“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 09, 2024

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LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Wednesday, (10/09/2024)

Maybe we should all consider taking a look at this old film — or at a minimum reading the following dramatic in its own right — “report”, if we can spare the time between now and the U.S. presidential election just a few weeks away.

It might help make us more aware, allowing us some time to contemplate our own present reality of a similarity to the “nightmare scenario that was all too plausible in an era of heightened tension between the West and the then Soviet Union.”, as the article references the old 1984 movie “Threads”.

These similarly intensifying ‘threats’ as ‘threads’ are coming now in an even more realistically possible way that could instantly turn into an an apocalyptic armageddon-like nuclear war at any time on any day. Awareness, even fictional, is very much worth our time now given the potential of a World War III . . . llaw

Brutal lessons of 1984 nuclear bomb drama Threads

Much of the supporting cast of Threads were people from the Sheffield area

Greg McKevitt

BBC Archive

• Published9 October 2024, 02:15 BST

One of the most terrifying programmes ever shown on British television, Threads is the nuclear apocalypse drama-documentary that continues to haunt people’s nightmares 40 years on. Ahead of a rare new showing on the BBC, here’s a look at how the drama still has the potential to terrify people.

First broadcast on 23 September 1984, anyone who tuned in to BBC Two on that Sunday evening would experience a bleak and unforgettable depiction of a massive nuclear bomb attack on a British city and its aftermath.

It was a nightmare scenario that was all too plausible in an era of heightened tension between the West and the then Soviet Union.

Rarely seen on television since its first broadcast, it’s being shown again on BBC Four and iPlayer on 9 October.

Sheffield was chosen as the fictional nuclear target because its writer, Kes author Barry Hines, lived there.

Ahead of transmission, about 600 people from the area who volunteered to work as extras were invited to a private viewing of the film. Some were involved with amateur dramatics while others just thought it might be a bit of fun. Maybe they could spot themselves or their friends on television.

No one was expecting anything quite like this.

1984: Look North interviews some of the extras who have just watched Threads

One young woman told the BBC’s Look North news programme: “When I was doing it, it was just a good laugh, you know? I didn’t really think about what it would likely be like to see it, and when you see it it’s a lot different – it’s very disturbing.”

Another woman, trying to hold back tears, said: “I didn’t think I would have reacted like this but I just couldn’t help it. There’s just going to be nothing after, is there? Nothing.”

Named Threads because of the strands that bind life together in a large city, it covered the events leading up to the attack and the 13 horrendous years after it, as seen through the lives of two families, the Kemps and the Becketts.

Their attempts to survive after the attack make for harrowing viewing, with society breaking down as nuclear winter sets in.

Another woman who appeared as an extra said that while she was watching the drama she thought “everybody’s going to get out of it like all the other films,” but Threads offered no hope.

“I want to die when it hits me because I don’t want to live through anything they lived through, not at all – it was horrible,” she added.

• What is hauntology? And why is it all around us?
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  • Published22 August
• Follow BBC Archive

The effect of a nuclear attack on Sheffield was calculated precisely by the makers of Threads, whose director Mick Jackson had previously worked on the grim 1982 BBC documentary, QED: A Guide to Armageddon.

Such a one-megaton airburst would create shockwaves causing severe damage to buildings up to nine miles away.

Much of the following morning’s Breakfast Time was given over to discussing the issues raised by the programme.

Showing impeccable timing, Boy George was on as a guest to promote Culture Club’s new single The War Song, with its catchy “war is stupid” chorus.

He said: “A lot of people see war programmes as something really glamorous, so I think it’s about time they did see things that show it for what it is.”

Threads extras Norma and Debbie Neath talk about the experience on Breakfast Time

Breakfast Time reporter Paul Burden spoke to another two women who signed up as extras, only to receive “a brutal first-hand lesson in the realities of life after the bomb”.

For Norma Neath and her daughter Debbie who lived on the outskirts of Sheffield in the village of Coal Aston, in the event of such an attack “the chance of instant death would be only one in 20”.

Debbie said on the day of filming, it started off as a laugh but by the end “it became a bit too real”.

She said: “They’d got all people laid out with horrible wounds and nasty things, and we were freezing cold and beginning to feel how we probably would really feel if we were in that situation.”

Writer Barry Hines said it was not their intention merely to shock “like it was a horror film”.

“It’s just that it’s such a shocking subject that there’s some very harrowing scenes in it, and so there’s no way that we could avoid shocking the audience,” he said.

Karen Meagher and Reece Dinsdale played the young couple at the centre of the family drama before the bomb dropped

Threads creators Barry Hines and Mick Jackson explain why they tackled the subject in this way, on Pebble Mill at One

On the day after the Threads broadcast, Hines and Jackson also appeared on Pebble Mill at One to deliver a sobering message for viewers of the cosy lunchtime magazine programme.

Hines said his main reason for making Threads was to get people thinking about nuclear weapons, as “a lot of people don’t know anything about it”.

Jackson said many people had the “misconception” that a nuclear bomb meant “a flash and a bang and it’s all over”.

He added: “I think Threads might have shown those people that in fact, in even the severest worst scenario for a nuclear war that you can imagine, more people are going to survive than perish immediately, and that sort of long, drawn-out suffering is something that most people would have to go through if it happens.”

Journalist John Tusa introduces the broadcast of Threads on BBC Two

Later on, Newsnight was given over to a special debate featuring a panel of military and strategic experts from Britain and the US, along with representatives from the three main parties.

Three questions were under discussion:

• Can nuclear escalation be controlled so that it stops well short of mass destruction and the nuclear winter?
• What lessons can be drawn about Britain’s civil defence programme and its ability to provide either for the aftermath of a mass nuclear attack or the prospect of nuclear winter?
• What effect does the nuclear winter hypothesis have on nuclear deterrence and our readiness to rely on nuclear weapons as a key element of defence?

Threads has since become cult viewing, although it has been rarely broadcast on the BBC in the following 40 years.

Director Mick Jackson will introduce a fresh showing on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer, at 22:00 BST on 9 October.

• Threads on BBC television
• Archive on 4: Reweaving Threads

At the time, television critics largely approved of the decision to show Threads.

Herbert Kretzmer of the Daily Mail said that recent programmes about nuclear weapons had showed the BBC “confidently fulfilling its ancient role as a convener and focus of national debate”.

But he worried about the film’s purpose. “Is there not a sense in which programmes like this, while seeking to alert the populace, succeed mainly in paralysing the will?”

In the Times, Peter Ackroyd commented: “It was not clear if the point of Threads was to frighten or inform… they are not incompatible aims, although I suspect they come under the larger heading of entertainment.”

Sean French in the Sunday Times wrote: “By the end we were a little better informed and a lot more worried. Answers were as far away as ever.”

Experts and interested parties give their reaction to Threads, on Did You See

A week after Threads was broadcast, the television review programme Did You See sought a range of views from people with a professional interest in the subject.

Bruce Kent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament felt that “at the end it could have given people a bit more positive direction about the sorts of things they could actually do”.

Military strategist Air Vice-Marshall Stewart Menaul remained sceptical about the programme’s claims.

He said: “Let me emphasise straight away, nobody is going to start chucking 5,000 megatons around this planet. Nobody, neither the Russians, the Americans, the British, the French, or anybody else. It will simply never happen.”

One of those who watched the film at a formative age was Black Mirror writer Charlie Brooker, who was 13 in 1984.

He told Desert Island Discs in 2018: “I remember watching Threads and not being able to process what that meant; not understanding how society kept going.”

He added: “I assumed it [nuclear war] was going to happen and I think in the 1980s it did seem like that was going to happen.”

While the world has changed in so many ways since Threads was first broadcast, it retains its harrowing power.

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
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Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Wednesday, (10/09/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

With World at Delicate Crossroads, Disarmament Committee’s Responsibility ‘Immense …

Meetings Coverage and Press Releases – the United Nations

… nuclear Iran must be unacceptable to all”. Iran, she continued, intends … about the Russian Federation’s announcement of the upcoming revision of its …

As Israel plots to strike Iran, its choices range from symbolic to severe – ABC News

ABC News – The Walt Disney Company

… nuclear program. The intensity and timing of any retaliatory strike … “That’s precisely what deterrence is all about,” he said. Olmert said …

What China’s Rapid Gains in Nuclear Fusion Mean for the U.S. – The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

… Things with Kim Strassel · Potomac Watch Podcast · Foreign Edition … Why Tech Elites Want Us All to Have More Kids …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

DOE proposes serial development approach for nuclear reactors as load growth, IRA boost …

Utility Dive

Gen III+ reactor designs, such as the AP-1000s built at Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4, are water-cooled, use low-enriched uranium fuel and have passive …

Nuclear sites ripe for development – Competitive Enterprise Institute

Competitive Enterprise Institute

… nuclear reactors at existing and recently retired nuclear power plant sites across the country. This potential is notable because the permitting …

Biden-Harris Administration Announces 6 Contracts to Spur America’s Domestic HALEU …

Department of Energy

Nuclear power is America’s largest source of carbon-free energy and provides firm, reliable, and safe power. Advanced nuclear power designs using …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Harris Nuclear Plant in New Hill tests emergency sirens Wednesday – WRAL.com

WRAL.com

The annual three-minute siren test is scheduled to happen between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Some of the 85 outdoor sirens will be tested more than once.

Harris Nuclear Plant in New Hill to test emergency sirens Wednesday at 10 a.m.

WRAL.com

Progress Energy invited the media to tour the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant near New Hill in Wake County on May 18, 2011. Pool photo. By. WRAL …

Duke Energy conducting nuclear siren tests – Queen City News

Queen City News

The test will start at 11:50 a.m. in the Emergency Planning Zones near the McGuire Nuclear Station and the Catawba Nuclear Station.

Nuclear War

NEWS

Space Nukes Are Bad – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

According to U.S. officials, Russia is developing yet another new type of nuclear weapon. This one is specifically designed to attack satellites.

Threads: How the nuclear bomb drama horrified Sheffield extras – BBC

BBC

One of the most terrifying programmes ever shown on British television, Threads is the nuclear apocalypse docudrama that continues to haunt …

In Iran, war jitters fuel public support for developing nuclear weapons – Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

Many Iranians, especially educated ones, were reconciled to constraints on nuclear weapons development. Now, fear of an Israeli strike may be ..

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

US scrambled to urge Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Woodward book says

ABC News – The Walt Disney Company

… threatened the West with Russia’s nuclear arsenal. In a strong, new warning to the West late last month, Putin said any nation’s conventional attack …

Bob Woodward’s New Book ‘War‘ Reveals Trump’s Putin Calls and Russian Nuclear Threats – WSJ

The Wall Street Journal

New Book Reveals Trump’s Putin Calls and Russian Nuclear Threats … There was a real threat of Russia using nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine.

Biden Warned Putin Not to Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine, New Book Says – Newsweek

Newsweek

… threat Russia faced if it turned to nuclear weapons. Woodward also saidBiden called Chinese President Xi Jinping to speak about nuclear deterrence.

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 08, 2024

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See AP image credits in Newsweek Article

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Tuesday, (10/08/2024)

From the article below: “Both Washington and Seoul have warned that any nuclear strike by North Korea would likely lead to the collapse of Kim’s regime.”

The question is, and it has been asked before is, “Even though it could no doubt be done, would we do it?” The answer is, in my long=considered opinion, it doesn’t matter, because any nuclear attack on another nation with nuclear weapons would automatically represent the beginning of WWIII, which would only take a few days from beginning to end.

All nuclear armed nations’ leaders ought to have better sense, but the constant banter from them all, including the US, and especially Russia’s Putin who seems to have remained close to Kim Jong un. So that could mean a nuclear attack on South or North Korea would be equivalent to a nuclear attack on the United States or Russia. I believe the same probability extends throughout all of the 9 nuclear armed countries, and Iran may well have become number ten, which may have suddenly defused Israel’s Netanyahu. That’s a good thing for now, but certainly not for long . . . ~llaw

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has once again raised the specter of nuclear conflict, warning that his country could set off its nukes in potential confrontations with South Korea and the U.S.

His latest warning comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalate, with Kim accusing the two nations of provocation and exacerbating regional hostilities.

In a speech delivered at the Kim Jong Un University of National Defense on Monday, he asserted that North Korea would “without hesitation use all its attack capabilities against its enemies,” should they employ armed forces against the North. “The use of nuclear weapons is not ruled out in this case,” he warned, signaling a willingness to consider preemptive nuclear action.

Kim’s comments are part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive rhetoric since he adopted a more confrontational nuclear doctrine in 2022.

Analysts speculate that North Korea may ramp up military provocations as the U.S. presidential election approaches next month.

The North Korean leader criticized the growing military alliance between South Korea and the U.S. specifically a new deterrence guideline established in July that integrates South Korean conventional forces with U.S. nuclear capabilities.

Kim argues that such moves threaten to disrupt the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula, where South Korea remains without its own nuclear arsenal.

But experts remain skeptical about North Korea’s actual nuclear capabilities, given that its military is outmatched by U.S. and South Korean forces.

Both Washington and Seoul have warned that any nuclear strike by North Korea would likely lead to the collapse of Kim’s regime.

Subscribed

ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Tuesday, (10/08/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

What China’s Rapid Gains in Nuclear Fusion Mean for the U.S. – WSJ

WSJ

The U.S. and China are in a high-tech race to achieve and commercialize an elusive clean energy source: nuclear fusion. Here’s what’s at stake as …

The war at one year: Israel cannot let Iran get ‘The Bomb’ – American Family News

American Family News

… nuclear facilities. But all signs indicate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not about to grant Biden’s wishes. In fact, Israel has …

Putin’s Aide Warns U.S. & NATO As Russia Maintains Emergency Hotline – YouTube

YouTube

Russia has confirmed the continuation of emergency hotlines with the U.S. and NATO, designed to defuse rising nuclear tensions amid the ongoing …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

US looks to resurrect more nuclear reactors, White House adviser says – Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance

The Biden administration is working on plans to bring additional decommissioned nuclear power reactors back online to help meet soaring demand for …

Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear Update – October 2024 – YouTube

YouTube

Explore the updated Advanced Nuclear Pathway to Commercial Liftoff report with expert leaders from the U.S. Department of Energy.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wants to speed up becoming a nuclear superpower | Reuters

Reuters

This does not preclude the use of nuclear weapons.” “Our footsteps towards becoming a military superpower and a nuclear power will accelerate,” he …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Radiation Emergency | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Residents living within a 10-mile radius of Pennsylvania’s three active nuclear power plants should be aware of evacuation routes and have …

Emergency hotlines with NATO and US remain as nuclear threats rise, Russia says

TVP World

Russia said on Tuesday that it still had an emergency hotline with the United States and the NATO military alliance to deflate crises as nuclear …

Russia says emergency hotlines with US and NATO remain as nuclear risks rise

The Economic Times

Russia retains emergency hotlines with the U.S. and NATO to manage crises amidst heightened nuclear risks, as the Ukraine war escalates.

Nuclear War

NEWS

Israel Panicking After Iran Nuclear Bomb Test Reports, Cancels This Attack Plan On Tehran…

YouTube

Israel reportedly cancels the attack plan amid rumours of Iran conducting its first-ever nuclear-bomb test. According to a New York Times report, …

On Cam: Iran Minister’s First Statement Amid Nuclear Bomb Test Reports, Says This To Israel…

YouTube

Israel ‘Cancels’ Plan To Attack Iran’s Nuclear Oil Fields After Bombshell Report & Warnings · Erdogan Finally Enters Israel War? · Iran’s ‘Nuke Test’ …

Putin’s Aide Warns U.S. & NATO As Russia Maintains Emergency Hotline – YouTube

YouTube

warned that the war is entering a dangerous phase, highlighting NATO’s increased focus on nuclear … ‘Nuclear War Risk High’: Putin’s Aide Warns U.S. & …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia Threatens NATO with ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ over Arctic Activity – Newsweek

Newsweek

Are Putin’s ‘Irresponsible’ Nuclear Threats Credible? As tensions … nuclear weapons would be used in the event of an attack on either country.

New Nuclear Threats Made to US From Kim Jong Un – Newsweek

Newsweek

Nuclear weapons · Kim Jong Un · South Korea · United States · Nuclear threat. New Nuclear Threats Made to US From Kim Jong Un. Published Oct 08, 2024 …

Emergency hotlines with NATO and US remain as nuclear threats rise, Russia says

TVP World

Emergency hotlines with NATO and US remain as nuclear threats rise, Russia says … War to reduce the risk of nuclear war. After Putin ordered …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone researchers discover cause of July’s Biscuit Basin explosion, predicts …

Fairfield Sun Times

They also noted Yellowstone Volcano’s activity is normal as consistent with research on it. … Yellowstone Caldera · Volcano · Hydrothermal Explosion …

Forthcoming satellite data will provide a better picture of Yellowstone National Park

Idaho Capital Sun

… caldera system. And sometimes they even can be used to improve other techniques. One of those technologies is InSAR — a technique that uses radar …

Mag. 1.8 quake – 36 km south of Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia, on Monday, Oct 7 …

Volcano Discovery

List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. Top 5 Volcano Tours · Top 5 Volcano Tours · Best tours to see lava

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 07, 2024

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People hold an image of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu with blood on his face as they demonstrate to mark one year of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, New York, U.S., Oct. 5, 2024. (AFP Photo)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Monday, (10/07/2024)

A conflict between or among any nations so long as one has nuclear arms could start World War III, because any act of such a war would bring immediate retaliation from an ally of a nuclear armed country or countries. This particular instance in the article following these comments is a very scary example, and of course there are others such as North Korea and South Korea because if North Korea were to use nuclear weapons against South Korea, the United States would defend South Korea with US nuclear weapons. The same thing could happen with Russia nuking Ukraine, which is a NATO member.

So it is that we must remain alert to all international conflicts no matter their nuclear capability. Also there are the smaller nations’ conflicts that may have nuclear power plants that are ripe for terrorism attacks that could destroy other nations with radiation poisoning even without nuclear arms by damaging nuclear reactors or even incoming power lines leading to nuclear power generating facilities. This issue is already in the forefront of such possibilities in the Russia/Ukraine war where nuclear power plants are already a huge issue in the war.

The only realistic salvation, without intervention of some unknown kind, mankind has in order to avoid all-out nuclear war, or any other international nuclear catastrophe, is to convince all nations to collectively find a way for peace that includes the honest and legitimate dismantling and removing of all things nuclear from human ability to ever use all things nuclear for military or electricity or any other purposes. Doing so can only be accomplished by world unification of all nations, large and small. Otherwise, we are leading ourselves to armageddon followed by innocent other life all the way to the Earth’s 6th extinction. ~llaw

Netanyahu’s dangerous gambit to start nuclear war

People hold an image of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu with blood on his face as they demonstrate to mark one year of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, New York, U.S., Oct. 5, 2024. (AFP Photo)

by Hakkı Öcal Oct 07, 2024 12:05 am

He is doing everything to unite all Muslims and to sever the Western civilization’s centuries-old relations with the Islamic world

My realism-in-international-relations-theory cap on: Unless you make it intentionally, peace cannot occur all by itself. But wars can. You don’t have to do anything special to start a war. But if there is a war you want to start and for some reason, you yourself cannot initiate it, then you find a dog. After all, why keep a dog and bark yourself?

Now, the cap off; back to what is really happening!

Israeli Prime Minister (or the prime suspect of the only genocide of the 21st century that has been going on for the last year) Benjamin Netanyahu started a deluge in his country, and now he is about to let in all those who facilitated his genocide on the prospect of exterminating at least 2 millions of Tehran residents and making about 100 million people injured and sick in Iran and neighboring countries that is on the path of the wind storms of the thermo-nuclear weapons he is going to drop on Iran.

That seems the only way for Netanyahu to keep himself out of Israeli prison: It would gratify the Zionist Armageddon troops in his coalition government who would never allow the Jerusalem District Court to put its claws on him in one count of bribery and three of fraud; he denies them all. His wife and other family members have been involved in all cases.

Netanyahu refused to resign for the trial; he argued that it would not contradict his work. His trial was suspended in October due to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, raid in the occupied territories; his lawyers asked for another delay claiming he does not have time to prepare, and he will only be able to testify in March of next year. That is, Netanyahu needs to prolong that war to something large and endless like George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.”

As the Hamas Raid provided the favorable circumstances to begin his coalition partners’ plan for the “Final Solution in Palestine,” now he has ample opportunity to respond to the 200 plus rockets the Iranian Mullahs fired on Israel last week as retaliation to Israel’s killing Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. Now it is Netanyahu’s turn to retaliate against Iran’s counterretaliation. That is his last opening to spread his war on Gaza to the entire Shiite Crescent, starting at the two ends of it, Lebanon and Yemen, and reaching to the center: Iran, itself.

Netanyahu’s Likud has seven coalition partners – United Torah Judaism, Shas, Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit, New Hope and Noam – and they actually keep him trapped inside the hardline coalition. His partners are spending billions of dollars in the Occupied Territories opening new settlements and religious schools. Hard-line religious parties allowed gun ownership without investigation. If Netanyahu ever objects to any of these government decrees, his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, threatened to end the coalition, which might mean Netanyahu goes to prison with his wife.

This political paralysis will not only keep him doing whatever Ben-Gvir wants him to do, but he has to gear up so that he keeps his allies at the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., Britain and France, on a leash. He knows that in America going to a fateful election would not allow him to keep the Israeli armed forces permanently in the Gaza Strip. America wants Israel to withdraw completely, to let the Palestinian Authority take control. Netanyahu cannot accept cooperation with the Palestinians and he can no longer oppose the U.S. demands. The only way out for him seems to raise the level of hostilities in the region.

State built on blood

Israel was created (at the expense of the Ottoman Empire) to provide a safe refuge for Jews. But it has never been what it was intended for. Since its establishment in 1948, over 20,000 Jews have been killed and over 100,000 of them injured and maimed in the wars the Israeli government started. Not all the Israeli prime ministers were warmongers. Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, for instance, wanted to put an end to the violence caused by Israel’s rejection of the U.N.’s partition of Palestine between the Jews and native Muslims and Christians. He signed the Oslo Accords to finally make peace in Palestine. But Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and ultranationalist who radically opposed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, killed him. Guess who benefited from this political murder?

After a brief interval of seven months with Shimon Peres, Netanyahu became the prime minister and again with a coalition of religious hardliners, he rejected the peace accords Rabin signed and began occupying the Palestinian villages and towns.

According to Mouin Rabbani, former senior analyst at the International Crisis Group and co-editor of Jadaliyya Ezine magazine, Netanyahu has three modi vivendi since his first tour of government in 1996. The first is to launch outrageous provocation guaranteed to elicit an armed response. The second is to use overwhelming firepower to kill Arabs and remind them who is boss. The third and the last is to mobilize foreign parties to quickly restore calm on improved conditions.

Forcing their hands

Now Netanyahu is the prime minister for the sixth time, and he has successfully paved the way to elicit any support not only from the U.S. but also from the British, French and German governments.

If, for any reason, he cannot drag the American generals with him into a disastrous war in Iran, there is a way to bring peace to Palestine. American politicians and their trigger-happy generals (who, overruling President Kennedy’s objection, helped Israel go nuclear in the first place) should understand that millions of dead people in Iran and their neighbors, a devastated Tehran and the misery that would follow would make all the Muslim people in the region, Türkiye included, turn their back on the West for good. Those generals should not even think that Iran is a Shiite country and most of the Arabs and Turks are not, so they won’t really bother about the mass killings and devastation in Iran! Even one single, small Jericho rocket with a nuclear bomb would not only demolish the years of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the Middle Eastern nations, but also any future cooperation between the West and the East would be impossible for the foreseeable future.

As professor Stephen Walt, whose realistic cap and basic teachings I borrowed here, says: “If you don’t want someone to do something, you don’t give them the means to do it. One must therefore conclude the U.S. government does not object to what Israel has been doing for the past year.”

We hope the U.S. still has the final control of Netanyahu’s push-button of those bombs which U.S. President Johnson acquiesced to be built in the Negev Desert in Israel after Kennedy was assassinated. (No, I don’t mean that Kennedy was killed by the Israeli Zionists!)

About the author

Hakkı Öcal is an award-winning journalist. He currently serves as academic at Ibn Haldun University.

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Monday, (10/07/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Heavy Israeli strikes hit southern Beirut as October 7 anniversary nears – CNN

CNN

Even as the US has made clear it opposes a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, Gallant said Israel has not ruled out any of its options. “Everything …

Major cases before the Supreme Court deal with transgender rights, guns, nuclear waste and vapes

Bank backing gives US nuclear new momentum | Reuters

Reuters

Tripling that to nearly 300 GW will involve the construction of hundreds of new reactors of all … Based in Toronto, Canada, Paul writes about nuclear …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Kazakhstan votes on first nuclear plant construction – DW – 10/06/2024

DW

Kazakhstan is the world’s top producer of uranium but has no nuclear power plant of its own. That could change with Sunday’s vote on the issue

What nuclear power in the United States tells us about the Coalition’s controversial energy policy

ABC

Construction of the latest nuclear reactor at the Vogtle power plant in Georgia. … nuclear power plants was the best way to replace coal power.

Ghostly Glow of a Nuclear Power Station Was Detected in Pure Water 150 Miles Away

ScienceAlert

It was the first time that water has been used to detect a particle known as an antineutrino, which originated from a nuclear reactor more than 240 …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

What nuclear power in the United States tells us about the Coalition’s controversial energy policy

ABC

Emergency · Backstory · Newsletters · 中文新闻 · BERITA BAHASA INDONESIA · TOK PISIN … Construction of the latest nuclear reactor at the Vogtle power …

WKRG

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a decision barring emergency … nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northern …

Referendum on nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan: Challenges and prospects | News.az

News.az

Many question whether the country is prepared for potential emergencies and how the safety of the facility will be ensured. Moreover, the economic …

Nuclear War

NEWS

‘Russia doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons’: The view from wartime Moscow – Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

The revised rules, outlined by President Vladimir Putin, say that an attack on Russia with “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen …

Netanyahu’s dangerous gambit to start nuclear war | Column – Daily Sabah

Daily Sabah

Israeli Prime Minister (or the prime suspect of the only genocide of the 21st century that has been going on for the last year) Benjamin Netanyahu …

All-out nuclear war is inching closer — and now it could take place in space

Evening Standard

This is a change in Russia’s “nuclear doctrine” against striking first with nukes — a central plank nuclear deterrence back in the Cold War of 1946 to …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

What if “Final Warning” Is Truly Final? Russia’s Change in Nuclear Policy and International Law

The Geopolitics

… threats to international peace and security since the end of the Cold War. Concluding Remarks. In all and all, analysing the Russia’s nuclear …

North Korea Threatens Nuclear War, But South’s President Calls It A Bid For US Attention

Benzinga

Last week, Kim threatened to annihilate South Korea with his nuclear weapons, if incited. Experts speculate that North Korea aims to use an expanded …

The Risk of Another Korean War Is Higher Than Ever – Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

… risks, believing that nuclear weapons will deter an unacceptably strong US or South Korean response.” While the report said “an offensive strategy ..

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone researchers discover cause of July’s Biscuit Basin explosion, predicts …

ABC Fox Montana

Beautiful autumn weather this week! Tags. Yellowstone Caldera · Volcano · Hydrothermal Explosion · Igneous Petrology · Geological …

Yellowstone researchers discover cause of July’s Biscuit Basin explosion, predicts …

KULR-8

They also noted Yellowstone Volcano’s activity is normal as consistent with research on it. … Tags. Yellowstone Caldera · Volcano · Hydrothermal …

5 most dangerous volcanoes in the world – Hindustan Times

Hindustan Times

Volcano. The Yellowstone Caldera is one of the largest active volcanic systems in the world. Hindustan Logo. Photo Credit: Pexels. Volcano. These …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 06, 2024

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Nuclear Weapons Pointed At Each Other Over Earth (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (10/06/2024)

This article from “Salon” by Norman Solomon is what I would guess to be the most comprehensive, intelligent, and knowledgeable explanation to date of what this world of human “madness” is doing to ensure the end of human lives, as well as most innocent other life, that any concerned person who wants to more thoroughly understand our problem with “All Things Nuclear”, and how it all came to be that way.

The roots of this story describe what this daily blog’s Posts, and other contributors, such as the thoroughly documented doomsday story told in Annie Jacobsen’s recent book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario”, have been trying to get across to the wide world(s) of humanity every day now for 2-plus years. My story is broad and rambling in an effort to tell you all more of the ugly details about how this likely tragedy came to be and how it continues to grow more lethal every day, but this “Salon” article is the capsule of it all and, fittingly, to survive we need to swallow the correct pill . . .

A nuclear war would be planet Earth’s 6th Extinction and the 1st that we humans had anything at all to do with because there weren’t any of us back then, but in this case we are making sure we unmistakably take full credit and that we do it all up right — by killing a beautiful blue and green living oxygen-breathing planet that can no longer support life of virtually any kind for a minimum of thousands of years other than a few cold-blooded creatures and maybe 1 to 2 percent of severely damaged animals like us. ~llaw

COMMENTARY

“Escalation dominance” and the new nuclear threat: We face more than 1,000 Holocausts

Nuclear arsenals are vastly more powerful today than during the Cold War — and the risk of apocalypse keeps growing

By Norman Solomon

Contributing Writer

Published October 6, 2024 5:15AM (EDT)

Nuclear Weapons Pointed At Each Other Over Earth(Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

This article is adapted from the keynote speech given by the author at the annual conference of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, Sept. 24, 2024.

Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons.

While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on Communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: “A hundred Holocausts.”

That was in 1961.

Today, with nuclear arsenals vastly larger and more powerful, scientists know that a nuclear exchange would cause “nuclear winter.” And the nearly complete end of agriculture on the planet. Some estimates put the survival rate of humans on Earth at 1 or 2 percent.

No longer 100 Holocausts.

More than 1,000 Holocausts.

If such a nuclear war happens, of course we won’t be around for any retrospective analysis. Or regrets. So candid introspection is in a category of now or never.

What if we did have the opportunity for hindsight? What if we could somehow hover over this planet? And see what had become a global crematorium and an unspeakable ordeal of human agony? Where, in words attributed to both Nikita Khrushchev and Winston Churchill, “the living would envy the dead.”

Related

The Pentagon wants a new powerful nuclear bomb. Please don’t give it to them

What might we Americans say about the actions and inaction of our leaders?

In 2023, the nine nuclear-armed countries spent $91 billion on their nuclear weapons. Most of that amount, $51 billion, was the U.S. share. And our country accounted for 80 percent of the increase in nuclear weapons spending.

The United States is leading the way in the nuclear arms race. And we’re encouraged to see that as a good thing: “escalation dominance.”

But escalation doesn’t remain unipolar. As time goes on, “Do as we say, not as we do” isn’t convincing to other nations.

China is now expanding its nuclear arsenal. That escalation does not exist in a vacuum. Official Washington pretends that Chinese policies are shifting without regard to the U.S. pursuit of “escalation dominance.” But that’s a disingenuous pretense. What the great critic of Vietnam War escalation during the 1960s, Sen. William Fulbright, called “the arrogance of power.”

Of course there’s plenty to deplore about Russia’s approach to nuclear weapons. Irresponsible threats about using “tactical” nukes in Ukraine have come from Moscow. There’s now public discussion — by Russian military and political elites — of putting nuclear weapons in space.

We should face the realities of the U.S. government’s role in fueling such ominous trends, in part by dismantling key arms control agreements. Among crucial steps, it’s long past time to restore three treaties that the United States abrogated — ABM, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies.

On the non-proliferation front, opportunities are being spurned by Washington. For instance, as former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman wrote in September: “Iran’s Ayatollah has indicated a readiness to open discussions with the United States on nuclear matters, but the Biden administration has turned a deaf ear to such a possibility.”

That deaf ear greatly pleases Israel, the only nuclear-weapons state in the Middle East. On Sept. 22, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said unequivocally that Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon was “a form of terrorism.” The U.S. keeps arming Israel, but won’t negotiate with Iran.

The U.S. government has a responsibility to follow up on every lead, and respond to every overture. Without communication, we vastly increase the risk of devastation.

We can too easily forget what’s truly at stake.

Despite diametrical differences in ideologies, in values, in ideals and systems, programs for extermination are in place at a magnitude dwarfing what occurred during the first half of the 1940s.

Today, Congress and the White House are in the grip of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” In a toxic mix with the arrogance of power. Propelling a new and more dangerous Cold War.

And so, at the State Department, the leadership talks about a “rules-based order,” which all too often actually means: “We make the rules, we break the rules.”

Meanwhile, the Doomsday Clock set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is now just 90 seconds away from apocalyptic midnight.

Six decades ago, the Doomsday Clock was a full 12 minutes away. And President Lyndon Johnson was willing to approach Moscow with the kind of wisdom that is now absent at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Here’s what Johnson said at the end of his extensive summit meeting with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in June 1967 in Glassboro, New Jersey: “We have made further progress in an effort to improve our understanding of each other’s thinking on a number of questions.”

Two decades later, President Ronald Reagan — formerly a supreme Cold Warrior — stood next to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and said: “We decided to talk to each other instead of about each other.”

But such attitudes would be heresy today.

As each day brings escalation toward a global nuclear inferno, standard-issue legislators on both sides of the aisle keep boosting the Pentagon budget. Huge new appropriations for nuclear weapons are voted under the euphemism of “modernization.”

And here’s a sad irony: The few members of Congress willing to issue urgent warnings about the danger of nuclear war often stoke that danger with calls for “victory” in the Ukraine war. Instead, what’s urgently needed is a sober push for actual diplomacy to end it.

The U.S. should not use the Ukraine war as a rationale for pursuing a mutually destructive set of policies toward Russia. It’s an approach that maintains and worsens the daily reality on the knife-edge of nuclear war.

We don’t know how far negotiations with Russia could get on an array of pivotal issues. But refusing to negotiate is a catastrophic path.

Continuation of the war in Ukraine markedly increases the likelihood of spinning out from a regional to a Europe-wide to a nuclear war. Yet calls for vigorously pursuing diplomacy to end the Ukraine war are dismissed out of hand as serving Vladimir Putin’s interests.

That’s a zero-sum view of the world. A one-way ticket to omnicide.

The world has gotten even closer to the precipice of a military clash between the nuclear superpowers, with a push to green-light NATO-backed Ukrainian attacks heading deeper into Russia.

Yes, the Russian war against Ukraine violates international law and “norms,” as did U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But real diplomacy with Russia is in the interests of global security.

Consider what John F. Kennedy had to say, eight months after the Cuban missile crisis, in his historic speech at American University: “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy, or of a collective death wish for the world.”

That crucial insight from Kennedy is currently in the dumpsters at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

And where is this all headed?

Daniel Ellsberg tried to alert members of Congress. Five years ago, in a letter that was hand-delivered to the offices of every senator and House member, he wrote: “I am concerned that the public, most members of Congress, and possibly even high members of the Executive branch have remained in the dark, or in a state of denial, about the implications of rigorous studies by environmental scientists over the last dozen years.” Those studies “confirm that using even a large fraction of the existing U.S. or Russian nuclear weapons that are on high alert would bring about nuclear winter, leading to global famine and near extinction of humanity.”

In the quest for sanity and survival, isn’t it time for reconstruction of the nuclear arms control infrastructure? Yes, the Russian war against Ukraine violates international law and “norms,” as did U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But real diplomacy with Russia is in the interests of global security.

And some great options don’t depend on what happens at the negotiation table.

Many experts say that the most important initial step our country could take to reduce the chances of nuclear war would be a shutdown of all ICBMs.

The word “deterrence” is often heard. But the land-based part of the triad is actually the opposite of deterrence — it’s an invitation to be attacked. That’s the reality of the 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles that are on hair-trigger alert in five Western states.

Uniquely, ICBMs invite a counterforce attack. And they allow a president just minutes to determine whether what’s incoming is actually a set of missiles — or, as in the past, a flock of geese or a drill message that’s mistaken for the real thing.

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry wrote that ICBMs are “some of the most dangerous weapons in the world” and “they could even trigger an accidental nuclear war.”

And yet, so far, we can’t get anywhere with Congress in order to shut down ICBMs. “Oh no,” we’re told, “that would be unilateral disarmament.”

Mistaking a false alarm for a nuclear-missile attack becomes more likely amid the stresses, fatigue and paranoia that come with the protracted war in Ukraine and extending war into Russia.

Imagine that you’re standing in a pool of gasoline, with your adversary. You’re lighting matches, and your adversary is lighting matches. If you stop lighting matches, that could be condemned as “unilateral disarmament.” It would also be a sane step to reduce the danger — whether or not the other side follows suit.

The ongoing refusal to shut down the ICBMs is akin to insisting that our side must keep lighting matches while standing in gasoline.

The chances of ICBMs starting a nuclear conflagration have increased with sky-high tensions between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. Mistaking a false alarm for a nuclear-missile attack becomes more likely amid the stresses, fatigue and paranoia that come with the protracted war in Ukraine and extending war into Russia.

Their unique vulnerability as land-based strategic weapons puts ICBMs in the unique category of “use them or lose them.” So, as Secretary Perry explained, “If our sensors indicate that enemy missiles are en route to the United States, the president would have to consider launching ICBMs before the enemy missiles could destroy them. Once they are launched, they cannot be recalled. The president would have less than 30 minutes to make that terrible decision.”

The U.S. should dismantle its entire ICBM force. Former ICBM launch officer Bruce Blair and Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: “By scrapping the vulnerable land-based missile force, any need for launching on warning disappears.”

In July, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a letter signed by more than 700 scientists. They not only called for cancellation of the Sentinel program for a new version of ICBMs, they also called for getting rid of the entire land-based leg of the triad.

Meanwhile, the current dispute in Congress about ICBMs has focused on whether it would be cheaper to build the cost-overrunning Sentinel system or upgrade the existing Minuteman III missiles. But either way, the matches keep being lit for a global holocaust.

During his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Martin Luther King Jr. declared: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.”

I want to close with some words from Daniel Ellsberg’s book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner,” summing up the preparations for nuclear war. He wrote:

No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral, or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about, and how and why it has persisted for over half a century is a chronicle of human madness. Whether Americans, Russians and other humans can rise to the challenge of reversing these policies and eliminating the danger of near-term extinction caused by their own inventions and proclivities remains to be seen. I choose to join with others in acting as if that is still possible.

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Sunday, (10/06/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Supreme Court steps into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste in rural Texas and New Mexico

KRWG

The justices said Friday they will review an appellate ruling that found the Nuclear Regulatory Commission overstepped its authority in granting a …

Could Ohio go nuclear? Both its nuclear and coal plants could be part of a nuclear renaissance

Cleveland.com

Federal government says 8 Ohio coal plants are good sites for new nuclear power reactors.

‘Chernobyl Roulette’ Review: Reckless Nuclear Endangerment – WSJ

The Wall Street Journal

The Russian occupiers showed little concern either about the hazards of the environment or the health of their soldiers.

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Kazakhstan votes on whether to build first nuclear plant | Reuters

Reuters

Kazakhstan votes in a referendum on Sunday on whether to build its first nuclear power plant, an idea promoted by President Kassym-Jomart …

DOE ~ US Needs to Plans 3X Expansion of Nuclear by 2050 | Energy Central

Energy Central

In 2022, utilities were shutting down nuclear reactors; in 2024, they are extending reactor operations to 80 years, planning to uprate capacity, and …

World’s top uranium miner votes on returning to nuclear power – MINING.COM

Mining.com

Voters in Kazakhstan will decide on Sunday whether to allow construction of a nuclear power plant amid worries over the environmental impact.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Japan to ink LNG deal with Italy for emergencies amid supply concerns – Kyodo News

Kyodo News

Japan increased LNG imports to run more thermal plants in the absence of nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. LNG prices …

Nuclear War

NEWS

“Escalation dominance” and the new nuclear threat: We face more than 1000 Holocausts

Salon.com

Nuclear arsenals are vastly more powerful today than during the Cold War — and the risk of apocalypse keeps growing.

Oct. 7 and the Iranian Nuclear Threat – WSJ

The Wall Street Journal

Hamas’s barbaric attack hardened Israeli attitudes, and the world has yet to appreciate the stakes.

To build a nuclear bomb, Iran may need more than weeks post-Hezbollah fallout

The Economic Times

Israel-Iran War: Rising Tensions Following Hezbollah and Hamas Losses. The missile attack follows a series of developments in the region, including …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

“Escalation dominance” and the new nuclear threat: We face more than 1000 Holocausts

Salon.com

“Escalation dominance” and the new nuclear threat: We face more than 1,000 Holocausts … Nuclear War Planner,” summing up the preparations for nuclear …

Oct. 7 and the Iranian Nuclear Threat – WSJ

The Wall Street Journal

… nuclear–threat-mideast-israel-war-2ff532ce. Opinion · Commentary. Follow … Among myriad Iranian threats of extinguishing the “Israeli tumor …

Russia Issues Nuclear Threat to US – MSN

MSN

Russia Issues Nuclear Threat to US … Russia “will not hesitate” to resume nuclear weapons testing if similar steps are taken by the United States, ..

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Streams, springs, and volcanic lakes for volcano monitoring | U.S. Geological Survey

USGS.gov

Lakes are present at level 4 volcanoes, including Crater Lake and Newberry Volcano in Oregon; Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming; Long Valley Caldera, …

ERUPTION AT 20241005/0332Z FL080 EXTD SW REPORTED OBS VA DTG: 05/0340Z

Volcano Discovery

… caldera between 01:10 AM and 04:37 PM yesterday. … Read … List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano.

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 05, 2024

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LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Saturday, (10/05/2024)

The presidential election is just a month away. . . and there are millions of people out there who want Donald J. Trump to be the next president of the United States? Here are 3 quotes from the following “Audacy” article that ought to change your mind . . .

“I hated to build the nuclear, but I got to know first hand the power of that stuff,” Trump said Friday. “And I’ll tell you what, we have to be totally prepared, we have to be absolutely prepared.” (llaw ~ Huh!? Trump never built anything nuclear, so what does he mean and why does he refer to “nuclear” anything as stuff?)

“Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later,’” said former President Donald Trump Friday regarding President Joe Biden’s recent statements on conflict between Israel and Iran. (llaw~ Just shoot from the hip and ask questions later? I realized he is not talking about “hitting” Iran’s nuclear facilities with our nuclear weapons, but Trump got us into this mess during his previous presidency. OMG! )

“That’s the stuff you want to hit, right?” said Trump, the current GOP nominee for president. “I said: ‘I think he’s got that one wrong, isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?’” (llaw~ I am at a loss for words. He must have got this idea from Putin and Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.)

Please read the rest of this short article and consider what nothing more than what evidently believes we should do and consider just that opening salvo could lead to World War III. ~llaw

Trump says Israel should ‘hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later’

By Lauren Barry

5 hours ago

“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been: ‘Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later,’” said former President Donald Trump Friday regarding President Joe Biden’s recent statements on conflict between Israel and Iran.

This Wednesday, Biden said he would not support Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, according to a Reuters report.

“That’s the stuff you want to hit, right?” said Trump, the current GOP nominee for president. “I said: ‘I think he’s got that one wrong, isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?’”

As we reach the first anniversary of a large-scale terrorist attack by the Palestinian group Hamas that killed 1,200 people in Israel, tensions in the Middle East are increasing. War still rages in Gaza, where Israel has been criticized for the loss of civilian life as it works to defeat Hamas.

After months fighting Hezbollah, Israel also recently conducted attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Lebanese terrorist group exploded. These explosions caused several deaths, including the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

“Hezbollah, since its establishment, has defined itself in opposition to Israel. Its main objectives have been to drive Israel out of Lebanon and, ultimately, to destroy the state of Israel,” explained the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a Friday analysis of the current Middle East conflict.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are financed and supported by Iran. This Tuesday, Iran itself fired 180 missiles at Israel, though that attack has been described as “ineffective.” Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran would pay for the attack, and Israel conducted new airstrikes on Lebanon Saturday, CNN reported.

According to an Al Jazeera report citing Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 41,788 people, including nearly 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. More than 96,794 people have been injured and more than 10,000 were missing as of Oct. 3. In Lebanon, the death toll is also rising.

So, what do nuclear weapons have to do with all of this?

Well, Israel is believed to have around 90 nuclear weapons, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. That means it is the only nation in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal. However, Iran also has a nuclear program focused on providing nuclear energy, and ICAN said its recent nuclear activities indicate it might be able to develop a nuclear weapon.

“Several Israeli politicians from the governing coalition, including a junior cabinet minister, have talked about using nuclear weapons in the current war in Gaza,” said ICAN this April. “Although these comments have been disowned by the Israeli Prime Minister, these threats are dangerous and irresponsible, as they further inflame tensions, and are banned under the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

ICAN noted that Israel’s allies – including the U.S., as well as Britain and France – have urged the country not to escalate conflict with Iran.

According to ICAN, today’s nuclear weapons are more powerful than the bombs that killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan, and 74,000 people in Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II. Detonation of a single nuclear weapon in a populated area is expected to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and cause radioactive fallout that would contaminate large areas, possibly including the country that used the weapon (especially in the Middle East, where targets are close). Ionizing radiation from nuclear weapons can cause death or severe illness and can have long-term health consequences, including cancer and genetic damage that can be passed down to future generations.

“They do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants and their use would kill, injure and maim civilians in huge numbers,” said ICAN of nuclear weapons. “This means their use would almost certainly constitute a war crime under the existing laws of war.”

During his Friday appearance in Fayetteville, N.C., Trump also noted that: “It’s the biggest risk we have – nuclear weapons, the power of nuclear weapons.”

Globally, the risk of nuclear war is higher than it’s been since the Cold War, said ICAN. Apart from war in the Middle East, tension on the Korean Peninsula and the Russian invasion of Ukraine pose nuclear war threats. Just last month, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin hinted at possible nuclear war.

“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” he said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2024, the U.S. and other allies from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been supporting Ukraine with military aid and funding. Putin’s comments came as the U.S. and U.K. discussed the possibility of allowing Ukraine to use Western missiles in Russia.

Compared to Israel’s 90 estimated nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear powers and each has more than 5,000 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, though Russia has slightly more, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Around five years ago, a simulation by researchers at Princeton’s Science and Global Security program estimated that there would be 91.5 million immediate casualties, including 34.1 million fatalities, if the U.S. and Russia went to war with their nuclear weapons.

“I hated to build the nuclear, but I got to know first hand the power of that stuff,” Trump said Friday. “And I’ll tell you what, we have to be totally prepared, we have to be absolutely prepared.”

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There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Saturday, (10/05/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities? Biden, GOP disagree – The Hill

The Hill

President Biden opposes an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as debate rages in Washington, but GOP lawmakers are pushing to permit such …

Israel has given no assurances it won’t target Iran’s nuclear facilities, top State Department … – CNN

CNN

Israel has not given assurances to the Biden administration that targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities is off the table in retaliation for the …

With Lebanese Hezbollah in tatters, Iran may dash for the bomb – Clingendael Institute

Clingendael Institute

In September 2022, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini marked a major turning point for Iran. The event sparked nationwide protests that rapidly evolved …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Big Tech has cozied up to nuclear energy – The Verge

The Verge

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, in search of carbon pollution-free electricity for data centers, are looking to nuclear energy.

More damage than expected found at Palisades nuclear plant – The Register

The Register

Analysis A shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant is going to need a lot of work to get back online, according to atomic watchdogs.

Nuclear power plant waste facilities closing – Connecticut Inside Investigator

Connecticut Inside Investigator

Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut will close three waste storage facilities at its power station in Connecticut.

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Supreme Court rejects emergency applications, clearing the way for important public health …

Clean Air Task Force

Advanced Nuclear · Carbon Capture · Energy Access … power plants and requires more robust monitoring to ensure compliance. … In a divided 5-4 vote, …

Energoatom reported how many nuclear power plant units are under repair – all the latest news today

112

It was previously reported that Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid could lead to emergencies at one of the three operating nuclear power plants, …

World’s Top Uranium Miner Votes on Returning to Nuclear Power – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

… power deficit stemming in part from emergency shutdowns at old plants and a jump in energy intensive crypto mining. The shortfall has led to …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Russia Issues Nuclear Threat to US – Newsweek

Newsweek

Russia Issues Nuclear Threat to US · US Nuclear Attack Submarine Reaches Allied Base Near China · US Ally Accuses Russian Oligarch of $15 Million …

Flashpoints revealed: Potential U.S.-Russia nuclear conflict zones – MSN

MSN

Flashpoints revealed: Potential U.S.-Russia nuclear conflict zones. Story by Zeleb.es. • 2mo. 1 / 24. A crucial tool and new global norm. Nuclear …

Israel has given no assurances it won’t target Iran’s nuclear facilities, top State Department … – CNN

CNN

US officials have voiced support for Israel responding to Iran’s missile attack earlier this week, with multiple officials publicly saying there must …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Russia Issues Nuclear Threat to US – Newsweek

Newsweek

The remarks came against the backdrop of renewed nuclear threats from … US Nuclear Attack Submarine Reaches Allied Base Near China · US Ally …

Trump says Israel should ‘hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later’ – Audacy

Audacy

Apart from war in the Middle East, tension on the Korean Peninsula and the Russian invasion of Ukraine pose nuclear war threats. Just last month, …

Facing military setbacks, Tehran may look to the bomb, analysts fear – Washington Post

Washington Post

… threats. “If the axis of resistance isn’t working then the only … attack on their nuclear facilities.” Advertisement. Story continues below …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

A history of Yellowstone finds centuries of conflict behind the natural beauty – MSN

MSN

Wilson, a professor at Gettysburg College, faces that daunting task in describing the cataclysm that created the caldera in which Yellowstone National …

A history of Yellowstone finds centuries of conflict behind the natural beauty – Yahoo

Yahoo

… caldera in which Yellowstone National Park sits. The first volcanic eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago and “released about 600 cubic miles of …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 04, 2024

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Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia apparently attacked by Ukraine on August 6th, 2024

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Friday, (10/04/2024)

So it seems that this oddly short blurb is a bit of politicized gamesmanship between what is going on at the Russian Kursk power plant, reportedly attacked by Ukraine’s military on August 6th, has taken a threatening swing as Russia’s continued attacks goes on in Ukraine for 2+ years of serious damage to their Russian occupied and operated Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine.

It seems to be getting more and more difficult to know and understand how and why this continues to happen, but there is no question it is the beginning of a new kind of nuclear war using nuclear power plants rather than nuclear bomb — at least for now . . . ~llaw

Kremlin accuses Ukraine of ‘playing with fire’ after reported attack near Kursk nuclear plant

By Reuters

October 4, 20242:38 AM PDT Updated 12 hours ago

MOSCOW, Oct 4 (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Friday accused Ukrainian authorities of playing with fire, a day after Russian forces said they had intercepted a Ukrainian drone near the Kursk nuclear plant and some news outlets reported a fire had broken out several miles away.

“Kyiv is continuing to play with fire, and we will naturally bring this to the attention of the IAEA’s representatives,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhyi on Thursday denied that Ukraine had fired weapons at or near the plant.

Ukrainian forces entered the Kursk region in a surprise cross-border incursion on Aug. 6 and remain there even as the Russian military tries to eject them.

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Fridday, (10/04/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

FRI: Oil-and-gas giant gives big to dark money group, + More – KUNM

KUNM

Fiesta veterans explain it’s all about generating lift by heating the air inside the envelope to temperatures greater than what’s on the outside. ” …

Big tech’s nuclear option – The Northern Miner

The Northern Miner

Silicon Valley CEOs can get obsessed with some pretty weird things — colonizing Mars, ultra-ascetic diets, wearing the same outfit every single …

Ukraine kills nuclear plant’s pro-Russian security chief with car bomb – POLITICO.eu

POLITICO.eu

… nuclear watchdog in August to issue a warning about a nuclear disaster. … All Opinion · Beyond the Bubble · Club Med · Declassified · From Across the …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Employee at Russian-controlled nuclear plant killed by Ukraine in car bomb attack | Reuters

Reuters

An employee at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine was killed on Friday morning in a car bomb attack that …

Kremlin accuses Ukraine of ‘playing with fire’ after reported attack near Kursk nuclear plant

Reuters

Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) outside Kurchatov. A view shows the … Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Ukrainian Foreign …

Why This Company Has Big Plans to Restart a Nuclear Reactor–and Make History

Inc. Magazine

Holtec International, a Florida-based nuclear waste management company, is focusing on rebooting a Michigan plant and even introducing small …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Suffolk radiation emergency evacuation plans updated to include potential Sizewell C incidents

New Civil Engineer

Suffolk is home to a range of nuclear activities, covering both civil nuclear energy generation and nuclear weapons deployment. Sizewell A is …

Siberian Region Declares ‘High Alert’ Over Electricity Shortages – The Moscow Times

The Moscow Times

… power cuts and check the preparedness of local emergency … The head of security at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant …

Sailor aboard USS Truman dies in medical emergency during Atlantic transit

Stars and Stripes

He completed recruit training in February 2019 and went on to attend the Nuclear Field A School and Nuclear Power Training Unit in Charleston, S.C..

Nuclear War

NEWS

Media Urge Expansion of Ukraine War—Nuclear Risk Be Damned – FAIR.org

FAIR.org

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that “any nation’s conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a …

How Serious a Threat Is Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine? – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Full Coverage

Are Putin’s ‘Irresponsible’ Nuclear Threats Credible? – Newsweek

Newsweek

Vladimir Putin’s ambiguous signaling about his atomic intentions so far in the Ukraine war took a more formal turn when he announced a loosening …

Kremlin accuses Ukraine of ‘playing with fire’ after reported attack near Kursk nuclear plant

Reuters

Kremlin accuses Ukraine of ‘playing with fire’ after reported attack near Kursk nuclear plant. By Reuters. October 4, 20242:38 AM PDTUpdated 4 hours …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Are Putin’s ‘Irresponsible’ Nuclear Threats Credible? – Newsweek

Newsweek

Russia-Ukraine War · Vladimir Putin · Nuclear weapons · Kremlin · NATO · Ukraine. Are Putin’s ‘Irresponsible’ Nuclear Threats Credible? Published Oct …

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens to destroy the South with nuclear weapons if provoked

CNN

… threats during a parade for Armed Forces Day. North and South Korea have been cut off from each other since the end of the Korean War in 1953 …

NATO secretary general says no impending threat of nuclear weapons by Russia

ExchangeMonitor

“We should just acknowledge the fact that clearly, there is no imminent threat of nuclear weapons being used,” Rutte said at the press conference 

IAEA Weekly News

4 October 2024

Read the top news and updates published on IAEA.org this week.

4 October 2024

Photo Highlights from the IAEA’s 68th General Conference

The 68th IAEA General Conference photo highlights are now available. Read more →

3 October 2024

IAEA Helps Burundi Ensure Food Security with Healthy Cattle

By introducing superior breeds of livestock and harnessing cutting-edge techniques to tackle animal diseases, the IAEA is helping Burundi to ensure food security. Read more →

2 October 2024

Celebrating 60 Years of the Unique FAO and IAEA Partnership

This October, the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture is celebrating a remarkable milestone — its 60th anniversary. Read more →

1 October 2024

Woman of Steel: The Earthquake Engineer Building a More Resilient Future

Zeynep Gulerce’s career has been shaped by earthquakes. She was a young civil-engineer-in-training in Türkiye when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of the country. Read more →

30 September 2024

Optimized Radiotherapy Approach Could Extend Treatment to 2.2 Million More Cancer Patients, IAEA Co-authored Report Finds

Implementing hypofractionation – fewer but higher doses of radiation per daily treatment session over a shorter time frame – compared with conventional radiotherapy in prostate and breast cancer could provide radiotherapy for an additional 2.2 million patients globally, according to a Lancet Oncology Commission led by the IAEA. Read more →

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 03, 2024

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Another view of Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. (See image credits in the article)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Thursday, (10/03/2024)

This is the follow-up related article to my blog post from yesterday, which was also available on yesterday’s NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS section on this daily blog. If you read yesterday’s post, this article will give you a better understanding of this story, also from “Scientific American”.

The original version, from “Nature”, of the article was also posted here on October 1st. Tomorrow we will get our posts back in order so far as timely dates are concerned. Hopefully, though, we should have a better understanding of AI and its relationship to its consumption of electricity in general and to nuclear power plants specifically . ~llaw

October 2, 2024

5 min read

Power-Thirsty AI Turns to Mothballed Nuclear Plants. Is That Safe?

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island to power AI, nuclear specialists weigh in on the unprecedented process

By Michael Greshko & Nature magazine

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of its reactors occurred in 1979.

The move, which symbolizes technology giants’ need to power their growing artificial-intelligence (AI) efforts, raises questions over how shuttered nuclear plants can be restarted safely — not least because Three Mile Island isn’t the only plant being brought out of retirement.

Palisades Nuclear Plant, an 805-megawatt facility in Covert, Michigan, was shut down in May 2022. But the energy company that owns it, Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida, plans to reopen it. This reversal in the facility’s fortunes has been bolstered by a US$1.5-billion conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DoE), which sees nuclear plants — a source of low-carbon electricity — as a way of helping the country to meet its ambitious climate goals. The Palisades plant is on track to reopen in late 2025.

“It’s the first time something like this has been attempted, that we’re aware of, worldwide,” says Jason Kozal, director of the reactor safety division at a regional office of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Naperville, Illinois, and the co-chair of a regulatory panel overseeing the restart of Palisades.

Here, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about what it will take to restart these plants and whether more are on the way as the world’s demand for AI grows.

A change in fortunes

Since 2012, more than a dozen nuclear plants have been shut down in the United States, in some cases as a result of unfavourable economics. Less cost-effective plants — such as those with only a single working reactor — struggled to remain profitable in states with deregulated electricity markets and widely varying prices. Three Mile Island, owned by the utility company Constellation Energy in Baltimore, Maryland, is a prime example. Today, 54 US plants remain in operation, running a total of 94 reactors.

Nuclear energy, which accounts for about 9% of the world’s electricity, has seen some resurgence internationally, but is also competing with other energy sources, including renewables. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan suspended operations at all of its 48 remaining nuclear plants, but these are gradually being brought back online, in part to cut dependence on gas imports. By contrast, Germany announced a phase-out of its nuclear plants in 2011, and shut down its last three in 2023.

In the United States, nuclear energy’s fortunes might be turning as technology companies race to build enormous, energy-gobbling data centres to support their AI systems and other applications while somehow fulfilling their climate pledges. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.

“It’s further confirmation of the value of nuclear, and, if the deal is right — if the price is right — then it makes business sense, as well,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

A new start

This isn’t the first time that the United States has brought a powered-down reactor back online. In 1985, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility company, took the reactors at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Athens, Alabama, offline. After years of refurbishment, they were brought back online, with the final reactor restarted in 2007.

The cases of Palisades and Three Mile Island are different, however. When those plants closed, their then-owners made legal statements that the facilities would be shut down, even though their operating licenses were still active. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center under the proposed restart, shut down its single remaining functional reactor in 2019.

Because the plants were slated for shutdown and safety checks were therefore stopped, regulators and companies must now navigate a complex licensing, oversight and environmental-assessment process to reverse the plants’ decommissioning.

Safety checks will be needed to ensure, among other things, that the plants can operate securely once uranium fuel rods have been replaced in their reactors. When these plants were decommissioned, their radioactive fuel was removed and stored, so the facilities no longer needed to adhere to many exacting technical specifications, says Jamie Pelton, also a co-chair of the Palisades restart panel, and a deputy director at the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland.

It will be no small feat to reinstate those safety regulations: to meet the standards, infrastructure will need to be inspected carefully. According to Buongiorno, any metallic components in the plants that have corroded since the shutdowns, including wires and cables used in instrumentation and controls, will need to be replaced.

The plants’ turbine generators, which make electricity from the steam produced as the plants’ fuel rods heat up water, will also get a close look. After sitting dormant for years, a turbine could develop defects within its shaft or corrosion along its blades that would require refurbishment. In the case of Palisades, the NRC announced on 18 September that the plant’s steam generators would need further testing and repair, following inspections conducted by Holtec.

Nuclear’s prospects

As the plants near their restart dates, their operators will also have to contend with a challenge faced by even fully operational plants: the need to source fresh nuclear fuel. US nuclear utility companies have long counted on the international market to buy much of the necessary raw yellowcake uranium and the services that separate and enrich uranium-235, the isotope used in nuclear reactors’ fuel rods. Russia has been a major international supplier of these services, even after the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, because US and European sanctions have not targeted nuclear fuel. But to minimize its reliance on Russia, the United States is building up its own supply chain, with the DoE offering $3.4 billion to buy domestically enriched uranium.

There probably won’t be too many other restarts of mothballed nuclear plants in the United States, however, even as demand for low-carbon electricity grows. Not every US plant that has been shut down is necessarily in good enough condition to be easily refurbished — and the idea of reopening some of those would meet with too much resistance. As an example, Buongiorno points to New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which was closed in 2021. The plant’s proximity to New York City had long provoked criticism from nuclear-safety advocates.

But that doesn’t mean that all of these sites will remain unused. One option is to build advanced reactors — including large reactors with upgraded safety features and small modular reactors with innovative designs — on sites where old nuclear plants once stood, to take advantage of existing transmission lines and infrastructure. “We might see interest in the US in building more of these large reactors, whether that’s fuelled by data centres or some other applications,” Buongiorno adds. “Utilities and customers are exploring this at the moment.”

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on September 30, 2024.

Michael Greshko is a freelance science journalist based in Washington, D.C., and a former staff science writer at National Geographic. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Science, Atlas Obscura, MIT Technology Review and elsewhere. Follow Greshko on social media here.

More by Michael Greshko

Curated by Our Editors

• The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of ElectricityLauren Leffer
• What Is the Future of Fusion Energy?Philip Ball
• Safer Nuclear Reactors Are on the WayMark Fischetti
• Radioactive Robot: The Machines That Cleaned Up Three Mile IslandDaniel Lovering

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are twoYellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Thursday, (10/03/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Israel’s options as it wages wars on multiple fronts | 90.5 WESA

90.5 WESA

All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:30 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … And third, Israel could target Iran’s nuclear facilities, something …

Reflections on Nuclear War and Immigration – The Future of Freedom Foundation

The Future of Freedom Foundation

… about nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Everything worked out, they say, and so the fears of all-out nuclear war between the …

Israel’s options as it wages wars on multiple fronts – Public Radio Tulsa

Public Radio Tulsa

Next Up: 4:00 PM All Things Considered. 0:00. 0:00. Fresh Air. KWGS Public … And third, Israel could target Iran’s nuclear facilities, something …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Nuclear Power Is Finally Gaining Favor—But It Won’t Replace Fossil Fuels Anytime Soon

YouTube

Steve Forbes explains why nuclear power is finally being embraced by industry and even some major governments as an alternative to traditional …

Nuclear Power Is Gaining Favor—But It Won’t Replace Fossil Fuels Anytime Soon – Forbes

Forbes

Microsoft’s recent announcement that it has inked a 20-year deal to buy power from a retired nuclear reactor at the notorious Three Mile Island …

Corrosion exceeds estimates at Michigan nuclear plant US wants to restart, regulator says

Reuters

Holtec, the company wanting to reopen the Palisades nuclear reactor in Michigan, found corrosion cracking in steam generators “far exceeded” …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Stonington drill prepares for nuclear emergency – theday.com

theday.com

Millstone houses two nuclear reactors. The first went into service in 1975 and the second in 1986. Dominion Energy purchased the plant in 2000.

The Russian army struck energy facilities in several regions: what is the aftermath? – ТСН

ТСН

It is noted that from 10:15 a.m., emergency power outages … Energy workers have restored the power line to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant …

Energy workers restored the power line to ZNPP – all the latest news today – 112.ua

112

… power transmission line that supplies power to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. … emergency situations. Let us remind …

Nuclear War

NEWS

Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would He? – The New York Times

The New York Times

On Sept. 13, he said that if NATO countries enable Ukraine to use long-range “precision weapons” to hit targets inside Russia, they would be “at war …

Europe Shrugs Off Russia’s Latest Nuclear Threats – Time

Time

The saber rattling from Russia has come hard and fast in recent days, but European leaders barely seemed to flinch.

Biden says Israel shouldn’t strike Iranian nuclear sites, but US officials recognize it has a … – CNN

CNN

President Joe Biden is counseling Israel to take a proportional response to this week’s barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles, voicing opposition …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

Europe Shrugs Off Russia’s Latest Nuclear Threats – Time

Time

Through its escalating threats of nuclear war, Russia has tried to stop Western countries from supporting Ukraine, particularly when it comes to …Flag as irrnt

How Serious a Threat Is Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine?

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

How Serious a Threat Is Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine? … Russia continued to threaten the West with a high price for intervention in the war …

Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would He? – The New York Times

The New York Times

He said Russia would be prepared to use a nuclear weapon in response to an attack with conventional weapons that creates a “critical threat to our ..

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Biscuit Basin Hydrothermal Explosion Update (Yellowstone Monthly Update — October 2024)

YouTube

… yellowstone/caldera-chronicles?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=usgs-main&utm_campaign=nh-volcanoes-fy25 Visit Yellowstone Volcano Observatory …

Taal Volcano (Luzon Island, Philippines): Five Minor Phreatic Bursts Yesterday

Volcano Discovery

… caldera between 01:10 AM and 04:37 PM yesterday. The … List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano.

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 02, 2024

Share

An AI bank of electronic equipment. (See the article for photo credits.)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Wednesday, (10/02/2024)

The following article is just about a year old, discovered while considering another current AI article from Scientific American (that I may post here tomorrow), but it is an important discussion in current news concerning the relatively new relationship between the incredibly spooky AI (Artificial Intelligence) world and the coming demand for nuclear energy by AI servers and their developers and operational users. The Microsoft plan to seek the recommission of the Three Mile Island undamaged unit (TMI 1) that has been shut down since 1979 is a hint of what might be a clue to the electrical power required to manage the future of of AI.

Most of us know very little about AI today, and this article recognizes that issue, and relates the the then future problem to a right-around-the-corner from a year ago to a huge issue that should be alarming us right about now relative to the entire issue of AI, including how it affects our planet Earth’s man-made environmental issues, which are immense. ~llaw

October 13, 2023

The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of Electricity

Powering artificial intelligence models takes a lot of energy. A new analysis demonstrates just how big the problem could become

By Lauren Leffer

Energy

Every online interaction relies on a scaffolding of information stored in remote servers—and those machines, stacked together in data centers worldwide, require a lot of energy. Around the globe, data centers currently account for about 1 to 1.5 percent of global electricity use, according to the International Energy Agency. And the world’s still-exploding boom in artificial intelligence could drive that number up a lot—and fast.

Researchers have been raising general alarms about AI’s hefty energy requirements over the past few months. But a peer-reviewed analysis published this week in Joule is one of the first to quantify the demand that is quickly materializing. A continuation of the current trends in AI capacity and adoption are set to lead to NVIDIA shipping 1.5 million AI server units per year by 2027. These 1.5 million servers, running at full capacity, would consume at least 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually—more than what many small countries use in a year, according to the new assessment.

The analysis was conducted by Alex de Vries, a data scientist at the central bank of the Netherlands and a Ph.D. candidate at Vrije University Amsterdam, where he studies the energy costs of emerging technologies. Earlier de Vries gained prominence for sounding the alarm on the enormous energy costs of cryptocurrency mining and transactions. Now he has turned his attention to the latest tech fad. Scientific American spoke with him about AI’s shocking appetite for electricity.

[An edited and condensed transcript of the interview follows.]

Why do you think it’s important to examine the energy consumption of artificial intelligence?

Because AI is energy-intensive. I put one example of this in my research article: I highlighted that if you were to fully turn Google’s search engine into something like ChatGPT, and everyone used it that way—so you would have nine billion chatbot interactions instead of nine billion regular searches per day—then the energy use of Google would spike. Google would need as much power as Ireland just to run its search engine.

Now, it’s not going to happen like that because Google would also have to invest $100 billion in hardware to make that possible. And even if [the company] had the money to invest, the supply chain couldn’t deliver all those servers right away. But I still think it’s useful to illustrate that if you’re going to be using generative AI in applications [such as a search engine], that has the potential to make every online interaction much more resource-heavy.

I think it’s healthy to at least include sustainability when we talk about the risk of AI. When we talk about the potential risk of errors, the unknowns of the black box, or AI discrimination bias, we should be including sustainability as a risk factor as well. I hope that my article will at least encourage the thought process in that direction. If we’re going to be using AI, is it going to help? Can we do it in a responsible way? Do we really need to be using this technology in the first place? What is it that an end user wants and needs, and how do we best help them? If AI is part of that solution, okay, go ahead. But if it’s not, then don’t put it in.

What parts of AI’s processes are using all that energy?

You generally have two big phases when it comes to AI. One is a training phase, which is where you’re setting up and getting the model to teach itself how to behave. And then you have an inference phase, where you just put the model into a live operation and start feeding it prompts so it can produce original responses. Both phases are very energy-intensive, and we don’t really know what the energy ratio there is. Historically, with Google, the balance was 60 percent inference, 40 percent training. But then with ChatGPT that kind of broke down—because training ChatGPT took comparatively very little energy consumption, compared with applying the model.

It’s dependent on a lot of factors, such as how much data are included in these models. I mean, these large language models that ChatGPT is powered by are notorious for using huge data sets and having billions of parameters. And of course, making these models larger is a factor that contributes to them just needing more power—but it is also how companies make their models more robust.

What are some of the other variables to consider when thinking about AI energy usage?

Cooling is not included in my article, but if there were any data to go on, it would have been. A big unknown is where those servers are going to end up. That matters a whole lot, because if they’re at Google, then the additional cooling energy use is going to be somewhere in the range of a 10 percent increase. But global data centers, on average, will add 50 percent to the energy cost just to keep the machines cool. There are data centers that perform even worse than that.

What type of hardware you’re using also matters. The latest servers are more efficient than older ones. What you’re going to be using the AI technology for matters, too. The more complicated a request, and the longer the servers are working to fulfill it, the more power is consumed.

In your assessment, you outline a few different energy-use scenarios from worst- to best-case. Which is the most likely?

In the worst-case scenario, if we decide we’re going to do everything on AI, then every data center is going to experience effectively a 10-fold increase in energy consumption. That would be a massive explosion in global electricity consumption because data centers, not including cryptocurrency mining, are already responsible for consuming about 1 percent of global electricity. Now, again, that’s not going to happen—that’s not realistic at all. It’s a useful example to illustrate that AI is very energy-intensive.

On the opposite end, you have this idea of no growth—zero. You have people saying that the growth in demand will be completely offset by improving efficiency, but that’s a very optimistic take that doesn’t include what we understand about demand and efficiency. Every time a major new technology makes a process more efficient, it actually leads to more people demanding whatever is being produced. Efficiency boosts demand, so boosting efficiency is not really saving energy in the end.

What do I think is the most likely path going forward? I think the answer is that there’s going to be a growth in AI-related electricity consumption. At least initially, it’s going to be somewhat slow. But there’s the possibility that it accelerates in a couple of years as server production increases. Knowing this gives us some time to think about what we’re doing.

What additional research or other steps might be needed?

We need a higher quality of data. We need to know where these servers are going. We need to know the source of the energy itself. Carbon emissions are the real numbers that we care about when it comes to environmental impact. Energy demand is one thing, but is it coming from renewables? Is it coming from fossil fuels?

Maybe regulators should start requiring energy use disclosures from AI developers because there’s just very little information to go on. It was really hard to do this analysis—anyone who is trying to work on AI at the moment is facing the same challenges, where information is limited. I think it would help if there was more transparency. And if that transparency doesn’t come naturally, which it hasn’t so far, then we should think about giving it a little bit of a push.

Lauren Leffer is a contributing writer and former tech reporting fellow at Scientific American. She covers many subjects, including artificial intelligence, climate and weird biology, because she’s curious to a fault. Follow her on X @lauren_leffer and on Bluesky @laurenleffer.bsky.social

Curated by Our Editors

• A Computer Scientist Breaks Down Generative AI’s Hefty Carbon FootprintKate Saenko & The Conversation US
• Cryptocurrencies and NFTs Are a Buyer Beware MarketThe Editors
• Policy Makers Can Harness Digital Innovations to Reduce Carbon EmissionsVarun Sivaram & Madison Freeman
• Elon Musk Owes His Success to Coming in Second PlaceDaniel Vergano

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Wednesday, (10/02/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book | CUNY Graduate Center

CUNY Graduate Center

… nuclear power, heck, even solar power,” said Liu, winner of … Charles Liu is the host of The LIUniverse podcast, a podcast covering all things …

A Roundtable Discussion on Logistics and Transportation – Greenville Business Magazine

Greenville Business Magazine

It’s all about continuous improvement, and I fight it every day. … If it’s beyond a reasonable settlement for restitution, then that is nuclear, and …

From the city to the suburbs, swing state voters in Wisconsin share election opinions – KSUT

KSUT

… All Things Considered, NPR’s award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Power-Thirsty AI Turns to Mothballed Nuclear Plants. Is That Safe? | Scientific American

Scientific American

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island to power AI, nuclear specialists weigh in on the unprecedented process.

New Nuclear’s Pivotal Moment | Breakthrough Energy

Breakthrough Energy

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has a long history of licensing safe nuclear reactors. They are the gold standard of the world’s nuclear …

First nuclear plant recommissioned in US history as part of $2.8bn funding – Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance

US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm commented: “Nuclear power is America’s largest source of carbon-free of electricity, supporting hundreds of …

Nuclear War

NEWS

The West is Sleepwalking into Nuclear War – The European Conservative

The European Conservative

The West is Sleepwalking into Nuclear War. SERGEY ILYIN / POOL / AFP. Moscow’s tradition of acting on its threats should inspire caution in Western …

Is Putin Bluffing? Russia Keeps Making Nuclear War Threat over Ukraine

The National Interest

As the war in Ukraine nears its 1000th day, Russian officials have escalated nuclear threats against the U.S., Ukraine, and the West.

How will Israel retaliate against Iran’s missile attack? – NBC News

NBC News

… war? Could Israel seek to target Iran’s oil facilities and even … The nuclear issue has gained increasing salience in recent years. Iran …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

How seriously should we take Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation? – The Hill

The Hill

How seriously should we take Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation? by … nuclear capability at the most precarious moment of the Yom Kippur War.

Iran Is Inching Toward a Nuclear Weapons Breakout: What Does This Mean for the United States?

The Heritage Foundation

… threat of nuclear war to drive the United States out of Asia.60 … North Korea’s seemingly endless series of nuclear threats against the United …

Is Putin Bluffing? Russia Keeps Making Nuclear War Threat over Ukraine

The National Interest

… nuclear threats against the U.S., Ukraine, and the West … And this isn’t the first time Putin or the Kremlin has threatened nuclear war against the 

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Mag. 2.8 quake – South Pacific Ocean, 29 km east of Hicks Bay, Gisborne, New Zealand, on …

Volcano Discovery

Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes · Latest earthquakes under Yellowstone volcano … caldera, and Ijen in East Java. Past Quakes · Past Quakes.

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Oct 01, 2024

1

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Three Mile Island nuclear power plant on March 28, 1979, the day of its partial meltdown (See article for photo credits)

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Tuesday, (10/01/2024)

I posted this refreshing down-to-earth article as our daily review story, most of which are negative of course, because of its honesty and straightforward approach to the ‘new nuclear’ problem at hand: that of refurbishing and restarting nuclear power plants that have been shut down in the past for old age, nuclear accidents, and various other reasons. My opinion, naturally, is that such projects are no doubt the most terrible idea there is, next to building more of them. (Which should be outlawed).

As for the straightforwardness and honesty of the story, “Nature” and the author, Michael Greshko, are careful enough to use use the right language, unbiased and intelligent, For instance they refer to nuclear power plant emissions as “low carbon”, rather than “clean” or “carbon free”, which to me is a breath of fresh air.

There are other points that are gently inferred that will no doubt become a huge factor in the near future: for instance the availability and cost of U3O8 or “yellow cake” refined to uranium 235, and its varied plant requirements for the nuclear fuel used in nuclear reactors, Uranium production is a complicated version of ‘fossil fuels’; it is mined, milled, and refined much like like most other depletable (non-renewable) fuels and is, without doubt, questionable about its ultimate cost and from where it will come from on an international basis. Russia has a corner on both the nuclear plant-construction and fuel markets, for instance, and Russia is not a friend of the United States. No one seems to understand the dynamics of the uranium/nuclear economics as the very, very, complicated enterprise it actually is.

Continuing on along this ‘nuclear-paved’ path ahead will not be easy, and will, for sure, be extremely dangerous to most all life on planet Earth, including you and me. ~llaw

Nuclear power for AI: what it will take to reopen Three Mile Island safely

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at the notorious power station, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about the unprecedented process.

• By
• Michael Greshko

Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of its reactors occurred in 1979.

Nuclear energy, ten years after Fukushima

The move, which symbolizes technology giants’ need to power their growing artificial-intelligence (AI) efforts, raises questions over how shuttered nuclear plants can be restarted safely — not least because Three Mile Island isn’t the only plant being brought out of retirement.

Palisades Nuclear Plant, an 805-megawatt facility in Covert, Michigan, was shut down in May 2022. But the energy company that owns it, Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida, plans to reopen it. This reversal in the facility’s fortunes has been bolstered by a US$1.5-billion conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DoE), which sees nuclear plants — a source of low-carbon electricity — as a way of helping the country to meet its ambitious climate goals. The Palisades plant is on track to reopen in late 2025.

“It’s the first time something like this has been attempted, that we’re aware of, worldwide,” says Jason Kozal, director of the reactor safety division at a regional office of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Naperville, Illinois, and the co-chair of a regulatory panel overseeing the restart of Palisades.

Here, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about what it will take to restart these plants and whether more are on the way as the world’s demand for AI grows.

A change in fortunes

Since 2012, more than a dozen nuclear plants have been shut down in the United States, in some cases as a result of unfavourable economics. Less cost-effective plants — such as those with only a single working reactor — struggled to remain profitable in states with deregulated electricity markets and widely varying prices. Three Mile Island, owned by the utility company Constellation Energy in Baltimore, Maryland, is a prime example. Today, 54 US plants remain in operation, running a total of 94 reactors.

Nuclear energy, which accounts for about 9% of the world’s electricity, has seen some resurgence internationally, but is also competing with other energy sources, including renewables. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan suspended operations at all of its 48 remaining nuclear plants, but these are gradually being brought back online, in part to cut dependence on gas imports. By contrast, Germany announced a phase-out of its nuclear plants in 2011, and shut down its last three in 2023.

In the United States, nuclear energy’s fortunes might be turning as technology companies race to build enormous, energy-gobbling data centres to support their AI systems and other applications while somehow fulfilling their climate pledges. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.

“It’s further confirmation of the value of nuclear, and, if the deal is right — if the price is right — then it makes business sense, as well,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

A new start

This isn’t the first time that the United States has brought a powered-down reactor back online. In 1985, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility company, took the reactors at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Athens, Alabama, offline. After years of refurbishment, they were brought back online, with the final reactor restarted in 2007.

The cases of Palisades and Three Mile Island are different, however. When those plants closed, their then-owners made legal statements that the facilities would be shut down, even though their operating licenses were still active. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center under the proposed restart, shut down its single remaining functional reactor in 2019.

Is Fukushima wastewater release safe? What the science says

Because the plants were slated for shutdown and safety checks were therefore stopped, regulators and companies must now navigate a complex licensing, oversight and environmental-assessment process to reverse the plants’ decommissioning.

Safety checks will be needed to ensure, among other things, that the plants can operate securely once uranium fuel rods have been replaced in their reactors. When these plants were decommissioned, their radioactive fuel was removed and stored, so the facilities no longer needed to adhere to many exacting technical specifications, says Jamie Pelton, also a co-chair of the Palisades restart panel, and a deputy director at the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland.

It will be no small feat to reinstate those safety regulations: to meet the standards, infrastructure will need to be inspected carefully. According to Buongiorno, any metallic components in the plants that have corroded since the shutdowns, including wires and cables used in instrumentation and controls, will need to be replaced.

The plants’ turbine generators, which make electricity from the steam produced as the plants’ fuel rods heat up water, will also get a close look. After sitting dormant for years, a turbine could develop defects within its shaft or corrosion along its blades that would require refurbishment. In the case of Palisades, the NRC announced on 18 September that the plant’s steam generators would need further testing and repair, following inspections conducted by Holtec.

Nuclear’s prospects

As the plants near their restart dates, their operators will also have to contend with a challenge faced by even fully operational plants: the need to source fresh nuclear fuel. US nuclear utility companies have long counted on the international market to buy much of the necessary raw yellowcake uranium and the services that separate and enrich uranium-235, the isotope used in nuclear reactors’ fuel rods. Russia has been a major international supplier of these services, even after the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, because US and European sanctions have not targeted nuclear fuel. But to minimize its reliance on Russia, the United States is building up its own supply chain, with the DoE offering $3.4 billion to buy domestically enriched uranium.

Ukraine nuclear power plant attack: scientists assess the risks

There probably won’t be too many other restarts of mothballed nuclear plants in the United States, however, even as demand for low-carbon electricity grows. Not every US plant that has been shut down is necessarily in good enough condition to be easily refurbished — and the idea of reopening some of those would meet with too much resistance. As an example, Buongiorno points to New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which was closed in 2021. The plant’s proximity to New York City had long provoked criticism from nuclear-safety advocates.

But that doesn’t mean that all of these sites will remain unused. One option is to build advanced reactors — including large reactors with upgraded safety features and small modular reactors with innovative designs — on sites where old nuclear plants once stood, to take advantage of existing transmission lines and infrastructure. “We might see interest in the US in building more of these large reactors, whether that’s fuelled by data centres or some other applications,” Buongiorno adds. “Utilities and customers are exploring this at the moment.”

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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War
5. Nuclear War Threats
6. Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Tuesday, (10/01/2024)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Nuclear power for AI: what it will take to reopen Three Mile Island safely – Nature

Nature

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at the notorious power station, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about the unprecedented …

Aligning economic and regulatory frameworks for today’s nuclear reactor technology

MIT News

In Florida, Hines says, environmental awareness is pretty high because everyday citizens are being directly impacted by climate change. After all, …

DirecTV, Dish to Merge, Potential Port Strike | Bloomberg Intelligence – YouTube

YouTube

Jigar Shah on the Three Big Things Driving the Nuclear Energy Revival | Odd Lots … All Things Rolls-Royce: Bespoke Creations, New NYC Office | …

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Data center owners turn to nuclear as potential electricity source

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Although historically costly to build, nuclear power plants typically generate power at relatively low operating costs, with a single reactor …

The US could bring a shuttered nuclear power plant back to life next year – The Verge

The Verge

The Department of Energy announced a $1.5 billion loan to help a shuttered nuclear power plant reopen as the US tries to meet climate goals and …

US closes $1.52B loan to resurrect Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant

freep.com

The U.S. closed a $1.52 billion loan to resurrect Holtec’s Palisades nuclear plant, and an official said it could take two years to reopen the …

“US Closes $1.52 Billion Loan To Resurrect Michigan Nuclear Plant” | SEJ – Society of Environmental Journalists

Full Coverage

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Team South Carolina Supporting Recovery Efforts

South Carolina Emergency Management

Utility crews are working around the clock to bring electricity back to affected areas, while emergency management teams are coordinating food, water, …

russia attacks a substation to disrupt power supply to occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP

Кабінет Міністрів України

Another act of nuclear terrorism: russia attacks a substation to disrupt power supply to occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP … Emergency Energy security. 0.

Emergency may arise in Ukrainian energy sector, people will leave – Borrell

Цензор.НЕТ

In addition, Russian missile attacks on power substations could lead to the shutdown of nuclear power plants, which could lead to a nuclear disaster.

Nuclear War

NEWS

New Nato chief says nuclear threat from Russia not imminent – BBC

BBC

Mark Rutte, the new secretary general of Nato, said he does not see any imminent threat of nuclear weapons being used by Russia despite “reckless …

Limited Nuclear War and Israel’s National Strategy

Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies

Israel will need to find the best way of communicating a credible threat of limited nuclear war such that Iran and its proxies are deterred from …

Russia says it won’t discuss new nuclear treaty with US in current form | Reuters

Reuters

Russia will not discuss signing a new treaty with the United States to replace an agreement limiting each side’s strategic nuclear weapons that …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

No imminent nuclear threat from Russia, says new Nato chief – BBC

BBC

Mark Rutte slammed the Kremlin’s “reckless and irresponsible” rhetoric but downplayed Russia’s nuclear threats.

Limited Nuclear War and Israel’s National Strategy

Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies

The threats posed by the Shiite militias in Lebanon and Syria are greater than those issuing from Sunni Hamas in Judea/Samaria and Gaza. Though non- …

NATO’s new Secretary General responds to Putin’s nuclear threats, claims they should not …

pravda.com.ua

… nuclear weapons and advised them not to pay attention to Russias nuclear threats … The fact that there is no threat of nuclear war at this moment 

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Roaring Mountain’s quiet ‘might not last forever’ – Buckrail

Buckrail

Norris Geyser Basin is known as one of the hottest and most acidic of YNP’s hydrothermal areas. According to Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s (YVO) …

Mag. 2.2 quake – Davao Oriental, 28 km east of Monkayo, Davao de Oro, Davao, Philippines …

Volcano Discovery

More on VolcanoDiscovery … List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano. … Santorini is one of the most beautiful …

“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends”

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Sep 30, 2024

Share

Kris Kristofferson, photographed in 2002 in Los Angeles.

LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Monday, (09/30/2024)

So it is that there is so much incredibly wrong propaganda and erroneously politicized BS about how ‘clean’ and ‘safe’ and ‘live-saving’ regarding the future of nuclear generated energy that I am unusually depressed today. Also adding to my down mood, there is the death of Kris Kristofferson, who was just a few years older than I am and who will be missed by a whole world of fans and friends that I have decided to feature his life story as told by NPR on LLAW’s All Things Nuclear today.

You might wonder why there is a story from NPR about the sad death of Kris Kristofferson in the “All Things Nuclear” category in the “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA” this evening. But his passing does not exclude the fact that he was anti-unclear and protested nuclear arms testing in Nevada, making him a man after my own heart. ~llaw

Kris Kristofferson, musical rebel and movie star, has died at age 88

September 29, 20246:51 PM ET

By 

Melissa Block

Kris Kristofferson, photographed in 2002 in Los Angeles.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Kris Kristofferson, who wrote indelible songs about lovers, loners, boozers and a footloose pair of hitchhikers — and who later became a screen star, appearing in dozens of films — has died at age 88.

According to his representative, the singer, songwriter and actor died peacefully in his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, Sept. 28, surrounded by family. No cause of death was shared.

Kristofferson made his name as a songwriter in Nashville starting in the late 1960s, penning songs including “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” which other singers (Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash and Sammi Smith, respectively) took to the top of the charts.

His fame and sex symbol status grew through his movie roles, most notably when he co-starred with Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born.

“I imagined myself into a pretty full life,” Kristofferson told NPR’s Fresh Air in 1999. “I was certainly not equipped, by God, to be a football player, but I got to be one. And I got to be a Ranger, and a paratrooper, and a helicopter pilot, you know, and a boxer, and a lot of things that I don’t think I was built to do. I just imagined ’em.”

Kristofferson won three Grammy awards, two of them for duets with his then-wife Rita Coolidge, to whom he was married from 1973-80. His performance in A Star Is Born earned him a Golden Globe in 1976.

In 2004, Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2014, he was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early on, he found his calling as a writer

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas to a military family; his father was a major general in the U.S. Air Force. It was there, at age 11, that he wrote his first song, titled “I Hate Your Ugly Face.” (He included that number as a bonus track on one of his last albums, Closer to the Bone, in 2009.)

At Pomona College in southern California, Kristofferson majored in creative literature. His many diverse talents drew the attention of Sports Illustrated, which highlighted him as one of its “Faces in the Crowd” in 1954. “This dashing young man,” the magazine trumpeted, not only played rugby and varsity football and was a Golden Gloves boxer; he was also sports editor of the college paper, a folk singer, an award-winning writer and an “outstanding” ROTC cadet.

From Pomona, Kristofferson won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University, where he dove into the works of Shakespeare and William Blake.

In a 1999 interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, he explained that Blake “was a wonderful example for somebody who wanted to be an artist, because he believed if you were cut out to be one, it was your moral responsibility to be one, or you’d be haunted throughout your life and after death — ’til eternity!”

Perhaps inspired by Blake’s admonition, Kristofferson harbored dreams of writing the Great American Novel. Instead, after Oxford he followed his father into the military, joining the U.S. Army, where he became a helicopter pilot and attained the rank of Captain. Assigned to teach literature at West Point, Kristofferson decided to ditch the Army, and he moved to Nashville to pursue his dream of songwriting.

For that choice, he was disowned by his parents. “They thought that somewhere between Oxford and the Army I had gone crazy,” Kristofferson told Pomona College Magazine in 2004. “My mother said nobody over 14 listens to that kind of stuff anyway…. But I was more and more determined to go that way. And being virtually disowned was kind of liberating for me, because I had nothing left to lose.”

From janitor to hit songwriter

Arriving in Nashville in 1965, Kristofferson got a job as a janitor at Columbia Studios, sweeping floors and emptying ashtrays, while writing songs on the side.

He often compared the creative ferment of Nashville in the ’60s to that of Paris in the ’20s. “When I got there,” he said in the 1999 Fresh Air interview, “it was so different from any life that I’d been in before; just hanging out with these people who stayed up for three or four days at a time, and nights, and were writing songs all the time.”

“I think I wrote four songs during the first week I was there,” he continued. “And it was just so exciting to me. It was like a lifeboat, you know? It was like my salvation.”

The story goes that Kristofferson was so desperate to get his songs into the hands of Johnny Cash that he landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn. In the version Cash used to tell, Kristofferson emerged with a tape in one hand and a beer in the other.

“It’s a great story, and a story that good needs to be believed, even if it’s not true,” quips musician Rodney Crowell, who became Cash’s son-in-law when he married Rosanne Cash. “But, you know, according to John, that literally happened.”

Johnny Cash would turn out to be instrumental in launching Kristofferson’s career, introducing him at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival and inviting him to perform on his television variety show.

His songs were like short stories

Rodney Crowell was one of many young songwriters who were drawn to Nashville by the beacon of Kristofferson’s success. “Because of Kris Kristofferson, a lot of songwriters came into Nashville, came in droves. And I was part of that wave,” he tells NPR.

What set Kristofferson’s music apart, Crowell says, was the way he wove a story and sustained a narrative through his songs. Take “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” for example — a vivid portrait of bleak, hungover loneliness. Crowell calls the song “a beautifully-written short story.”

“Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day”

In the world of Nashville songwriters, lyrics like this were a revelation. “Along comes Kris, a Rhodes Scholar with a high IQ and a very poetic sensibility,” Crowell says. “Kris brought it. He brought it in a big way.”

Musician Steve Earle recalls that when he first heard “Sunday Morning Coming Down” as a teenager in Texas, it made such an impact that he rushed out to buy Kristofferson’s first two records.

“The imagery and the use of language is just being cranked up to a level higher than really anything that came before in country music, for sure,” Earle says.

Kristofferson, he says, “raised the bar single-handedly in country music lyrically to a place that writers are still aspiring to, and I still aspire to, to this day.“

He was a master of seduction, in song and on screen

For Nashville, Kristofferson’s 1970 song of naked, unapologetic desire, “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” was nothing short of revolutionary. “It was earth-shaking, and a paradigm shift,” Crowell says. “It is literally a form of seduction. It’s silver-tongue seduction.”

“Take the ribbon from your hair
Shake it loose and let it fall
Layin’ soft upon my skin
Like the shadows on the wall
Come and lay down by my side
‘Til the early morning light
All I’m takin’ is your time
Help me make it through the night”

“There’s a description of intimacy in it that probably had never existed before,” Earle says. “And of course, when other people, lesser songwriters, tried to do it, it became smut.”

In person and on the screen, Kristofferson was magnetic: movie-star gorgeous, with a roguish grin and electric blue eyes.

“Women loved him, you know? I mean, absolutely fell over,” Crowell says. “He was a sex symbol and a rock star.”

For a young, eager musician like Crowell, Kristofferson offered an intoxicating role model.

“It was like, ‘Hmm, I want to be like that,'” Crowell says. “I was like, ‘How do you do that? How do you have that kind of swagger?'”

Kristofferson brought that same sensual swagger to his movie roles over his decades-long career. He starred in films including Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, A Star Is Born, Semi-Tough, Heaven’s Gate and Lone Star, working with directors Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Alan Rudolph and John Sayles, among others.

For a stretch in the 1980s and ’90s, Kristofferson was part of an occasional country outlaw supergroup, joining with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to form the Highwaymen. Recalling that time in an interview with the British magazine Classic Rock years later, he said, “I just wish I was more aware of how lucky I was to share a stage with those people. I had no idea that two of them [Cash and Jennings] would be done so soon. Hell, I was up there and I had all my heroes with me – these are guys whose ashtrays I used to clean. I’m kinda amazed I wasn’t more amazed.”

In the ’80s and ’90s, Kristofferson also embraced a number of leftist political causes. He protested nuclear testing in Nevada, and vocally opposed U.S. policy in Central America, making several trips to Nicaragua in support of the Sandinista government, and excoriating the U.S. backing of El Salvador’s military-led junta in that country’s brutal civil war. “I’m a songwriter,” he said in a 1988 Fresh Air interview, “but I’m also concerned with my fellow human beings. And I’m real concerned with the soul of my country.” His 1990 album, Third World Warrior, is filled with songs expressing his political views:

“Broken rules and dirty warriors spreading lies and secret funds
Can’t defeat the Campesino with their money and their guns
Cause he’s fighting for his future and his freedom and his sons
In the third world war”

Music connected him to memory

In his later years, Kristofferson suffered from profound memory loss, but he kept performing up until 2020. Among those he shared the stage with was Margo Price. “Without a doubt,” she says, “he still had all the same charisma and all the sex appeal, every time.”

On stage, Price says, Kristofferson could connect with his musical memories and “feel like he was himself…. There’s been times where I’ve got off stage with Kris and I’m like, ‘Great show, Kris!’ He’s like, ‘Oh, thanks. You know, I wish I could have been there!’ I mean, that was the powerful thing about seeing him perform his songs, was that he could remember songs he’d written so long ago, but yet not remember something from five minutes ago.”

In an interview with NPR in 2013, Kristofferson reflected on his life and career. At 76, he had just released an album titled Feeling Mortal.

“To my surprise,” he told Rachel Martin, “I feel nothing but gratitude for being this old, and still above ground, living with the people I love. I’ve had a life of all kinds of experiences, most of ’em good. I got eight kids and a wife that puts up with everything I do, and keeps me out of trouble.”

Kristofferson lived for many years on the island of Maui, in a home built high on the slope of the Haleakala volcano, with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. He told an interviewer in 2015, “I’ve had so much blessing, so much reward for my life that I want to stay right where I am, which is on an island with no neighbors and 180 degrees of empty horizon. It’s a beautiful view.”

• Kris Kristofferson

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WW3 fears explode as Russia issues chilling nuke warning to the West – Daily Express

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World War 3 fears have exploded once again after the Kremlin furiously blamed Western governments for its decision to amend its nuclear weapons …

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The management of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had launched a new attack on a nearby …

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