Watchdog group reports ‘extreme contamination’ of plutonium at Los Alamos open space
The legacy of environmental waste is “hiding in plain sight” at a popular open space in the heart of Los Alamos that became a dumping ground during the Manhattan Project, according to testing results a nuclear watchdog group released Thursday.
By Daniel J. Chacón [email protected], Santa Fe New Mexican | August 15, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
Soil, plant and water samples collected in July from Acid Canyon — yes, Acid Canyon — revealed “extreme contamination,” including detections of what Nuclear Watch New Mexico said is some of the earliest plutonium produced by humankind.
“What I found here in Acid Canyon [is] pretty much the most extreme contamination scenario I’ve seen in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting,” Michael Ketterer, a professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, said during a virtual briefing.
Ketterer, who collected the samples in July with the help of the watchdog group, said he’s analyzed tens of thousands of plutonium samples in a decadeslong career.
“This is way, way, way, way, way at the top end of the charts in terms of how much,” he said. “This is extreme contamination.”
Ketterer said he would compare it to “Chernobyl proximity samples” and samples close to Palomares, Spain, after a B-52 bomber carrying hydrogen bombs collided with a refueling plane in 1966 and coated the seaside town in radioactive dust.
“Hundreds of samples from near Rocky Flats do not come close at all,” he said, referring to a former nuclear weapons production facility in Colorado.
Watchdogs want US to address extreme plutonium contamination in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon
“This is an unrestricted area. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the United States,” the professor told reporters. “It’s just an extreme example of very high concentrations of plutonium in soils and sediments. Really, you know, it’s hiding in plain sight.”
Ketterer teamed up with the group Nuclear Watch New Mexico to gather the samples in July, a rainy period that often results in isolated downpours and stormwater runoff coursing through canyons and otherwise dry arroyos. Water was flowing through Acid Canyon when the samples were taken.
BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS | August 15, 2024 apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons.
A Northern Arizona University professor emeritus who analyzed soil, water and vegetation samples taken along a popular hiking and biking trail in Acid Canyon said Thursday that there were more extreme concentrations of plutonium found there than at other publicly accessible sites he has researched in his decades-long career.
That includes land around the federal government’s former weapons plant at Rocky Flats in Colorado.
While outdoor enthusiasts might not be in immediate danger while traveling through the pine tree-lined canyon, Michael Ketterer — who specializes in tracking the chemical fingerprints of radioactive materials — said state and local officials should be warning people to avoid coming in contact with water in Acid Canyon.
A nuclear legacy in Los Alamos
After three cleanups, independent analysis shows 80-year-old plutonium persists in Acid Canyon and beyond
By Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico | August 15, 2024 searchlightnm.org
The world’s oldest documented plutonium contamination may not lie not in the Chihuahuan Desert at the Trinity Site, where the first-ever atomic bomb ripped open the skies and melted the sand into green glass. Rather, that distinction more likely goes to Los Alamos’s Acid Canyon, according to an independent study by Michael Ketterer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University.
Ketterer announced these findings at an online press conference held by Nuclear Watch New Mexico on Aug. 15, after collecting and analyzing soil, water and plant samples in Acid Canyon, a popular hiking area in the middle of town. Beginning in 1943, the year the Manhattan Project came to Los Alamos, workers released radioactive waste into the canyon. Three remediations would follow, but as Ketterer’s analysis found, “a super weapons-grade” plutonium persists in the soil, water and plant life in and around Los Alamos, representing some of the earliest ever made.
One thought came to his mind as he analyzed samples from the area, collected last month:
“I’ve never seen anything like this in any samples anywhere,” he told Searchlight New Mexico in an interview.
How a US health agency became a shield for polluters
Companies and others responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation, a Reuters investigation found. A Missouri neighborhood’s tale.
By JAIMI DOWDELL, M.B. PELL, BENJAMIN LESSER, MICHELLE CONLIN, PHOEBE QUINTON and WAYLON CUNNINGHAM, Reuters | August 11, 2024 reuters.com
When they bought their homes in the Spanish Village neighborhood northwest of St. Louis, many residents had no idea a radioactive landfill sat less than a mile away.
Health conditions mounted over the years, suggesting something wasn’t right.
Wester warns: ‘We are now in a nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first’
“…There is a frustration that our world leaders are not listening. The tragedy of the 200,000 killed both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to fall on deaf ears.
We are now in a nuclear arms race arguably far more dangerous than the first. We see countries modernizing their nuclear arsenals and spending scads of money in what appears to be (a move toward) ‘nuclear weapons forever.’”
By OSV News | August 6, 2024 catholicreview.org
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., has traveled to Japan on a “pilgrimage of peace” commemorating the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The pilgrimage, which the archbishop undertook last year as well, was announced Aug. 3 by the Santa Fe Archdiocese.
The attacks on the two Japanese cities — launched by the U.S. on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, in an effort to force the unconditional surrender of Japan and hasten the end of the war — killed an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people. The true number of casualties is “probably fundamentally unknowable,” according to nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein.
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Hiroshima – The Unknown Images
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., a bright flash set the sky over Hiroshima ablaze. A gigantic column of smoke rises above the city. The first nuclear bomb in history has just been dropped on the largest metropolis in western Japan.
This 2015 documentary shows this tragedy from the inside using photos taken that day.
Nuclear disarmament seemed possible. The imagined destruction of a Kansas town helped get us there.
“While part of the rationale for modernizing the American arsenal is safety — some of the warheads in the stockpile are 50 years old — the other part is deterrence. Despite the end of the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction continues. We find ourselves in a new arms race, one that aims to keep existing stockpiles stable but make new weapons out of them that are more reliable and precise, and hence deadlier.”
By Max McCoy, Kansas Reflector | August 4, 2024 kansasreflector.com
From miles above the midwestern prairies, I got a first-hand look at the machinery of doomsday.
Lying on my stomach in a pod beneath the tail of a KC-135 Stratotanker I watched as the operator next to me guided the flying boom behind us toward an aircraft keeping pace just below. This was a midair refueling mission, and the boom would top off the tanks of the receiving aircraft. That plane, with its white upper fuselage and black nose, was an EC-135 airborne command post, code named “Looking Glass.”
I’ve been thinking about that flight lately as the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki again approach. On Tuesday, it will be 79 years since the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. The bombings hastened the end of World War II but heralded the passing of our technological innocence — we finally had the power to annihilate ourselves as a species.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Archbishop John C. Wester to Honor the 79th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Saturday, August 3, 2024 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Most Rev. John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, are set to embark on a pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This visit underscores the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s unwavering commitment to advocating for universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.
During this multi-day journey, they will engage with Japanese and Korean bishops, fostering dialogue and solidarity in the shared mission to eliminate nuclear weapons globally. This pilgrimage is a testament to the enduring spirit of peace and reconciliation and a call to action for renewed and serious conversations about disarmament in New Mexico and around the world.
“Standing in the very places where the catastrophic consequences of nuclear warfare were first realized compels us to rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a world free from nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop Wester. “This pilgrimage is not only a gesture of remembrance but also a commitment to continue our work toward global peace and security.”
He emphasized the critical need for sustained advocacy. “The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more relevant than ever. As we honor the victims and survivors of these tragedies, we must also challenge the status quo and push for real progress in nuclear disarmament.”
The visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will include participation in memorial ceremonies, meetings with survivors (hibakusha), and discussions with key religious and civic leaders. These activities will serve as a powerful reminder of the moral and ethical imperatives to dismantle nuclear arsenals and prevent future nuclear catastrophes.
Does the United States Need More Nuclear Weapons?
The United States is estimated to have roughly 3,700 warheads in its active arsenal. This includes 1,670 thermonuclear warheads deployed on 660 powerful long-range missiles on land and at sea or available for delivery on strategic bombers. There are also another 100 tactical nuclear bombs that can be delivered on shorter-range aircraft, according to independent estimates.5 The use of a fraction of these weapons, many primed for launch within minutes, would lead to mass destruction on an unprecedented global scale.
Contrary to the hype, more nuclear weapons would not improve, on balance, the U.S. capability to deter nuclear attack. In fact, significant increases in the U.S. deployed nuclear arsenal would undermine mutual and global security by making the existing balance of nuclear terror more unpredictable and would set into motion a counterproductive, costly action-reaction cycle of nuclear competition.
By Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today | July/August 2024 armscontrol.org
The experience of the Cold War proves that nuclear arms racing produces only losers and increased risks for everyone.
Nevertheless, following more than a decade of deteriorating relations between the United States and its main nuclear rivals, dimming prospects for disarmament diplomacy, and major nuclear weapons modernization efforts, China, Russia, and the United States are now on the precipice of a dangerous era of unconstrained nuclear competition. Concern in U.S. national security circles about Chinese and Russian nuclear capabilities has grown since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine effectively shut down the U.S.-Russian nuclear risk reduction and arms control dialogue. The Kremlin has rejected the White House proposal to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework to replace the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires on February 5, 2026.1 China has declined U.S. offers to continue bilateral discussions on reducing nuclear risk and on nuclear postures.2
Moreover, as the U.S. intelligence community forecasts that China could amass as many as 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030, with several hundred of them deployed on a larger force of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), some members of the nuclear weapons establishment, leading members of Congress, and Biden administration officials have suggested that the massive U.S. arsenal may not be sufficient to deter two “near peer” nuclear rivals.3 China is currently estimated to have some 500 nuclear weapons and 310 long-range, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.4
New York Times: Olympic Surfing Comes to a ‘Poisoned’ Paradise
In 1974, a radioactive cloud from a French nuclear test drifted over Teahupo’o, Tahiti, now the surfing venue for the Paris Games. Villagers still feel the effects.
ByHannah Beech / | July 30, 2024 nytimes.com | Hannah Beech and Adam Ferguson spent a week in French Polynesia, documenting the impact of nuclear testing on a territory that is hosting the Olympic surfing competitions.
Fifty years ago this July, as the waters of the South Pacific rushed toward the shores of Teahupo’o in a perfect, powerful curl, as they have always done, another wave visited the tiny hamlet. This time it was an invisible and airborne one: a surge of radiation escaping from a nuclear weapon test conducted by France in this far-flung reach of their republic.
Navajo Nation plans to test limit of tribal law preventing transportation of uranium on its land
The Navajo Nation plans to test the limits of a tribal law that banned the transportation of uranium ore on its lands
By FELICIA FONSECA, ASSOCIATED PRESS | July 30, 2024 abcnews.com
PHOENIX — The Navajo Nation planned Tuesday to test a tribal law that bans uranium from being transported on its land by ordering tribal police to stop trucks carrying the mineral and return to the mine where it was extracted in northern Arizona.
But before tribal police could catch up with two semi-trucks on federal highways, they learned the vehicles under contract with Energy Fuels Inc. no longer were on the reservation.
Navajo President Buu Nygren vowed to carry out the plan to enact roadblocks while the tribe develops regulations over the first major shipments of uranium ore through the reservation in years.
“Obviously the higher courts are going to have to tell us who is right and who is wrong,” he told The Associated Press. “But in the meantime, you’re in the boundaries of the Navajo Nation.”
The tribe passed a law in 2012 to ban the transportation of uranium on the vast reservation that extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. But the law exempts state and federal highways that Energy Fuels has designated as hauling routes between the Pinyon Plain Mine south of Grand Canyon National Park for processing in Blanding, Utah.
Still, Nygren and Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch believe the tribe is on solid legal footing with a plan for police to block federal highways, pull over drivers and prevent them from traveling farther onto the reservation.
New Mexico ‘birth to grave state’ for nuclear, critics say
Jay Coghlan at Nuclear Watch New Mexico read a letter to officials from Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester, a critic of nuclear proliferation advocating for disarmament. He called for a sitewide environmental review of Los Alamos National Laboratory before the government expands the lab’s activities.
“Nuclear weapons were invented here in my arch dioceses, and thus I feel a responsibility to address this threat,” Coghlan read. “Nuclear disarmament is a right to life issue. The very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. What does this say about expanded pit production without providing the public the opportunity to review and comment?
“You’re very good at creating them, now show us how smart you are by showing us how to get rid of nuclear weapons. Let’s preserve New Mexico’s potential to manifest God’s love for all of his creations.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | July 24, 2024 currentargus.com
New Mexico was a fixture in the federal government’s plans to develop more nuclear weapons in the northern part of the state, and that could mean more nuclear waste being sent the southeast corner.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad disposes of transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste, made up of clothing materials, equipment and other debris irradiated during nuclear activities at federal sites around the country. It’s trucked into the site and buried in a salt deposit about 2,000 feet underground.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy through its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is planning to build up to 30 plutonium pits – triggers for nuclear warheads – per year by 2030, along with 50 a year at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Candice Robertson, senior adviser at the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) said during a Monday townhall in Santa Fe that WIPP did have enough space for “planned TRU waste,” as officials estimated the repository could remain active until about 2083.
Santa Fe New Mexican MY VIEW: On Trinity test anniversary, U.S. should rethink national priorities
By John C. Wester, SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | July 21, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
My archdiocese, home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the birthplace of the atomic bomb. Yet 79 years after Oppenheimer’s Trinity test, our state still hosts the nuclear weapons complex, while New Mexicans’ needs go unaddressed. This fiscal year, the Department of Energy is spending $7 billion in New Mexico on nuclear weapons. This is more than what the whole state spends on education, in which we rank dead last in the nation.
Some $2 billion of this nukes money is for producing brand new plutonium pits — bomb cores for nuclear warheads — to arm the Air Force’s controversial and exorbitant new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. But many experts believe the program is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and, in fact, makes Americans less safe. Congress should cancel Sentinel and instead compensate New Mexicans and thousands across the nation harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons production and testing and address urgent challenges like education, economic inequality, homelessness and addiction.
Countless New Mexicans — many of whom are my parishioners — have suffered from generations of cancers due to radioactive fallout from the Trinity test. One of my parishioners and a survivor of radiation-induced cancer, Tina Cordova, just last year experienced the tragedy of her 23-year-old niece being the fifth generation in her family to get cancer.
“We don’t ask ourselves if we’re going to get cancer; we ask when,” says Tina. And her family is far from alone.
After over 200 above-ground U.S. nuclear tests, in 1990 Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to provide limited medical help for some communities harmed by the tests. Yet the first victims of nuclear testing, New Mexicans — along with many other Americans — have been arbitrarily excluded from RECA.
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Santa Fe New Mexican MY VIEW: Speak out for earth and water this Monday
BY MARIAN NARANJO AND KATHY SANCHEZ, SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | July 21, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
On Monday, top officials from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Environmental Management will host a town hall on cleanup priorities.
A limited public question-and-answer period will be allowed, and it’s unclear whether the security administration will respond to written submissions. With only one town hall hosted annually, the public — especially fenceline New Mexicans and Indigenous community members — must be heard and considered.
A growing number of DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration projects are amassing joint public and tribal concern. At a February public meeting, Pueblo leadership, local officials, environmentalists, and community members voiced overwhelming opposition to the security administration’s Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project, a transmission line proposed to span the sacred Caja del Rio landscape.
The three-hour meeting saw no public support for the project and instead featured widespread concern agencies aren’t following legal requirements for environmental and cultural review. The All-Pueblo Council of Governors recently urged a pause in the project pending a tribally-led ethnographic study of the Caja del Rio.
Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration is developing Los Alamos National Laboratory’s sitewide environmental impact statement to evaluate potential impacts of expanded lab operations over the next 15 years. Given that the statement should have been completed in 2018 and LANL’s budget has doubled in the last five years to $5.15 billion, public concerns are growing about the lack of opportunity to review expansion plans.
After the fallout: Oppenheimer’s Trinity test has US civilians seeking compensation today
Following the anniversary of the Trinity test on July 16, we’re revisiting an interview with Tina Cordova. She is a co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which advocates for those affected by radiation exposure from the Trinity nuclear weapon test. Watch here.
Federal watchdog reports ongoing safety concerns at WIPP
‘Near miss’ incident reported at nuclear waste site near Carlsbad
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | July 21, 2024 currentargus.com
Federal nuclear oversight staff reported several safety problems at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a monthly report, despite a “safety stand down” in April that was intended to pause work while WIPP officials retooled various protocols.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNSFB) reported “ongoing safety culture challenges” in its June 7 report on WIPP activities as the facility near Carlsbad disposes of transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste from federal facilities around the country.
The monthly report covered observations and incidents from May, noting a “near miss” incident which saw a waste handler improperly using a forklift instead of a crane to reposition weights in the parking lot waste storage area.
The May 20 event saw the waste handler using two forklifts to reposition a “six-ton” calibration weight, read the report, without proper documentation or analysis or the awareness of a shift supervisor.
The forklift sling broke while rotating the weight, read the report, causing it to fall on its side and send a shackle flying “a significant distance” away from the lift and past a spotter.
In another incident, all routine work was paused May 23 to 28 after a bolter contacted an electrical box near WIPP’s exhaust shaft, read the report, causing a bulkhead to lose function, rendering sump pumps inoperable and creating potential exposure to “hazardous energy.”
Full Event Video: A World Without Nuclear Weapons – From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test
See related media articles and event materials below –
ABQ JOURNAL – ‘The ultimate oxymoron:’ Downwinders and others congregate at church to remember impact of A-Bomb test
“So we got to do all we can to rid ourselves of this destructive power and that’s why people of faith are involved in this important matter.” Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester
BY GREGORY R.C. HASMAN, JOURNAL STAFF WRITER, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL | July 15, 2024 abqjournal.com
“At first, I was thrilled. It was a vision. Then a few minutes afterward, I had gooseflesh all over me when I realized what this meant for the future of humanity” — American physicist I.I. Rabi on the detonation of the world’s first nuclear device at the Trinity Site. Tuesday marks the 79th anniversary of when the “Gadget” was detonated in the Jornada Del Muerto desert.
Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer named the test Trinity, which has “got to be the ultimate oxymoron,” Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester said during Sunday’s “From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test” at St. John XXIII Catholic Community in Albuquerque Sunday. “The trinity and nuclear bombs have nothing to do with each other,” Wester said. “The trinity represents life and community and love and tolerance and respect for one another, and atomic weapons are the exact opposite of that.
Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester speaks at An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test at St. John XXIII Catholic Community on Sunday, July 14. JESSICA BACA/JOURNAL
Which nation spends the most on nuclear weapons?
“Acceleration of spending on these inhumane and destructive weapons over the past five years is not improving global security but posing a global threat,” Alicia Sanders-Zakre, co-author of the report, said in a statement.
By Michael Loria, USA TODAY | June 26, 2024 usatoday.com
The world’s nine nuclear powers spent $91 billion on their nuclear arsenals in 2023, or nearly $3,000 per second, according to a new report by a global coalition of disarmament activists.
At the top of the list is the United States, which spent $51.5 billion – more than all of the other nations combined. That amounts to nearly $100,000 per minute aimed at developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles, new airplanes to drop bombs and new submarines, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) report.
The U.S. spent 18% more than it did last year, according to the report. The $7.8 billion increase in spending on nuclear weapons accounted for nearly 80% of the $10.7 billion increase in spending worldwide, according to ICAN. Other big spenders were China with $11.9 billion; Russia with $8.3 billion; and the United Kingdom with $8.1 billion. The increase in worldwide spending in 2023 is the greatest ICAN has recorded in a single year.
ICAN: Global nuclear weapons spending surges to $91.4 billion
In 2023, the nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of $91,393,404,739 on their arsenals – equivalent to $2,898 a second. ICAN’s latest report “Surge: 2023 Global nuclear weapons spending” shows $10.7 billion more was spent on nuclear weapons in 2023 than in 2022.
Read the report
Download the Executive Summary
Who spent what on their nuclear arsenal in 2023?
In 2023 China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK and US spent a combined $91.4 billion on their nuclear arms, which breaks down to $173,884 per minute, or $2,898 a second. The United States’ share of total spending, $51.5 billion, is more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together and accounts for 80% of the increase in nuclear weapons spending in 2023. The next biggest spender was China which expended $11.8 billion with Russia spending the third largest amount at $8.3 billion. The United Kingdom’s spending was up significantly for the second year in a row with a 17% increase to $8.1 billion.
$387 billion in 5 years
“Surge” is the 5th edition of ICAN’s global nuclear weapons spending report. In the last 5 years, $387 billion has been spent on nuclear weapons, with the yearly spending increasing by 34% from $68.2 billion to $91.4 billion per year, as all nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernise, and in some cases expand, their arsenals. Alicia Sanders-Zakre, co-author of the report [and NukeWatch’s summer 2019 intern] noted:
“The acceleration of spending on these inhumane and destructive weapons over the past five years is not improving global security but posing a global threat.”
Does the U.S. Need “New” Nuclear Weapons?
Watch “McCuistion Perspectives Matter” TV programs – subscribe to the McCuistionTV YouTube channel.
Episodes can also be viewed at McCuistionTV.com.
Aired Sunday, June 23, at 11:30 AM on KERA, Channel 13, PBS Dallas
The film “Oppenheimer” and the saber-rattling from Russia and North Korea have increased interest in U.S. nuclear weapons.
Today, Russia, China, and the United States are each committed to robust and expensive nuclear modernization, programs. At the same time, long-standing arms control treaties have either been suspended, or canceled and negotiations to extend them have essentially been stalled.
Join host Jim Falk to discuss this issue along with:
Sarah Scoles, a science journalist, and author of “Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons.” Her articles have been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Popular Science, Scientific American, and others.
Jay Coghlan is president of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. Established in 1999, Nuclear Watch promotes safety and environment at nuclear facilities and diversification away from nuclear weapons programs.
Hans Kristensen is the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. He is the co-author of the Nuclear Notebook column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, considered widely to be the most accurate source of information on nuclear weapons available to the public.
The economic and political questions surrounding the state of our nuclear stockpiles are among the best-kept national security secrets.
Certainly, aspects must remain under wraps, but given the enormous amount of money devoted to our nuclear arsenal, it seems appropriate for there to be more transparency.
Watch the episode to learn more about our U.S. nuclear program from experts who are very familiar with the current situation.
EPISODES CAN BE VIEWED ON YOUTUBE OR AT MCCUISTIONTV.COM
Oil and gas ‘ready to defend’ decision to block license for nuke waste in Permian Basin
Nuclear Companies “Holtec” and “Interim Storage Partners” Appeal Block of Licenses to Store Waste in the Permian Basin —
Monica Perales, an attorney with Fasken Oil and Ranch which filed the initial suit against the NRC’s licensing decision, [argued] the proposals to store the nuclear waste in southeast New Mexico and West Texas should be evaluated by federal lawmakers, not a single agency like the NRC, due to the significant impact on the region and national policy she said consolidated interim storage of the waste could have.
Perales said the companies and the NRC were not transparent and did not convey the true impact of the projects to all of those affected, including southeast New Mexico and West Texas communities around the site, but also those along the transportation routes the waste will take into the Permian Basin via train.
“The NRC is acting like a rogue agency. They’re out of order,” Perales said. “These plans are of such political and economic consequence that they should be looking to Congress for a directive as to how to deal with this tremendous amount of spent nuclear fuel that’s piling up around the country, and not take it upon itself to send it to the Permian Basin and force it on us.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | June 24, 2024 currentargus.com
A nuclear technology company looking to store spent nuclear fuel rods in the Permian Basin, along the Texas-New Mexico state line, appealed in U.S. Supreme Court a decision last year to vacate its license to do so, hoping to bring the waste from privately-owned reactors around the country.
Interim Storage Partners (ISP) was issued a license in 2021 to build a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel at the Waste Control Specialists site in Andrews, Texas. The project was smaller but almost identical to another facility proposed by Holtec International to hold about 100,000 metric tons of the same waste at a facility near Carlsbad and Hobbs.
Guterres warns humanity on ‘knife’s edge’ as AI raises nuclear war threat
UN secretary general makes plea for nuclear states to agree on mutual pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons
“The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the spread of artificial intelligence technology multiplies the threat of nuclear war, and that humanity is now ‘on a knife’s edge’ as dangers to its existence coalesce.”
By, The Guardian | June 7, 2024 theguardian.com
Guterres’s warning is due to be shown on a recorded video to be played on Friday morning at the annual meeting of the US Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington.
In the video, the secretary general makes his most impassioned plea to date for the nuclear weapons states to take their non-proliferation obligations seriously, and in particular, agree on a mutual pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
“The regime designed to prevent the use, testing and proliferation of nuclear weapons is weakening,”
Guterres says in the recorded message, in a warning that comes with some 600 days to go before the expiry of the 2010 New Start accord between the US and Russia, the last remaining agreement limiting the strategic arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers.
U.S. Considers Expanded Nuclear Arsenal, a Reversal of Decades of Cuts
“China’s expansion and Russia’s threats of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and in space have changed a U.S. drive to reduce nuclear weapons.”
ByJulian E. Barnes and , New York Times | June 7, 2024 nytimes.com
A senior Biden administration official warned on Friday that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the United States may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal, after decades of cutting back through now largely abandoned arms control agreements.
The comments on Friday from Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, were the most explicit public warning yet that the United States was prepared to shift from simply modernizing its arsenal to expanding it…
A ‘TOTAL, COMPLETE’ FAILURE
“Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is speaking out against his own party’s House leadership after the chamber left for the week with no plan for reauthorizing and expanding a program compensating victims of nuclear radiation exposure that’s due to expire on June 10.”
By Anthony Adragna, Politico | June 5, 2024 politico.com
“Clearly, it’s not a priority,” Hawley told Inside Congress. “The next few days, hopefully, are focusing people’s minds on the fact that we’re about to go over the precipice here.”
Hawley, who has been an outspoken champion of expanding the program to include Missouri communities, said the program’s looming expiration represents “just the failure of leadership.” He worked with Democrats, including Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), to get an expanded version of the program, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, through the Senate in March by a wide 69-30 bipartisan margin.
Critics have blushed at the cost of the expansion, estimated at $50 to $60 billion over ten years without any offsets for the new spending. That has complicated passage in the House, and Speaker MIke Johnson’s office did not respond to Hawley’s comments.
Cracks in the Sin Screen: The Link Between Mormon Tithes and Nuclear Weapons
Read Taylor Barnes’ deep dive into Northrup Grumman, chosen manufacture of the Sentinel ICBM, for which the Los Alamos National Lab and Savannah River Site would make new plutonium pits. As they are the ones doing the dirty work of preparing for full-scale nuclear war (a la the “Nuclear Posture Reviews” of Trump & Biden), all NNSA and DOE contractors need this kind of scrutiny. — Tom Clements, SRS Watch
Words: Taylor Barnes – Pictures: Aubrey Odom, Inkstick Media | June 4, 2024 inkstickmedia.com
On March 28, 1979, a handful of Air Force officers and a Mormon civilian employee from Utah’s Hill Air Force Base arrived in Salt Lake City for an unusual meeting. They were seeking a blessing: For the Church of Latter-day Saints’ top three leaders to endorse a plan to construct 8,500 miles of roads and 4,600 concrete garages for a nuclear weapons system. It would constantly shuttle 200 missiles on racetracks, playing a “shell game” intended to keep the Soviet military guessing where America’s nuclear warheads really were at any given moment. The Soviets could, of course, just build more nuclear weapons and take out the entire missile field at once, so American war planners imagined the project, called “Missile, Experimental,” or MX, would continuously grow, becoming 8,250 garages and 360 missiles by 1990. And so on.
That sort of arms race meant the Air Force needed Americans willing to host the ever-growing missile field. The desert landscape of the Great Basin spanning western Utah and central Nevada appealed to them. It had few highways, little infrastructure, and relatively sparse numbers of human residents. Of the population that did exist in the basing area, however, 80% was Mormon, according to an account of the MX battle in “The Mormon Military Experience,” a book recently published by historians Sherman L. Fleek and Robert C. Freeman from West Point and Brigham Young University.
Boulder County reconsidering involvement in trail connection to Rocky Flats due to plutonium concerns
“During a windstorm on April 6, Michael Ketterer, a retired scientist and adjunct professor at the University of Denver, took samples and said he detected high levels of plutonium in the air.
‘The concentrations in the dirt that’s just kind of blowing right past us on that day are higher than can be explained in any way in normal,’ said Dr. Ketterer.”
By Natalie Chuck, Denver 7 News | May 23, 2024 denver7.com
“More people are coming every day,” said Scott Riemer, who comes to the area to bike multiple times a week.
But now, Boulder County commissioners are facing concerns from community members as a result of decisions made by their predecessors. At the center of the controversy is Rocky Flats, acres of federal land formerly home to a nuclear weapons facility.
In 1989, the facility was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for alleged environmental violations, including elevated levels of plutonium. All operations were suspended. Since then, trails have been developed on Rocky Flats.
In 2016, wheels were set in motion to develop the Rocky Mountain Greenway, a string of trails from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge to the Rocky Flats Mountain Wildlife Refuge to Rocky Mountain National Park.
While trails on Rocky Flats have been built, construction impacting Boulder County has yet to start.
Feds: Indian Point owner Holtec had laid-off workers agree not to testify against company
“It is essential that current and former plant workers feel free to raise safety concerns with the NRC,” spokesman Neil Sheehan said. “They are (or were) at the plant on a daily basis and can have knowledge of issues that are not available to us.”
This is the second time in recent months Holtec has reversed course after the NRC caught the company violating federal regulations.
In February, the NRC cited Holtec for spending $63,000 of ratepayer funds meant for the demolition of Indian Point to sponsor a high school fashion show, sports teams and a golf outing. Holtec had to reimburse the money, which it took out of some $2 billion in decommissioning trust funds it inherited after buying the plant from Louisiana-based Entergy.
By, LOHUD | May 29, 2024 lohud.com
Indian Point’s owners had workers sign agreements saying they would not discuss safety concerns with outsiders after they stopped working at the shuttered nuclear power plant, an investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found.
The NRC last week cited Holtec International, the plant’s New Jersey-based owners, for including language in the severance agreements of employees who left the company in 2022 and 2023 that would restrict or discourage them from testifying as a witness in a proceeding that could damage Holtec.
Additionally, the NRC said, Holtec required the employees to tell Holtec if they received “subpoenas, correspondence, telephone calls, requests for information, inquiries or other contacts” from government agencies or other third parties.
A last push for RECA as sunset looms
“The shared stories here are harrowing. Uranium workers from Laguna and Acoma Pueblos and the Seboyeta and Cubero land grants who toiled in mines after 1971 and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders are among the participants: One after another, they come to the podium or comment from the audience. Others nod, shake their heads and wipe away tears.”
[W]ith RECA in political limbo…If the extension isn’t passed by June, hopes will be dashed. “Once that statute is gone, it’s forgotten,” says Kevin Martinez, a local lawyer who’s represented thousands of miners and nuclear lab workers for radiation-related claims. “You can’t recreate that baby.”
By Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico “High Beam” Issue #111 | May 7, 2024 Searchlight NM
Saturday begins early, first with a stop at the grocery store to buy snacks and then a three-hour haul west to Gallup. The winds kick up enough to make the horizon look smudgy until finally I arrive at noon at the Playground of Dreams, where Maggie Billiman has organized the first of two gatherings about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The bill would give people more time to file claims for health afflictions linked to uranium mining, atmospheric tests and toxic Manhattan Project waste, including here in New Mexico, home of the world’s first atomic detonation at the Trinity Site.
The original version of RECA was passed in 1990, recognizing the federal government’s responsibility “to compensate individuals who were harmed by the mining of radioactive materials or fallout from nuclear arms testing.” But that bill is set to expire on June 7. Its reauthorization would add another six years to file RECA claims and cover New Mexico for the first time, along with other states. It would also allow families like the Billimans — from Sawmill, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation — to navigate the medical system, get properly diagnosed for health problems they attribute to living downwind of the Nevada Test Site, and then apply for restitution.
The Senate handily passed this latest bill in March. It’s been stalled since then by Republican Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House.
Nuclear repository site near Carlsbad readies for waste from Washington after pause
As of May 6, 2024, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico is preparing to receive nuclear waste from Washington after a two-month pause for maintenance.
Nuclear waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository near Carlsbad were suspended for about two months as workers completed numerous maintenance projects at the underground facility.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico calls for comprehensive plutonium cleanup at LANL
A group of anti-nuclear activists used data from Los Alamos National Laboratory to map places where plutonium contamination has been found in areas near the lab. Nuclear Watch New Mexico says that the data indicates plutonium contamination has migrated through the subsurface and into important water sources. The group called for comprehensive cleanup at LANL. […]
“Nuclear Watch New Mexico believes comprehensive cleanup is imperative, especially in light of expanding nuclear weapons programs.”
A group of anti-nuclear activists used data from Los Alamos National Laboratory to map places where plutonium contamination has been found in areas near the lab.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico says that the data indicates plutonium contamination has migrated through the subsurface and into important water sources. The group called for comprehensive cleanup at LANL.
The data is publicly available and there are more than 100,000 samples for plutonium dating from 1970 to 2023. However, Sophia Stroud, a digital content manager for Nuclear Watch New Mexico, explained that they did not want to include samples on their map that could be linked to fallout from nuclear weapons testing rather than activities at the lab.
They narrowed down the samples to remove plutonium samples that could have come from nuclear weapon testing. That left about 58,100 samples that were taken from below ground between 1992 and 2023.
Of those samples, about 70 percent of them were below detectable levels of plutonium.
The long path of plutonium: A new map charts contamination at thousands of sites, miles from Los Alamos National Laboratory
Plutonium hotspots appear along tribal lands, hiking trails, city streets and the Rio Grande River, a watchdog group finds
“Nuclear Watch’s driving question, according to Scott Kovac, its operations and research director, concerned a specific pattern of contamination: Had plutonium migrated from LANL dump sites into regional groundwater? The answer, Kovac believes, is yes.”
For years, the public had no clear picture of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium footprint. Had the ubiquitous plutonium at LANL infiltrated the soil? The water? Had it migrated outside the boundary of the laboratory itself?
A series of maps published by Nuclear Watch New Mexico are beginning to answer these questions and chart the troubling extent of plutonium on the hill. One map is included below, while an interactive version appears on Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s website. The raw data for both comes from Intellus New Mexico, a publicly accessible clearinghouse of some 16 million environmental monitoring records offered in recent decades by LANL, the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy.
Approximately 58,100 red dots populate each map at 12,730 locations, marking a constellation of points where plutonium — a radioactive element used in nuclear weapons — was found in the groundwater, surface water or soil. What’s alarming is just how far that contamination extends, from Bandelier National Monument to the east and the Santa Fe National Forest to the north, to San Ildefonso tribal lands in the west and the Rio Grande River and Santa Fe County, to the south.
The points, altogether, tell a story about the porous boundary between LANL and its surrounds. So pervasive is the lab’s footprint that plutonium can be found in both trace and notable amounts along hiking trails, near a nursing home, in parks, along major thoroughfares and in the Rio Grande.
Gauging whether or not the levels of plutonium are a health risk is challenging: Many physicians and advocates say no dose of radiation is safe. But when questions about risk arise, one of the few points of reference is the standard used at Rocky Flats in Colorado, where the maximum allowable amount of plutonium in remediated soil was 50 picocuries per gram. Many sites on the Nuclear Watch map have readings below this amount. Colorado’s construction standard, by contrast, is 0.9 picocuries per gram.
Watchdog group says LANL data shows widespread plutonium migration
“[NukeWatch] argued [their] plutonium migration map provides “compelling evidence of the need for a comprehensive cleanup” at the lab. The Department of Energy instead has proposed a plan to “cap and cover” 190,000 cubic yards of waste in unlined pits and trenches, at an estimated cost of $12 million.
Many local organizations and community leaders, including the Santa Fe County Commission, have opposed the plan, and the New Mexico Environment Department issued a draft order in September calling for a full cleanup — at a cost of about $800 million.”
, The Santa Fe New Mexican | santafenewmexican.com
Trace amounts of plutonium from decades of weapons work at Los Alamos National Laboratory have contaminated the Rio Grande at least as far as Cochiti Lake and could be in the regional aquifer that serves a large population of New Mexicans, a nuclear watchdog says.
“That’s been long known,” Nuclear Watch New Mexico Director Jay Coghlan said in a virtual briefing Thursday morning, when the organization unveiled a map of plutonium migration it said was created with LANL’s own data.
“Nevertheless, it’s not generally known by the New Mexican public,” Coghlan said. “What is ‘new news’ is publicly calling that out.”
Nuclear Watch used what it called the lab’s publicly accessible but cumbersome environmental database, Intellus New Mexico, to map 58,100 spots where the lab collected samples between 1992 and 2023, including 17,483 labeled as plutonium “detects.” The interactive map shows the date each sample was collected and the level of plutonium detected, with two “detects” cited in Cochiti Lake, dozens in the Rio Grande east of Los Alamos and thousands around the lab.
Government watchdog says LANL could be doing more to prevent glove box contaminant releases
“In an email, an anti-nuclear watchdog argued the 10 incidents the board lists in the report were “potentially dangerous.”
“The discouraging overall trend is the accelerating frequency of these events as LANL ramps up expanded plutonium pit production,” wrote Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “The Lab feeds the public with empty assurances of safety. However, this trend deserves meaningful course correction before, and not after, LANL begins production.””
, The Santa Fe New Mexican | santafenewmexican.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory is not doing all it can to detect radioactive leaks in glove boxes and prevent the release of airborne contaminants, a federal watchdog said in a review it conducted of the equipment and safety programs after a series of mishaps.
The equipment, made up of sealed compartments and attached protective gloves, aids workers in handling radioactive materials and is deemed essential in the lab ramping up production of plutonium cores, or pits, that trigger nuclear warheads.
Although the lab is addressing problems previously identified with glove box operations — worn gloves not changed soon enough, inadequate staffing and training, leaky ports not sealed — a team found several other deficiencies that should be fixed to reduce hazards, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wrote in a 13-page report.
Los Alamos decontaminating nuclear waste. Could it save space at repository near Carlsbad?
“A report from Nuclear Watch New Mexico posited pit production would generate 57,550 cubic meters of the waste over 50 years, more than half of WIPP’s projected future capacity. This assertion was backed up by a 2019 report from the National Academies of Sciences finding WIPP could lack sufficient space for disposal of surplus plutonium and other DOE planned waste streams in the coming decades.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | currentargus.com
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are hoping to decontaminate some of the nuclear waste from the lab that would otherwise be disposed of at a repository near Carlsbad, as the lab was planning to ramp its production of plutonium pits used to trigger warheads.
Transuranic (TRU) waste from the lab and other Department of Energy facilities is disposed of via burial at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a 2,000-foot-deep salt deposit about 30 miles east of Carlsbad. TRU waste is made up of clothing, equipment and debris irradiated during nuclear research and other activities.
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
In the Pacific, Outcry Over Japan’s Plan to Release Fukushima Wastewater
“Next year in spring, [Japan] plans to begin releasing the water into the Pacific after treatment for most radioactive particles…”
By Pete McKenzie, NEW YORK TIMES | December 30, 2022 nytimes.com
The proposal has angered many of Japan’s neighbors, particularly those with the most direct experience of unexpected exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – OUR VIEW – Getting rid of plutonium pits — so many questions
A Department of Energy proposal to dilute and dispose of plutonium waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad is ready for public comment — the draft environmental impact statement, all 412 pages of it, has been released.
“Stay alert for notices of meetings and time for public comment. There’s no guarantee informed opposition will change plans by agencies intent on certain action, but speaking up beats staying quiet. Oh, and think about this: before rushing full speed ahead to produce even more plutonium pits, it’s time to at least try to find a way to dispose of the waste we’ve already created.”
[NukeWatch will provide sample comments and make it as easy as possible to participate in the public comment process for the WIPP Permit and Plutonium Waste Disposal plans]
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | December 24, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The public can weigh in, whether in writing or by showing up for public hearings that will take place early next year.
Buckle up. This is going to be a contentious discussion.
The U.S. wants to be rid of 34 metric tons of plutonium bomb cores, or pits, stored at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo. The pits are Cold War legacies; because WIPP is restricted in the type of waste it can take, before disposing of it, the material must be diluted. Thus, the term, dilute and dispose. The Department of Energy’s decision about the waste was announced two years ago, but with no details.
At one point the Energy Department wanted to turn Cold War plutonium into a mixed oxide fuel for use in commercial nuclear plants. That would have happened at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, but billions in cost overruns and delays hamstrung the effort, and the Trump administration killed the project in 2018.
It chose the dilute-and-disposal plan.
The draft statement fleshes out just what would happen to prepare the pits for disposal — in a facility, we might point out, that currently is seeking a renewal of its hazardous waste permit from the state of New Mexico. WIPP is open, but state Environment Department Secretary James Kenney and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham want more oversight of waste disposal at the plant.
That back and forth is separate from the Energy Department dilute-and-disposal proposal, but the permit discussion provides context for the coming fierce debate.Continue reading
Exposed: The Most Polluted Place in the United States
A new book investigates the toxic legacy of Hanford, the Washington state facility that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.
“Bechtel is a privately owned corporation and we’re spending billions of dollars paying this company to not get the job done. It’s a big mess.”
By Tara Lohan, The Revelator | December 21, 2022 ecowatch.com
The most polluted place in the United States — perhaps the world — is one most people don’t even know. Hanford Nuclear Site sits in the flat lands of eastern Washington. The facility — one of three sites that made up the government’s covert Manhattan Project — produced plutonium for Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. And it continued producing plutonium for weapons for decades after the war, helping to fuel the Cold War nuclear arms race.
Today Hanford — home to 56 million gallons of nuclear waste, leaking storage tanks, and contaminated soil — is an environmental disaster and a catastrophe-in-waiting.
It’s “the costliest environmental remediation project the world has ever seen and, arguably, the most contaminated place on the entire planet,” writes journalist Joshua Frank in the new book, Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America.
It’s also shrouded in secrecy.
Frank has worked to change that, beginning with a series of blockbuster investigations published in Seattle Weekly a decade ago. Atomic Days offers an even fuller picture of the ecological threats posed by Hanford and its failed remediation.
The Revelator spoke with him about the environmental consequences, the botched cleanup operation, and what comes next.
Why is the most polluted place in the country so little known?
We have to understand what it was born out of, which was the Manhattan Project. There were three locations picked — Los Alamos [N.M.], Oak Ridge [Tenn.] and Hanford — to build the nuclear program.
New Mexico Presses US to Develop Other Nuclear Waste Sites
State wants full waste inventory, limits to disposal
WIPP, open since 1999, mining new panels
BLOOMBERG NEWS | December 20, 2022 news.bloomberglaw.com
New Mexico will be “unwavering” in sticking to proposed new conditions on a federal underground nuclear waste repository, a state official said, including one that revokes the facility’s permit should Congress expand its disposal limit.
The state is demanding the Energy Department and its site contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership LLC, furnish an accurate inventory of all remaining wastes awaiting clean-up and emplacement at the site and an annual report detailing the agency’s progress toward siting another repository in another state.
Clean Energy or Weapons? What the ‘Breakthrough’ in Nuclear Fusion Really Means
From Tri-Valley CAREs: On NIF, Nuclear Weapons and Fusion Hype
“On December 13, the Department of Energy (DOE) and Livermore Lab held a press conference and, with maximum hoopla, announced that an experiment at the National Ignition Facility earlier that month had achieved fusion “ignition”.
Physicist MV Ramana, who is currently with the University of British Columbia and was previously at Princeton’s Nuclear Futures Laboratory and its Program on Science and Global Security, wrote this article for a science and tech magazine. For more information on what did and did not happen at NIF, we highly recommend it:”
Clean Energy or Weapons? What the ‘Breakthrough’ in Nuclear Fusion Really Means
SCIENCE – THE WIRE | December 19, 2022 science.thewire.in
- On December 13, the US Department of Energy announced that the National Ignition Facility had reached a “milestone”: the achievement of “ignition” in nuclear fusion earlier in the month.
- While the step has been described as a milestone in clean energy, generating electricity commercially or at an industrial scale through fusion is likely unattainable in any realistic sense – at least within the lifetimes of most readers of this article.
- The main utility that the facility offers nuclear weapons designers and planners is by providing a greater understanding of the underlying science and modernizing these weapons.
The Guardian [Letters]: Nuclear fusion ‘holy grail’ is not the answer to our energy prayers
Dr Mark Diesendorf questions the claim that nuclear fusion is safe and clean, while Dr Chris Cragg suspects true fusion power is a long way off. Plus letters from Dick Willis and Martin O’Donovan
“It is great news that scientists have succeeded in getting more energy out of fusion than they put in. It brings to mind a quote from a past director of the Central Electricity Generating Board: ‘One day you may get more energy out of nuclear fusion than you put in, but you will never get more money out than you put in.’” – Martin O’Donovan (Ashtead, Surrey)
THE GUARDIAN: LETTERS | December 19, 2022 theguardian.com
You report on the alleged “breakthrough” on nuclear fusion, in which US researchers claim that break-even has been achieved (Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’, 12 December). To go from break-even, where energy output is greater than total energy input, to a commercial nuclear fusion reactor could take at least 25 years. By then, the whole world could be powered by safe and clean renewable energy, primarily solar and wind.
The claim by the researchers that nuclear fusion is safe and clean is incorrect. Laser fusion, particularly as a component of a fission-fusion hybrid reactor, can produce neutrons that can be used to produce the nuclear explosives plutonium-239, uranium-235 and uranium-233. It could also produce tritium, a form of heavy hydrogen, which is used to boost the explosive power of a fission explosion, making fission bombs smaller and hence more suitable for use in missile warheads. This information is available in open research literature.
The US National Ignition Facility, which did the research, is part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has a history of involvement with nuclear weaponry.
Dr Mark Diesendorf
University of New South Wales
The Energy Department’s fusion breakthrough: It’s not really about generating electricity
“Because of how the Energy Department presented the breakthrough in a news conference headlined by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, news coverage has largely glossed over its implications for monitoring the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, even many serious news outlets focused on the possibility of carbon-free, fusion-powered electricity generation—even though the NIF achievement has, at best, a distant and tangential connection to power production.”
By John Mecklin, THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS | December 16, 2022 thebulletin.org
This week’s headlines have been full of reports about a “major breakthrough” in nuclear fusion technology that, many of those reports misleadingly suggested, augurs a future of abundant clean energy produced by fusion nuclear power plants. To be sure, many of those reports lightly hedged their enthusiasm by noting that (as The Guardian put it) “major hurdles” to a fusion-powered world remain.
Indeed, they do.
The fusion achievement that the US Energy Department announced this week is scientifically significant, but the significance does not relate primarily to electricity generation. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility, or NIF, focused the facility’s 192 lasers on a target containing a small capsule of deuterium–tritium fuel, compressing it and inducing what is known as ignition.
New trend: long-term investments in the nuclear weapons industry are dropping
The report “Risky Returns” provides an overview of investments in 24 companies heavily involved in the production of nuclear weapons for the arsenals of China, France, India, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States in 2022. Overall, the report finds that 306 financial institutions made over $746 billion available to these companies, in loans, underwriting, shares or bonds. US-based Vanguard remains the largest single investor, with $68,180 million invested in the nuclear weapon industry.
By ICAN | December 15, 2022 icanw.org
While the total value of investments in the 24 nuclear weapon producers was higher than previous years, this is also attributed to share price variances through a turbulent year in the defence sector. Some nuclear weapon producers also produce conventional weapons and saw their stock values rise, likely resulting from the announcements by NATO states that they would significantly increase defence spending. Yet the report found no increase in the number of investors in the nuclear weapon producers.
Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America
A new book is out about Hanford, by Joshua Frank, co-editor of Counterpunch, Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America.
Once home to the United States’s largest plutonium production site, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state is laced with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. The threat of an explosive accident at Hanford is all too real—an event that could be more catastrophic than Chernobyl.
Continue reading
Fallout from a nuclear past: A new book explores the human toll of “nuclear colonization” in New Mexico
Of the three waves of colonization New Mexico has undergone — Spanish, American and nuclear — the latter is the least explored. And for author Myrriah Gómez, there were personal reasons to reveal the truth about how “nuclear colonization” has altered the state’s past and continues to shape its future.
By Alicia Inez Guzmán Searchlight New Mexico | December 2022 searchlightnm.org
Gómez, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, is the author of “Nuclear Nuevo México,” a book that explores the history of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the fundamental tension of living in its shadow. Its publication this month by the University of Arizona Press couldn’t be timelier: Los Alamos is currently preparing to build plutonium “pits” that act as triggers in nuclear weapons, putting the lab front and center in an ongoing national debate about nuclear impacts.
“If Spanish colonialism brought Spanish colonizers and U.S. colonialism brought American colonizers,” as Gómez writes in her book, “then nuclear colonialism brought nuclear colonizers, scientists, military personnel, atomic bomb testing, and nuclear waste among them.”
Ukraine still fears another Chernobyl-size disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear plant
“Why did they say it was safe to go outdoors? Why did they build it so close to Kyiv?…Why was it all such a secret?” – Yuriy Samoilenko, chief environmental inspector at Kyiv’s city hall at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown.
By JULIAN HAYDA, NPR | December 11, 2022 npr.org
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine — Sophia Arkadiyivna remembers when the Soviet Union built the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1977, just 20 miles from the village where she served as mayor.
After years of atomic energy powering big Russian cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Voronezh, the USSR was finally ready to expand the technology to other Soviet republics like Ukraine. Soviet propaganda promised easier jobs and cleaner air.
“We didn’t have a reason to distrust the government. They showed us how good things could be,” she says.
Or so she thought at the time. It didn’t take long for Arkadiyivna to turn skeptical.
Nuclear waste permit ‘more stringent’ New Mexico says as feds look to renew for 10 years
NMED Cabinet Secretary James Kenney said the State wanted a permit with stronger regulations moving forward, to better protect people and the environment from the impacts of nuclear waste disposal.
“It will be more stringent, full stop,” Kenney said. “The conditions were adding to it are designed to add more accountability to the whole complex that are sending waste to WIPP.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | December 10, 2022 currentargus.com
Tougher rules for a nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad could be on the way as New Mexico officials sought “more stringent” regulations as the federal government sought to renew its permit with the state for the facility.
The State sought new requirements to prioritize nuclear waste from within New Mexico for disposal, called for an accounting of all of the waste planned for disposal in the next decade and regular updates on federal efforts to find the location for a new repository as conditions of the permit.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy which holds a permit with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) that must be updated every 10 years.
The facility sees transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste from DOE facilities around the country disposed of via burial in an underground salt formation about 2,000 feet beneath the surface.
The Bizarre Mystery of the Only Armed Nuke America Ever Lost
The lost nuke has never been found—only the pilot’s helmet was recovered, and the government kept it secret for years.
Matthew Gault, Vice News | 2022 vice.com
In the early days of the Cold War, the United States wanted to make sure it could launch a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union as quickly as possible if it launched a nuclear strike. The goal was 15 minutes. This was before the advent of submarines that launch ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missile silos. From 1960 until 1968, America maintained that 15-minute ability to pepper the globe with nukes by putting pilots on 24-hour alert. For more than a decade, hundreds of U.S. pilots criss-crossed the planet in planes loaded with nuclear bombs. To keep up with brutal hours, many of the pilots and crew took amphetamine.
As noted in Task & Purpose, the U.S. military had 32 nuclear accidents during the Cold War, and six of the weapons are still unaccounted for. Every story of a Broken Arrow—the military term for a missing nuke—is harrowing, but what happened off the coast of Japan in 1965 was especially frightening.
On December 5, 1965, U.S. Navy Lt. Douglas Webster was supposed take an A-4E Skyhawk loaded with a nuclear bomb into the sky. On the USS Ticonderoga aircraft carrier, stationed in the Philippine Sea about 70 miles from Okinawa, Japan, the crew loaded the weapon onto the vehicle and Webster got into the cockpit. The crew then pushed the plane to an elevator that would bring it up to the flight deck.
Watch a brief YouTube Clip about this event:
Making the Case That Nuclear Weapons Are Immoral: An Interview With Archbishop John C. Wester
If nuclear weapons are ever eliminated, it will be the result of actions big and small at every communal level, from international leaders to civil society.
Arms Control Association | December 2022 armscontrol.org
The Reverend John C. Wester occupies a unique role in this continuum as the Roman Catholic archbishop of Santa Fe, whose archdiocese is home to the Los Alamos and Sandia national nuclear laboratories and site of the first Manhattan Project nuclear tests. In January, Wester issued a pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” which called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and declared that the archdiocese “must be part of a strong peace initiative.” He had a compelling basis for action: In 2021, Pope Francis shifted the church’s position from accepting deterrence as a legitimate rationale for nuclear weapons to decrying the possession of nuclear weapons as “immoral.” Even with the pope’s admonition, however, Wester is finding his peace initiative slow going. He discussed his efforts with Carol Giacomo, editor of Arms Control Today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ARMS CONTROL TODAY: You often tell the story of visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2017. It almost seems like an epiphany. How did that trip and other forces, including serving as the top Roman Catholic Church official in Santa Fe, home to Los Alamos and Sandia, propel you to take on the mission of eliminating nuclear weapons?
Archbishop John C. Wester: Until I came here to Santa Fe, I was pretty much like I believe most people are, lulled into a false sense of complacency.
Where Are All the Nuclear Bunkers?
Many of these shelters, which are marked by a characteristic yellow sign, were not specifically designed for such purposes and may not have provided sufficient levels of protection against radiation.
ARISTOS GEORGIOU, Newsweek | November 22, 2022 newsweek.com
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, concerns over the potential use of nuclear weapons have grown. Specially designed bunkers may provide some degree of protection to people in the event of a nuclear attack.
But where are all the nuclear bunkers in the United States and who are they for?
During the Cold War, the U.S. government constructed a number of bunkers around Washington, D.C., and elsewhere that were designed to provide a safe haven for high-ranking members and staff during a nuclear attack on the country.
Nuclear watchdog accuses ex-environment official of conflicting interests after she accepts LANL job
“Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said there’s a long list of Environment Department officials who went to work for the lab or the agencies that manage it.
He noted Chris Catechis, acting director of the state Resources Protection Division, is going to work for the lab just weeks after Stringer took a job with the nuclear security agency.”
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | November 28, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
A nuclear watchdog group wants a state commission to nullify its decision on a permit for Los Alamos National Laboratory’s radioactive liquid waste treatment facility, arguing the panel’s former chairwoman backed a ruling favorable to the lab while she sought a job with the federal agency that oversees it.
Strong earthquake rattles remote West Texas desert
Many of these shelters, which are marked by a characteristic yellow sign, were not specifically designed for such purposes and may not have provided sufficient levels of protection against radiation
BY TEXAS | November 16, 2022 spectrumlocalnews.com
MENTONE, Texas (AP) — A strong earthquake shook a sparsely populated patch of desert in West Texas on Thursday, causing tremors felt as far away as the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez. The magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck around 3:30 p.m., according to Jim DeBerry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the West Texas city Midland. He said the strength of the quake means it likely caused damage in the remote oil patch and scrubland, but none had been reported so far.
DeBerry said the epicenter was about 23 miles (37 kilometers) south of Mentone, a tiny community south of the New Mexico state line and 95 miles (153 kilometers) west of Midland.
State Rep. Eddie Morales, Jr., whose district includes Mentone, said he spoke with local authorities and there were no reported injuries. He said via Twitter that state officials will be “inspecting roads, bridges and other infrastructure as a precaution.”
DeBerry said there were reports of people feeling vibrations from the quake 200 miles (515 kilometers) west in the border city of Ciudad Juárez and as far south as Terlingua, a small community near the Rio Grande and Big Bend National Park.
Russia-US nuclear disarmament talks postponed
Officials from the two countries were due to meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo from November 29 to December 6.
ALJAZEERA | November 28, 2022 aljazeera.com
Nuclear disarmament talks between Russia and the United States set to take place this week have been postponed, according to Moscow’s foreign ministry and the US Embassy.
Officials from the two countries were due to meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo from November 29 to December 6 to discuss resuming inspections under the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, which had been suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After decades as a nuclear powerhouse, France makes its play in offshore wind
EDF says the 480-megawatt Saint-Nazaire Offshore Wind Farm would help to “support the French State’s energy transition goals.”
By Anmar Frangoul | November 25, 2022 cnbc.com
A facility described as “France’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project” is fully operational, multinational utility EDF said this week.
The news represents a significant step forward for the country’s offshore wind sector, with more projects set to come online in the years ahead.
In a statement Wednesday, EDF said the 480-megawatt Saint-Nazaire Offshore Wind Farm would help to “support the French State’s energy transition goals, which include targets to generate 32% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.” EDF’s majority shareholder is the French state.
Gov. Lujan Grisham demands President Biden block nuclear waste site in southeast New Mexico
Nuclear waste storage in southeast New Mexico drew the ire of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who called on President Joe Biden via a Wednesday letter to block such a project near Carlsbad and Hobbs for perceived threats to nearby residents and implications of environmental racism.
“New Mexico has grave concerns for the risk this proposed storage site would pose to our citizens and communities, our first responders, our environment, and to New Mexico’s agriculture and natural resource industries,” Lujan Grisham wrote.
CALRSBAD CURRENT ARGUS | Carlsbad Current-Argus | November 18, 2022 currentargus.com
Holtec International proposed the project, which would store up to 100,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the surface in a remote area near the Eddy-Lea county line, after being recruited by a consortium of local leaders in the area known as the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance.
The Alliance provided the land, about 1,000 acres amid the oilfields of the Permian Basin, and worked with Holtec to promote the project and seek public support.
But Lujan Grisham, her administration and elected officials both at the state government and in Congress became opposed to the project, frequently voicing their disapproval in the years since.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could start a race for nukes, Austin says
The Defense secretary painted a bleak picture for the world, alluding to a scenario in which autocrats will race to acquire the bomb if Russia isn’t repelled.
“Austin further warned that “Putin may resort again to profoundly irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling” as the war drags on and if Ukrainian forces continue their gains against Russian troops.”
POLITICO | & ALEXANDER WARD, November 19, 2022 politico.com
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could entice autocrats around the world to race to develop nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday, potentially sparking a dangerous era of nuclear proliferation.
Moscow has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine several times over the past nine months, leading to a flurry of phone calls this month between U.S., European and Russian officials trying to tamp down tensions.
A day before he leaves for a multi-day swing through the Indo-Pacific, Austin painted a bleak picture for the world, alluding to a scenario in which autocrats will race to acquire the bomb if Putin isn’t successfully repelled.
Watchdog agency grills LANL, nuclear officials on lab safety
[NukeWatch would amend this headline to add “‘lightly’ grills” – The DNFSB was asking tough questions, but DOE and the LANL contractors were not forthcoming with those answers.]
“Much of the discussion involved complex, technical subjects. But board Chairwoman Joyce Connery said a basic complaint is the lack of response the board has gotten at times when raising concerns in letters sent to the lab and nuclear security agency.”
THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | November 16, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
A federal watchdog agency on Wednesday grilled top officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the agency that oversees nuclear weapons about ongoing safety concerns and how they aim to resolve them as the lab gears up to produce an unprecedented number of warhead triggers.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent organization within the executive branch, questioned lab Director Thom Mason and National Nuclear Security Administration head Jill Hruby about safety issues that could prove important as the lab moves toward making 30 bomb cores, known as pits, per year by 2026.
The board provides recommendations and advice to the president and the secretary of energy regarding public health and safety issues at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities.
The daylong hearing was held at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. It is the first time in several years the safety board has held a public hearing in the Santa Fe area.
Continue reading
A Clear Case of Disqualification of NMED Deputy Cabinet Secretary Stephanie Stringer – Concerned Citizens For Nuclear Safety
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has provided evidence to CCNS and Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) that Stephanie Stringer, a New Mexico Environment Department Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Chair of the New Mexico Water Quality Commission, made adjudicatory decisions against the non-governmental organizations while she was applying for NNSA employment.
CONCERNED CITIZENS FOR NUCLEAR SAFETY | November 17, 2022 nuclearactive.com
This is the second time NNSA has hired an adjudicatory decision-maker during an ongoing proceeding addressing the groundwater discharge permit, DP-1132, for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. http://nuclearactive.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/190606-CCW-Petition-for-Mandamus-2019-06-06.pdf , see ¶¶ 14 – 24.
This time, Stephanie Stringer, after applying for the NNSA job, demonstrated her bias by not recusing herself from the matter. She voted against the NGOs in the requested permit review before the Water Quality Control Commission.
New study reveals ‘shocking’ number of deaths in southern Ohio county
“PORTS is a massive complex that dominates the landscape in Pike County and, for people in the communities that surround it, so do cancer and death.”
OHIO, LOCAL12 NEWS | | November 16, 2022 local12.com
ANOTHER SOMBER MOMENT IN THE CEMETERY
PIKE COUNTY, Ohio (WKRC) – On a crisp, sun-drenched day, the shadow of sadness followed Larry Farmer as he made a now-routine somber walk at Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio.
Larry comes there three-to-four times a month to visit his son.
“I come in here and talk to Zach,” Larry said, at a spot overlooking a tombstone with etched pictures of his son smiling in his baseball uniform.
AN ALL-AMERICAN STORY
Zach Farmer was an All-American baseball pitcher at Piketon High School and rising start at Ohio State, when his dreams of making it to the big leagues were cut down by acute myeloid leukemia.
He died in 2015, just eight days after he turned 21.
“You’re never going to find peace,” Larry said as he recalled the pain of losing his son.
Russia and US to hold first nuclear talks since Ukraine war
“While the U.S. has cut off most contacts with Russia over the invasion, some channels remain. In Moscow, officials have called for a resumption of broader strategic dialogue, including on a possible successor treaty to New START. The U.S. has said that’s not possible until the inspections resume.”
PONCA CITY NEWS | November 12, 2022 poncacitynews.com
Russia said it will hold talks with the U.S. from late November to early December in Cairo about inspections of atomic weapons sites under the New START treaty, a first step toward reviving broader arms-control talks suspended since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The consultations in the Egyptian capital will last about a week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday, according to state news service RIA Novosti.
The Guardian – Letters: nuclear power is not the only option (UK Opinions)
THE GUARDIAN | November 13, 2022 theguardian.com
I do not share your enthusiasm for the “good news” that Sizewell C is believed to be safe from Jeremy Hunt’s budgetary cuts (“Britain can’t afford to waver over nuclear power – soon it will be too late”, Editorial). “On a freezing cold, windless, winter’s evening”, Britain’s grid will indeed need an alternative power source to wind or solar, but why is it assumed that only nuclear can provide an alternative base load? And at the cost of how many billions? And how many decades of lead time?
Geothermal could do the job faster, more safely and cheaply – for about a quarter of the cost. Geothermal power plants operate already in the United States, Italy and Iceland. And nothing is more certain and regular than the tide twice a day; sea turbines already operate in tidal flows off Orkney and Shetland and are another safe source of energy baseload. Let us not be blinkered by nuclear.
Wendy Fowler
Carnac-Rouffiac, France
Sweden to spurn nuclear weapons as NATO member, foreign minister says
Sweden plans to declare nuclear weapons cannot be stationed on its territory when the country joins the NATO military alliance, following in the footsteps of its Nordic neighbors, the Swedish foreign minister told local news agency TT on Friday.
REUTERS | November 11, 2022 reuters.com
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO earlier this year in a move triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So far, the application has been ratified by 28 of NATO’s 30 countries.
Sweden’s supreme commander raised eyebrows this month when he recommended that the government should not insert any red lines in the final negotiations with NATO, such as bans against permanent alliance bases or nuclear weapons on Swedish soil.
However, Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Sweden would join Denmark and Norway in unilaterally declaring that it would not allow nuclear weapons in Sweden.
“It is still the long-term Moderate Party position,” he told TT. “We have never intended to change the conditions for the application submitted by the previous government,” he said.
A Moderate Party-led alliance won the September general election, ending eight years of Social Democratic rule in Sweden.
US warns Australia against joining treaty banning nuclear weapons
“Australia must ‘make sure that we are able to be good nuclear stewards from cradle to grave’.” – Defence Minister of Australia Richard Marles
THE GUARDIAN | Daniel Hurst November 6, 2022 theguardian.com
The US has warned Australia against joining a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons, saying the agreement could hamper defence arrangements between the US and its allies.
But New Zealand said it was “pleased to observe a positive shift” in Australia’s position in a United Nations vote and “would, of course, welcome any new ratifications as an important step to achieving a nuclear weapon-free world”.
Sullivan has held talks with Putin aides amid nuclear fears: WSJ
“White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has held talks with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow in recent weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“After a series of setbacks in Ukraine, Putin has signaled that he was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia, causing Biden to warn of a nuclear ‘Armageddon.’”
THE HILL | BRAD DRESS | November 6, 2022 thehill.com
U.S. officials and allies told the news outlet that Sullivan has been in talks with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Putin, as well as Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s security council.
It’s unclear how many times Sullivan has spoken with the officials, but the conversations have been focused on preventing escalation of the war as fears of Russia using nuclear weapons have been rising, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Expanded WIPP mission? No shortcuts
“This “bait and switch” tactic, where WIPP is marketed with one mission in mind, then greatly expanded decades later, contradicts DOE’s professed dedication to a consent-based process that, in their own words, “focuses on the needs and concerns of people and communities.”
This expansion represents such a dramatic change in WIPP’s core mission that its managers must reassess safety issues and negotiate a new social contract with the public before moving forward.”
MY VIEW: Santa Fe New Mexican, By Dennis McQuillan and Rodney Ewing | October 29, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The U.S. Department of Energy proposes a dramatic expansion of the type and amount of radioactive waste for burial at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In March, community groups rallied outside the state Capitol protesting this planned expansion, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sent the Department of Energy a letter in April that cited “ongoing frustration among New Mexicans regarding the lack of meaningful and transparent public engagement from the DOE on waste clean-up, shipments, and long-term plans for the WIPP.”
While it may seem too late to protest a facility that has operated for decades, citizen activists are right to object, and the governor is right to demand the Department of Energy address the concerns of state citizens.
Nuclear injustice: How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows the staggering human cost of deterrence
“Even a “limited” regional nuclear war could kill millions or even billions, disrupt global climate, and lead to mass starvation. Nuclear winter would not stop at the borders of nuclear perpetrator states—the entire global population would bear the costs of catastrophic deterrence failure or accidents.
Complicating the setting, it would most likely be future generations that would have to cope with the devastating consequences, which makes necessary action today appear to be a less pressing concern.
After all, why should today’s decision-makers—particularly in democracies, and nuclear-armed ones at that—care more about future voters than their current electorates?”
THE BULLETIN| Franziska Stärk & Ulrich Kühn October 29, 2022 thebulletin.org
The global nuclear order—built on policies of nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and disarmament—is unjust. Russia’s war against Ukraine proves that the distribution of the costs and benefits of nuclear deterrence is particularly discriminatory. The current situation is a painful reminder that nuclear weapons are to global security what fossil fuels are to a green economy: a costly legacy of past generations thwarting justice and sustainability efforts in the long-term.
It is time for nuclear scholars, policy makers, and the general public to (re)politicize the ongoing and future negative effects of this Nuclear Injustice and push for fundamental change in the role of nuclear weapons in the world. They can do so by making Nuclear Injustice front and center at all relevant conferences and actively engaging in the debate about the nuclear lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.
LANL remains key part of U.S. nuclear weapons plan
“Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said given the reported problems the lab and Savannah River are grappling with, the review might be trying to add “wiggle room” to production goals.
“It’s interesting how vague the Nuclear Posture Review is on both the rate and timing of pit production,” Coghlan said.”
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | October 27, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory received only a brief mention in the Biden administration’s much-awaited update of the country’s nuclear strategy, but it’s clear the Pentagon views …
Department of Energy Official Reveals More Delays in Plans for New Plutonium Pit Facility at DOE’s Savannah River Site
“A lawsuit remains before a federal judge in South Carolina in which the plaintiffs – SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM) and Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA) – have demanded that a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) on pit production be prepared. The PEIS would analyze impacts of pit production at all DOE sites, including heretofore unanalyzed disposal of plutonium by-product waste (transuranic waste) from pit production in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.”
By Savannah River Site Watch | October 5, 2022 einpresswire.com
SRS Pit Plant would Fabricate Plutonium Pits (Cores) for New and Old Nuclear Weapons; Schedule Delays, Cost Increases Mounting, with Cost Nearing $12 Billion
Our prediction that the unneeded SRS plutonium pit plant would continue to face significant delays and substantial cost increases is sadly being proven true”
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, US – A facility proposed to make the key plutonium component for new U.S. nuclear warheads faces another substantial delay, according a U.S. Department of Energy official at a nuclear meeting this week in South Carolina. The delay of construction of the Plutonium Bomb Plant, proposed to make plutonium “pits” at the U.S. Department of Energy’s sprawling 310-square-mile Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, SC, could push the price tag to $11.5 billion or higher.
Archbishop renews call for dialogue on ridding world of nuclear weapons
“Congress should have the courage to begin to help lead us toward a future world free of nuclear weapons…In particular, I call upon the New Mexican congressional delegation to end their support for unneeded, exorbitantly expensive plutonium pit production for nuclear weapons. ”
Catholic News Service | October 23, 2022 osvnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (CNS) — The world still has not learned “the essential lesson” of the Cuban Missile Crisis that “the only way to eliminate the nuclear danger is through careful, universal, verifiable steps to eliminate nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“It is the very nature of these weapons that the possession of any nuclear weapons is an existential danger to all,” he said. “And Pope Francis has been explicitly clear that ‘the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral.’”
He renewed his call “for dialogue on the existential issue of eliminating nuclear weapons” and said New Mexico’s congressional delegation should help lead this dialogue,” given that the federal government spends billions in the state on weapons production while New Mexico “remains mired at the bottom of numerous socioeconomic indicators.”
Group behind Jana Elementary radioactive study says tipster led them into their investigation
Investigators arrived in St. Louis on Aug. 15, 2022. The study was released in mid-October with the results of radioactive lead found at Jana Elementary School.
Boeing’s Weak Santa Susana Cleanup Triggers Lawsuit
Sweetheart Deal Negotiated Behind Closed Doors Violates CEQA Mandates
PRESS RELEASE
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Contact
Jeff Ruch, PEER, [email protected] (510) 213-7028
Melissa Bumstead, Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab [email protected] (818) 233-0642
Denise Duffield, Physicians for Social Responsibility, [email protected] (310) 339-9766
Lawrence Yee [email protected]
Oakland — The Newsom administration’s backroom deal with the Boeing Co. to dramatically weaken cleanup standards at the profoundly polluted Santa Susana Field Laboratory violates the public involvement and transparency requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), charges a lawsuit filed today by community and public health groups. The suit would open the cleanup agreement to public scrutiny and force the state agencies and the Boeing Co. to justify a cleanup methodology that leaves 90% of the contamination onsite.
Filed today in Ventura County Superior Court by Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab, Physicians for Social Responsibility (LA Chapter), and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the suit would, if successful, vacate both the cleanup agreement and an accompanying promise to free Boeing from toxic stormwater discharge requirements.
“This suit does not prevent cleanup from beginning immediately but instead aims to ensure it continues until it is fully completed,” stated Pacific PEER Director Jeff Ruch, noting that under a prior Consent Order, the cleanup was supposed to have been completed back in 2017. “This lawsuit is about having this cleanup done right and well beyond the outrageous ‘rip and skip’ deal that Boeing wrangled behind closed doors.”
After repeatedly promising to enforce a 2007 legally binding cleanup agreement with Boeing, the Newsom administration secretly negotiated an 800-page agreement that “supersedes” the prior order by substantially relaxing key cleanup requirements, allowing hundreds of times higher levels of toxic chemicals than previously permitted, and leaving much of the contamination onsite.
Nuclear News Archives – 2021
Will Construction be Delayed on the New Shaft at WIPP?
“The Environment Department “should be equally considerate towards the judicial review process as it was in the administrative permit modification process, to ensure the courts have sufficient time to review objectively the facts and arguments associated with the appeal.” – Steve Zappe, a member of the Environment Department who worked on WIPP for 17 years.”
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety | December 23, 2021
Two appeals have been filed in the New Mexico Court of Appeals to challenge the decision by New Mexico Environment Department Secretary James Kenney to approve the new shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety filed the second appeal on November 29th. On November 9th, Southwest Research and Information Center and Cynthia Weehler had filed the first appeal. Visit: env.nm.gov/opf/docketed-matters/, scroll down to HWB 21-02 – APPEAL: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: Class 3 Permit Modification Request, “Excavation of a New Shaft and Associated Connecting Drifts.
SRIC and Weehler also asked Secretary Kenney for a stay, that is, a delay, of shaft construction until the Court of Appeals rules on their appeal. On the stay motion, Secretary Kenney can grant, or deny, or take no action. If he does not grant the stay, or if he takes no action by January 10th, a stay motion then could be filed with the Court of Appeals. Visit: env.nm.gov/opf/docketed-matters/ , scroll down to HWB 21-02 –Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: Class 3 Permit Modification Request, “Excavation of a New Shaft and Associated Connecting Drifts.
Unfortunately, key documents are missing, including the SRIC/Weehler Motion for Stay Pending Appeal, the Hearing Officer’s Report and the Secretary’s Final Order.
The stay motion was supported by three affidavits. Cynthia Weehler stated that she purchased her home near U.S. Highway 285 knowing that the WIPP Permit anticipated that shipments to WIPP would end in 2024. Now, the WIPP expansion plan that requires the new shaft “would result in thousands of additional shipments coming near my house for many decades.” She is very concerned that accidents could result in health effects and “such shipments will reduce my property values.”
Kathleen Wan Povi Sanchez, an Elder from the Tewa Pueblo of San Ildefonso and among the founding mothers of Tewa Women United, stated in her affidavit that an increase in waste transportation near two schools located on New Mexico Highway 502 would endanger the health of Pueblo children in attendance. Further, “The WIPP expansion plan would result in thousands of new shipments using [] Highway 502 for decades transporting plutonium from the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas to [Los Alamos National Laboratory], and from [Los Alamos] to the Savannah River Site, followed by shipments from that site to WIPP.”
Some LANL plutonium stored in vulnerable containers
An anti-nuclear group said this type of plutonium isn’t explosive but would be hazardous to breathe.
It’s possible the lab made this type of plutonium a lesser priority while ramping up pit production, and now it plans to take big shipments, said Scott Kovac, research and operations director for the nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“That’s a huge amount to accept,” Kovac said. “Now they’re asking NNSA to say that’s OK.”
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | December 23, 2021 santafenewmexican.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory wants to store high heat-emitting plutonium in uncertified containers that, if breached in a fire or an earthquake, could expose workers and the public to hazardous doses of radiation, according to a government watchdog’s report.
The lab’s primary contractor seeks a waiver to store large quantities of plutonium-238 in unapproved containers that, if breached, could expose the public to 83 to 378 rem, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a December report, referring to the unit that measures radiation absorbed in living tissue.
US Still Doesn’t Know How and Where It Will Store Its Growing Pile of Nuclear Waste
The estimated cost of handling the degrading radioactive material is rising steadily — $512 billion at last count.
“DoE is now running up against a statutory limit for how much waste it can store in the space, so it recently changed its counting method to exclude space between storage drums as storage space. New Mexico regulators approved the change but the matter is being challenged in court.
“They knocked a third out of it with a slight of hand. That will allow them a lot more waste,” complains Scott Kovac, operations & research director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NWNM), a local anti-nuclear group.”
BY , EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL | December 23, 2021 earthisland.org
A nuclear watchdog group wants a state commission to nullify its decision on a permit for Los Alamos National Laboratory’s radioactive liquid waste treatment facility, arguing the panel’s former chairwoman backed a ruling favorable to the lab while she sought a job with the federal agency that oversees it.
U.S. Urges Japan Not to Join Nuclear Ban Treaty Meeting
“Germany’s move [planning to to attend the meeting as an observer] has put Japan — which has stated it aspires to a world free of nuclear weapons as the only country to have suffered the devastation of atomic bombings — in the spotlight. Both countries are key U.S. allies that rely on American nuclear forces for protection.”
© KYODO NEWS | December 20, 2021
The United States has urged Japan not to attend as an observer the first meeting of signatories to a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, according to U.S. government sources, reflecting Washington’s opposition to the pact.
The Japanese government has suggested it will come into line with the United States and take a cautious approach to the issue, the sources said. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a parliamentary committee on Thursday that Tokyo has no “concrete plans” to attend the meeting as an observer.
The sources said the U.S. administration of President Joe Biden made the request to Japan through diplomatic channels after German political parties announced Nov. 24 that the deal for the new ruling coalition included taking part as an observer at the meeting scheduled for March in Vienna.
Maybe because of the request, Kishida also suggested last week that participation in the meeting would be premature “before building a relationship of trust with President Biden.”
Archbishop calls for nuclear disarming
At least 125 people were present for the service, many bearing roses in honor of the Lady of Guadalupe. Among them was Karen Weber, who said it’s “highly symbolic” for Wester to speak out on the “abolishment of nuclear weapons.”
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN By Robert Nott [email protected]
Looking up at the sky as a young teen one day in Daly City, Calif., Archbishop John C. Wester had one thought as he saw military planes overheard.
Were they ours, or were they Russian planes?
The year was 1962, perhaps the first time nuclear war between the two superpowers seemed likely to erupt as the Cuban Missile Crisis played out and students were taught to prepare for an atomic attack by diving under their desks at schools.
“I don’t think going under our desks was very helpful,” Wester said Sunday in Santa Fe, moments before issuing a call for the world to rid itself its nuclear weapons.
Now, some 60 years later, he said he wants to do more to end the threat of an atomic war. Wester spoke and prayed during a 30-minute prayer service and ceremony at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe before he unveiled a sign bearing an image of Pope Francis and a quote uttered by the pope in Hiroshima in 2020: “The possession of nuclear arms is immoral.”
Wester said “our archdiocese needs to be facilitating, encouraging an ongoing conversation” about nuclear disarmament.
Why Los Alamos lab is working on the tricky task of creating new plutonium cores
“While the labs work on relearning high-stakes industrial techniques for terrifying weapons, it is estimated that most of the existing warheads will remain fully functional for at least 100 years after first manufacture. Given an arsenal of hundreds of deployed warheads, the stakes of failure to modernize are that, in the event of the worst war humanity has ever known, some warheads might fail to detonate, letting millions live.”
BY KELSEY D. ATHERTON | POPULAR SCIENCE popsci.com December 18, 2021
Plutonium pits, the potent hearts of modern nuclear weapons, degrade over time. As these cores decay, so too does the certainty that they will work as designed when detonated. Los Alamos National Laboratory, the organization that grew out of the Manhattan Project to design and equip the nuclear arsenal of the Cold War, is advancing towards its goal of manufacturing 30 new plutonium pits to go inside nuclear bomb cores by 2026.
The project is both a specific manufacturing challenge, and an opening for the United States to newly consider how many warheads it needs on hand to achieve its stated strategic objectives.
Inside a nuclear warhead, a plutonium pit is crucial to setting off the sequence of reactions that make a thermonuclear explosion. Inside the pit is a gas, like deuterium/tritium, and around the pit is chemical explosive. When the chemical explosive detonates, it compacts the plutonium around the gas until the core is dense enough to trigger a fission reaction. What makes a warhead thermonuclear, as opposed to just atomic, is that this is combined in the same warhead with a uranium core, which creates a fusion explosion.
Hundreds of Scientists Ask Biden to Cut the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal
The letter argued that “by making clear that the United States will never start a nuclear war, it reduces the likelihood that a conflict or crisis will escalate to nuclear war.” And it would demonstrate, they argued, that the United States was committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which obliges the nuclear-armed states to move toward reducing their arsenals.
Written By: Jesus Jiménez © 2021 The New York Times Company The New York Times | December 17, 2021
Nearly 700 scientists and engineers, including 21 Nobel laureates, asked President Joe Biden on Thursday to use his forthcoming declaration of a new national strategy for managing nuclear weapons as a chance to cut the US arsenal by a third and to declare, for the first time, that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
The letter to Biden also urged him to change, for the first time since President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, the American practice that gives the commander in chief sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. The issue gained prominence during the Trump administration, and the authors of the letter urged Biden to make the change as “an important safeguard against a possible future president who is unstable or who orders a reckless attack.”
Today I had the honor of delivering a letter on nuclear weapons issues to @POTUS signed by 697 scientists & engineers, including 21 Nobel laureates & 69 members of the National Academies. It recommends four steps to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war: https://t.co/o9ktgLlOxd pic.twitter.com/stjn9BJCCu
— Stephen Young (@StephenUCS) December 16, 2021
Politico-Opinion | Congress Approved $778 Billion for the Pentagon. That Means We Can Afford Build Back Better.
Some senators say Biden’s social and climate bill costs too much, but comparing it to the military spending plan they just passed suggests otherwise.
This week, the families of 61 million children received their final payments under the expanded Child Tax Credit. This credit has kept 10 million children above the poverty line, but it is expiring as the Senate delays a vote to renew it through the Build Back Better Act.
Instead, on the same day these last payments went out, the Senate voted to approve a $778 billion military spending budget — four times as much as the annual cost of the entire Build Back Better plan. Yet we’ve heard endlessly about how it’s Build Back Better that needs to be gutted so we can skimp and save.
Germany’s Baerbock pushes for nuclear disarmament
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for a “new momentum” to nuclear disarmament as she met with her Swedish counterpart with an eye toward a review of a non-proliferation treaty.
Germany and Sweden have paired up to find ways to get the world’s nuclear powers to move toward committing to disarmament. The foreign ministers met in Stockholm to plot the way forward ahead of next month’s review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Baerbock has been in talks with her Swedish counterpart Ann Linde and met with the Stockholm Initiative, a group of 16 countries seeking to get rid of nuclear weapons.
“Our joint goal is clear: a world free of atomic weapons,” Baerbock said during a press conference with Linde.
“Our message to the review conference will be clear: Nuclear weapons countries have to push ahead with nuclear disarmament,” read a statement from the initiative, calling for an irreversible, transparent end to nuclear weapons subject to oversight.
Protesters Denounce French Push to Label Nuclear as Sustainable Energy
“By taking the lead of the toxic alliance between fossil gas and nuclear (energy) at a European level, Emmanuel Macron clearly sides with the polluters’ camp. Nuclear is not a green energy: it produces radioactive waste that piles up across the country”
By Reuters | December 14, 2021
PARIS (Reuters) – Demonstrators unfurled a banner declaring “Gas & nuclear are not green” outside France’s foreign ministry on Tuesday in protest at a government drive to label nuclear energy and fossil gas as sectors for climate-friendly investment.
One of the about 20 protesters, wearing a mask of President Emmanuel Macron, chained himself to a gas bottle and a nuclear barrel outside the ministry’s headquarters in Paris. Another held a banner that read “Macron shame on you.”
The European Union is preparing a rulebook on climate friendly investments, which from next year will define which activities can be labelled as green in sectors including transport and buildings.
The EU’s aim is to restrict the green investment label to climate-friendly activities, steer cash into low-carbon projects and stop companies or investors making unsubstantiated environmental claims.
NEW Y-12 CONTRACTORS HAVE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR SAFETY FAILURES, MILLIONS IN PENALTIES AND FINES FOR VIOLATIONS
“The public deserves an explanation,” said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “Given the persistent criticality safety problems at Y-12, it is astonishing that the National Nuclear Security Administration has turned the management over to Fluor and Amentum, two companies that have racked up millions of dollars in fines in the last two decades for nuclear safety violations.”
immediate release: December 13, 2021
more information: Ralph Hutchison 865 776 5050 / [email protected]
According to the web site goodjobsfirst.com, which tracks violations in government contracting, AECOM, parent company of Amentum, has been penalized more than $167 million for 114 violations since 2000. Fifty-one of those violations were safety related, for a total of $4.5 million in penalties and fines; of that total, $3,866,250 was assessed for nuclear safety violations.
“From the beginning of October to mid-November, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board documented nine nuclear safety incidents at Y-12, an average of more than one a week,” Hutchison said. “Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly—Y-12 is consistently plagued by nuclear safety issues, many of them from legacy activities or the ongoing degradation of the buildings used to manufacture nuclear weapons components.
“And the equally sad truth is that contractors at Y-12 have a history of failing to aggressively address issues as they arise. An outside assessment delivered in October noted that Consolidated Nuclear Services declared some cases ‘closed’ even though the actual problem had not been corrected and the cases were, in fact, still open.
Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Will Not Release Contaminated Water In 2022
By CBSBoston.com Staff December 7, 2021
PLYMOUTH (CBS) – The company managing the shutdown of the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant now says it will not release contaminated water into Cape Cod Bay in 2022 as planned.
Holtec International planned to discharge the water sometime early next year.
But in a statement on Monday, they promised to store the water on site through 2022 and search for other options to get rid of it.
“We appreciate and understand the public’s questions and concerns and remain committed to an open, transparent process on the decommissioning of Pilgrim Station focused on the health and safety of the public, the environment, and on-site personnel,” Holtec said in a statement.
Pilgrim went offline in 2019.
House Passes $768 Billion Defense Policy Bill
“I support having by far the strongest military in the world and the good-paying defense jobs in my district that protect our troops,” said Representative Andy Levin, Democrat of Michigan. “But I cannot support ever-increasing military spending in the face of so much human need across our country.”
By: The New York Times | December 7, 2021
WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a $768 billion defense policy bill after lawmakers abruptly dropped proposals that would have required women to register for the draft, repealed the 2002 authorization of the Iraq war and imposed sanctions for a Russian gas pipeline, in a late-year drive to salvage a bipartisan priority.
The legislation, unveiled hours before the vote, put the Democratic-led Congress on track to increase the Pentagon’s budget by roughly $24 billion above what President Biden had requested, angering antiwar progressives who had hoped that their party’s control of the White House and both houses of Congress would lead to cuts to military programs after decades of growth.
Instead, the measure provides significant increases for initiatives intended to counter China and bolster Ukraine, as well as the procurement of new aircraft and ships, underscoring the bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill for continuing to spend huge amounts of federal money on defense initiatives, even as Republicans lash Democrats for spending freely on social programs.
Energy Department to spend $15.5M to upgrade route from Los Alamos lab to waste site [WIPP]
“Essentially blessing what DOE was going to have to do anyway in order to expand nuclear weapons activities and waste disposal,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “And once again demonstrated the subservience of our state government to the nuclear weapons industry here in New Mexico.”
By Scott Wyland [email protected] Santa Fe New Mexican December 6, 2021 santafenewmexican.com
The N.M. 4 and East Jemez Road intersection in the far northwestern corner of Santa Fe County will be improved as part of a $15.5 million upgrade of routes on which Los Alamos National Laboratory transports nuclear waste to an underground disposal site in Southern New Mexico.
The U.S. Energy Department will spend $3.5 million to improve the intersection, which lies just outside Los Alamos County, and another $12 million to upgrade routes it owns and uses mostly to ship transuranic waste — contaminated gloves, clothing, equipment, soil and other items — to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
REPORT: BIT BY BIT, THE NOOSE IS TIGHTENING AROUND THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS INDUSTRY
Human beings are not necessarily destined to annihilate ourselves.
“…the actual danger of nuclear conflict is now greater than at any point in history.”
By Jon Schwarz THE INTERCEPT December 5, 2021 theintercept.com
FOR YEARS, the Dutch organization PAX has been issuing reports detailing the Armageddon that’s hiding in plain sight. The business of nuclear weapons — and it is in fact a business — does not for the most part take place in secret underground lairs. It is all around us, conducted by corporations and banks that might otherwise make cellphones or cornflakes or autonomous vacuum cleaners.
PAX’s newest paper, “Perilous Profiteering,” should be front-page news around the world. Why it is not is an interesting question.
Nuclear war is still a threat to humanity. It’s true that it’s generally vanished from popular culture and our imagination since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. What almost no one knows, however, is that many serious observers believe that the actual danger of nuclear conflict is now greater than at any point in history.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists invented its Doomsday Clock in 1947 to express how close the world was to self-destruction. It was initially set at seven minutes to midnight. Since then it has varied, being set both closer to and further away from midnight. But today, in 2021, it is the closest it’s ever been: 100 seconds to midnight. The publication’s reasoning can be read here.
Or take it from such anti-peaceniks as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz. Together they warned for years of the tremendous danger of nuclear war and called for “a world free of nuclear weapons.”
‘Not in my backyard’: The thorny issue of storing German nuclear waste
“Germany is to shut down its last nuclear reactors next year. However, the country still has no place to store the 27,000 cubic metres of highly radioactive material it has already produced, with the amount set to grow as power stations are decommissioned and dismantled. German authorities have set a deadline of 2031 to find a permanent storage location – but for now, the waste is being stored in temporary locations, much to the anger of local residents.”
One dead, three injured after gas leak at Spanish nuclear plant
A fault in the plant’s fire prevention system caused the gas leak, which was not linked to any radioactive material, the regional fire service posted on Twitter.
MADRID, Nov 24 (Reuters) – One person has died and three have been taken to hospital after a carbon dioxide leak at the Asco nuclear power plant in the Spanish region of Catalonia, local emergency services said on Wednesday.
Shortly afterwards, the fire service said it was preparing to leave the site after checking over the extractor fans with the plant’s staff and ensuring the systems were working properly.
The three people taken to hospital suffered light injuries from carbon dioxide inhalation, emergency services said.
Iran nuclear talks resume with upbeat comments despite skepticism
Russia’s envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Twitter they “started quite successfully.” Asked he if was optimistic, Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, told reporters: “Yes, I am.”
Vienna, Austria EU, Iranian and Russian diplomats sounded upbeat as Iran and world powers held their first talks in five months on Monday to try to save their 2015 nuclear deal, despite Tehran taking a tough stance in public that Western powers said would not work.
“I feel extremely positive about what I have seen today,” Enrique Mora, the EU official chairing the talks, said after the meeting — the seventh round of talks aimed at reviving a deal under which Iran limited its disputed uranium enrichment program in return for relief from US, EU and UN economic sanctions.
“They have accepted that the work done over the first six rounds is a good basis to build our work ahead,” he said. “We will be of course incorporating the new political sensibilities of the new Iranian administration.”
Nuclear power is never safe or economical
“I hope Sen. Durbin changes his mind about promoting nuclear energy. The real carbon-free sources of electricity are wind and solar.”
I cannot disagree more with the assertion by Sen. Dick Durbin in a recent Sun-Times op-ed that nuclear power is a necessary and viable way to combat climate change.
Electricity production by nuclear power is not, and can never be made, safe and economical.
When nuclear power plants were first touted in the 1950s as a new and safe method for producing electricity, it was said the electricity would be “too cheap to meter.” This is pure nonsense! If it was so safe, why weren’t any power plants built and put on line until passage of the Price-Anderson Act? The law has been amended a number of times and greatly limits the liability of operators of nuclear power plants.
Anything paid out beyond the limits set in Price-Anderson would take years of lawsuits.
Sen. Durbin wrote “It is past time for Congress to step up and develop a comprehensive, consent-based plan to store nuclear waste.” That’s an understatement. Nuclear waste is stored within a half-mile of Lake Michigan at the now-closed Zion nuclear power plant. Why is it close to the source of our drinking water? Because there is nowhere to ship it! Plans to ship such waste to a depository in Yucca Mountain in the southwest fell through when some improperly stored barrels burst into flames, releasing large amounts of high-level radioactive material.
Who does the senator think will agree to a “consent-based plan” when there is no known method of safely storing these dangerous materials for thousands of years, the time it takes for radioactive decay to make it safe for the environment?
Sen. Durbin argued that “we must ensure the nuclear fleet remains safe and economical,” but nuclear power has never been economical. As far as I know, the last time a permit was approved for a new nuclear plant was during the Obama administration. That plant in Georgia is only about half complete, although it was to be finished by now and the cost is already double the initial estimate.
The current “fleet,” as Sen. Durbin called them, of nuclear power plants were designed and engineered to last about 30 to 40 years. Most of our country’s plants are near that age. Their internal systems are constantly bombarded by radioactive particles, making the metal in the systems more brittle and prone to failure every year. Subsidizing them is a waste of taxpayer money and a dangerous gamble with our lives.
I hope Sen. Durbin changes his mind. The real carbon-free sources of electricity are renewables: wind and solar.
George Milkowski, West Ridge
Letters to the Editor: Nuclear energy may not emit carbon, but it isn’t ‘clean’
To the editor: Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz are both professors who served as U.S. Energy secretary. They have more science credentials than most mortals. I am none of those things.
Yet, I was concerned when I read in their piece advocating for the continued use of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant past the planned 2025 decommissioning that they referred to the electricity it produces as “clean.”
I recognize that they did so in order to differentiate nuclear from energy sources that emit carbon dioxide. However, the lack of carbon emissions notwithstanding, can nuclear energy truly be called clean?
There is the not-so-small matter of spent nuclear fuel. Where does it go? Where will it go? It’s currently in a cooling pool on-site. Owner Pacific Gas and Electric has requested permission to develop a dry cask storage system on-site; it did not estimate how long the spent fuel would be stored there.
Spent fuel is radioactive for a very long time. Whichever way you store it, if anything compromises the containment, the danger is released.
Carbon emissions or none, it is misleading to refer to nuclear energy as clean, especially when it comes to its impact on the environment.
Elise Power, Garden Grove
..
To the editor: I was energized by the piece on the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. It reminded me of the sad situation at our local San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.Continue reading
Pilgrim nuclear plant may release 1M gallons of radioactive water into bay. What we know
“Diane Turco, of Harwich, the director of Cape Downwinders, a citizen group that was at the forefront of the effort to close Pilgrim, called any option that included sending radioactive water into the bay “outrageous” and “criminal.” Turco said she has no confidence in the decommissioning process.
“The process has been to allow radioactivity into the environment,” she said. “The answer should be no you can’t do that.””
PLYMOUTH — One of the options being considered by the company that is decommissioning the closed Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is to release around one million gallons of potentially radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
The option had been discussed briefly with state regulatory officials as one possible way to get rid of water from the spent fuel pool, the reactor vessel and other components of the facility, Holtec International spokesman Patrick O’Brien said in an interview Wednesday. It was highlighted in a report by state Department of Environmental Protection Deputy Regional Director Seth Pickering at Monday’s meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel in Plymouth.
“We had broached that with the state, but we’ve made no decision on that,” O’Brien said.
As of mid-December, Holtec will complete the process of moving all the spent fuel rods into casks that are being stored on a concrete pad on the Pilgrim plant site in Plymouth. After that, O’Brien told the panel, the removal and disposal of other components in those areas of the facility will take place and be completed sometime in February.
What to expect as Iran nuclear talks resume next week
“New round of talks unlikely to produce breakthrough but will shed light on posture of new Iranian government, analysts say.”
“We’re going to find out how different these [Iranian] hardliners are from previous hardliners; we’re going to find out if they’re going to be a little softer,” said Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and analyst.
“And we’re also going to find out if the Americans have really realised that they missed an opportunity, and that they should change their position to some extent.”
Proponents of the deal, including Mortazavi, have criticised US President Joe Biden for not moving with urgency to restore the agreement in the first months of his administration, when a more moderate Iranian government headed by former President Hassan Rouhani was in charge.
Six rounds of talks in Vienna between April and June failed to forge a path back into the agreement.
“That golden window of opportunity was short, and the Biden team completely missed it,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
A spin on Kirtland Air Force Base’s (which shares runways with the ABQ International Airport) true mission from the ABQ Journal: “Air Force lab injects $2B into NM’s economy”
The Kirtland Air Force Lab is dedicated to militarizing space, not improving the lives of New Mexico citizens.
As stated by the Arms Control Association in an April 2021 article titled Apes on a Treadmill in Space:
“The United States should recognize that a pattern of continued militarization of space is insufficient to provide the stability on which its economy and its armed forces depend, so the tools of diplomacy and international law should be marshalled too.”
Air Force Research Laboratory spending on space and “directed energy” technology like lasers and microwaves boosted the local economy by nearly $2 billion over the past three years, according to a new economic impact report.
Risk of quakes caused by oil, gas in New Mexico rising
“The occurrence of smaller earthquakes began to increase in 2017, when oil and gas boomed in the region, up to about three per day recently. In 2021, records show the region was on track for more than 1,200 earthquakes with magnitudes of 1 to 4.”
CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) — Multiple earthquakes were felt earlier this fall in West Texas, leading regulators in that state to designate a seismic response area and call for less wastewater from oil and gas development to be injected in disposal wells.
As more seismic activity was reported closer to the state line, officials in New Mexico have been watching closely and gathering data. Some officials are concerned that as Texas limits the injection of produced water as a means to curb the seismic activity, that could affect producers in New Mexico.
Moscow says U.S. rehearsed nuclear strike against Russia this month
“Against this backdrop, Russo-Chinese coordination is becoming a stabilising factor in world affairs,” said Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
By Andrew Osborn and Phil Stewart (Reuters)
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Russia’s defence minister on Tuesday accused U.S. bombers of rehearsing a nuclear strike on Russia from two different directions earlier this month and complained that the planes had come within 20 km (12.4 miles) of the Russian border.
But the Pentagon said its drills were announced publicly at the time and adhered to international protocols.
Moscow’s accusation comes at a time of high tension with Washington over Ukraine, with U.S. officials voicing concerns about a possible Russian attack on its southern neighbour – a suggestion the Kremlin has dismissed as false.
Moscow has in turn accused the United States, NATO and Ukraine of provocative and irresponsible behaviour, pointing to U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine, Ukraine’s use of Turkish strike drones against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and NATO military exercises close to its borders.
Explainer: Will Germany’s next government ditch U.S. nuclear bombs?
“Germany can, of course, decide whether there will be nuclear weapons in (its) country, but the alternative is that we easily end up with nuclear weapons in other countries in Europe, also to the east of Germany,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
BERLIN, Nov 22 (Reuters) archivemd.com
Perilous Profiteering: The companies building nuclear arsenals and their financial backers
PAX and ICAN have released the latest Don’t Bank on the Bomb report “Perilous Profiteering: The companies building nuclear arsenals and their financial backers“, which names the 338 investors backing 25 nuclear weapon producing companies and the size of their investments. This report is also the first time we were able to find information on Russian and Chinese investments.
The report also found three clear signs that financial institutions are starting to see nuclear weapons as risky business, and are leaving them behind:
• From 2019 to 2021, the total amount made available for nuclear weapons producing companies dropped by an impressive $63 billion, and the total number of financial institutions willing to invest in nuclear weapons producing companies went down too.
• Nuclear weapons producing companies, despite billion dollar contracts, have debt. But investors are moving away. So instead, they’re borrowing from wherever they can to raise cash. In other words: producing weapons of mass destruction has become extremely unattractive.
• 127 financial institutions stopped investing in companies producing nuclear weapons this year!
Of course, we still have a lot of work to do to hold these profiteers accountable. Banks, insurers, asset managers and pension funds still made $685 billion available for the companies producing nuclear weapons (like Northrop Grumman, which has $24 billion in outstanding contracts).
Our banks, insurers, and pension funds have no business investing in companies that choose to be involved in illegal weapons of mass destruction, and we need to tell them. Read the key findings of the report HERE.
Federal inspection of Pilgrim plant finds only ‘minor’ violations
A federal inspection of the decommissioned Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth that began in July and stretched through September found “no violations of more than minor significance,” the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
Colin A. Young, State House News Service PATRIOT LEDGER NEWS patriotledger.com
The inspection included “an evaluation of the safety screening, safety review, onsite management review, engineering change processes, the fire protection program, maintenance program, and the available results for site radiological and non-radiological characterization,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The agency also conducted “a review and observation of the independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) dry cask activities.”
Inspectors visited Pilgrim at least five times during the announced quarterly inspection to observe Holtec Decommissioning International’s activities “as they relate to safety and compliance with the commission’s rules and regulations” and the conditions of the company’s license.
“Based on the results of this inspection, no violations of more than minor significance were identified,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote in the inspection report.
The Plymouth nuclear plant, which employed about 600 people and had been generating about 680 megawatts of electricity per year since coming online in 1972, permanently ceased operations May 31, 2019.
Holtec has estimated that it can complete decommissioning work by the end of 2027.
WIPP: Judge upholds change in how nuke waste is counted. Could keep site open to 2050
“We know it’s part of expanding WIPP. We know what DOE is doing but DOE doesn’t want to publicly admit it and the Environment Department doesn’t want to deal with it…The reason the laws have always put limits on WIPP is that the DOE was supposed to be finding locations for other repositories. There is no other repository and that’s why they don’t want to have a limit on what goes into WIPP.” — Don Hancock, nuclear waste program director at Southwest Research and Information Center.
Adrian Hedden Carlsbad Current-Argus November 15, 2021 currentargus.com
A New Mexico appellate judge upheld a change in how the volume of nuclear waste disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is counted, shifting the repository from being halfway to capacity to only a third full.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy requested to modify its WIPP operating permit with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) to change how it counts the amount of waste toward the facility’s statutory limit of 6.2 million cubic feet of transuranic (TRU) waste consisting of clothing materials and equipment irradiated during nuclear activities.
The change was intended to count the inner volume of the waste as opposed to the volume of the outer containers that hold the waste, seeking to avoid counting air between the waste itself and waste drums.
NMED approved the permit modification request (PMR) in 2019, but Albuquerque-based watchdog groups Southwest Research and Information Center and Nuclear Watch New Mexico immediately appealed the decision.
UN experts review plans for release of Fukushima plant water
The plan has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, local residents and Japan’s neighbors, including China and South Korea.
ASSOCIATED PRESS courthousenews.com
TOKYO (AP) — A team from the U.N. nuclear agency arrived in Japan on Monday to assess preparations for the release into the ocean of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
The six experts on the team from the International Atomic Energy Agency are to meet with Japanese officials and visit the Fukushima Daiichi plant to discuss technical details of the planned release, Japanese officials said.
The government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, announced plans in April to start gradually releasing the treated radioactive water in the spring of 2023 to allow for the removal of hundreds of storage tanks to make room for facilities needed for the destroyed plant’s decommissioning.
Australia Could Push To Acquire Retired US Navy Los Angeles Class Nuclear Submarines
“The rules for transferring a nuclear-powered vessel to a foreign power are uncharted waters…”
U.S., UK aid to Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines “sheer act of nuclear proliferation”: Chinese envoy
“This literally turns existing precedence and practice on their heads in order to extend traditionally northern hemisphere cooperation to Australia and bolster its role in countering an increasingly assertive China.” https://thebulletin.org
The recently signed Australia–United Kingdom–United States defense agreement, or AUKUS, calls for the United States and Britain to share nuclear-submarine technology with Australia. Although the agreement was light on details of what, when, and how, plans apparently are for Australia to eventually build at least eight nuclear-powered attack submarines. In the interim, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is now advocating for Australia to obtain used nuclear submarines to get the sharing started so as to spin up the Royal Australian Navy’s submarine capabilities and nuclear know-how. Australia has never had a nuclear power plant of any kind.
Speaking last Friday at a Wilson Center event in Washington, D.C., Abbott suggested that, in the short term, Australia should consider leasing or purchasing one or more existing U.S. submarines to develop Australia’s capability to operate nuclear-powered submarines.
Abbott has posed the question, “Might it be possible for Australia to acquire a retiring [Los Angeles] class boat or two and to put it under an Australian flag and to run it, if you like, as an operational training boat?” Abbott added that he’d make a similar proposal for British nuclear-powered submarines “were I in London.”
COP26: Fossil fuel industry has largest delegation at climate summit
“There are more delegates at COP26 associated with the fossil fuel industry than from any single country, analysis shared with the BBC shows.”
Campaigners led by Global Witness assessed the participant list published by the UN at the start of this meeting.
They found that 503 people with links to fossil fuel interests had been accredited for the climate summit.
These delegates are said to lobby for oil and gas industries, and campaigners say they should be banned.
“The fossil fuel industry has spent decades denying and delaying real action on the climate crisis, which is why this is such a huge problem,” says Murray Worthy from Global Witness.
“Their influence is one of the biggest reasons why 25 years of UN climate talks have not led to real cuts in global emissions.”
About 40,000 people are attending the COP. Brazil has the biggest official team of negotiators according to UN data, with 479 delegates.
The UK, which is hosting the talk in Glasgow, has 230 registered delegates.
U.S. ‘very bullish’ on new nuclear technology, Granholm says
“These advanced nuclear reactors, and the existing fleet, are safe,” Granholm says. “We have the gold standard of regulation in the United States.”
Actually…According to a UCS report, if federal regulators require the necessary safety demonstrations, it could take at least 20 years—and billions of dollars in additional costs—to commercialize such reactors, their associated fuel-cycle facilities, and other related infrastructure.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) may have to adapt some regulations when licensing reactor technologies that differ significantly in design from the current fleet. Lyman says that should not mean weakening public health and safety standards, finding no justification for the claim that “advanced” reactors will be so much safer and more secure that the NRC can exempt them from fundamental safeguards. On the contrary, because there are so many open questions about these reactors, he says they may need to meet even more stringent requirements.
GLASGOW, Scotland — In an interview at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told Yahoo News on Friday that the Biden administration is “very bullish” on building new nuclear reactors in the United States.
“We are very bullish on these advanced nuclear reactors,” she said. “We have, in fact, invested a lot of money in the research and development of those. We are very supportive of that.”
Nuclear energy is controversial among environmental activists and experts because while it does not create the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, it has the potential to trigger dangerous nuclear meltdowns and creates radioactive nuclear waste [not a small issue].
Al Jazeera Infographic: The World Nuclear Club
While 32 countries generate atomic energy, nine have nuclear weapons and seven countries have both.
Nuclear warheads per country
Nine countries possessed roughly 13,150 warheads as of August 2021, according to the Federation of American Scientists. More than 90 percent are owned by Russia and the US.
At the peak in 1986, the two rivals had nearly 65,000 nuclear warheads between them, making the nuclear arms race one of the most threatening events of the Cold War. While Russia and the US have dismantled thousands of warheads, several countries are thought to be increasing their stockpiles, most notably China.
According to the Pentagon’s 2021 annual report (pdf), China’s nuclear warhead stockpile is expected to more than triple and reach at least 1,000 by 2030.
The only country to voluntarily relinquish nuclear weapons is South Africa. In 1989, the government halted its nuclear weapons programme and in 1990 began dismantling its six nuclear weapons. Two years later, South Africa joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear country.
With the 26th UN Climate Change Conference over, nations are making plans to move to green energy in a bid to tackle global warming.
But nuclear energy is a particular sticking point. While it is the largest source of low-carbon electricity in OECD countries, some nations have spoken out against the categorisation of nuclear energy as climate-friendly.
Across the globe, 34 countries harness the power of splitting atoms for generating electricity or for nuclear weapons. (Al Jazeera)
Global nuclear energy
Nuclear energy provides roughly 10 percent of the world’s electricity. Of the 32 countries with nuclear power reactors, more than half (18) are in Europe. France has the world’s highest proportion of its electricity – at 71 percent – coming from atomic power.
Up until 2011, Japan was generating some 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors; however, following the Fukushima disaster, all nuclear power plants were suspended for safety inspections. As of 2020, just 5 percent of Japan’s electricity came from nuclear power, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Nuclear power constitutes some 20 percent of the United States’ electricity. About 60 percent of the country’s energy comes from fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas and petroleum, with the remaining 20 percent coming from renewable sources – wind, hydro and solar.
Flooding and Nuclear Waste Eat Away at a Tribe’s Ancestral Home
The federal government allowed a stockpile of spent fuel on a Minnesota reservation to balloon even as a dam project whittled down the amount of livable land.
Interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times show how the state of Minnesota and the federal government ignored warnings about potential dangers posed to the tribe as they kept allowing the amount of waste stored on the reservation to expand and did little to address annual flooding that harms the tribe’s economy.
“I mean, this is a classic environmental justice fact pattern,” said Heather Sibbison, chair of Dentons Native American law and policy practice at Dentons Law Firm. “We have a minority community, a disadvantaged community, bearing the brunt of two huge infrastructure projects that serve other people.”
For decades, chronic flooding and nuclear waste have encroached on the ancestral lands in southeastern Minnesota that the Prairie Island Indian Community calls home, whittling them to about a third of their original size.
Two years after the tribe received federal recognition in 1936, the Army Corps of Engineers installed a lock-and-dam system just to the south along the Mississippi River. It repeatedly flooded the tribe’s land, including burial mounds, leaving members with only 300 livable acres.
Decades later, a stockpile of nuclear waste from a power plant next to the reservation, which the federal government reneged on a promise to remove in the 1990s, has tripled in size. It comes within 600 yards of some residents’ homes.
With no room to develop more housing on the reservation, more than 150 tribal members who are eager to live in their ancestral home are on a waiting list.
Cody Whitebear, 33, who serves as the tribe’s federal government relations specialist, is among those waiting. He hopes he can inherit his grandmother’s house, which is on the road closest to the power plant.
“I never had the opportunity to live on the reservation, be part of the community,” said Mr. Whitebear, who began connecting with his heritage after the birth of his son, Cayden. “In my mid-20s I had the desire to learn about my people and who I am and who we are.”
Proposed plutonium shipments concern New Mexico lawmakers
“The agency has said little overall about its plans, despite the potential hazards, said Cindy Weehler, who co-chairs the watchdog group 285 ALL.”
A panel of state lawmakers expressed concerns Friday about plans to truck plutonium shipments through New Mexico, including Santa Fe’s southern edge, and will send letters to state and federal officials asking for more information on the transports.
Two opponents of the shipments — a Santa Fe County commissioner and a local activist — presented the Department of Energy’s basic plan to the Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee, provoking a mixture of surprise and curiosity from members.
Several lawmakers agreed transporting plutonium is more hazardous because it is far more radioactive than the transuranic waste — contaminated gloves, equipment, clothing, soil and other materials — that Los Alamos National Laboratory now ships to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, an underground disposal site near Carlsbad.
Nuclear Power Is COP26’s Quiet Controversy
“We have to get everything done in the next 25 years…The idea that you’re going to scale up a technology you don’t even have yet, and it’s going to be commercially viable [in that time], just seems to me like la la land.” — Tom Burke, co-founder of climate think tank E3G.
BY ALEJANDRO DE LA GARZA time.com
In the midst of the COP26 climate talks yesterday, U.S. and Romanian officials stepped aside for a session in the conference’s Blue Zone, establishing an agreement for U.S. company NuScale to build a new kind of modular nuclear power plant in the southeastern European country. The company’s plants—designed to be quickly scaled up or down based on need—are intended to be quicker and cheaper to build than the traditional kind, with some considering them to be a promising alternative for countries seeking to wean themselves off fossil fuels.
NuScale CEO John Hopkins sees the agreement as part of a broader recognition that nuclear power has a big role to play as the world decarbonizes. “I’ve seen a significant shift here,” Hopkins said, speaking to TIME from Glasgow yesterday. “It used to be the only thing really discussed was renewables, but I think people are starting to be a little more pragmatic and understand that nuclear needs to be in the mix.”
But others at COP26 aren’t convinced that NuScale’s small reactors can help avoid climate catastrophe. Some point to the fact that NuScale has yet to build a single commercial plant as evidence that the company is already too late to the party.
US Government Works to ‘Cocoon’ Old Nuclear Reactors
Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work.
Hanford watchdogs generally agree with this process, said Tom Carpenter, director of the Seattle-based watchdog group Hanford Challenge.
“Nobody is raising any concerns about cocooning,” Carpenter said. “We’re all worried about the tank waste that needs immediate and urgent attention.” The bigger question is whether future generations will be willing to pay the massive costs of Hanford cleanup, he said.
By November 4, 2021 abcnews.go.com
SPOKANE, Wash. — Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work.
But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price.
The federal government is moving forward with the “cocooning” of eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford that will place them in a state of long-term storage to allow radiation inside to dissipate over a period of decades, until they can be dismantled and buried.
“It’s relatively non-expensive,” Mark French, a manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, said of cocooning. “The cost of trying to dismantle the reactor and demolish the reactor core would be extremely expensive and put workers at risk.”
The federal government built nine nuclear reactors at Hanford to make plutonium for atomic bombs during World War II and the Cold War. The site along the Columbia River contains America’s largest quantity of radioactive waste.
Is it green, or forever toxic? Nuclear rift at climate talks
“Whether we decide to go on with the nuclear energy or not…We will need to find a solution for the management of that nuclear waste” that humankind has already produced.” — Audrey Guillemenet, geologist and spokesperson for one of France’s underground waste repositories.
By November 4, 2021 apnews.com
SOULAINES-DHUYS, France (AP) — Deep in a French forest of oaks, birches and pines, a steady stream of trucks carries a silent reminder of nuclear energy’s often invisible cost: canisters of radioactive waste, heading into storage for the next 300 years.
As negotiators plot out how to fuel the world while also reducing carbon emissions at climate talks in Scotland, nuclear power is a central sticking point. Critics decry its mammoth price tag, the disproportionate damage caused by nuclear accidents, and radioactive leftovers that remain deadly for thousands of years.
But increasingly vocal and powerful proponents — some climate scientists and environmental experts among them — argue that nuclear power is the world’s best hope of keeping climate change under control, noting that it emits so few planet-damaging emissions and is safer on average than nearly any other energy source. Nuclear accidents are scary but exceedingly rare — while pollution from coal and other fossil fuels causes death and illness every day, scientists say.
U.S. Discloses Nuclear Stockpile Numbers
The Biden administration has publicly released the total number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile, a sharp reversal of the previous administration’s refusal to do so for the past three years.
By: Shannon Bugos ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION armscontrol.org
“Today, as an act of good faith and a tangible, public demonstration of the U.S. commitment to transparency, we will present data which documents our own record of continued progress toward the achievement of the goals” of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), said Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, on Oct. 5.
The U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads was at 3,750 as of September 2020, according to the administration document. This number captures active and inactive warheads, but not the roughly 2,000 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement. The document lists stockpile numbers going back to 1962, including the warhead numbers from the years when the Trump administration refused to declassify the information.
Jellyfish Keep Attacking Nuclear Power Plants
Jellyfish are continuing to clog the cooling pipes of nuclear power plants around the world.
Jellyfish are continuing to clog the cooling intake pipes of a nuclear power plant in Scotland, which has previously prompted a temporary shutdowns of the plant.
The Torness nuclear power plant has reported concerns regarding jellyfish as far back as 2011, when it was forced to shut down for nearly a week—at an estimated cost of $1.5 million a day—because of the free-swimming marine animals.
In a short comment to Motherboard, EDF energy, which runs the Torness plant, said that “jellyfish blooms are an occasional issue for our power stations,” but also said that media reports claiming the plant had recently been taken offline because of jellyfish are “inaccurate.” “[There were] no emergency procedures this or last week related to jellyfish or otherwise,” a spokesperson said.
Like many other seaside power plants, the Torness plant uses seawater to prevent overheating. While there are measures in place to prevent aquatic life from entering the intake pipes, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, they are no match for the sheer number of jellyfish that come during so-called “jellyfish blooms.”
Art and “un-forgetting”: How to honor the atomic dead
“The hibakusha narrative has expanded over time to include victims beyond the city limits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and as far away as the Navajo Nation, which still suffers the radiation effects of uranium mining; the Marshall Islands, where the United States conducted so many nuclear tests that, on average, the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-size bombs was detonated every day for 12 years; Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union tested its nuclear weapons for four decades; and other places around the world adversely affected by the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons.”
Noguchi himself considered the term hibakusha to include the victims of nuclear weapons worldwide; he changed the name of his proposed “Memorial to the Dead of Hiroshima” to the more inclusive “Memorial to the Atomic Dead.”
By Molly Hurley | November 26, 2021 thebulletin.org
As I eagerly await Spotify’s year-end report on my most-played songs of 2021, I wonder which ones will remind me of my summer in New York City—of off-pitch Karaoke Television with friends, or the distinct “popping” sound of a pigeon being run over by a taxi not more than two feet in front of me. Though I thrived amid the frenzied surprises of the city, I also found sudden moments of quiet solemnity while sketching inside the many art museums of the Big Apple. One of those museums was the Noguchi Museum, established in 1985 by its namesake Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese-American sculptor who is also well known for his landscape architecture and modern furniture designs such as the iconic Noguchi table.Continue reading
HIDDEN AGENDA: The unspoken argument for more nuclear power
Nuclear power is so slow and expensive that it doesn’t even matter whether or not it is ‘low-carbon’ (let alone ‘zero-carbon’). As the scientist, Amory Lovins, says, “Being carbon-free does not establish climate-effectiveness.” If an energy source is too slow and too costly, it will “reduce and retard achievable climate protection,” no matter how ‘low-carbon’ it is.
By Linda Pentz Gunter beyondnuclearinternational.org
So here we are again at another COP (Conference of the Parties). Well, some of us are in Glasgow, Scotland at the COP itself, and some of us, this writer included, are sitting at a distance, trying to feel hopeful.
But this is COP 26. That means there have already been 25 tries at dealing with the once impending and now upon us climate crisis. Twenty five rounds of “blah, blah, blah” as youth climate activist, Greta Thunberg, so aptly put it.
So if some of us do not feel the blush of optimism on our cheeks, we can be forgiven. I mean, even the Queen of England has had enough of the all-talk-and-no-action of our world leaders, who have been, by and large, thoroughly useless. Even, this time, absent. Some of them have been worse than that.
Not doing anything radical on climate at this stage is fundamentally a crime against humanity. And everything else living on Earth. It should be grounds for an appearance at the International Criminal Court. In the dock.
‘Ignored for 70 years’: human rights group to investigate uranium contamination on Navajo Nation
Boost for advocates’ group is step further in decades-long fight against mining pollution
By: Cody Nelson THE GUARDIAN theguardian.com
Rita Capitan has been worrying about her water since 1994. It was that autumn she read a local newspaper article about another uranium mine, the Crownpoint Uranium Project, getting under way near her home.
Capitan has spent her entire life in Crownpoint, New Mexico, a small town on the eastern Navajo Nation, and is no stranger to the uranium mining that has persisted in the region for decades. But it was around the time the article was published that she began learning about the many risks associated with uranium mining.
“We as community members couldn’t just sit back and watch another company come in and just take what is very precious to us. And that is water – our water,” Capitan said.
To this effect, Capitan and her husband, Mitchell, founded Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (Endaum). The group’s fight against uranium mining on their homeland has continued for nearly three decades, despite the industry’s disastrous health and environmental impacts being public knowledge for years.
Capitan’s newest concerns are over the Canadian mining company Laramide Resources, which, through its US subsidiary NuFuels, holds a federal mining license for Crownpoint and nearby Church Rock. Due to the snail’s pace at which operations like this can move, Laramide hasn’t begun extraction in these areas, but is getting closer by the day.
An Unearthly Spectacle: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Nuclear Bomb
Take a minute to visit the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website to read this brilliant photo essay on the Tsar Bomba by Associate Professor and Director of the Science and Technology Studies program at the Stevens Institute of Technology Alex Wellerstein. His first book, Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, was published by the University of Chicago Press in April 2021.
By Alex Wellerstein October 29, 2021 thebulletin.org
In the early hours of October 30, 1961, a bomber took off from an airstrip in northern Russia and began its flight through cloudy skies over the frigid Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya. Slung below the plane’s belly was a nuclear bomb the size of a small school bus—the largest and most powerful bomb ever created.
At 11:32 a.m., the bombardier released the weapon. As the bomb fell, an enormous parachute unfurled to slow its descent, giving the pilot time to retreat to a safe distance. A minute or so later, the bomb detonated. A cameraman watching from the island recalled:
A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle! [1]
The flash alone lasted more than a minute. The fireball expanded to nearly six miles in diameter—large enough to include the entire urban core of Washington or San Francisco, or all of midtown and downtown Manhattan. Over several minutes it rose and mushroomed into a massive cloud. Within ten minutes, it had reached a height of 42 miles and a diameter of some 60 miles. One civilian witness remarked that it was “as if the Earth was killed.” Decades later, the weapon would be given the name it is most commonly known by today: Tsar Bomba, meaning “emperor bomb.”
Designed to have a maximum explosive yield of 100 million tons (or 100 megatons) of TNT equivalent, the 60,000-pound monster bomb was detonated at only half its strength. Still, at 50 megatons, it was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in Hiroshima, and more than 40 times as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb in the US arsenal today. Its single test represents about one tenth of the total yield of all nuclear weapons ever tested by all nations.[2]
At the time of its detonation, the Tsar Bomba held the world’s attention, largely as an object of infamy, recklessness, and terror. Within two years, though, the Soviet Union and the United States would sign and ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and the 50-megaton bomb would fall into relative obscurity.
“What’s Yours Is Mine”
“The federal government knew, from at least the early 1950s, of severely harmful health effects from uranium mining, but it kept that information from the Diné, as Navajo people call themselves.”
The wheels of justice can move exceedingly slowly, if at all, and it often depends on whether an aggrieved group has much political recognition or clout. Issues linked to mainstream religious freedom can speed their way to the Supreme Court’s shadow docket in record time, while religious and environmental justice issues for Native Americans can simmer on the system’s back burner for a lifetime.
The sprawling Navajo reservation, located in parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, is the largest and most populous Native American reservation, almost 28,000 square miles. Its Four Corners area (the three states plus Colorado) is rich in radioactive uranium ore. From 1944 to 1986, nearly four million tons of uranium ore were extracted from the reservation under leases with the Navajo Nation. Many Navajo worked the mines, often living and raising families close by.
Reactor at Japan’s nuclear power plant suspended over counter-terrorism demands: Reports
The third reactor at Japan’s Mihama nuclear power plant was suspended by the operator, the Kansai Electric Power company, over inability to enhance counter-terrorism infrastructure in time, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported on Sunday.
Tokyo [Japan], October 24 (ANI/Sputnik): The third reactor at Japan’s Mihama nuclear power plant was suspended by the operator, the Kansai Electric Power company, over inability to enhance counter-terrorism infrastructure in time, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported on Sunday.
All the required measures to strengthen security are expected to be completed in September 2022, and the reactor might resume operations in mid-October of that year, the outlet said, citing the operator.
The reactor was restarted on June 23, 2021, after more than 40 years of work. The law limits the maximum lifespan of reactors to 40 years, but if additional requirements are met, a reactor can work more. Mihama’s third reactor was stopped for a decade after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, which in 2011 claimed over 15,000 lives, displaced thousands of people and caused a meltdown at the power plant. (ANI/Sputnik)
Groups Fire Back at Feds’ Move to Dismiss Plutonium Pit Lawsuit
Federal agencies continue to reject a full review of the public safety and environmental risks of producing nuclear bomb cores at multiple DOE sites.
Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “The government has yet to explain to American taxpayers why it will spend more than $50 billion to build new plutonium pit bomb cores for new-design nuclear weapons when we already have thousands of existing pits proven to be reliable for a century or more. This has nothing to do with maintaining the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile and everything to do with building up a new nuclear arms race that will threaten the entire world.”
/ EIN PRESSWIRE October 26, 2021
AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA — Public interest groups shot back at the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s attempt to suppress a lawsuit seeking a comprehensive environmental review of the agencies’ plans to produce large quantities of nuclear bomb cores, or plutonium pits, at DOE sites in New Mexico and South Carolina.
U.S. nuclear envoy visits S. Korea amid N. Korea missile tension, stalled talks
The U.S. envoy for North Korea arrived in South Korea on Saturday amid stalled denuclearization talks and tension over Pyongyang’s recent missile tests.
Special Representative Sung Kim’s visit came days after North Korea fired a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which prompted criticism from Washington and calls for a return to talks aimed at denuclearizing the North in return for U.S. sanctions relief.
Kim, after talks in Washington with South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Tuesday, urged North Korea “to refrain from further provocations and engage in sustained and substantive dialogue.”
Pyongyang so far has rejected U.S. overtures, accusing the United States and South Korea of talking diplomacy while ratcheting up tensions with their own military activities.
On Thursday, the North said the United States was overreacting to its self-defensive SLBM test and questioned the sincerity of Washington’s offers of talks, warning of consequences.
Arriving in South Korea, Kim said he looks forward to having “productive follow up discussions” with his counterpart, without elaborating.