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LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #445 (11/09/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

NOV 9, 2023

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LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

The following statement and article from The Union of Concerned Scientists is a huge blow to the hopes of the entire nuclear power industry. If you read the article you will understand why nuclear power plants are extremely dangerous and also why greed and money play such a huge role in creating that danger.

Shortcutting ultimate safety at various phases of human nuclear construction and operation is the very reason why most all nuclear accidents have occurred in the past, and these supposedly future SMPs, even before they have a history, are no exception. From what has been reported here, and in other media, SMPs have been vastly overrated in their cost to build, operate safely, and cheaply. The nuclear industry continues to spread propaganda that is far from realistic, and the entire industry seems to be in the game for individual financial return rather than for any benefit to humanity and other living organisms on planet Earth.

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Having worked in the nuclear industry for parts of three decades, eventually learning that the industry is little more than wordsmithing hype, the fit the industry long ago threw over the media coverage of the 3-MIle Island nuclear accident and the concerns that accident created in the American public severely weakened the idea of more nuclear power plants, during which one major leader in the industry announced in a media-covered news (I was fortunately for me personally there to hear this because the phrase embarrassed me to my core.) to just let the reporters, protesters, and objectors ‘freeze to death’. He opened his speech this way in front of an audience of like-minded industry corporate executives: “Let the bastards freeze to death in the dark.”

That was when I’d had enough of the hype from the entire nuclear industry (regardless of whether or not any of us (and there were a few) believed that nuclear power was the safe, reliable, and inexpensive commercial product it was cracked-up to be compared to other fossil fuel power plants, and in the late spring of 1980, I resigned from my job and started my own company in gold exploration and other non-nuclear natural resources.

So my final humanitarian mission, now that the Russia/Ukraine war has stirred the divided human boiling pots toward nuclear war threats of expanding borders, economic and political domination, nation building, racism and other ethnic hatred, with all things nuclear by those threats or possibly actual war. As a result, we have ignorantly and blindly begun to build bigger and better nuclear weapons of mass destruction, even though we all inherently understand that no one, including other life, can survive a nuclear WWIII.

So it is, especially now that I see Russia, and all the rest of the nuclear endowed countries, have realized that nuclear power plants, with their radioactive fuel along with their nuclear reactors, combined with all that nuclear waste we have no idea what to do with, are additional potential nuclear weapons of mass destruction providing their ‘sitting duck’ participation in a nuclear war to be a ‘big-bang’ two-fer-one’ destructive force. By simply dropping nuclear WMD bombs where the nuclear power plants are in close geographical abundance, such as the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada you can plainly see that a commercial nuclear power plant to keep us “warm with the lights on” was never a good idea . . . ~llaw

Following is the welcome story, at least for me, of the likely impending failure of the ‘Small Nuclear Reactor’ of the recent addition to the nuclear industry. If this happens, and the general public everywhere learns how dangerous “All Things Nuclear” are, we may yet find a way to avoid allowing ‘Us’, as Pogo would say, causing the 6th Extinction in the 4 to 5 billion years our planet Earth has been around. Humans were not around for any of the 1st five extinctions by the way . . .

Small Nuclear Reactor Contract Fails, Signaling Larger Issues with Nuclear Energy Development in U.S.

Statement by Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Power Safety, Union of Concerned Scientists

Published Nov 9, 2023

MEDIA CONTACT

Sanjali De Silva

Sanjali De Silva

Communications Officer

Energy, Climate Accountability

SDeSilva@ucsusa.org

202-331-5428

NuScale Power Cooperation, the first company in the United States to secure approval for the design of a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), ended its contract with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) on Wednesday. The companies cited rising costs as the reason for terminating the contract.

Throughout the development process, NuScale made several ill-advised design choices in an attempt to control the cost of its reactor, but which raised numerous safety concerns. The design lacked leak-tight containment structures and highly reliable backup safety systems. It also only had one control room for 12 reactor units despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) typically requiring no more than two units per control room. Additionally, the company led efforts to sidestep critical safety regulations, including requirements for offsite emergency response plans to protect nearby communities. But NuScale’s justification for all this regulatory corner-cutting—that the design is “passively safe”—was undermined when concerns about its passive emergency core cooling system arose late in the design certification process.

The end of the project reflects the fragility of the advanced nuclear power industry in the U.S., which has been driven by an oversupply of reactor developers and a lack of genuine demand. As new reactor developers look for utilities and other end users to buy their products, the high cost and risks of their experimental, untested technologies are proving too onerous.

Below is a statement by Dr. Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

“The termination of NuScale’s contract signals the broader challenges of developing nuclear energy in the United States. Placing excessive reliance on untested technologies without adequate consideration of economic viability, practicality, and safety concerns is irresponsible and clearly won’t work. The failure of this project underscores the need for decision makers to work diligently to ensure that the pursuit of nuclear energy aligns with the imperatives of public safety and financial feasibility.

“For all its problems, NuScale is one of the designs with the best prospects for commercialization because of its similarity to conventional light-water reactors, which allowed the company to learn from extensive operating experience and to leverage much of the existing nuclear power supply chain. Thus, the failure of the NuScale project with UAMPS does not bode well for the dozens of other, more exotic reactor types in various stages of development that are being touted as the next best thing in nuclear power, such as sodium-cooled fast reactors, gas-cooled reactors and molten-salt reactors. These reactors, which are based on much less mature designs and generally require fuels and materials that are not readily available, will be even riskier bets than NuScale for the foreseeable future. There are currently no other new nuclear power reactor designs under NRC licensing review.

“As private interests continue to turn their attention to emerging nuclear energy technology, lessons from this project should be held top of mind.”

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are no Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

And the rest of the nuclear world’s News:

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NuScale Power Cooperation, the first company in the United States to secure approval for the design of a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), …

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“From the very first day of the war, Russia made no secret of counting on its nuclear weapons to ensure that nobody would come to Ukraine’s rescue,” …

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That’s why there’s talk again about counterforce versus countervalue strategies. The US in effect follows the former. That is, it sees nuclear warfare …

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A Russian physicist argues that the Doomsday Clock should be moved backward due to global opposition to Russia’s nuclear threats.

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… war with Russia. Furthermore, the Russian authorities intensified their nuclear threats, and Dmitry Medvedev, the vice-chairman of the Russian …

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war”:

Key points
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LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #444 (11/08/2023)

ALL THINGS NUCLEAR

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #444 (11/08/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT

NOV 8, 2023

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

One more evening and new (although most of the old are new too) especially to new readers who never saw or read those that were only available to Facebook faithful. So, as I’ve mentioned before, I will occasionally pick an older Post to points that have been made over the last year-plus that are important to the future of all life on planet Earth. But I have added my feelings about a Forbes article today . . .

This Post was short and intense – letting the images do the inferred “talking”. I well know those long roads to the uranium mines in Wyoming and other western states. I began my career in the uranium and nuclear industry at a mine called the Lucky Mc Mine in central Wyoming in the 1960s as an accountant for the San Francisco based company. I remained in the company’s uranium and other enterprises into the early 1980s. The 3-Mile Island nuclear accident prompted me to ‘escape’ from the nuclear business, realizing that the ‘stuff’ we were selling all over the world was immanently dangerous.

Over the years I have learned just how lethal “All Things Nuclear” are, and yet I see ridiculous stories in tonight’s media news from Forbes, with propaganda direct from the industry that headlines with How Policy Saved America’s Nuclear Power Plants, and leads on with this line. “Federal and state policy kept America’s nuclear power plants online to preserve clean energy supplies and prevent emissions increases and . . . I have to admit I laughed derisively at the opening to this article (and of course I will not read it because it is pure industry propaganda from the industry. Nuclear power plants do not produced ‘clean’ energy, and they are proud owners of the dirtiest and most toxic waste on the planet that they know what to do with except to dump it in the ocean. Oh, yes, it is ‘treated’, but what will happen when the ‘treatment’ wears off? And we haven’t even mentioned the words “meltdown” or “nuclear war” yet. ~llaw

Shared with the Public on June 8th, 2023 . . .

Uranium and its products of nuclear weapons and nuclear power is the road to Nowhere – a desolate world that looks something like this lonely road to the first step and the last step to desolation and annihilation.

Stop nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity stops humanity! ~llaw

All reactions:

14 You, Michelle UluOla, Deborah Hart Yemm and 11 others

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are no Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Science is Everywhere camps at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History – YouTube

YouTube

13 Things from the 1970s, Kids Today Will Never Understand! … all of us’ I See the full speech. MSNBC New 1M views · 6:10 · Go to channel · A Recipe …

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent federal agency that oversees all things nuclear, like the TerraPower project near Kemmerer.

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All Things Considered · Podcasts …more programs · The Point · News Roundup … Holtec and other supporters contend that nuclear energy can be safe and …

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Forbes

Federal and state policy kept America’s nuclear power plants online to preserve clean energy supplies and prevent emissions increases as …

Should Texas Build More Nuclear Power Plants?

Texas Monthly

Even if nuclear takes off, it will be years before it catches up to the contributions of natural gas, or even wind power, to the state’s energy mix. “ …

Ukraine war live updates: Russia claims Kyiv attacked 3 nuclear power plants – CNBC

CNBC

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev claimed Wednesday that Ukraine tried to attack three nuclear power plants.

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Reuters

After fears of a nuclear war were triggered by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union sought to slow the arms race with …

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CNBC

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev claimed Wednesday that Ukraine tried to attack three nuclear power plants.

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… nuclear threats. And UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not mention the acute threat posed by nuclear-weapons-related AI applications at all, even …

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war”:

Key points
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LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #443 (11/07/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

By Lloyd Albert Williams-Pendergraft (llaw)

Installing new network computer equipment today and tonight, so I am reposting one of my former newsletters. The media news is, of course, current, so that I can get at least a couple hours of sleep tonight! Somebody said, “No rest for the wicked” so I guess it’s true! llolloll! ~llaw

LLAW’s COMMENTARY (“All Things Nuclear” #412 on October 7th, 2023)

It is so odd to me that the national and international network media so often describes a potential nuclear war as something that is fought with results about like a conventional war with one country conquering another and that the loss of limited human life and survival in opposing countries is no big deal – that a war among or even between countries is ho-hum style survivable to the everyman citizen and only the military jarhead suffers a similar degree of human losses as if a nuclear war is the same as a conventional war.

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Today a major nuclear war, or even a minor one, will not be skirmishes by military games per se, but rather directly toward the everyday citizens, e.g. you and me, of all countries involved in a nuclear war, but also including indirectly all other countries and life everywhere on the planet. That’s why nuclear bombs are called WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction). There will no more wars fought on Earth’s soil among foot-soldiers with rifles and machine guns, and hand grenades storming a beach, working their way inland, trying desperately to raise their country’s flag in victory. Air strikes on military bases or government complexes aren’t necessary in nuclear war. So it is that there are no heroic human beings in wars these days, but rather they will be just another living creature waiting to die from nuclear weapons and their cousins like nuclear power plants. There is no need for militaries to march their brainwashed soldiers in parades these days.

This is how WWII ended abruptly after six years (from 1939 to 1945, of brutal war, only to be over and done with in just 3 days in August by the atomic bombing of Japan’s cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about a quarter of a million innocent people, most of them instantly. Today’s nuclear weapons are capable of killing millions of people in the same way on a single day with a single nuclear weapon that is capable of killing 30 times more people with a single blast than the atomic bombs of yore – and that doesn’t count the miserable survivors who would die of radiation poisoning and other injuries not long afterword.

And then there is the increasing danger of the nuclear cousin -stationary nuclear WMDs – aka Nuclear Power Plants – that one small nuclear warhead could destroy any nuclear power plant and add hundreds to thousands of years of nuclear radiation that could easily end most all life, not just us’ns, on our only home we call Earth.

We humans are utter fools to allow ‘anything nuclear’ to remain in existence on this planet Earth that we humans and other life rely on to sustain us indefinitely, or perhaps forever. None of it is Mother Nature’s fault; it is our fault. Why do we allow a plethora of super nuclear monsters (multiple kinds of them, actually) to exist that can easily end our entire existence. It is an unfair battle for sure – because what does uranium and its nuclear products have to lose if it doesn’t exist? Common sense tells us the answer to that not-so-silly question. ~llaw

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are no Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS:

Nuclear Power

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US says reliance on Russian nuclear fuel presents national security risk – Financial Times

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Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for nuclear energy, told the Financial Times it was “gravely concerning” that about 20 per cent of fuel used by the …

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The Royal Australian Navy is planning to employ thousands more mariners to deliver nuclear–powered submarines, making it the single the biggest …

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All of this is converging to bring Biden and Xi together, and that is … nuclear deterrence strategy. But achieving that, especially in such a …

Israel’s Unintentional Nuclear Admission Raises Concerns | Gravitas Highlights – YouTube

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Al Jazeera

… nuclear weapons and is willing to use them … Netanyahu’s indecisive, distrustful nature adds to the dangers of his war on Gaza, say experts who’ve …

Russia says Israeli nuclear remark raises ‘huge number of questions’ – Reuters

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… nuclear strike on Gaza had raised a huge number of questions … War European armed forces treaty. 7 hours ago. Deputy head of Russia’s …

Amid Nuclear Rumours, USA Forced By Iran To Reveal Missile Info Of Submarine? – YouTube

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Israel-Hamas War: US Slams Israeli Minister’s Nuclear Threats On Gaza – NDTV

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“Wholly Unacceptable”: US Slams Israeli Minister’s Nuclear Threats On Gaza. Israel-Hamas War: “We continue to believe that it is important for all …

‘Wholly unacceptable’: US slams Israeli minister’s nuclear threats on Gaza – Anadolu Ajansı

Anadolu Ajansı

WASHINGTON. US State Department on Monday said statements by an Israeli minister who threatened to consider using nuclear bombs in Gaza is “wholly …

Rare Admission About U.S. Submarine Sparks Question About Nuclear Weapons

Newsweek

… threats of a larger regional conflict may stem from the intensifying war in Gaza, but one expert told Newsweek it may be more common than we think.

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war”:

Key points

Posted on

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

ALL THINGS NUCLEAR

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
LLOYD A. WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT
NOV 6, 2023

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach, California owned by PG&E

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

The above image of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant may remain as my masthead for quite sometime because it is very much like the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine”. I have been following PG&E’s merciless “accidental” terrorism on California’s human population throughout the State (living next door in Nevada) for several years, and this aging nuclear power plant may very well be PG&E’s last and most devastating accident of all. A nuclear accident at that! With PG&E running the ‘show’, what could possibly go wrong

The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is old, dating back to the ‘1970s, and has leaked radiation recently because of cracked containment walls. The plant is scheduled for decommissioning, shutdown, and to be mothballed in 2025, but the State of California and the Federal Government has decided to extend the old plant’s life by providing several billion dollars to ‘ensure’ it’s safety and continued operation. To me, knowing the ownership’s history, this is obviously a huge mistake on the part of both the state and the federal government.

In later Posts I will have more to say about this particular power plant and selected others around the planet. They all need to be shut down, destroyed, and part by part and piece by piece put back in the same ground where their nuclear fuel (uranium) came from.

Considering their history of ‘accidents’, neglect, and incompetence, the future possibilities could be disastrous beyond belief. What has PG&E done wrong in the past to make such a prediction? Let me count just a few of the ways of many disasters caused by PG&E. ~llaw

(Summarized, edited, and abbreviated from cited reports,)

PG&E Disasters:

1. Groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California

From 1952 to 1966, PG&E dumped “roughly 370 million gallons” of chromium 6-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California. PG&E used chromium “one of the cheapest and most efficient commercially available corrosion inhibitors” at their compressor station plants in their cooling towers along the natural gas transmission pipelines.

PG&E did not inform the local water board of the contamination until December 7, 1987, stalling action on a response to the contamination. The residents of Hinkley filed a successful lawsuit against PG&E in which the company paid $333 million— the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. The legal case, dramatized in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, became an international cause célèbre. By 2013, PG&E had cleaned up 54 acres, but it is estimated the remediation process will take another 40 years.

2. Metcalf sniper attack

(Included here for evidence of PG&E’s extended reputation of illegalites)

On April 16, 2013, a team of gunmen opened fire on the Metcalf transmission substation in Coyote, California. The attack damaged 17 high-voltage transformers, causing more than $15 million in damage. The team also cut a fiber-optic telecommunications cable owned by AT&T. PG&E and AT&T offered a $250,000 reward for anyone who had information leading to the arrest of the culprits, however, they were never found. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that it was not domestic terrorism and The Department of Homeland Security claimed they had evidence that it may have been an ‘inside job’.

3. Wildfires

PG&E equipment has often been the cause of wildfires in California. PG&E has been found guilty of criminal negligence in many cases involving fires. These include the 1994 Trauner Fire a substation fire in San Francisco in 1996, the 1999 Pendola Fire, a San Francisco substation fire in 2003, the Sims Fire and Fred’s Fire in 2004 an explosion and electrical fire in San Francisco in 2005, the 2008 Rancho Cordova Gas Explosion,[ the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, 2014 Carmel Gas Explosion,[ 2015 Butte Fire, 2018 Camp Fire, among others.[

Approximately 40 of the 315 wildfires in PG&E’s service area in 2017 and 2018 were allegedly caused by PG&E equipment.

PG&E was on probation after being found criminally liable in the 2010 San Bruno fire. Following that fire, a federally appointed monitor initially focused on gas operations, but his scope expanded to include electricity distribution equipment following the fires in October 2017. A separate case involved allegations the utility falsified gas pipeline records between 2012 and 2017, and as of January 2019 was still being considered.

4. Wildfire Liability

State law follows a principle of “inverse condemnation” for wildfire liability, which means that utilities are held responsible for damages resulting from any fire caused by their equipment, even if their maintenance on equipment and surrounding vegetation was done to standards. This policy resulted in $30B of liability for PG&E from the 2017 & 2018 fires and drove it to bankruptcy proceedings.  In July 2019, a new $21 billion wildfire trust fund was created to pay for damages from future wildfires, started with a 50-50 balance of utility and customer monies and also reduced the liability threshold for utilities to where customers must prove negligence before companies are held liable.

5. Sierra blaze

On June 19, 1997, a Nevada County jury in Nevada City found PG&E guilty of “a pattern of tree-trimming violations that sparked a devastating 1994 wildfire in the Sierra”. “PG&E was convicted of 739 counts of criminal negligence for failing to trim trees near its power lines—the biggest criminal conviction ever against the state’s largest utility.

6. San Bruno, California explosion

View of the San Bruno fire on September 9, 2010 at 11:31 pm PDT

On the evening of September 9, 2010, a suburb of San Francisco, San Bruno, California, was damaged when one of PG&E’s natural-gas pipelines that was “at least 54 years old, 30 inches (76.2 centimeters) in diameter and located under a street intersection in a residential area “…exploded sending a “28-foot section of pipe weighing 3,000 pounds flying through the air, fueled by blowing natural gas”.[235] The blast created a crater at the epicenter and “killed eight people and injured nearly five dozen more while destroying about 100 homes” The USGS reported that the shock wave was similar to a 1.1 magnitude earthquake. Following the event, the company was heavily criticized for ignoring the warnings of a state inspector in 2009 and for failing to provide adequate safety procedures. The incident then came under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). On August 30, 2011, the NTSB released its findings, which placed fault for the blast on PG&E. The report stated that the pipeline that exploded, installed in 1956, did not even meet standards of that time. Even in the years following the disaster, PG&E failed to implement legally mandated safety procedures aimed at preventing similar disasters.

7. Butte Fire

In September 2015, the deadly and destructive Butte Fire ignited in Amador and Calaveras counties. It killed two people and destroyed hundreds of structures. An investigation found PG&E responsible for the fire after a gray pine tree came in contact with one of their powerlines.

8. October 2017 Northern California wildfires

In October 2017, PG&E was responsible for their own lines and poles starting 13 separate fires of the 250 that devastated Northern California. These fires were caused by “electric power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles”. Pending further investigation, the following fires have been confirmed by CAL FIRE investigators to have been started by PG&E equipment:

8. Ghost Ship fire

On December 2, 2016, in Fruitvale, Oakland, California a fire broke out in a former warehouse that had been illegally converted into an artist collective with living spaces known as Ghost Ship. 80-100 people were at an event in the space and 36 were killed. The plaintiffs claim that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction. A civil case was put forward against PG&E, alleging blame.

In August 2020, PG&E settled a civil lawsuit for 32 of the victims, out of the 36 who perished in the fire.] The amount of the settlement was undisclosed, but it was limited to the amount available under PG&E’s insurance coverage for the year 2016.

9. Tubbs Fire

The Tubbs Fire was a wildfire in Northern California during October 2017. At the time, the Tubbs Fire was the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties, inflicting its greatest losses in the city of Santa Rosa. Suspicion for the cause of the fire fell on PG&E, but the company seemed to be cleared of responsibility in this incident after Cal Fire released the results of its investigation on January 24, 2019, upon which news the company’s stock price jumped dramatically. On August 16, 2019, the judge ruled that the trial can proceed “on a parallel track” because “it advances the goals of this bankruptcy.” After the judge’s ruling, the company’s stock price sank by 25%.

10. Camp Fire (The worst of them all)

In November 2018, PG&E and its parent company were sued in the San Francisco County Superior Court by multiple victims of the Camp Fire – the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 buildings, including 14,000 homes, being particularly devastating to poorer residents. Approximately 90% of the population of the town of Paradise, California as of June 2020 remains dispersed in other parts of the state and the country. The lawsuit accused PG&E of failure to properly maintain its infrastructure and equipment.

The cause of the fire, as indicated by PG&E’s “electric incident report” submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, was a power failure on a transmission line on November 8, just 15 minutes before the fire was first reported near the same location. Later investigation revealed that a “broken hook may have allowed a piece of electrically charged equipment to swing free and come close enough to the tower to arc, providing the spark that ignited the blaze.

. . . and the heat goes on . . .

11. Dixie Fire

On January 4, 2022, CalFire determined that “the Dixie Fire was caused by a tree contacting electrical distribution lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located west of Cresta Dam.” CalFire forwarded the investigative report to the Butte County District Attorney’s office, the same federal office that prosecuted PG&E in 2018 following the Camp Fire.

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one bonus Yellowstone Caldera story available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Jacobs Wins New Contract to Support UK’s Nuclear Power Plants – PR Newswire

PR Newswire

“I am proud of the teamwork across the fleet over the last eight years and look forward to the continued success and learning across all our program …

Opinion: Can America afford a new nuclear weapons buildup? | Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga Times Free Press

… things, provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel, a new congressional commission report has suggested spending even more … All rights reserved.

In Japan, overtourism is raising concerns about the environment at Mt. Fuji – WHQR

WHQR

All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster. See …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Staff levels at Zaporizhzhia in spotlight : Regulation & Safety – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is continuing to monitor the status, training and condition of staff at the nuclear power plant …

space nuclear power | Military Aerospace

Military Aerospace

Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse to develop on-orbit high-power electricity generation in future space missions. Nov. 6, 2023. Nuclear power may provide …

Climate and Russia – Does the world need nuclear power? – DW – 11/06/2023

DW

It’s crucial to make electricity production carbon neutral as quickly as possible. Is nuclear power the new game changer for achieving this ambitious …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Russia says it test-fired ICBM from nuclear submarine – Axios

Axios

… nuclear risks and raise tensions as it pursues its illegal war against Ukraine.” Details: The Russian defense ministry said it launched the Bulava …

Russia Rubs Salt Into U.S.’ Wounds; Putin’s Forces Fire Nuclear Missile From Submarine | Watch

YouTube

Comments678 · Russia’s star-wars weapon can hunt anything that flies | S-550 for India? · The Fall | The Russians Destroyed The Officers Of The 128th …

Ukraine war live updates: Russia launches nuclear-capable ballistic missile from submarine …

CNBC

Russia’s Ministry of Defense released a video Sunday appearing to show a nuclear-capable ballistic missile being test-fired from a new nuclear …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Is nuclear energy safer now? – EnergyPortal.eu –

EnergyPortal.eu –

These include enhanced reactor designs, improved emergency response plans, and stricter regulatory oversight. Modern reactors are equipped with …

The 23 Highest Paying Jobs Without a Degree – Newsweek

Newsweek

Job Requirements: Nuclear Power Reactor Operators need a reactor operator (RO) license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Some employers …

SA’s rural clinics to get emergency generators from China – IOL

IOL

Cape Town: Unit 1 of the country’s only nuclear power station, Koeberg, is still down and contributing to the current load shedding. Photograph: …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia says it test-fired ICBM from nuclear submarine – Axios

Axios

The big picture: Putin has made several veiled nuclear threats since his … Go deeper: A reality check on Putin’s threat of nuclear war. Share on …

‘Unacceptable’: Germany slams Israel’s minister’s nuclear threats on Gaza – Anadolu Ajansı

Anadolu Ajansı

Germany on Monday condemned statements by an Israeli minister who threatened to consider using nuclear bombs in the Gaza war. The remarks by …

Venezuela Condemns Nuclear Threat Against Gaza | News – teleSUR English

teleSUR English

Citizens of Gaza respond to Israeli nuclear threats “This is not a war … Tags. Israel War crimes Palestine Gaza Genocide Nuclear Threat. People.

The 23 Highest Paying Jobs Without a Degree – Newsweek

Newsweek

Job Requirements: Nuclear Power Reactor Operators need a reactor operator (RO) license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Some employers …

SA’s rural clinics to get emergency generators from China – IOL

IOL

Cape Town: Unit 1 of the country’s only nuclear power station, Koeberg, is still down and contributing to the current load shedding. Photograph: …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

New Insights: The Potential Devastation of a Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruption

TickerTV News

Yes, Yellowstone National Park in the United States harbors a supervolcano beneath its surface. It has remained dormant for over 600,000 years, but …

The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war”:

Key points
Posted on

LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #441 (11/05/2023)

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

No photo description available.

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

An Analogy to Today’s World(s): Day Five of American Indian Heritage Month, 2023:

It is hard to believe that the American Indian Wars lasted off and on for over 300 years – from 1609 to 1924.

Yet now we are facing war over an entire planet called Earth, a massive futile and fatal concept of nonsensible wars with nuclear weapons of mass destruction. There is something desperately wrong with the whole concept of one man’s homeland being invaded by another man’s desires, mercilessly taking dominion over the weaker man’s territory that was never theirs. But power, greed, and domination seems to be our natural way of life. In order for humanity and other life on planet Earth, we must forget the eons of the past come together in unity and live as one. ~llaw

This link provides some of the history of a not so beautiful story:

The link is set as a cut and paste link only because it may be sensitive to some folks . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars?fbclid=IwAR05x5KkA5XC4gyB64jcqL5A7LF5i05z7Wmh8uUsEYrXXHeH58EkPGy8uVA

ACCESS TO “LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one bonus Yellowstone Caldera story available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

TONIGHT’S CATEGORIZED NUCLEAR NEWS:

All Things Nuclear

NEW

Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Launches the Devastating Bulava Missile | News9 – YouTube

YouTube

… all digital platforms. It includes a publishing platform, viz. www … Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I …

Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week – Yahoo News

Yahoo News

A family rests in their at-home nuclear fallout shelter. Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a …

Breece Hall analyzes Austin Ekeler’s game compared to other RBs ahead of Jets-Chargers matchup

YouTube

… all things New York sports. SNY delivers the most comprehensive access to all of the Tri-State area’s professional and collegiate sports teams …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Arkansas man arrested after trying to crash through gates at South Carolina nuclear plant

AP News

The Oconee Nuclear Station has three nuclear reactors and started generating power 50 years ago on Lake Keowee. The Associated Press is an …

Person of interest in custody for nuclear plant incident – YouTube

YouTube

Investigators say that someone tried to drive through a gate at a major nuclear power complex in South Carolina. SUBSCRIBE to ABC News on YouTube: …

Video Person of interest in custody for nuclear plant incident – ABC News

ABC News

Investigators say that someone tried to drive through a gate at a major nuclear power complex in South Carolina.

Nuclear War

NEW

Israel-Palestine war: Netanyahu reacts to Israeli leader’s nuclear bomb remarks | WION

YouTube

An Israeli Minister has drawn severe criticism for suggesting dropping a nuclear bomb on the war-torn region. Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai …

Israel minister says nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an option’ – The New Arab

The New Arab

While the Israeli military pounds Gaza without relent, Israel’s far-right Minister for Heritage has said that a nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an …

Israel-Hamas war: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denounces Gaza ‘genocide’ in …

Euronews.com

The latest developments from the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli minister suspended after saying dropping nuclear weapon on Gaza ‘an option’.

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Real nuclear threat in Ukraine is not Russia’s weapons, expert warns | World – Daily Express

Daily Express

A major threat in the ongoing war in Ukraine is represented not by … The Kremlin has issued nuclear threats multiple times since the invasion of …

N. Korea warns of nuclear capabilities as S. Korea, US, Japan up military cooperation

The Korea Times

… nuclear war and the third world war.” “Who can provide assurance that the … nuclear and missile threats. Last month, a joint maritime blockade …

Russia’s new nuclear submarine test launches Bulava missile – The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post

… threats, as ties between Moscow and the West have hit new lows over the war Russia launched in Ukraine in 2022.

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone supervolcano warning as 90000 would ‘immediately’ die in horror eruption

Daily Express

The US’s Yellowstone caldera is one such supervolcano and has for decades seriously concerned volcanologists who fear that humans won’t be able to …

Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine War:

Key points
Posted on

LLAW’S All Things Nuclear #440 (10/04/2023)

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

I’ve not said much to date about Small Nuclear Reactors (Cutely called SMRs), partly because they remain nothing more than pie in the sky, and there are just three operational SMRs – one each in Russia, China, and India. There are perhaps three more in construction and about 60 in the design stage. Heaven help us! llolloll!

But the current book on SMRs is that they are even more dangerous than the full-scale present day operational nuclear power plants that may well be the death of us without even needing the little ones. I have added a well-written media article from a German point of view to support my case, and if this one is not enough to convince you, there are dozens of others, including my own forthcoming “All Things Nuclear” ‘review’ of SMRs being just one more reason to remove all things nuclear from existence by returning them to the deep underground uranium mines (and the deserted copper mines as well) never to be seen nor heard from or even thought of again. Yes, it is that serious of a situation. I worked in nuclear industry management for parts of three decades, so I have a fair idea of that which I speak.

Thanks for reading All Things Nuclear! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

At this point all I can say about SMRs is that they are not small, they are in an experimental development mode, and they are poorly designed to avoid radiation leakage in the event of earthquakes, floods, espionage, and, most dangerously, a nuclear attack in the event of war. And, of course there are other issues as well, not the least of which is SMR spent fuel that is thermally hot and highly radioactive, requiring remote handling and shielding. A recent study led by Stanford University and the University of British Columbia tells us SMRs will generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants. And we presently have no idea how to safely dispose of nuclear waste that is already beyond our control to safely store. Japan is even in the process of dumping more than a million tons of so-called ‘treated’, but still radioactive wastewater, from the 2011 tsunami wreckage of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, blessed by, of all organizations, the ‘United Nations’. I’m wondering what happens the the ‘treated’ washes off . . .

And here we are stupidly and ignorantly wanting to create more nuclear danger we call, laughably ‘Small Nuclear Reactors’, including the probability of even higher grade nuclear fuel for some SMR plants that will only add to likely possibility that nuclear radiation from both nuclear war and nuclear power plants, which are already a special new military ‘toy’ for adding to the nuclear war arsenal on a kind of two-fer-one nuclear bomb scenario that will successfully help us humans prematurely destroy all life on planet Earth. The Russia/Ukraine war has already demonstrated how such a scenario could be achieved, and the reality is only one Russian bomb away.

The following is a well done tale about the deficiencies and potential travesties connected to the concepts of constructing and bringing these vastly overrated plants on line, and why renewable energy like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal is so much better for our future, should we have a future.

Like all other things nuclear SMRs are potentially a weapon of war and also an obvious future contributor to the Doomsday event if we’re fortunate enough to still be around when more of them become operational helping to reassure our demise. ~llaw

The following article is a primer Opinion piece: “The Big Problem With Small Nuclear Reactors” (BY PAUL HOCKENOS 07.20.2023

“The diminutive reactors are likely to be just as prone to delays and cost overruns as their behemoth predecessors.

Image not displayed here: (This is the Caption) Top: Mockup of a the top third of a small module reactor made by NuScale, the only SMR developer with a design approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Visual: Courtesy of NuScale/Oregon State University/Flickr

IN RECENT YEARS, the nuclear power lobby and its advocates have begun to sing a new song. They have bailed on the monstrous reactors of the 20th century — not because of safety or toxic waste concerns, but because of the reactors’ exorbitant expense and ponderous rollout schedules. And they have switched their allegiance to a next generation nuclear fission technology: small modular reactors, which they claim will help rescue our warming planet, as well as the nuclear power industry— once they exist.

Respected thinkers such as former U.S. president Barack Obama, French president Emmanuel Macron, and Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates have toasted the idea of small modular reactors, or SMRs, as a potentially reliable, almost-emissions-free backup to intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Advocates claim that because SMRs will be smaller than the giants that currently dominate horizons, they will be safer, cheaper, and quicker to build. Although SMRs will have only a fraction of the power-generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors, proponents envision that they will, one day, be assembled in factories and transported as a unit to sites — like Sears’ mail-order Modern Homes of the early 1900s.

Currently, half of the states in the EU, both major political parties in the U.S, and the five BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have indicated that they want to split atoms for the purpose of generating energy. U.S. President Joe Biden included billions of dollars in tax credits for nuclear energy in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Gates has gone so far as to invest a chunk of his fortune in a firm he founded, TerraPower, a leading nuclear innovation company. But despite the prodigious chatter, the endeavor to blanket the Earth with SMRs is a Hail Mary pass that’s very unlikely to succeed.

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Granted, it is certainly a step in the right direction that most observers now see the postwar, giga-watt-scale water-cooled reactors as obsolete. When constructed new, these behemoths generate electricity at up to nine times the cost of large-scale solar and onshore wind facilities, and can take well over a decade to get up and running. Perhaps for this reason, there has been one, and only one, new nuclear power project initiated in the U.S. since construction began on the last one 50 years ago: a two-reactor expansion of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia. The first of the reactors came online this year — seven years behind schedule. The staggering $35 billion cost for the pair is more than twice the original projection.

But SMRs are just as likely to face similar delays and cost overruns. Currently, there are just two existing advanced SMR facilities in the world that could be reasonably described as SMRs: a pilot reactor in China and Russia’s diminutive Akademik Lomonosov. More small reactors are under construction in China, Russia, and Argentina, but all of them are proving even more expensive per kilowatt than traditional reactors.

It’s worth noting that in the U.S., and everywhere else in the world, nuclear policy relies heavily on subsidies to be economically competitive. Starting next year, utilities operating nuclear facilities in the U.S. can qualify for a tax credit of $15 per megawatt-hour — a break that could be worth up to $30 billion for the industry as a whole. However, even these giveaways won’t reduce the projected costs of SMR-generated electricity to anywhere near the going prices of wind and solar power.

In the U.S., the only SMR developer with a design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is NuScale, which plans to deploy six modules at one site in Idaho that will together generate less electricity than a smallish standard nuclear reactor. So far, however, NuScale has yet to lay a single brick. Its biggest win to date is securing $4 billion in federal tax subsidies. In January of this year, NuScale announced plans to sell electricity not at $58 per megawatt-hour, as originally pledged, but at $89 per megawatt-hour, citing higher than anticipated construction costs. The new projection is nearly twice the average global cost of utility-scale solar and onshore wind, according to calculations by BloombergNEF. And without the government subsidies, NuScale’s price tag would be that much higher.

In fact, there’s a fair chance that not a single NuScale SMR will ever be built: The company has said it will not begin construction until 80 percent of its expected generation capacity is subscribed, and currently buyers have signed up for less than a quarter of the plant’s capacity.

Gates’s TerraPower has an even longer way to go, although it too is cashing in on subsidies. The U.S. Department of Energy has pledged up to $2 billion in matching funds to construct a demonstration plant in Wyoming. Yet TerraPower recently announced it’s facing delays of at least two years because of difficulties securing uranium fuel from its lone supplier: Russia.

Even if the unlikely rollout of SMRs eventually happens, it will unfold too late to curb the climate crisis.

Even if the unlikely rollout of SMRs eventually happens, it will unfold too late to curb the climate crisis. And the reactors will face many of the same safety and radioactive waste concerns that plagued their larger counterparts, if only at smaller scales. Meanwhile, the siren song of nuclear energy is diverting critical resources from the urgent task of building out clean technologies. And the idea that nuclear reactors would serve as “backups” for wind and solar is misguided because the reactors can’t be ramped up and down quickly.

One is left to wonder why it is that intelligent people like Gates and Obama are running down this rabbit hole?

I think it’s because they understand the chilling imperative of the climate crisis, and its scope. They’re panicked, and rightly so. In nuclear energy, they see a miracle-like, low-carbon power source that they know, and that can serve a million customers at a time. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, they don’t trust renewables and smart energy systems to get the job done.

But that is where they err. The technology of the future is already here. Clean wind and solar energy — coupled with updated smart grids, expanded storage capacity, hydrogen technology, virtual power plants, and demand response strategies — can work. Our energy systems of the future will look like a patchwork quilt, with diverse energy sources kicking in at different times during the day, and with the mix differing from one day to the next.

Bill Gates and like-minded innovators should put their minds and fortunes to work on this futuristic project of the present — and leave the 20th century relic that is nuclear power in the past, where it belongs.” ~Paul Hockenos

Paul Hockenos is a Berlin-based writer who covers energy and climate topics.

(Original Post, expanded here, was “All Things Nuclear” #420 dated October 15, 2023)

ACCESS TO MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are no bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

All Things Nuclear

NEW

Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I Win In 2024

YouTube

Trump: This Is What ‘We’re Going To Do Things Immediately Within 24 Hours’ If I Win In 2024 … Car crashes through gate at South Carolina nuclear plant …

Victor Wembanyama is inevitable + Cowboys vs Eagles + Rangers repeat – YouTube

YouTube

Car crashes through gate at South Carolina nuclear plant, suspect on … FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright makes prediction Cowboys vs Eagles on Sunday.

Podcast PAWcast: Three Alumni on Ukraine, Putin, and the Threat of Nuclear War

Princeton Alumni Weekly | – Princeton University

… nuclear weapons, and Russia’s share of that is approximately half, so, 45% of all nuclear weapons in the world are in Russia. Now, we’ve been …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Person of interest identified after car crashes through nuclear power plant – YouTube

YouTube

Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, 66, has been identified as a person of interest in connection with the breach of the nuclear power plant in South Carolina …

South Carolina: Oconee Nuclear Station incident update

WYFF 4

We have learned new information about the situation at the Oconee County Nuclear Plant in South Carolina that happened Thursday night.

SMR power plant proposed in Norway – World Nuclear News

World Nuclear News

Norsk Kjernekraft has submitted a proposal to Norway’s Ministry of Oil and Energy for an assessment into the construction of a power plant based …

Nuclear War

NEW

Ukraine war latest: Russia’s assault in Donbas town ‘flounders’; Moscow makes ‘disturbing …

Sky News

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin signed a law revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CBTB), which the US signed but never …

Nuclear Talks With China Are Essential and Long Overdue – The New York Times

The New York Times

The landmark Cold War-era treaties between the United States and Russia have fallen by the wayside, one by one, with few meaningful restraints …

ICBM Test Failure Puts Nuclear Modernization Effort Into Focus

Air & Space Forces Magazine

… nuclear arsenal. “It has served our country well and we will continue to depend on it to deter nuclear war until the 2030s, but this week’s test …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Exercise of Clinton Nuclear Power Station – Juliana Stratton, Lt. Governor – Illinois.gov

Juliana Stratton, Lt. Governor – Illinois.gov

Emergency Plans Set for November 14th. SPRINGFIELD – An exercise to test emergency response plans for the area surrounding the Clinton Nuclear …

IAEA’s expert team conducts rotation at occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant – Yahoo News

Yahoo News

… nuclear safety and security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant … emergency diesel generators for unit 1, the 750-kilovolt power line’s …

Switzerland has distributed iodine tablets to residents for years, and not because of nuclear war

PolitiFact

If a radiation emergency occurred at the plants, taking the pills would protect the people from thyroid cancer. (The iodine pills, technically …

Nuclear War Threats

NEW

New Kind of Nuclear Threat in Putin’s War on Ukraine Explained – Newsweek

Newsweek

… nuclear threats, but could atomic assets on the ground pose the same danger? … nuclear threat that has persisted since the start of the war. The …

Nuclear Bomb Map Shows Impact if Biden’s New Weapon Dropped on Russia – Newsweek

Newsweek

China gives US demands for preventing nuclear war · Even After the War in … threats from potential adversaries.” In the release, Plumb added: “The …

Oklahoma Won’t Be Spared From WW3 Nuclear Threats

KLAW 101

… nuclear bomber bases. It would honestly be the worst-case scenario of war to consider Oklahoma a legitimate nuclear threat from Russia. We’re …

Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war . . .

Key points
Posted on

LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #439 (11/03/2023)

LLAW’s COMMENTARY:

Meme thanks to my friend and writing associate Deborah Hart Yemm. It seems quite timely to the World(s) full of invisible boundaries and borders on a planet Earth filled with ‘All Things Nuclear’ threating one another to blow themselves up forever. ~llaw

May be an image of text that says 'Long story short... They forgot that they are all brothers and sisters cohabiting the same planet. So they kinda became delusional and Imagined these invisible borders, bellefs and structures separating them and started destroying each other and the earth they live on... Instead of just living, sharing, creating and evolving together...'

Thanks for this timely meme, Deborah! It will be a good time to Post it tonight on my “All Things Nuclear” Opinion in tune to all the best nuclear media news available in one place each and every day. It is so fitting and our long earthly human history shows us all, if we simply open our eyes and look, that it has never changed for the better, and that today we are living on the verge of annihilating ourselves. For what? Can anyone answer that question? I don’t think so.

As an example of what the meme has to say, I’ve told the following personal story more elaborately before, including on Facebook, but it bears repeating because it easier to see the cartoon aliens’ point if told on a smaller, more intimate scale.

In the early 2000’s, living in Nevada where we still do, my S.O. and I decided we wanted to go to one of my favorite places in the Wyoming wilderness to camp out for a couple of weeks where the scenery was spectacular and the trout fishing was amazing. I had long known of a short way to get there without a long drive and a 20-mile hike inching our way across a lengthy treacherous ice-covered trail across the Dinwoody Glacier, by alternatively taking a comfortable 4-wheel drive across the Wind River Indian reservation to reach the Wilderness boundary that separated the western boundary of the reservation from the designated Wilderness area, leaving only a pleasant 5-mile hike to one of the most beautifully spectacular places on the Planet. At dinner the night before in Riverton, Wyoming, I told some old friends where I was going and how I would get there.

The following morning, as I turned off the highway onto the Reservation rocky and rough dirt road, we had only gone a couple of miles when I was confronted by the Reservation Indian police telling me that I must turn around – that I could not cross the Reservation land to get to the Wilderness area. Outraged, I demanded to talk with the Reservation Indian Chief, whom I knew and had great respect for.

We sat down together in his office and he told me a long story about how the American Indians had been chased, murdered, separated from their families and tribes, and deprived of occupying the land they had always lived and roamed with the seasons like the birds and other animals did in order to survive, but that the European invaders had mysteriously claimed all land to be their own land. He told me that the Indians had never, since time began, claimed ownership of any land and that the land belonged to all living things, including all animals, as well as humankind, that the land belonged to or was owned personally by no living thing nor group of things, but was there for all life’s use. “How could anyone say it was theirs and that they ‘owned’ the land simply because they said so?”, he asked me.

Eventually, the Indigenous people had not only lost the use of the land they used for survival, but were forcefully taken to designated places called “Reservations” such as this one, often in the most sterile and useless land the U.S. government could find. Though this one was large and beautiful and plentiful, they were confined here and there on these Reservations, unable to roam off the Reservation lands simply because they were Indians – or “savages” as former President Andrew Jackson had called them in public speeches and writings.

So, he told me, they were eventually forced to call the Wind River Indian Reservation ‘their’ land, abiding by the U.S. government’s laws that made almost all land private land if anyone so desired it to be theirs and could pay the asking price. He told me that he knew that I, and a few of my white friends, had often been allowed to cross the Reservation land without interference, but since I had spoken of the short way to get to the Wilderness in a public place the night before where many could overhear, we would not be allowed to cross the Reservation land by rule, not by law.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude as he awakened me because I’d never before thought about the principle of land being only for all life’s use, not for ownership, and I instantly thought of the word ‘boundaries’, borders that had existed for centuries all around man’s self-made ‘world(s)’ that were and are the results of animosity among all humankind regarding the ethnicities of racism, religion, kinship, wealth, hatred, and on and on and on.

I thanked the old Chief for his time and the education, and for his wise words, and their meaning has stuck with me in the forefront of my mind for more than two decades now. And I have only seen the odd and old European concept of ‘borders’ grow stronger and more warlike against others that, until, in my own lifetime, we have developed, and used in war by the U.S. against Japan, nuclear weapons that we openly and proudly call “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (or WMDs that, oddly, everyone seems to know what the letters stand for). And now the U.S. and other countries are in the process of building a new generation of even greater, more powerful, nuclear bombs in a world that believes nuclear power, including nuclear use of generating electricity, is the way to salvation of humanity, which in reality, along with, or even without nuclear war, ‘all things nuclear is our death knell.

I am thankful for this meme and its relationship to my mission. What it points out is part of the engine that inspires my motivation to expand my long considered mission sooner rather than later – and I well know we have very little time – to overcome this odd way of committing mass suicide, and that the possibilities of saving ourselves are few and far between. I see only two ways of making it happen, and both of them seem impossible, but we have no choice but to have hope. I will be using the meme’s message at times to add to my ongoing mission’s future of nightly posts that are related to the meme and the multiple meanings embedded in it.

In the meme, both the aliens and their spaceship along with their story about humans is important – especially in one of the two ways I see of saving ourselves – or is it, in reality, being saved by others of far more intelligence and common sense than we have? Many Indigenous people (who are honored during this month every year) in America would understand my meaning and so would people like the Japanese, many Eastern European countries, South Americans, African tribes, and others, including Canada, concerning the ridiculous idea of invisible borders around the world(s) we humans have ignorantly built for ourselves in order to believe we are protecting ourselves. But rather than that, we are on the cutting edge of knowing that we have made a huge, likely fatal, mistake . . . ~llaw

ACCESS TO MEDIA:

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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are three bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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.)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Russia-Ukraine war live: US raises nuclear test concerns as Putin withdraws ratification of …

The Guardian

The CTBT was adopted in 1996 and bans all nuclear explosions anywhere in the world. … things‘. Pentagon’s UFO online reporting tool launches. 1d ago …

Putin signs a bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty

The Portland Press Herald

… Things to Do · All Things to Do · All PPH Events · Guides · Event Calendar · Add … The CTBT, adopted in 1996, bans all nuclear explosions anywhere in …

‘Everybody got it wrong’: How did Israel fail to detect Hamas’ planned invasion? – WRVO

WRVO

Next Up: 4:00 PM All Things Considered. 0:00. 0:00. Whistle Stops: The … So what’s in it for the U.S. if the Saudis have – if they have a nuclear …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Car crashes through gate at South Carolina nuclear plant before pop-up barrier stops it

AP News

Authorities say a driver tried to crash through the exit gates of a South Carolina nuclear plant about an hour after security asked the same car …

Driver accused of ramming through security fence at S.C. nuclear plant – NBC News

NBC News

Authorities are searching for a man who drove through the gate of a nuclear power plant in Oconee County, South Carolina, and allegedly attempted …

Police investigating incident at South Carolina nuclear plant after car drives through security fences

ABC News

Police in South Carolina are investigating an incident involving a vehicle that drove through security fences at a nuclear power station on …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Ukraine updates: Putin lifts nuclear weapons testing ban – DW

DW

How will the Hamas-Israel conflict impact war in Ukraine?

Putin officially opens door to new nuke testing – POLITICO

POLITICO

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a law effectively revoking Russia’s ratification of a key nuclear … Ukraine’s top general: War …

Putin revokes Russian ratification of global nuclear test ban treaty – Reuters

Reuters

… war in Ukraine and what Moscow casts as Washington’s attempts to stymie … nuclear test to intimidate and evoke fear amid the Ukraine war. Putin …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Police investigating incident at South Carolina nuclear plant after car drives through security fences

ABC News

Anybody with any information on the whereabouts of the driver of a 2002 Toyota Camry with an Arkansas tag of 380VDR is asked to contact emergency …

Flag as irrelevantNo More Pills, Test Sirens or Escape Routes | The Highlands Current

The Highlands Current

… emergency response plan created when the plant was operational. … The state asked that any exemptions not go into effect until all the plant’s nuclear …

House GOP targets IRS in bill to provide emergency aid to Israel – WGN Radio

WGN Radio

… emergency aid for Israel should be coupled with cuts elsewhere in the budget … The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged by a massive March …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia’s nuclear saber rattling: A threat or wake-up call for the West? – CSMonitor.com

The Christian Science Monitor

Threats would appear to signal conflict. But the Kremlin’s nuclear … “According to many politicians and experts, the threat of nuclear war is …

Updated U.S. Nuclear Bomb Could Reach New Targets – Newsweek

Newsweek

… nuclear and other global threats.” He added: “And I will work to bring … China gives US demands for preventing nuclear war. In the announcement …

Putin criticised as he withdraws Russia’s ratification of nuclear test ban treaty – The Guardian

The Guardian

US says move will undermine confidence in international arms control, amid concerns Moscow’s nuclear threats are designed to deter Ukraine’s …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Pluto may have an ice-spewing ‘supervolcano‘ the size of Yellowstone, New Horizons data reveals

Live Science

Kiladze Caldera, formerly called Kiladze crater, may be a supervolcano that erupted fairly recently, spewing ice across the surface of Pluto.

This Is One Of The Most Essential American Experiences You Should Try When Visiting The US

TheTravel

… calderas, including the famous Yellowstone Caldera, which is a must-see. But, that’s not the National Park’s only gem, and Yellowstone affords …

Two ‘supervolcanoes’ are showing signs of waking up – Times of India

The Times of India

… Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, as per the NBC news report. Campi Flegrei last erupted in 1538, and one of the largest explosions in the system …

Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine War

Key points
Posted on

LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #438 (11/02/2023)

☄️LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR”☄️ #438 (11/02/2023)

“End nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity ends humanity”

LLAW’s COMMENTARY: Republished from October 13, 2023 . . .

The Doomsday Clock remains set at its most critical level in history by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” . . .

“The clock hands are set by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”, a group formed by Manhattan Project scientists at the University of Chicago who helped build the atomic bomb but protested using it against people. The time of the clock is currently 90 seconds to midnight”. Midnight represents “Doomsday.

You can follow the world news concerning “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” at my daily Posts on both my website at LLAW’s WORLDS @albertlloydwilliams.com and/or at Substack to keep abreast of the world-wide nuclear situation, trends, threats, issues, and what could be done to prevent nuclear radiation from creating a dystopian world – or worse yet, a man-made 6th Extinction on planet Earth. Time is of the Essence. ~llaw

ACCESS TO MEDIA: Whenever there is a 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 inks is listed below by nuclear Category. There are two bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this Post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(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 rarely happen.)

Yellowstone Caldera (Bonus non-nuclear coverage)
NEWS
Two supervolcanoes, a world apart, have the attention of scientists – NBC News NBC News … Caldera, a volcano in eastern California that sits adjacent to Mammoth Mountain. … And one of the most famous calderas in the world, at Yellowstone … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
peeling back the layers (Yellowstone Volcano Update – November 2023) – YouTube YouTube … Caldera Chronicles: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/caldera-chronicles?utm_source=2023-nov-1&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=nh … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
The complicated history of Ferdinand Hayden and the founding of Yellowstone | Opinion MSN Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. DONATE · Idaho … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
See more results | Edit this alert
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea AP News 1 of 4 |. FILE – This aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, northern Japan, on Aug. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the … – NY1 NY1 TOKYO (AP) — The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea ABC News The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea after … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
See more results | Edit this alert
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
China and US reportedly agree to rare nuclear arms control talks – The Guardian The Guardian Russia and the US together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. … things‘. Pentagon’s UFO online reporting tool launches. 11h ago … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking Russian ratification of nuclear test ban treaty | CBC News CBC … nuclear posture or the way it shares information about its nuclear … TikTok’s paranormal queen CelinaSpookyBoo on why she loves all things eerie. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty – Spectrum News Spectrum News Things to Do · Community Calendar · Submit An Event · Tar Heel Treasures · The … All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear War
NEWS
AI could pose risk to humanity on scale of nuclear war, Sunak warns – The Guardian The Guardian “But there is a case to believe that it may pose a risk on a scale like pandemics and nuclear war, and that’s why, as leaders, we have a … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
U.S. and China to Hold Nuclear Arms Talks Before Biden-Xi Meeting | TIME Time … Nuclear War Would Actually Be. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in June that the Biden administration was prepared to engage with … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Russia Pulled Out of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Here’s What That Means. – The New York Times The New York Times In a landmark moment marking the closing chapters of the Cold War, Presidents Ronald Reagan of the United States and Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
US NRC approves changes to Indian Point emergency planning requirements Nuclear Engineering International This enables decommissioning and site release for alternate uses decades sooner than previously anticipated. Image: Indian Point nuclear power plant. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
ERCOT to increase limit of reserve power that triggers energy emergency – YouTube YouTube CBS News New 19K views · 15:10 · Go to channel · Is Small, Fast, & Cheap the Future of Nuclear Energy? Undecided with Matt Ferrell•546K views. Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
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Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
CND: Nuclear war, conventional war and climate change are linked | The Herald The Herald Beyond the obvious common threat of our extinction, the three threats can share similar causes and chronic injustices. The legacy of colonial … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
The Threat from Within: An Overview of the Domestic Violent Extremist Threat Facing US … Stimson Center Domestic violent extremist threats to U.S. nuclear facilities prove that the nuclear security status quo is at risk … war” behind claims that it is … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Putin signs bill revoking nuclear test ban treaty | The Hill The Hill … threat of nuclear weapons in the eyes of Western powers amid the war in Ukraine. Putin and his allies have increasingly threatened to use nuclear … Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
China and US reportedly agree to rare nuclear arms control talks – The Guardian The Guardian Russia and the US together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. … things‘. Pentagon’s UFO online reporting tool launches. 11h ago … Facebook Twitter
Putin signs bill revoking Russian ratification of nuclear test ban treaty | CBC News CBC … nuclear posture or the way it shares information about its nuclear … TikTok’s paranormal queen CelinaSpookyBoo on why she loves all things eerie. Facebook Twitter
Putin signs bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty – Spectrum News Spectrum News Things to Do · Community Calendar · Submit An Event · Tar Heel Treasures · The … All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast … Facebook Twitter

The daily Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is posted below . . .

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-moscow-to-discuss-lifting-ban-on-nuclear-tests-after-putin-threat-12541713?fbclid=IwAR3jG-pZQTXT_E2mcEUYcciiuv9ZeJ7f2-oVo8ouBd8lZWU4BeSe5ajW80k

Posted on

LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #437 (11/01/2023)

☄️LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR”☄️ #437 (11/01/2023)

“End nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity ends humanity”

_________________________

LLAW’s COMMENTARY: So the Biden Administration and the U.S. Military wants to manufacture a nuclear bomb that is 24 times more powerful than the two we used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to end WWII in 1945. There is really no way to compare “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” to today’s nuclear weapons because they are two different kinds of bombs. We already have bombs that are hundreds and even thousands of times more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on Japan. So it seems to me the media ought to do what real journalists used to do and that is to check out the ‘facts’ before writing a story that should embarrass the whole media industry with its ignorance, not to forget the inane words of our government. If that’s what Biden or some military general or anyone in his cabinet actually said, then what they said is okay from a journalistic viewpoint – but we need to point out that whoever said such a thing is laughably wrong, and take the time to tell us why.

But that’s not the most important issue, or so it seems to me. The real issue is: “Why on Earth is anyone anywhere building more nuclear weapons?” There is already enough nuclear weaponry to destroy everything on the planet several times over. We have learned, during the Russia/Ukraine war that nuclear power plants will make incredibly powerful nuclear weapons as well. All we have to do is drop a nuclear bomb on a nuclear power plant and we’ve go two weapons of mass destruction for the price of one. What the hell is wrong with humanity?

We ought to be well on the way toward destroying ‘all things nuclear’ rather than moving closer every day to destroying ourselves, which we are evidently absolutely bent on doing. For what reason do we want to do that? As a long-time employee in the nuclear industry, I am in the process of writing a ‘blueprint’ that provides a way for us to come together as a species by destroying everything nuclear and dumping and burying it all back in the open pit mines where uranium originally came from, including not only the nuclear fuel and nuclear waste, but also all of the world(s)’ weapons and power plants and storage facilities together with every other product that belongs to the family of uranium and the nuclear buildings and facilities that exist as soon as physically possible so that no one will ever again be allowed to have anything to do do with anything nuclear.

It can be done, and it must be done, or sooner or later humanity will commit world-wide genocide (it doesn’t matter whether it’s because of nuclear war with bombs designed to be weapons of mass destruction or the failure to understand that our nuclear power plants are nuclear weapons of mass destruction as well. What do we do with the nuclear waste? Dump it all in the oceans as Japan is being allowed to do right now? We can’t let that happen.

We are all essentially freshmen to the idea of understanding nuclear energy and how to clean up the global mess we have already made and each day it gets worse and more prolific while we clamor for more of it without even understanding what to do with the left overs or how to avoid accidents that are actually unavoidable because anything can cause a nuclear accident whether such accidents are man-made or Acts of Nature. A clue for us all is what we’ve done to cause climate change and global warming and all those ridiculous ways about how to save ourselves from CO2 that we continue to insanely pump into the atmosphere while knowing that greenhouse gasses, left unchecked will eventually kill us in a similar way as radiation poisoning. The writing is there profanely written on the walls of every power plant and every refinery – not just fossil fuel (uranium, by the way, is a fossil fuel as well) but every nuclear power plant and every nuclear reactor, too.

It is my hope that, since we are too proud, ignorant, or stupid to take it upon ourselves to do away with ‘all things nuclear’ that there will be intervention from somewhere by someone or something with enough common sense to not allow us to destroy planet Earth right along with ourselves, even though there is another way, if there is enough time left before the ultimate day arrives, to do it ourselves. But it would require the voluntary cooperation of all humankind around the human world(s).

Such is the purpose of this daily Post. We seek a unique world(s)-wide borderless effort for humanity to come together as a planet Earth community in order to save our ken from self-destruction and inevitable extinction if we fail to unite in a single direction peacefully and purposefully. Stay tuned as we make a diligent effort to convince war-mongering world(s) to trade in their weapons for a world of unity and felicity. It will only happen if we can bury the hatchet from now into the undefined infinite future. We all need to join the cause to save ourselves from each other. ~llaw

_________________________

ACCESS TO MEDIA:

Whenever there is a 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 links is listed below by nuclear Category. There are three bonus Yellowstone Caldera stories available in this post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.

(Just a reminder: 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 rarely happen.)

_________________________

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

From Gaza to the Pacific, All Oppression Is Connected – Inkstick Media

Inkstick Media

How the US handles Gaza threatens everything from the Biden presidency to the Pacific’s “zone of peace” ambitions. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://inkstickmedia.com/from-gaza-to-the-pacific-all-oppression-is-connected/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MTYxNTIaYjNjNDg2MDIyNWU5NjVmYzpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw0PT2NM_dNjvAoPI3DVRKbA

Israeli military hits Gaza’s largest refugee camp – Little Rock Public Radio

Little Rock Public Radio

The attack on northern Gaza’s Jabalia camp caused widespread damage, injuries and deaths, Gaza officials say. Israel describes Jabalia as a Hamas … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2023-10-31/israeli-military-hits-gazas-largest-refugee-camp&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MTYxNTIaYjNjNDg2MDIyNWU5NjVmYzpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw00i4mXTqKCSV3z6SM8_2nG

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Nuclear Power

NEWS

Climate Central Solutions Brief: Nuclear Energy

Climate Central

Nuclear energy is produced through fission—a process that breaks the bonds between subatomic particles in the nuclei of some weakly-bound isotopes of … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.climatecentral.org/report/climate-central-solutions-brief-nuclear-energy&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDc5NDIaOTU5MTZkNWRlYjc1OTI5Mzpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2kib5MJ6YwoxzHXVu8Q299

3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic – NY1

NY1

… reactor at the Dukovany nuclear power station as the country strives to become more energy-independent and wean itself off fossil fuels. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/ap-top-news/2023/10/31/3-energy-companies-compete-to-build-a-new-nuclear-reactor-in-the-czech-republic&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDc5NDIaOTU5MTZkNWRlYjc1OTI5Mzpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2d4RnoCiAgqWNDc4AvOgMU

How well protected are Ukraine’s nuclear power plants – DW – 11/01/2023

DW

A nuclear power plant is more than just a reactor, says Humenyuk. It is a complex facility that consists of safety systems that provides electricity … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.dw.com/en/how-well-protected-are-ukraines-nuclear-power-plants/a-67271615&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDc5NDIaOTU5MTZkNWRlYjc1OTI5Mzpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw0ckI8md8qivFza70I3SPhP

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Nuclear War

NEWS

Why Putin toned down his nuclear rhetoric – Financial Times

Financial Times

Russian president unnerved his foes and friends about the war in Ukraine turning into an atomic conflagration. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.ft.com/content/d98446ac-b56e-4f1d-bfa9-ebaed4e26884&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MjQzNjIaYjhiODY0NWExNDkwZmU3Zjpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw3C9rKfI57fxzvLId3vZbWJ

Opinion: The threat of nuclear war is closer than AU students might think – The Eagle

The Eagle

… nuclear weapons suddenly became vastly more realistic — but in a new way. This time, nuclear war would feature tactical nuclear weapons. Tactical … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2023/11/opinion-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-is-closer-than-au-students-might-think&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MjQzNjIaYjhiODY0NWExNDkwZmU3Zjpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2WLN2L6MJ4y5p9VQwfV_1k

A Panicked Case for Nuclear Weapons Modernization – Inkstick Media

Inkstick Media

The US shouldn’t wage a new Cold War, let alone two, despite the latest US strategic posture recommendations. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://inkstickmedia.com/a-panicked-case-for-nuclear-weapons-modernization/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MjQzNjIaYjhiODY0NWExNDkwZmU3Zjpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw1H2zty7vW98XseS_oYRciQ

__________________________________

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

How well protected are Ukraine’s nuclear power plants – DW – 11/01/2023

DW

“When substations come under fire, the nuclear power plant’s emergency protection is activated,” says nuclear energy expert Olha Kozharna. “Such … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.dw.com/en/how-well-protected-are-ukraines-nuclear-power-plants/a-67271615&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk4MjIaZTg5NDBiYzgxZmVjYjJmNDpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw0ckI8md8qivFza70I3SPhP

US / Regulator Approves Revision To Indian Point Nuclear Station Emergency Preparedness Plan

NucNet

The Indian Point nuclear power station in New York state. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted a request by Holtec Decommissioning … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.nucnet.org/news/regulator-approves-revision-to-indian-point-nuclear-station-emergency-preparedness-plan-11-3-2023&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk4MjIaZTg5NDBiYzgxZmVjYjJmNDpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2raLKjDA8i3D8mWb_RzWu9

Emergency planning changed for Indian Point | The River Reporter

The River Reporter

… emergency declaration. After a nuclear power plant has permanently ceased operations and removed fuel from the reactor vessel, the risk of an … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.riverreporter.com/stories/emergency-planning-changed-for-indian-point,123081&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk4MjIaZTg5NDBiYzgxZmVjYjJmNDpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw22ZgNlksQyomTJK1kZ88Dj

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Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Opinion: The threat of nuclear war is closer than AU students might think – The Eagle

The Eagle

The era of constant nuclear threat is not as distant a memory as it may seem. When Russian troops first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the threat … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2023/11/opinion-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-is-closer-than-au-students-might-think&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDgwMzIaZjY4NGUyMzhiYWM3ZTM5Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2WLN2L6MJ4y5p9VQwfV_1k

Why Putin toned down his nuclear rhetoric – Financial Times

Financial Times

… war, an indirect one for now.” In winning … Western analysts warn that Putin’s toned-down rhetoric does not mean the nuclear threat has disappeared. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.ft.com/content/d98446ac-b56e-4f1d-bfa9-ebaed4e26884&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDgwMzIaZjY4NGUyMzhiYWM3ZTM5Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw3C9rKfI57fxzvLId3vZbWJ

The Axis of Resistance Threat to Israel | The National Interest

The National Interest

… nuclear threat, but it is not far below it.” In a similar vein, then-IDF … War, Israel now faced the threat of a multi-front war. Hamas’s attack … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://nationalinterest.org/feature/axis-resistance-threat-israel-207126&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY4MDgwMzIaZjY4NGUyMzhiYWM3ZTM5Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw01W_0OVNoADCIHlB49BhX7

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Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

The complicated history of Ferdinand Hayden and the founding of Yellowstone National Park

Idaho Capital Sun

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. SUPPORT NEWS YOU … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/11/01/the-complicated-history-of-ferdinand-hayden-and-the-founding-of-yellowstone-national-park/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk3MzIaODRkZDY4NTllNDE2NWM4Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2J0Fw1051pk1IrHFtKJcZC

Yellowstone Volcano Eruption Map: This is the Instant Death Zone If the Supervolcano Will Erupt

Nature World News

Yellowstone is known as a site that sits on top of a dormant volcano, which experts believe to be a supervolcano that is waiting to erupt. https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/59214/20231031/yellowstone-volcano-eruption-map-instant-death-zone-supervolcano-will-erupt.htm&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk3MzIaODRkZDY4NTllNDE2NWM4Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw3bLFse2Cn3znfaid6Yp5Ss

The complicated history of Ferdinand Hayden and the founding of Yellowstone – Alternet.org

AlterNet

In fact, in 1805 the governor of the Louisiana Territory described a map drawn on a bison hide by an Indigenous American showing a “volcano” on the … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.alternet.org/yellowstone-national-park/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTNjkwNzg2Mjg4NzMzNDY3OTk3MzIaODRkZDY4NTllNDE2NWM4Njpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw1M1BizueyyQb-15M29pLN-

Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war . . .

https://news.sky.com/…/ukraine-war-latest-moscow-to…

Ukraine war latest: Russia 'concerned' control is slipping in parts of country, analysts suggest; Putin moving forces in east - 'new wave' predicted

NEWS.SKY.COM

Ukraine war latest: Russia ‘concerned’ control is slipping in parts of country, analysts suggest; Putin moving forces in

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☄️LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR”☄️ #436 (10/31/2023)

“End nuclear insanity before nuclear insanity ends humanity”
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LLAW’s COMMENTARY: The following opinion piece is from LLAW’s “ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” #425 (10/20/2023), intended to provide background commentary to those who follow our new media outlets unrelated to our former daily Posts (more than a year of them, but only a few will be reposted for this purpose). They will be helpful for new subscribers to follow some of the issues and opinions. There are also several technical Posts that describe how uranium mining, milling, refining, and finally reactor fuel, and waste that will provide new subscribers with a high level understanding of how the nuclear power plant industry operates. Oddly enough it is not significantly different than the military process of building a nuclear bomb, except instead of a nuclear reactor, the military builds a nuclear bomb.
The commentary from October 20 begins here:
What possesses us humans, who in truth know nothing about (or don’t care about) the mayhem and weaknesses of the major nuclear industries – principally known as 1) creators of nuclear weapons of war and 2) as commercial providers of costly, dangerous, and unreliable nuclear generated electricity. We continue to lie to ourselves (or at least listen to and accept the propaganda) that anything nuclear is of sound technology, good for us, cheap, safe, clean, and will last forever, when it is none of the above?
And now we are apparently considering moving (or adding to) ‘All things Nuclear’, of introducing nuclear warheads into outer space. Does that mean when one country’s leaders decide to ‘nuke’ another all it has to do is let the earth do the flying and when the target country is directly beneath them, simply electronically open the satellite’s Bombay doors and drop their bombs with no danger of retaliation – at least from the ground. Wow, that would make the ICBM (missile) obsolete as well as military aircraft! Also, obviously, then, once one country is busy planning on doing that, the rest of the nuclear capable ones will follow instantly in an arms race, many of which we have been going through for eons. It is a ridiculous joke we have played on ourselves since the stone age!
So it is the grand effort of ‘do unto others before they do unto you’ technology that goes right along in typical human warlike stupidity. What if we could just learn to love (or at least honor) one another, shake hands, destroy and bury all of this genocidal nuclear technology, and spend our resources (money) on taking care of the entire human race and our only home instead of trying to eliminate us and our Earth.
Do these ‘pillars of political and corporate power’ know something we don’t know about our future or of planet Earth’s? llolloll! Of course not, unless they, too, are being directed and advised by a higher and more powerful life form! But I doubt such a ‘higher’ life form would deal with humanity in such a potentially violent way. All we are doing is playing a foolish and childish game of playground tag that will end up in what we are referring to in advance called, “The 6th Extinction”.
The last extinction was caused by a meteorite colliding with planet Earth (65+ million years ago) long before humans entered the picture, and after Earth regenerated Herself with living organisms (and eventually humans) She returned to a special place in the cosmos where living things could live, reproduce, and prosper, and we humans became a part of it all.
But, now, looking back just a few centuries, it is plain to see that we cared, not about our only home, but only about what we could take for ourselves, and now the process of ‘playing god’ is instilled in us to the point that we seem to believe that we are superior to Mother Nature, and that we can plunder, pillage, rape, kill, as humans, human parasites or animalistic epiphytes, leaving only a vast wasteland behind even unto the precious oceans and our priceless atmospheres. We are, as Pogo inferred, our own worst enemies. And the hell of it is, we seem to have no presence of mind to change our ways by turning away from approaching oblivion. ~llaw
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ACCESS TO MEDIA:
Whenever there is a 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 links is listed below by nuclear Category. There is one Yellowstone Caldera story available in this post. The latest Sky News coverage of the Russia/Ukraine war is available at the end of the other categorized Posts.
(Just a reminder: 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 rarely happen.)
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All Things Nuclear
NEWS
America’s strategic nuclear posture review is miles off the mark | The Hill
The Hill
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic | The Hill
to supply nuclear fuel for the Dukovany nuclear plant, eliminating dependence on Russia for such fuel. Tags. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All …
October 31: Pentagon pursues new nuclear bomb. Rockets strike Israeli hospital 4 times.
NewsNation
Happy Halloween, the celebration of all things spooky and the semi-official beginning of the 2023 holiday season. The Federal Open Market …
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Nuclear Power
NEWS
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic – WOKV
WOKV
Nebraska lawmakers consider ways to expand nuclear energy production
The North Platte Telegraph
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic
AP News
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Nuclear War
NEWS
US wants nuclear bomb 24 times more powerful than one dropped on Japan
New York Post
US to build new nuclear gravity bomb – New Atlas
New Atlas
… nuclear weapon inventory with 3,708 commissioned warheads. That’s a small fraction of what it was at the height of the Cold War and only a few … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://newatlas.com/military/us-to-build-new-nuclear-gravity-bomb/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoUMTAyNTgwMzc2NzE0MTQ0NDczMDIyGmI4Yjg2NDVhMTQ5MGZlN2Y6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw2P2BOsjrXlRk_GwK0XXIMu
Australia must lobby US for ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons, says ex-minister Gareth Evans
The Guardian
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
Terms for Describing Advanced Nuclear Power Plants | IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
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Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Pentagon pursues new nuclear bomb 24x the power of one dropped during WWII
NewsNation
US wants nuclear bomb 24 times more powerful than one dropped on Japan
New York Post
Health Professionals: Reducing the Risks for Nuclear War – Medscape
Medscape
… nuclear weapons, the fact that there is a land war being waged in Europe just now, in which various threats have been made coming from the Russian … https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/996959%3Fsrc%3D&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioUMTAyNTgwMzc2NzE0MTQ0NDQ4OTEyGmY2ODRlMjM4YmFjN2UzOTY6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw2erEWZXWwD084nTRlXMYjN
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Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Yellowstone supervolcano could be ‘gearing up to explode’ with consequences explained
Daily Express
Sky News Coverage of the Russia/Ukraine:
Analysis: Who is winning the war?
By Philip Ingram MBE, former colonel in British Military Intelligence and NATO planner
In July, the then Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said that he “believes that Ukraine will win the war by next summer and could be admitted to NATO in July 2024”.
The reality of what Ukraine has really achieved on the ground would suggest this was an overly optimistic assessment – but who is winning?
In early June, Ukraine launched its long-expected counteroffensive against the Russian defences having had some significant successes in late 2022 taking back huge areas of ground around Kherson in the northeast and then Kherson in the east of the country. They had tied Russia up around Bakhmut, exhausting the Wagner fighters to the point where they had to be withdrawn from the front line.
With the delivery of fresh Western-trained troops, equipped with Leopard and Challenger tanks, Bradley and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, HIMARS and 155mm artillery, the expectation was they would punch through Russian defences like a hot knife through butter and reach the coast with the Sea of Azov in a few short months.
HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System)
HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System)
However, they lacked air superiority, attack helicopters, sufficient air defence and, most significantly, enough combat engineering assets to enable the extensive Russian defences to be breached in any significant way. In reality they lacked sufficient troops, tanks, artillery, missiles, and infantry fighting vehicles as well. The went too early against the delivery timetables of Western equipment.
The Russian defences delayed and slowed the Ukrainians down. The Russian use of attack helicopters and well-planned defences showed the vulnerability of Western armour and stopped the Ukrainians making significant progress, meaning that at the start of the autumn mud season, the conditions for Reznikov’s winning remain a long way off.
An emboldened Russia even counterattacked the Ukrainians near Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast, but only after receiving 1,000 containers of ammunition and equipment from North Korea.
The current territorial picture in Ukraine has not changed much since June.
Today’s Image of Interest:
Supervolcano could be 'gearing up to explode' with consequences explained
EXPRESS.CO.UK
Supervolcano could be ‘gearing up to explode’ with consequences explained
Scientists have long warned abo