and nuclear (and oil in the case of the Middle East). Coal of course remains a factor in other regions like Eastern Europe, East Asia, India, Australia, or Southeast Asia.
Second, mining for clean energy minerals is often more additional to coal mining than it is substitutional. Coal is a consumable fuel, not a metal, so society has already incurred all of the coal mining impacts for the coal energy historically produced to date. Much—though certainly far from all—of current and future coal demand will also be supplied from existing mines and regions. Those mines would correspondingly expand even as the required rate of global supply shrinks, consuming more land in the process, but the global geography of coal mining will not likely shift as dramatically as that of the critical minerals sector in the decades to come. The energy transition, in contrast, will bring new mines to mostly new places, impacting new ecosystems and creating new sociopolitical tensions. Such regional dynamics can get overlooked when considering changes in global average mining activity only.
Figure 2: Material and rock moved per GWh of electricity from different technologies. Coal value considers only coal mining, without including power plant infrastructure. Gas value considers only natural gas as fuel, without including drilling impacts, processing, pipelines, or power plant infrastructure. We assume hardrock mining is 34.8% and 60% of global uranium and lithium production. LFP battery storage considers battery cell materials only, for 1 GWh of output by a 2 GWh, 500 MW system cycling once daily over a 25-year life.
Lastly, environmentalists and progressives would themselves challenge society not to contentedly accept a future that only offered moderate improvements from the present day when even greater gains are reasonably possible. All else equal, future energy systems that incorporate more nuclear power alongside renewables will consume less land directly, and less land through mining.
At the same time avid pro-nuclear supporters should not leap too quickly to condemn renewable energy as a mining nightmare. Too often, debate over nuclear and renewables originates out of technological pessimism over allegedly inherent, insurmountable problems that society and technology can actually overcome in practice. Nuclear proponents dismiss wind and solar as sprawling, short-lived infrastructure while nuclear opponents bemoan nuclear energy costs and safety risks. But none of these characteristics are ironclad axioms.
One can imagine thinner, more efficient futuristic solar panels that last for half a century, just as one can imagine affordable factory-produced nuclear reactors with inventive, foolproof safety features. A rigorous ecomodernist and technological optimist imagines both sets of technologies at their best, distinguishes between solvable problems and truly inherent characteristics, and works determinedly to crack the former.
The long lever of innovation
But even if traditional and radical environmentalists remain hesitant to contemplate ecomodernism, it may be time for them to reconsider their stubborn opposition to nuclear energy. Indeed, the challenging nexus of clean energy minerals and the energy transition arguably reveals underlying fissures and incoherencies within both traditional environmentalism and its modern offshoots like ecosocialism and degrowth communism. The key driver for maximizing human well-being and minimizing the impacts of mining upon nature is clearly technological innovation and decoupling, not societal behavior change.
With current technology, nuclear energy would do more to reduce energy transition mining than degrowth ideas like rationing ever could. Looking forward into the future, it is far easier to cut the amount of aluminum in solar farms by half than it would be to cut the amount of solar panels needed globally by half. Innovative approaches for isolating magnesium from seawater could replace aluminum solar module frames with virtually no future mining whatsoever. And even degrowth and circular economy proponents cannot avoid invoking significant future advances in recycling technology that will require some time yet to materialize. While degrowth writers might rush to cite material efficiency gains and recycling improvements as evidence that they also do support technological solutions, this ultimately amounts to drawing the same tired, arbitrary boundaries around “good” and “bad” technologies.
Indeed, the act of mining new metals itself has produced immeasurable good throughout ancient and modern human history and is hardly inherently sinful. The key metric for society to manage is not the quantity of metals pulled out of the ground, but rather the tonnage of moved earth, the change in water quality, the amount of airborne dust and carbon, and the fair sharing of the profound benefits to civilization that those metals produce. Good governance and technological advances can improve all of these metrics.
The point of highlighting differences in mining footprints between energy sources is not that we should build only nuclear energy, that we should limit the amount of energy we consume, or that we should restrict the quantity of renewables we build. Instead, we should continue to use all the tools at our disposal to meet future energy needs with fewer and fewer minerals and environmental impacts. The foundation for this approach is the ability to imagine how technologies can continue to advance individually and in concert. Mounting support for nuclear power in many parts of the world is one of many promising signs that such thinking is already gaining momentum.
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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.
… dangers to nuclear safety and security” from the Russia-Ukraine war. … nuclear safety and security risks confronting the site. Coming soon: Get the …
Superintendent of Valles Caldera … The Valles Caldera National Preserve: New Mexico’s Crown Jewel … Yellowstone National Park is CLOSED, Plastic Sales …
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This article, posted below, may be the most ridiculous article and governmental advice about how to survive a “nuclear strike” that I have ever seen anywhere, ever. Perhaps it is a satirical cynical joke?
If not, I guess the British government has no idea what a nuclear ‘strike’ would do to you and your home or your surroundings. And stocking up for three days? How absurd! And a cell phone charger? Flooding roads? Why would you even need a cell phone at all? Wind-up radio? It goes on as though a nuclear ‘strike’ would be no more serious than, say, a Covid-like pandemic or a cyber-attack. Perhaps required reading for the British government should be Annie Jacobsen’s new book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario”. (I didn’t bother to click on the Brit Government’s new website, prepare.campaign.gov.uk,) ~llaw
Brits given chilling government warning on exact items they need at home to survive nuclear strike
A new website has been launched by the Government setting out guidance for the public to prepare for emergencies like another pandemic, a mass cyberattack or nuclear war.
Households have been told what they need to stock up on to survive a nuclear attack
Households should stock up on tinned food, bottled water and a battery-powered or wind radio to prepare for a national emergency.
The Government on Wednesday launched a new website, prepare.campaign.gov.uk, which sets out guidance for the public to prepare for crises. Flooding is warned to be the most common risk for the public, with other emergencies to prepare for including anything from another pandemic to a mass cyberattack that cuts off the internet. Extreme cases could include a nuclear attack in Europe or a volcanic eruption in another country sweeping clouds of highly toxic sulphur dioxide to the UK.
The website provides a document that members of the public can download and fill out to help them prepare a plan for situations where they have no electricity, phone, or internet connection. It recommends having three days worth of supplies. Among items the website says people should stock up on, it lists spare batteries for torches and radios, or a portable power bank for charging your mobile phone. It also suggests keeping a first aid kit, wet wipes, hand sanitiser and baby supplies like nappies and formula in the cupboard.
The list also includes non-perishable food that does not need cooking, such as tinned meat, fruit or vegetables, as well as a tin opener. It adds: “Don’t forget food for pets.” The advise says a minimum of 2.5-3 litres of drinking water per person per day is recommended by the World Health Organisation for survival, adding that 10 litres per person per day will make you “more comfortable” by also providing for basic cooking and hygiene needs.
Ministers want people to prepare for emergencies like flooding.
If an emergency is outside the home, the guidance recommends you stay in, close all windows and doors if necessary, and tune into any national and local news and other trusted sources, such as your local emergency services social media accounts. If the emergency is inside the home then the advice is: Get out, stay out and ring 999.
Among other recommendations to prepare for emergencies, the Government urges people to set a reminder in your phone or make a note on your calendar to check your smoke alarms at least once a month. The guidance also suggests writing down important phone numbers on paper such as the number to report a power cut (105) and the numbers of anyone you might want to contact in an emergency.
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:
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Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
An example would be that an agent can read all of chemistry, learn something about it, have a bunch of hypotheses about the chemistry, run some tests …
… emergencies like another pandemic, a mass cyberattack or nuclear war. … powered or wind radio to prepare for a national emergency. … power bank for …
Russia begins exercises for battlefield nuclear weapons, pointing to Western ‘threats … Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened the …
This article insinuates that the threat of actual nuclear war is more clear than ever, considering that the idea of ‘deterrence’ is a shallow or even hollow threat. It is likely that at this point no nuclear armed country, especially North Korea, would honor the specific deterrent of the ‘non-first-use’ policy, which North Korea abandoned in 2022. And actual ‘first use’ would no doubt be the beginning of the end.
Words, promises, and agreements or doctrines mean nothing to all nuclear armed governments, yet ‘deterrence’ (the idea of fear of each other) is the only flimsy hope we have that a nuclear bomb or two will not be directed at one of the other nuclear armed countries, instantly beginning the holocaust of World War III, from which there will be no victor. WWIII would be the beginning of the 6th Extinction . . . ~llaw
North Korea Reacts to ‘Nuclear Threat’ From US
Published May 20, 2024 at 2:27 PM EDTUpdated May 21, 2024 at 4:14 AM EDT
01:10
China Harbors Russian North Korea Arms Ship, Images Show
North Korea has accused the United States of a “dangerous act” and of hypocrisy following a recent subcritical nuclear test.
“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will not allow a strategic imbalance and security vacuum to be created on the Korean peninsula,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday, using the country’s official name.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced last week it had successfully carried out the subcritical experiment, which did not trigger a fissile chain reaction, at the Nevada National Security Site.
The agency said it plans to increase the frequency of these tests to gather more data on nuclear weapons materials, without needing to return to explosive testing. The U.S.’s last known nuclear explosion test was in 1992, and the country has since adhered to a moratorium.
The U.S., as the country that has carried out the most nuclear tests, “has no right to comment on anyone’s threat of nuclear war,” the North Korean statement said.
The ministry also pointed out the U.S. had deployed nuclear-capable submarines to South Korea last year, for the first time in decades, and is planning “an actual nuclear operation exercise” with Seoul in August.
North Korea previously warned of a “catastrophic aftermath” if the planned joint military exercises, designed to simulate a response to Pyongyang’s potential use of a nuclear weapon, proceed.
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in Beijing, China, outside of office hours with a written request for comment.
A U.S. Navy Ohio-class submarine approaches the Mubarak Peace Bridge while transiting the Suez Canal on November 5, 2023. Ballistic missile submarines are part of the U.S.’s “nuclear triad” along with strategic bombers and intercontinental… More MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 1ST CLASS JONATHAN WORD/U.S. NAVY
North Korea, which has conducted six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, has threatened a seventh and in 2022 updated its nuclear doctrine to abandon its non-first-use policy.
The country has also upped the frequency of its ballistic missile tests in recent months, including those it says can be equipped with nuclear warheads.
The international community remains concerned about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. have repeatedly called for stronger international measures and enforcement of United Nations Security Council sanctions meant to curb Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs.
Analysts have suggested North Korean leader Kim Jong Un views his nuclear arsenal as essential to deterring foreign intervention and strengthening his bargaining power.
Tokyo, Seoul, and Washington have agreed to enhance their trilateral cooperation to counter North Korea’s threats.
In his memoir, released Saturday, former South Korean President Moon Jae-in recounted how Kim had “sincerely explained his commitment to denuclearization” during their first summit in 2018.
Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute of National Unification, told NK News that Kim’s statements were likely aimed at manipulation while continuing to advance his nuclear capabilities
Update 5/21/24, 4:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional context.
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Six municipalities in Massachusetts would be affected if there were to be an emergency situation at the nuclear power plant in Seabrook, NH. The plant …
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This well-written and researched article accentuates and corroborates my constant drumming about why such technologies as AI and others that can negatively affect ‘all things nuclear, which’ needs to be shut down and removed from human existence. ~llaw
Emerging Technologies Accentuate the Already Very Serious Threat of Nuclear Weapons
While very serious life-threatening conditions have existed at the planetary level for several decades due to the accumulation of nuclear weapons, a number of emerging technologies are aggravating this danger in several serious and complex ways. The Arms Control Association and author Michael T. Clare have made a very important contribution to the understanding of this grave danger in the form of their very timely report titled ‘ Assessing the Dangers—Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In) Stability’.
This report says, “Increasingly in recent years, the major powers have sought to exploit advanced technologies— artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, cyber, and hypersonic, among others—for military purposes, with potentially far-ranging, dangerous consequences. Similar to what occurred when chemical and nuclear technologies were first applied to warfare, many analysts believe that the military utilization of AI and other such “emerging technologies” will revolutionize warfare, making obsolete the weapons and the strategies of the past. In accordance with this outlook, the U.S. Department of Defence is allocating ever increasing sums to research on these technologies and their application to military use, as are the militaries of the other major powers. But even as the U.S. military and those of other countries accelerate the exploitation of new technologies for military use, many analysts have cautioned against proceeding with such haste until more is known about the inadvertent and hazardous consequences of doing so. Analysts worry, for example, that AI-enabled systems may fail in unpredictable ways, causing unintended human slaughter or uncontrolled escalation.”
More specifically this report warns, “Of particular concern to arms control analysts is the potential impact of emerging technologies on “strategic stability,” or a condition in which nuclear armed states eschew the first use of nuclear weapons in a crisis. The introduction of weapons employing AI and other emerging technologies could endanger strategic stability by blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear attack, leading to the premature use of nuclear weapons.”
On the positive side, this report informs us that arms control advocates and citizen activists in many countries have sought to slow the weaponization of AI and other emerging technologies or to impose limits of various sorts on their battlefield employment. To give an example, state parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) have considered proposals to ban the development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems—or “killer robots,” as they are termed by critics.
Providing more details of these trends, tis report tells us that among the most prominent applications of emerging technologies to military use is the widespread introduction of autonomous weapons systems— devices that combine AI software with combat platforms of various sorts (ships, tanks, planes, and so on) to identify, track, and attack enemy targets on their own.
At present, each branch of the U.S. military, and the forces of the other major powers, are developing— and in some cases fielding—several families of autonomous combat systems, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned undersea vessels (UUVs). Russian and Chinese forces are also developing and deploying unmanned systems with similar characteristics.
Coming to the problems created by this, the report says,” The development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems like these raise significant moral and legal challenges. To begin with, such devices are being empowered to employ lethal force against enemy targets, including human beings, without significant human oversight—moves that run counter to the widely-shared moral and religious principle that only humans can take the life of another human. Critics also contend that the weapons will never be able to abide by the laws of war and international humanitarian law, as spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Convention and 1949. These statutes require that warring parties distinguish between combatants and non-combatants when conducting military operations and employ only as much force as required to achieve a specific military objective.”
In recognition of these dangers, a concerted effort has been undertaken under the aegis of the CCW to adopt an additional protocol prohibiting the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Regarding hypersonic weapons this report tells us that hypersonic weapons are usually defined as missiles than can travel at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) and fly at lower altitudes than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which also fly at hypersonic speeds. At present, the United States, China, Russia, and several other countries are engaged in the development and fielding of two types of hypersonic weapons (both of which may carry either nuclear or conventional warheads): hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), unpowered projectiles that “glide” along the Earth’s outer atmosphere after being released from a booster rocket; and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs), which are powered by high-speed air-breathing engines, called “scramjets. All three major powers have explored similar types of hypersonic missiles.
Regarding the dangers related to this, the report tells us,” Analysts worry, for example, that the use of hypersonic weapons early in a conventional engagement to subdue an adversary’s critical assets could be interpreted as the prelude to a nuclear first-strike, and so prompt the target state to launch its own nuclear munitions if unsure of its attacker’s intentions.”
Coming to cyber-attack related threats this report tells us these range from cyber-espionage, or the theft of military secrets and technological data, to offensive actions intended to disable an enemy’s command, control, and communications (C3) systems, thereby degrading its ability to wage war successfully. Such operations might also be aimed at an adversary’s nuclear C3 (NC3) systems; in such a scenario, one side or the other—fearing that a nuclear exchange is imminent—could attempt to minimize its exposure to attack by disabling its adversary’s NC3 systems.
Analysts warn, this report says, that any cyber-attack on an adversary’s NC3 systems in the midst of a major crisis or conventional conflict could prove highly destabilizing. “Upon detecting interference in its critical command systems, the target state might well conclude that an adversary had launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike against it, and so might launch its own nuclear weapons rather than risk their loss to the other side.” The widespread integration of conventional with nuclear C3 compounds these dangers.
The major powers also plan, this report tells us, to rely increasingly on AIenabled battlefield decision-making systems to aid human commanders in processing vast amounts of data on enemy movements and identifying possible combat responses. The increased automation of battlefield decision making, especially given the likely integration of nuclear and conventional C3 systems, gives rise to numerous concerns. Many of these technologies are still in their infancy and prone to often unanticipated malfunctions.
This import report concludes, “The drive to exploit emerging technologies for military use has accelerated at a much faster pace than efforts to assess the dangers they pose and to establish limits on their use. It is essential, then, to slow the pace of weaponizing these technologies, to carefully weigh the risks in doing so, and to adopt meaningful restraints on their military use.”
The following proposed action steps, derived from the toolbox developed by arms control advocates over many years of practice and experimentation, are suggested in this report to reduce risks..
• Awareness-Building: Efforts to educate policymakers and the general public about the risks posed by the unregulated military use of emerging technologies.
• Track 2 and Track 1.5 Diplomacy: Discussions among scientists, engineers, and arms control experts from the major powers to identify the risks posed by emerging technologies and possible strategies for their control. “Track 2 diplomacy” of this sort can be expanded at some point to include governmental experts (“Track 1.5 diplomacy”).
• Unilateral and Joint Initiatives: Steps taken by the major powers on their own or among groups of like-minded states to reduce the risks associated with emerging technologies in the absence of formal arms control agreements to this end.
• Strategic Stability Talks: Discussions among senior officials of China, Russia, and the United States on the risks to strategic stability posed by the weaponization of certain emerging technologies and on joint measures to diminish these risks. These can be accompanied by confidence-building measures (CBMs), intended to build trust in implementing and verifying formal agreements in this area.
• Bilateral and Multilateral Arrangements: Once the leaders of the major powers come to appreciate the escalatory risks posed by the weaponization of emerging technologies, it may be possible for them to reach accord on bilateral and multilateral arrangements intended to minimize these risks.
One hopes that the warnings and recommendations presented in this report get wide attention of peace activists as well as policy makers.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071.
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Israel and Hamas at War · Japan · Middle East … Kremlin says military will hold nuclear exercises in appropriate timeframe … MOSCOW, May 20 (Reuters) …
… nuclear threat, denouncing Washington for its recent subcritical nuclear test. … nuclear war threats from others. North Korea “will not tolerate the …
Repeating and clarifying my comments from last night, I am hoping that folks will begin to wake up to the fact that all of us are living in an irresponsible world of powerful self-aggrandizing maniacs with nuclear weapons and other nuclear toys that threatens virtually all life on planet Earth. The only way to stop it is to massively vocalize our objection all of it to the leaders of our own governments. They will pay no attention to small groups of dissenters, and, in fact may not pay any attention to the masses either. But we must try; otherwise our inability to survive something like a nuclear WWIII is a forgone conclusion.
From last night’s blog Post #634 (edited): “These same futile economic and safety issues, along with years of delay to engineer, construct, and receive governmental regulatory approval of any nuclear power facility anywhere on the planet apply globally. Many other serious concerns are, of course, never going to go away until the use of ‘all things nuclear’ is discontinued and all products, reactors, buildings and facilities are forever barred and buried deep in irretrievable vaults around the planet.
The issue of electricity cost for the middle classes around the world absolutely makes the cost of generating electricity for our day-to-day use absolutely prohibitive. So, even if you don’t care or worry about all those life-threatening issues about ‘all things nuclear’ that I write about every day trying to get your much-needed attention, at least you should be concerned about how you and your children’s futures can possibly afford to pay the cost of more and more proposed nuclear power plants coming online over the next three decades. The six times more expensive than now issue of your power bills, by the way, is, in my opinion, far understated, especially because of the coming availability of producing and providing nuclear fuel to such an impractical, useless, and probably impossible idea of what those who know the industry facetiously call the misleading formula “net zero”, intended to end increases in global warming and climate change caused by CO2 and the primary six other greenhouse gasses (GHG).
We must put a stop to this ridiculous propaganda that is being shoved down our throats clouding our minds with pretended optimism that just does not exist by the nuclear industry, along with the support of global governments. They know the mission is impossible, and it is only right that we should know, too, and demand that the right thing is done — meaning to destroy all nuclear products (bombs, first) and realize that earthlings will have to make do with naturally created electricity that is not only affordable, but breathable. Otherwise, we soon will not need any power plants of any kind at all, and we will take most other life on planet Earth with us to Her 6th Extinction. ~llaw
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To show it shares Saudi concerns about Iran’s nuclear … 3 days ago. Rising / 3 days ago. See all Hill.TV See all Video … things to know about Biden’s …
The country’s first nuclear power plant is being constructed at Rooppur in Pabna with the financial and technical support of Russia. The Atomic Energy …
Although this article was commissioned for Australia, the same economic, safety, and years of delay times to engineer, construct, and governmentally approve any nuclear power facility anywhere on the planet. Many other serious concerns are, of course, never going to go away until the use of ‘all things nuclear’ is discontinued and all products, buildings and facilities are forever barred and buried deep in irretrievable vaults on the planet.
But the issue of electricity cost for the middle classes around the world absolutely makes the cost of generating electricity for our day-to-day use absolutely prohibitive. So, even if you don’t care or worry about all those life-threatening issues about ‘all things nuclear that I write about every day trying to get your much-needed attention, at least you should be concerned about how you and your children’s futures can possibly afford to pay the cost of more and more nuclear power plants coming online over the next three decades. The six times more expensive than now issue of your power bills, by the way, is, in my opinion, well understated, especially because of the coming availability of producing and providing nuclear fuel to such an impractical, useless, and probably impossible idea of what we who know the industry intentionally call the misleading formula “net zero” for ending increases in global warming and climate change caused by CO2 and primary six other greenhouse gasses (GHG).
We must put a stop to this ridiculous propaganda that is being shoved down our throats clouding our minds with mindless optimism that just does not exist by the nuclear industry with the support of global governments. They know the mission is impossible, and it is only right that we should know, too, and demand the right things are done — meaning destroy all nuclear products (bombs, first) and find that earthlings will have to make do with naturally created electricity that is not only affordable, but breathable. Otherwise, we soon will not need any power plants of any kind at all, and we will take most other life on planet Earth with us to Her 6th Extinction. ~llaw
An independent report commissioned by the Clean Energy Council and conducted by Egis, a leading global consulting, construction and engineering firm, has confirmed that nuclear is the most expensive form of new energy in Australia.
The review analysed the CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)’s GenCost report against the Lazard Review and the Mineral Council of Australia (MCA)’s research into Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
The report has these key findings:
The research confirmed that nuclear energy is up to six times more expensive than renewable energy and even on the most favourable reading for nuclear, renewables remain the cheapest form of new-build electricity.
The safe operation of nuclear power requires strong nuclear safety regulations and enforcement agencies, none of which exist in Australia. Establishing these frameworks and new bodies would take a long time and require significant government funding which would ultimately be borne by taxpayers.
Nuclear may be even higher cost than currently forecast as waste management and decommissioning of nuclear plants have been omitted by cost calculations in the relevant research available.
The economic viability of nuclear energy will further diminish as more wind, solar and battery storage enters the grid, in line with legislated targets. Put simply, nuclear plants are too heavy and too slow to compete with renewables and can’t survive on their own in Australian energy markets.
Clean Energy Council Chief Executive, Kane Thornton, said the Egis Review proved that households would need to pay a hefty price to subsidise a sub-optimal future powered by nuclear reactors.
“This report confirms the CSIRO’s findings that nuclear energy is six times the cost of renewable energy and that replacing renewables would cause power prices to explode,” Thornton said.
“Taxpayers also need to understand the costs that will be borne if they are forced to foot the bill for building a nuclear industry from scratch over a period of decades.
“Nuclear power is also a poor fit with our increasingly renewable power system. Nuclear power stations are expensive and have to run constantly in order to break even. But that doesn’t work in a world with an abundance of cheap renewables. Nuclear power stations aren’t designed to ramp up and down to match free energy from renewables – for that we need more energy storage.
“At the Clean Energy Council, we support a clear-eyed view of the costs and time required to decarbonise Australia and right now, nuclear simply doesn’t stack up.”
The Egis report also found the MCA’s research on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in the Australian context is already out of date and flawed, as it did not anticipate the current long delay in SMR projects around the world. The MCA research is also based on uncertain cost estimates for projects that have not yet begun construction, or academic research that has not been tested in the field.
The MCA’s research on the issue also considered the NuScale Power project, which has since been cancelled due to large cost overruns.
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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.
It should be noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has approved the discharge of water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into …
New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit … nuclear missile strikes. “We must protect our … war fighter doctrine describes this …
By forward deploying theatre level nuclear weapons to the region on U.S. warships would counter-China’s missile force threat and threaten its homeland …
Why do we continue on with the concept of building new nuclear power plants and rehabilitating old ones when we are at the same time faced with the possibility of a nuclear war in which nuclear power plants will inevitably be included as war weapons of mass destruction. The concept is happening already in the Russia/Ukraine war at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Are we really that ignorant and foolish that we would, “cut off our noses to spite our faces?” — to quote an old saying. There are much safer, quicker, easier, cheaper, and better ways to meet our electricity needs.
The following short article is remarkably understated (as might be expected by a go-between agency), but still the extreme danger is recognized. There have been dozens of critically dangerous attacks by Russian military for many months, some of them putting other European nations at risk of radiation poisoning. ~llaw
Read on . . .
IAEA staff observe emergency drill at Zaporizhzhia
17 May 2024
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The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi says that regular drills and exercises at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “are especially important in view of the extraordinary risks it is currently facing”.
In his latest update on the situation at the six-unit plant, which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022, IAEA Director General Grossi said: “The IAEA will remain present at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for as long as it is needed. The nuclear safety and security situation at the plant remains extremely precarious and challenging. Thanks to our experts at the site, we can inform the world about developments there. We will continue to do everything in our power to keep this major nuclear facility safe and secure.”
Each team of IAEA staff spend roughly a month at a time there. The latest changeover – the 19th since the first team arrived in September 2022 – took place on Thursday, with the journey for those arriving and leaving involving crossing the frontline of Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Grossi said that over recent days the members of the team performed walks within the perimeter of the plant and other buildings to monitor adherence to the UN-backed principles that nuclear power plants should not be fired at, or from, or be used as a base for heavy military weaponry and equipment.
The update said: “They did not observe any heavy weapons or indications that drones could have been launched from the ZNPP. However, the IAEA experts are still not permitted to access all areas of the ZNPP.”
On Wednesday, the IAEA experts at the plant observed an emergency drill take place, based on the scenario of damage to a pipe connected to one of the sprinkler ponds providing cooling water to cool unit 1 and its safety systems. The exercise involved plant staff pumping water into the sprinkler pond and repairing the damaged pipe while also ensuring safety systems and back up generators remained operational. “The IAEA team’s opinion was that the exercise was well organised and that the personnel responded effectively,” the update said.
Grossi added: “It is essential for all nuclear facilities to have effective emergency preparedness and response arrangements. For this purpose, regular drills and exercises are necessary. Clearly, for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, they are especially important in view of the extraordinary risks it is currently facing.”
IAEA teams at the other nuclear power plants in Ukraine reported nuclear safety and security being maintained, although the team at Rivne NPP reported that attacks on the energy infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine “had resulted in instability in the back-up power lines connected to the plant”.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
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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.
Together, the Urenco and Orano capacity is not sufficient to fuel all the reactors outside Russia and China. Last October, Centrus—a US-owned nuclear …
Nuclear power and technology received backing in the FY2024 spending bill recently signed by President Joe Biden, including more than $75 billion for …
… nuclear power. The legislation had been a long time coming. It was … Jennifer T. Gordon is the director for the Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative at …
… energy emergencies during extreme conditions. … Full steam ahead: Work underway for Palisades nuclear plant reopening … State officials hope advanced …
… War II. Washington Times National Security … nuclear threat, and increasingly aggressive actions by Tehran and Pyongyang … Israel Daily News – War Day …
This is one of the best and easiest to understand definitions of our ridiculous reliance on something called ‘deterrence’ to permanently avoid nuclear war through the thin veil of ‘threats’ that, if acted upon, would without doubt lead to a nuclear WWIII. Given human nature we have long known that words (including written and signed legal agreements among nations) mean nothing to countries when potential war is involved. And ‘ nuclear deterrence’ means even less. Consider this description (borrowed rom the commentary below) of ‘deterrence’ between you and your neighbor: ~llaw
The problem is that threats with nuclear weapons are extreme, by their nature, promising massive and devastating harm. It is very difficult to use nuclear weapons without killing civilians and turning large areas into rubble. This triggers something in human nature. Such catastrophic threats cross a line; they create wariness, mistrust, and avoidance in the person being threatened. If your neighbour threatens to kill you and shoot your children and then burn down your house and strangle your dog, you will find it difficult to coexist with, trust, or work cooperatively with that person forever after. Extreme actions and extreme threats make normal relations problematic going forward. ~from the European Leadership Network
Commentary| 16 May 2024
The extreme nature of nuclear deterrence
Ward Wilson |Executive Director of RealistRevolt, former senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and BASIC
Paul Ingram |Research affiliate at the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)
The wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa are raging in the context of rising great power competition on the one hand and, on the other, urgent issues that demand global cooperation, such as climate change and the crises in liberal democracies. Attitudes in Europe appear to have hardened significantly since the disastrous Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fearful of an aggressive Russia and believing that there is a need for a stronger European nuclear deterrent, Poland has been testing the waters to see whether it could host US nuclear weapons, and even recently, non-aligned Finland has also been considering nuclear deployments. Responding to the possibility of a new Trump Presidency and doubt over US commitments to Europe, debate has opened up in Germany over building a nuclear force of its own — a move that would irrevocably blow a hole in the global nonproliferation regime.
Looming over all is the shadow of nuclear conflict and talk of a possible Third World War. Confidence in the stability of nuclear deterrence is hitting a new low, yet states appear to be doubling down on their bets. Many states’ leadership profess a shared faith in nuclear deterrence as a contribution to stability (at least when they or their allies control it), but this is probably because they have no idea of any alternative.
There is no question that nuclear threats are so frightening that they can work in dissuading states from aggression (or joining a war). It is said that Russia has been deterred from attacking NATO members or supply lines into Ukraine, and NATO has been deterred from joining the war with boots on the ground or no-fly zones. But the risk is fearsome, and the deterrent effects can wane over time.
It is an obvious but inconvenient truth that nuclear deterrence demands the signalling and credible readiness to fight a nuclear war. The risk of nuclear war is, therefore, baked into nuclear deterrence. As a result, suggestions to reduce nuclear risk, for example, by issuing no-first-use declarations, consistently run up against objections that they’re not practical or undermine the credible threat at the heart of deterrence. Questions about whether or how often nuclear deterrence may fail catastrophically only serve to strengthen deterrence in the minds of advocates.
One additional core problem is often overlooked. Even when nuclear deterrence works, it leaves a residue of poison behind in international relationships, just as a detonated nuclear weapon leaves a trail of invisible radioactive fallout downwind.
The problem is that threats with nuclear weapons are extreme, by their nature, promising massive and devastating harm. It is very difficult to use nuclear weapons without killing civilians and turning large areas into rubble. This triggers something in human nature. Such catastrophic threats cross a line; they create wariness, mistrust, and avoidance in the person being threatened. If your neighbour threatens to kill you and shoot your children and then burn down your house and strangle your dog, you will find it difficult to coexist with, trust, or work cooperatively with that person forever after. Extreme actions and extreme threats make normal relations problematic going forward.
The consequences arising from the use of nuclear weapons are so extreme that the very threat dehumanises those on the receiving end and brutalises those making the threats. President Putin’s reminders of Russia’s nuclear capabilities in early 2022 were a shock, and appear to be the root cause of resentment many in Europe feel towards him, even in the face of his actual destruction in Ukraine. This is despite the fact that analysts find it challenging to articulate what it was about his exact words that departed from past implied nuclear threats supporting aggressive military action (such as UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon against non-nuclear Iraq in March 2002).
Nuclear deterrence harms cohesion within the international community. Yet the need for cooperation among the nations of the international community has never been more urgent. Rising hostility and confrontation are all but destroying the international community’s capacity to tackle the tremendous common challenges of our time: the weakening fabric of our societies and the rise of populism; responding to climate change; reversing the destruction of our planet’s ecosystems; and managing weapons of mass destruction and the terrifying destructive possibilities arising from disruptive technologies such as AI. Greater collaboration between governments across many activities is essential for our collective survival. Efforts by many states in the international community to isolate Russia have disrupted negotiations in international fora. One example was the 2022 NPT Review Conference, when there was an attempt to get a consensus agreement that all nuclear power facilities in Ukraine should be under the control of Ukrainians (a demand that Russia would clearly veto).
Although the practice of nuclear deterrence is generally thought of within nuclear-armed states as relatively benign – it carries with it often unnoticed adverse effects, diluting the soft power of those states that practice it. Ward Wilson and Paul Ingram
Although the practice of nuclear deterrence is generally thought of within nuclear-armed states as relatively benign – like an invisible shield that protects nations from harm – it carries with it often unnoticed adverse effects, diluting the soft power of those states that practice it. Nuclear-armed states threaten global security and drive arms-racing behaviour and are perenially criticised by other states at every nuclear nonproliferation conference. Evidence that the use of nuclear deterrence may be wearing thin within the majority world is the emergence of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — which now has more than 80 signatories and has entered into force. States parties to the Treaty are engaged in a host of serious activities aimed at re-evaluating and replacing nuclear deterrence as a defining feature of global politics. The very nature of nuclear deterrence – the credible threat to annihilate the other – exacerbates the current high levels of tension and angry antagonism between the three largest nuclear powers: Russia, the United States, and China.
When nuclear weapons first arrived on the scene, they were hailed by those responsible for US nuclear doctrine as tools that could do virtually anything, but over time, a certain amount of reality has sunk in. Some believe a “nuclear taboo” has developed, but perhaps the more plausible explanation for their non-use since 1945 is that they are simply too big and too destructive for fighting wars. Our militaries keep hold of them in the belief that within their integrated deterrence strategies (in which nuclear-armed states propose a broad toolbox of capabilities to uphold deterrence), nuclear weapons have an irreplaceable role. But in a world where there are many ways to deliver strategic deterrence across a wide range of effects, ways that are likely to be more credible than the threat of a nuclear attack, it is time to reverse the slide into a new nuclear arms race and instead let go of the dangerous and doubtful belief that nuclear weapons are essential.
Of course, if other tools for effective strategic deterrence are more effective and credible, states could adopt them unilaterally. But this transformation is more likely if they come around to recognising these realities in tandem together. The N5 (formally misnamed P5) Process meeting of nuclear weapon states has continued to meet at the working level and has been discussing nuclear postures. In August, the Chair will be taken on by the Chinese, who rejuvenated the process when they last chaired five years ago. They are set to invite their fellow Nuclear Weapon States to consider the no-first-use doctrine. Still, perhaps they could also kick off a shared process that questions their received wisdom and explores the fundamental utility of nuclear deterrence itself.
The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN’s aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time.
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