How nuclear deterrence in Europe may change
“What does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe now that NATO is unsure whether the U.S. will be a committed partner? NPR speaks with Paul Cormarie, analyst with the Rand Corporation.”
By A Martínez, NPR | March 17, 2025 abcnews.go.com
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, says he supports a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine in theory. But he adds that Ukraine would need to accept further conditions before a deal could be finalized. Now, in the interim, European leaders are discussing ways to discourage future Russian aggression. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed using France’s nuclear capabilities as a deterrent to Russian threats. But what does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe if NATO is unsure if the U.S. will be a committed partner?
Hanford nuclear site subcontractor, owner to pay $1.1M for COVID loan fraud
“The money was intended to retain and maintain payroll for Hanford site workers assigned to the nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington and also a few Department of Veterans Affairs workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Within 48 hours of BNL receiving the Paycheck Protection Program loan at least $453,000 had been spent to pay off Stevenson’s personal and family debts, according to an indictment.
That included $100,000 transferred to Stevenson’s father and $48,600 to a family trust, according to court documents.
Much of the rest of the money was used to pay off credit card debt, according to the indictment.
The federal government later forgave the loan, which cleared it from having to be repaid.
BNL and Stevenson later applied for and received another Paycheck Protection Program loan of nearly $820,000.”
By, The Columbian | March 12, 2025 columbian.com
Mar. 11—A former Hanford nuclear site subcontractor and its owner will pay a total settlement of just over $1.1 million to resolve accusations they defrauded the federal government through a COVID pandemic loan program.
On Wednesday, U.S. Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima sentenced BNL Technical Services, owned by Wilson Pershing Stevenson III, to pay nearly $494,000 restitution to the federal government, as proposed in a settlement agreement.
That is in addition to $611,000 Stevenson, of Nashville, Tenn., already agreed to pay in a civil settlement to resolve his liability in the case.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester Attend the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
We had the honor of joining the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester, in attending the third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last week, March 3-7 in New York City. The archbishop gave mass to several different groups (see photos below) and spoke at the UN headquarters as part of Civil Society.
In New York City this week? Join Pax Christi members and friends at Mass with Archbishop John Wester (Santa Fe NM) on Tuesday, March 4, 6 pm, at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue at 38th Street. Use this link to RSVP. #TPNW #3MSP #nucleardisarmamentwww.dorothydayguild.org/WesterMass25
— Pax Christi USA (@paxchristiusa.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T16:35:50.942Z
Germany skips UN conference on banning nuclear weapons in New York
“Germany has decided not to take part in a UN conference in New York to review a landmark treaty on nuclear weapons prohibition.”
By dpa International | March 4, 2025 dpa-international.com
“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons dates back to a time before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” the Foreign Office told dpa in Berlin on Tuesday. “The intention and ambition of the treaty no longer reflect the current reality in security policy.”
The treaty was signed in 2017 and came into force in 2021. There are currently 94 signatories and 73 states parties, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Germany does not possess nuclear weapons but is allied with three nuclear powers in NATO: the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Berlin is not a signatory to the prohibition treaty, but it participated in previous conferences as observers.
Brief Analysis of Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments on the Illegality of Licensing Radwaste Dumps in TX and NM
Today the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste, and this includes highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants.
Two consolidated interim storage facilities are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste unless a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radioactive waste because interim storage is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage means the waste has to be moved twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository.
Broken arrows: The hidden secret behind America’s missing nuclear weapons
“Dedicated Navy divers, demolition teams, and high-powered sonar spent weeks searching the ocean floor and came up empty.”
By Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering | March 3, 2025 interestingengineering.com
Throughout history, the idea of misplacing a nuclear weapon may sound like a plot twist in an espionage novel. The United States has experienced more than a handful of such incidents. Known as “Broken Arrows,” these events typically refer to any accidents involving nuclear weapons that do not pose an immediate risk of triggering a nuclear war.
For decades, details remained hidden behind top-secret clearances. However, unclassified records reveal that the U.S. military has had a surprising number of mishaps, with some bombs still unaccounted for to this day.
What are broken arrows?
The Department of Defense defines a “Broken Arrow” as any incident involving a U.S. nuclear weapon or warhead that results in accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon. From 1950 to 1980, official sources cite 32 Broken Arrow incidents, but there may have been more, given the secrecy surrounding nuclear matters.
Christie Brinkley: Don’t let the US resume nuclear weapon tests that ended decades ago
“The United States and other nuclear powers are now moving closer to resuming nuclear weapons tests, decades after testing ended. This highly disturbing trend must be halted.”
By Christie Brinkley Special to The Kansas City Star Miami Herald | March 3, 2025 miamiherald.com
Since the atomic age, 2,056 nuclear weapons have been detonated, 528 of them above the ground. The United States and Soviet Union accounted for about 85% of these tests. The explosive power of atmospheric tests equaled 29,000 Hiroshima bombs. Airborne radioactive fallout circled the globe, re-entered the environment through precipitation, and entered human bodies through food and water.
Cold War bomb testing was part of a massive increase in the number of nuclear weapons, which peaked at more than 60,000. After nuclear war was barely avoided during the Cuban missile crisis, public pressure convinced leaders to ban all above-ground tests in 1963 — a treaty that has never been violated.
The test ban treaty was a huge achievement for peace, beginning eased tensions between nuclear nations. It also was a landmark for public health. A study by St. Louis residents and scientists found an enormous buildup of radioactive strontium-90 levels in baby teeth — 63 times higher in children born in 1963 compared to those born in 1950.
LISTEN LIVE TO U.S. SUPREME COURT ORAL ARGUMENTS ON THE ILLEGALITY OF LICENSING RADWASTE DUMPS IN TX AND NM
“The case pits the nuclear industry’s push for CISFs against the interests of fossil fuel companies which object to high-level radioactive waste dumped in their drilling/fracking areas, the state governments of Texas and New Mexico, which have passed laws prohibiting importation of nuclear waste to their states, and cities along the transport routes which object to it being shipped through their jurisdictions. Their amicus briefs in the case are posted here.”
For immediate release
MEDIA ALERT for Wednesday, March 5, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
WHAT? Wednesday morning, March 5, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue in the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the U.S.) proceeding is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste including highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants. Two CISFs are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste (which would be necessary for DOE to transport it to CISFs), unless and until a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened to receive the waste. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radwaste, which is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage necessitates moving the waste twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository. The NRC approved recent CISF license applications despite the law, saying it anticipated Congress would change it in the future. But the federal Fifth Circuit court ruled that the NRC didn’t have that authority. If the Supreme Court strikes that ruling down, it could open the floodgates for thousands of shipments of spent fuel from nuclear power plants across the US, through many states, to CISFs in Texas and New Mexico.
Expanded Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Production is Immoral – Spend Nuclear Weapons “Modernization” Money Ethically ELSEWHERE
Why the nation’s nuclear waste may eventually be headed to northwest Colorado
Nuclear waste is piling up at power plants around the country, and we have no idea where to put it. Many states are aggressively fighting plans for new storage facilities.
But northwest Colorado is quietly opening the door.
ByScott Franz, Erin O’Toole, Brad Turner | February 22, 2025 kunc.org
KUNC’s investigative reporter Scott Franz recently traveled around rural Colorado talking with people about what nuclear waste storage could do for the local economy – and also interviewing folks who are dead set against that idea.
On this special edition of In The NoCo, we’ve combined all of Scott’s reporting from the past few months into a single episode. You can also see photos and check out more on this investigation.
Arms Control Association – Trump Regains Control Over Nuclear Policy: What’s Next?
It has been barely a month since Inauguration day, but it is apparent that Donald Trump is determined to reshape U.S. foreign policy, radically alter alliance relationships, and upend Washington’s approach toward key adversaries, like Russia, in ways that are not yet clear.
Arms Control Association | February 21, 2025 armscontrol.org
And here at home, Trump’s brash assertion of executive power is putting our nation’s democratic institutions and the rule of domestic law at risk, in part by altering or dismantling key government departments,agencies and functions, all without congressional approval.
All of this makes our mission to provide reliable information and sound policy solutions even more important and difficult.
The Arms Control Association has a clear and focused strategy to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other WMD. Many of these priorities are outlined in this ACA-organized January 28 communication to all members of Congress that was endorsed by 16 of our partner organizations and leaders.
Like many others, however, we are still sorting out how to adjust to and contend with the post-Inauguration political dynamics.
But we must and we will, because critical, weapons-related security decisions lie ahead:
- So long as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, there is still a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use, and there are narrowing prospects for a deal to maintain limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals after New START expires in one year.
- Although Trump has decried exorbitant military expenditures, the authors of Project 2025, the 920-page manifesto crafted by the Heritage Foundation and others, want the United States to spend even more than the current $756 billion ten-year price tag for nuclear modernization in order to increase the size and diversity of the U.S. arsenal. China and Russia are watching and will surely respond to any U.S. nuclear buildup.
- Project 2025 also calls for preparing to resume U.S. nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. Should the United States do so, it would open the door to nuclear testing by other states, unravel the CTBT, and blow apart the global nonproliferation system at a time of increasing nuclear danger.
- Since Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has expanded its capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material and reduced international inspectors’ access. Trump says he wants a nuclear deal; Iran’s president says he wants a nuclear deal. But time is short. Without a deal to scale back tensions and Iran’s nuclear capacity, we could see renewed international sanctions by October, Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, and/or an attempt by Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.
How exactly the second Trump administration and the new Congress will try to navigate all these nuclear-related challenges ahead is not yet clear — but if Project 2025 becomes the blueprint for U.S. nuclear weapons policy, we are in big trouble.
But, it may also be possible to steer us toward a safer course.
Trump wants to initiate denuclearization talks with Russia and China
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signaled that he wants to engage with Russia and China on denuclearization efforts.
By Erik English, BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS | February 14, 2025 thebulletin.org
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said from the White House.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons, and China’s building nuclear weapons.” The number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia can have is established by New START, which expires in 2026. Without a new agreement, nuclear states could begin to build up their arsenals for the first time since the Cold War. “Hopefully, there’ll never be a time when we need those weapons,” Trump said. “That’s going to be a very sad day, that’s going to be probably oblivion.”
Share Your Experiences at Los Alamos National Laboratory
The New York Times would like to hear from you about workplace protocols and safety measures at LANL.
By Alicia Inez Guzmán | Alicia Inez Guzmán is reporting on the nuclear industry in New Mexico as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship – THE NEW YORK TIMES February 11, 2025 nytimes.com
More voices, better journalism. The questionnaire you are reading is just one tool we use to help ensure our work reflects the world we cover. By inviting readers to share their experiences, we get a wide range of views that often lead to a more deeply reported article. We make every effort to contact you before publishing any part of your submission, and your information is secure. Here’s more on how it works and why it’s good for us and you.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has recently embarked on the “new Manhattan Project” — a hiring spree and multibillion dollar expansion to build plutonium bomb cores for nuclear weapons.
The Times is writing about this new mission and how the lab is keeping workers safe, reporting accidents and environmental contamination and making needed upgrades to key facilities, including in Technical Area 55, the heart of bomb core production.
Have you or someone you know worked at TA-55 or another “hot site” and experienced a workplace accident or been exposed to plutonium, beryllium or another radioactive or toxic substance on the job? What safety measures were in place? Were there follow-up health assessments?
Please answer the questions using the form:
LANL Site-Wide EIS Hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos Filled with Loud Protest and Vehement Dissent: Nuclear Weapons are IMMORAL
In this Site-Wide EIS we’re given three options: Expanded nuclear weapons programs (hypocritically called the no action alternative), then we’re presented with yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs, and the third alternative is even more expanded nuclear weapons programs. What we really need is a genuine alternative in this Site-Wide, and I hope that citizens will repeatedly bring this up. We need a TRUE ALTERNATIVE in which the US begins to show global leadership towards nuclear disarmament that it promised to in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that should be reflected in the sitewide which shows just passive maintenance of the stockpile. We don’t need Pit Production because it’s for NEW designs – NOT to ensure the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. The US, for our own national security and global security, we need to lead the world towards global nuclear disarmament – and this Site-Wide EIS does the opposite.
The hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos on February 11 and February 13, 2025, respectively, both had virtual participation options. The attendees online and in person were equally vehement in protesting the “rigged game” we’re given with this SWEIS and decrying the fact that there is no alternative besides increased nuclear weapons production.
And read an exceprt from the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester’s comments:
“As we all know, we’re in an accelerating new nuclear arms race that’s made even more dangerous because of artificial intelligence, multiple nuclear actors and hypersonic delivery systems. It’s an already scary situation that has become even scarier, and what concerns me is that Los Alamos and Santa Fe play a key role in naturally fostering and promoting this new nuclear arms race – a race which I believe is an affront to all that is good and holy, all from our perspective that God has placed in us to live in harmony with one another. Nuclear weapons pose one of the greatest threats to that harmony. I think it’s important to know what I’m learning more and more about is that expanded plutonium pit production is not simply to maintain the safety and reliability of our existing so-called deterrence. I think it’s important that people are aware that it’s really for new design nuclear weapons for this new particular armed race. I think it’s important that that people recognize that deterrence is not the way to go. In that light, I would say obviously for me is a Catholic Bishop, Pope Francis I think has really changed the whole moral landscape of looking at nuclear weapons. On the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, Pope Francis declared that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. As Catholics this was an extremely important shift there. The 1983 United states conference of Catholic Bishops did allow for deterrence – it was promoting disarmament but made caveats for deterrence. But Pope Francis has taken that off the table in saying that even possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, it’s unethical. One of the main reasons for this church’s shift on this was that the nuclear weapons powers really have failed in their pledge in 1970 when they joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The TPNW came about because of that failure, and so it seems to me then based on what Pope Francis said, that if possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, then expanding plutonium pit cores and modernizing our weapons systems in order to be more involved in the new nuclear arms race is also immoral. This policy is unethical. Now I want to be careful here, I am not saying that anyone working at Los Alamos or Sandia or Lawrence Livermore in California, I’m not judging them or saying there are immoral – that’s a different matter in one’s conscience. I’m saying that the policy is involved and the Pope said that nuclear weapons themselves are intrinsically immoral. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind, that that we need to be moving toward disarmament and that if we’re not, if that’s not our trajectory, rather if it’s just to build up our defenses, then that’s an immoral buildup.”
Gearing Up for the Public Hearings on the LANL Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement: Pit Production at LANL
“Nuclear Watch New Mexico hosted a workshop on February 6 on the newly released Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to present information and elicit discussion on this NEPA process that Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuke Watch, referred to as a “rigged game” at the beginning of the workshop. What that means will become evident as I review the part of the workshop I attended.”
By Kay Matthews, La Jicarita | February 7, 2025 lajicarita.wordpress.com
Archbishop John Wester, an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons proliferation under the guise of nuclear deterrence instead of disarmament spoke briefly to open the discussion. Quoting Pope Francis, he said, “possessing nuclear weapons is immoral.” He then said, “Pit production is immoral.” His only qualification is that it’s the policy that’s immoral, not the people who promote it. We’ve failed to uphold already existing treaties and failed to implement new ones. He’ll be going to the United Nations in March for a meeting, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and to Japan in August to meet with his partners in the World Without Nuclear Weapons.
Coghlan explained that next week the Department of Energy (DOE) and the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will hold public hearings, as required by NEPA, on the LANL SWEIS, in Santa Fe, Española, and Los Alamos. He cautioned that while we should all be “cynical” about the process, we need to go ahead and protest the fact that all three alternatives provided in the SWEIS expand pit production, just at different amounts. The process is rigged because the DOE and NNSA failed to update a 2008 Environmental Impact Statement before pit production began at LANL (the other nuclear facility, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is slated to produce 50 pits a year but is completely unprepared for pit production).
The guest speaker was Dylan Spaulding, Senior Scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists…
NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop – February 6, 2025
Full Video Recording: NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
NukeWatch Presentation: Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
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NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
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In Memoriam: Ken Mayers
We here at NukeWatch will dearly miss Ken’s weekly presence at the corner vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons in Santa Fe.
Locally, Ken was co-founder of the Santa Fe Chapter of Veterans for Peace and an active member of Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine. Ken worked with the local chapter of US Combatants for Peace and the Justice Council of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Fe where he was also an enthusiastic baritone and co-founder of the NM Peace Choir.
A Celebration of Ken’s life will be held Friday, April 4 beginning at 12 noon at the corner of Sandoval and West Alameda, (Santa Fe’s weekly vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons), followed by lunch and a hybrid service at the UU Congregation, 107 West Barcelona Street, Santa Fe, NM.
For those wanting to pay tribute to Ken, please consider planting a tree through A Living Tribute (https://shop.alivingtribute.org/) or make a donation in his memory to the Santa Fe Joan Duffy Chapter of Veterans for Peace https://www.vfp-santafe.org/
Ken was a lifelong, passionate defender of peace. Read more:
Los Alamos’ plutonium pit production of 30 annually for Sentinel may have to wait beyond 2026
As the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration awaits its marching orders from the President Donald Trump (R) administration, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is now saying it will get to an annual plutonium pit production goal of 30 “ASAP.”
Exchange Monitor | January 31, 2025 counterpunch.com
Such pits are the triggers for thermonuclear weapons…
Step inside the secret lab where America tests its nukes
“”The risk is significant,” says Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. The talk of testing comes at a time when nuclear weapons are resurgent: Russia is designing nuclear weapons to attack satellites and obliterate seaports; China is dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal; and the U.S. is undergoing a major modernization of its nuclear warheads. After years of declining nuclear stockpiles, the world looks poised to begin increasing the number and types of nuclear weapons being deployed.”
By Geoff Brumfiel, NPR | January 29, 2025 npr.org
A half-mile from here, on the morning of May 8, 1953, an Air Force bomber dropped a Mk-6D nuclear bomb from a height of 19,000 feet above the desert floor. It exploded with a yield of 27 kilotons of TNT — creating a shockwave that warped the bridge. The test, code-named “Encore,” was one of several conducted here to see what, if anything, in the civilian world could survive a nuclear blast (the answer is, apparently, not much).
Continue reading
Exchange Monitor: Compromise reached on pit production suit environmental review
“The National Nuclear Security Administration and environmental plaintiffs settled a lawsuit that could put a pause on plutonium pit production efforts at Savannah River Site if approved.”
By Exchange Monitor | January 29, 2025 exchangemonitor.com
The agreement, made public Jan. 16, would leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) sole pit factory until an environmental impact statement is completed as part of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The process is expected to take at least two-and-a-half years, according to the document.
Until a record of decision is issued from the environmental review, NNSA is enjoined from installing classified equipment or introducing nuclear material at the Savannah River plant, according to a press release from the citizen groups. Actual pit production at Savannah River is not expected before the 2030s, according to NNSA.
The plaintiffs alleged in the lawsuit from 2021 that NNSA and DOE would violate NEPA by producing plutonium pits at Los Alamos and Savannah River Site without conducting a proper environmental review. A federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs in September, but instigated months of back and forth between both parties by forcing them to agree to a solution themselves.
The settlement requires NNSA to produce a new programmatic environmental impact statement within two-and-a-half years. Until that is complete in a process that would include public hearings nationwide and public comment on the draft of the statement, NNSA would not be able to process nuclear material at Savannah River’s plutonium facility.
The plaintiffs in the suit include environmental watch group Savannah River Site Watch of South Carolina; Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch; The Gullah Geechee Sea Island Coalition, a group representing the interests of some descendants of enslaved Africans dwelling on the lower Atlantic coast; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, N.M.; and the Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, of Livermore, Calif.
Hot Plutonium Pit Bomb Redux
“Plaintiffs including Savannah River Site Watch, South Carolina Environmental Law Project Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs forced NNSA to halt construction on many phases of its plutonium pit facility near Aiken, SC, to hold public scoping meetings, solicit public comments, and produce a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement within thirty months.”
By Mark Muhich, Counterpunch | January 31, 2025 counterpunch.com
Last week U.S. District Judge Mary Lewis Geiger, South Carolina, faulted the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Agency for ignoring the National Environmental Protection Act and rushing plans to fabricate plutonium pit bombs at Savannah River Site, near Aiken, South Carolina.
Newly designed plutonium pits will serve as “triggers” for the next generation of nuclear warheads mounted atop Sentinel, the next generation of intercontinental ballistic missile, and for new submarine-launched nuclear weapons. Combined, these projects comprise major components in the trillion-dollar “modernization” of the U.S. strategic deterrence force.
Continue reading
Doomsday Clock: It is now 89 seconds to midnight
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | January 28, 2025 thebulletin.com
In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned the Science and Security Board continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, and the potential misuse of biological science and a variety of emerging technologies.
In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.
In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning. The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own—actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.
U.S. Senators Luján, Hawley, Heinrich, Schmitt, Reintroduce RECA To Give Nuclear Radiation Victims Compensation
By Carol A. Clark, Los Alamos Daily Post | January 24, 2025 ladailypost.com
Despite the Senate passing this bill, the House of Representatives failed to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) reauthorization before its expiration deadline in the 118th Congress.
“In New Mexico and across the country, thousands sacrificed to contribute to our national security. Today, individuals affected by nuclear weapons testing, downwind radiation exposure, and uranium mining are still waiting to receive the justice they are owed,” Sen. Luján said.
“It is unacceptable that so many who have gotten sick from radiation exposure have been denied compensation by Congress. Despite having passed RECA legislation twice through the Senate with broad bipartisan support, and securing the support of the previous administration, I was disheartened that Speaker Johnson refused a vote on RECA to help victims. This Congress, I am proud to partner with Senator Hawley again to extend and expand RECA. RECA is a bipartisan priority and I am hopeful that we will once again get it through the Senate and hope the Speaker commits to getting victims the compensation they are owed.”
Trump wants nuclear reduction talks with China, Russia
Trump recounted talks with Putin ahead of the 2020 U.S. election about denuclearization talks and how “China would have come along.”
“We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible,” Trump said.
By Laura Kelly, The Hill | January 23, 2025 thehill.com
President Trump while addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday said that he wants to hold talks with Russia and China about reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles.
Trump during his first term failed to bring China into negotiations to extend a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, called New START, which places key limits on deployed nuclear weapons and expires February 2026.
U.S. and Russian participation in the treaty effectively froze during the Biden administration, as Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to impose costs on Washington for supporting Ukraine militarily.
Remember the Downwinders
Today, Jan. 27 is a National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders. Nuclear testing by the U.S. government started in New Mexico with the Trinity Test in July 1945, and the Crossroads Series of three tests followed in the Pacific in 1946. The United States took part in nuclear testing as part of the escalating Cold War arms race, and nuclear weapons proliferated. Americans working and living downwind from nuclear testing sites became sick and killed by the radiation exposure generated from the aboveground atomic tests in Nevada, which began on January 27, 1951 and ended on July 17, 1962. With each nuclear test, radioactive fallout spread globally. Of course, downwinders are not only American. At the so-called “Pacific Proving Grounds” in the Marshall Islands, 67 nuclear weapons were detonated between 1945 and 1962.
From GUAM PACIFIC DAILY NEWS 1/27/25:
“It became a site of unimaginable destruction that did not stop at the blast zones. The radioactive fallout spread across the Pacific, settling on many islands like ours.” — Guam Senator Therese Terlaje
Seven of the top 10 adult cancers on Guam are now recognized as compensable for radiation exposure by the federal government, the senator noted.
Honoring Black Leaders in Disarmament
Russia Nuclear Update a project based at the MIT Security Studies Program that produces fact-based visual content on the threats posed by nuclear weapons, has shared a fantastic set of content that highlights the vital role that Black leaders have played in arms control and nuclear disarmament in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month.
“50 Faces of Black Leaders” honors the many contributions of civil rights and other leaders who opposed nuclear war. This video content is provided in vertical and horizontal formats and is free of charge.
Russia Nuclear Update (MIT) | January 17, 2025 russianuclearupdate.org
The individuals featured in this series include both contemporary figures like Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, and past generations, including Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, and iconic artists.
Historic Settlement Reached in NEPA Lawsuit Over Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production
Nonprofit public interest groups have reached an historic settlement agreement with the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This is the successful result of a lawsuit against NNSA over its failure to complete a programmatic environmental impact statement on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This agreement and a joint motion to dismiss have been submitted to Judge Mary Lewis Geiger of the Federal District of South Carolina. Should the Court enter the dismissal and retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, the agreement will go into effect.
This lawsuit was first filed in June 2021 by co-plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch of Columbia, SC; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, NM; Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), based in Livermore, CA; and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of coastal Georgia. NNSA promptly moved to have the case dismissed which in February 2023 Judge Lewis rejected, calling her decision “not a close call.”
In September 2024, Judge Lewis ruled that DOE and NNSA had violated NEPA by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits, a critical component of nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and, for the first time ever, at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The Court found that the plan’s purpose had fundamentally changed from NNSA’s earlier analyses which had not considered simultaneous pit production at two sites. Judge Lewis directed the Defendants and Plaintiffs to prepare a joint proposal for an appropriate remedy which fostered additional negotiations.
Anti-nuclear advocates, feds, compromise on pit production lawsuit
“We’re generally satisfied [with the terms],” said Nuclear Watch New Mexico executive director Jay Coghlan.
But what about the other half of the two-site plan?
“The fish that got away is Los Alamos,” Coghlan said.
Alaina Mencinger | January 17, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
The National Nuclear Security Administration and anti-nuclear advocates have reached agreement in a lawsuit over the National Environmental Protection Act that could temporarily halt plutonium pit production efforts at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
If approved, the proposed agreement, reached Thursday, would leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the agency’s only pit production site until a far-reaching environmental impact statement can be completed, which is expected to take at least 2½ years.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico and other groups around the country alleged in a 2021 lawsuit the federal government had violated the National Environmental Protection Act in the course of deciding to produce plutonium pits, the trigger device for nuclear weapons, at both Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site.
Feds release statement on LANL expansion possibilities
Despite the name, even the no action plan means growth for LANL — just a smaller amount. Given already-approved projects, the lab’s footprint is estimated to grow 4% under the no action plan and include increased demands for water and energy.
That has Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, feeling like the process is “rigged” — and too late, given that the plan to restart pit production was approved before a site-wide environmental impact statement was drafted to weigh the impacts.
“It’s a choice between expanded nuclear weapons programs, yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs, or far more expanded nuclear weapons programs,” Coghlan said. “And all the while, these are for new designs. None of this is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing, extensively tested stockpile. It’s this is all about new design nuclear weapons.”
Alaina Mencinger | January 10, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
As Los Alamos National Laboratory takes on a starring role in a plan to update the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the National Nuclear Security Administration is looking at what future operations of the lab might look like for the environment.
On Friday, NNSA released a draft site-wide environmental impact statement about LANL’s ongoing operations, the first since 2008. In the 17 years since, LANL’s budget has more than doubled and hundreds of new employees have been added, according to the statement.
The draft statement includes three visions for LANL’s future: a no action plan, a plan to modernize operations and a plan to expand operations. NNSA’s preferred choice is to grow operations; questions sent to the agency were not immediately returned.
New Draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement is Released
NNSA’s Preferred Future for the Lab is Radically Expanded Nuclear Weapons Programs
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has finally released its Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is more than two years after it was first announced and sixteen years after the last site-wide EIS. During that time the Lab has become more and more a nuclear weapons production site for the new global nuclear arms race. Accordingly, the central point of the new draft LANL SWEIS is “NNSA has identified the Expanded Operations Alternative as the preferred alternative for the continuing operations of LANL.” Draft LANL SWEIS, page S-13.
As policy background, the draft LANL SWEIS pays lip service to the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty (NPT):
“In Article VI of the NPT, treaty parties “undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…” The U.S. takes this commitment seriously and has emphasized dedication to both the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and the requirement that the U.S. has modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear capabilities that are safe and secure, until such a time as nuclear weapons can prudently be eliminated from the world.” P. 1-7.
Left unsaid is that no nuclear power, including the United States, has ever even tried to enter into good faith negotiations toward nuclear weapons disarmament, pledged to more than a half-century ago. Instead, all nuclear weapons states are now engaged in massive “modernization” programs to keep nuclear weapons forever, leading to today’s accelerating nuclear weapons arms race. Also, very much left unsaid is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ratified by 73 countries, nearing its fourth anniversary since it went into effect.
Independent Review of Chromium Groundwater Contamination Fails to Make Final Cleanup Recommendation
After 20 Years Los Alamos Lab Still Doesn’t Know Size of Plume
At Present Rate Cleanup Will Take More Than a Century
On December 30, 2024, in the middle of the holiday season, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) posted the report Independent Review of the Chromium Interim Measures Remediation System to its largely unknown Legacy Cleanup Electronic Public Reading Room. This report attempts to address the Lab’s extensive contamination of the region’s deep groundwater aquifer by a large plume of hexavalent chromium, whose potentially serious human health effects (including cancer) was the subject of the popular movie Erin Brockovich.
LANL’s chromium contamination plume is at least one mile long, a half mile wide and 100 feet thick.[1] It is commonly regarded as the Lab’s most serious environmental threat. One drinking water supply well for Los Alamos County has been shut down because of the plume. Lab maps of the contamination depict it as abruptly stopping at the border of San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is highly unlikely.
The bottom line of the newly released chromium report is:
“…at this time the plume is not sufficiently characterized to design a final remedy… data gaps and uncertainties need to be addressed before committing to an alternative or final remedy.”
This is a full two decades after the chromium plume was first reported.
Santa Fe New Mexican: Report urges return to injecting treated water into chromium plume near LANL
“At the present rate of extraction … that’s going to take more than a century to complete,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
The group is advocating for additional measures to speed cleanup, including pumping or trucking treated groundwater uphill, flushing the contamination at the source and installing more monitoring wells to better understand the size and depth of the plume.
“Weapons programs have doubled,” Coghlan said. “In that [time], the length of time to clean up, cost to clean up, keeps rising.”
Alaina Mencinger | December 31, 2024, Updated Jan 3, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
An independent review team is recommending federal and state agencies resume pumping, treating and re-injecting water from a plume of carcinogenic contaminants that is reaching toward San Ildefonso Pueblo.
But two decades after the plume’s discovery near Los Alamos National Laboratory, questions remain about how wide and deep the plume extends — and those questions could delay additional cleanup steps.
“Data gaps and uncertainties need to be addressed before committing to an alternative or final remedy,” the review panel stated in its final report, released this week.
Nuclear envoys of South Korea, US, Japan discuss NK missile launch over phone
“It constitutes a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the international community,” Seoul’s foreign ministry said.
The Korea Herald | January 6, 2025 koreaherald.com
The nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch in their phone talks Monday, vowing close coordination against any future provocations by the recalcitrant regime.
Lee Jun-il, director general for Korean Peninsula policy, discussed the North’s launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Seth Bailey and Akihiro Okochi, respectively, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.
The South’s military said the North fired a suspected hypersonic missile into the East Sea, marking its first provocation this year ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The launch also coincided with bilateral talks between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul.
The New Yorker: New Mexico’s Nuclear Weapons Boom
On a recent Wednesday, ten students filed into a classroom at Northern New Mexico College, in the town of Española, to learn about the dangers of nuclear radiation. The students ranged in age from nineteen to forty-four. Most of them were in a program designed to train radiation-control technicians to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, which is once again rapidly expanding to supply the nation with nuclear weapons.
Los Alamos was built in secret during the Second World War—J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the lab there as part of the Manhattan Project. The town hovers high above the Española valley, on a handsome mesa called the Pajarito Plateau. Originally, the only way to access the enclave was through two gates. Today, it accepts visitors but remains a company town, housing many of the lab’s scientists and high-level staffers. The community has a population of about thirteen thousand, and boasts one of the nation’s densest concentrations of millionaires. In New Mexico, such wealth is rare. Española, which sits on the Rio Grande and is a twenty-five-minute drive away, has a median household income of fifty thousand dollars, a poverty rate approaching twenty per cent, and an entrenched fentanyl crisis.
SEE MORE:
Working Together, We Can Meet Enormous Challenges
Dear Friends,
As we look back on 2024, Nuclear Watch New Mexico hopes you had a wonderful year. We wish you peace and prosperity. Given uncertain times ahead, we are confident that by working together we can meet the enourmous challenges that are in store for us in 2025.
Together, we can resist provocative nuclear weapons programs that are helping to fuel a new arms race. A prime example is the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. NukeWatch NM is leading the effort to compel legally required public review of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) most expensive program ever (but has no credible cost estimates). New pit production is not needed because it is for new weapons designs, not to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing, extensively tested nuclear stockpile.
Together we can watchdog LANL cleanup. Please join us next year for public hearings where we will oppose LANL’s plans to “cap-and-cover” existing radioactive and toxic wastes, leaving them permanently buried in unlined pits and shafts as a perpetual threat to groundwater.
We ask for your help in compelling the Department of Energy to stop expansion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico. WIPP’s mission is fundamentally changing from cleanup to direct support of the new arms race as the dump for new radioactive plutonium wastes from expanding nuclear weapons production. See how to make a difference at https://stopforeverwipp.org/home
Together, we can make progress toward a future nuclear weapons-free world! With deep appreciation, we thank those who have already contributed. If you haven’t given yet, please know that your support is vital to our ongoing work. Your generous tax deductible donation can be mailed to Nuclear Watch NM, 903 W. Alameda #325, Santa Fe, NM 87501, or made online at nukewatch.org/donate/
Our sincere gratitude and best wishes for the coming year,
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director
Scott Kovac, Research Director
Sophie Stroud, Digital Content Manager
P.S.: If you’re so inclined, please go to https://www.armscontrol.org/acpoy/2024 to vote for the 2024 Arms Control Person(s) of the Year. Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and NukeWatch NM are nominees for their lawsuit to compel the NNSA to complete a nation-wide programmatic environmental impact statement on expanded plutonium pit production.
New Piece in the Interactive Series from The New York Times: The President’s Arsenal
This article is part of the Opinion series At the Brink, about the threat of nuclear weapons in an unstable world. Read the opening story here.
SEE VIDEO OF THE RECENT ELECTION NIGHT VANDENBERG MISSILE LAUNCH FROM OUR FRIENDS AT TRI-VALLEY CARES:
Note: This content is not part of the original NYT article.
By the New York Times Editorial Board – THE NEW YORK TIMES December 17, 2024 nytimes.com
This is an intercontinental ballistic missile the U.S. Air Force is launching off the shores of California.
The missile doesn’t carry a nuclear warhead — it’s just a test.
In 30 minutes, it will hit a target in the ocean over 4,000 miles away.
On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will regain control of these weapons.
And he’s getting them at a very volatile time in history.
Judges find uranium plan near Bears Ears National Monument in Utah violates law
On October 25, 2024, two administrative judges ruled that the federal government’s approval of a plan to expand Daneros Mine had violated the law. The judges ordered the attorneys in the case to provide more information so that the judges can determine what the remedy should be.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals issued an order that the plan to expand the mine violated the law because it failed to include an adequate monitoring and response plan to detect and manage groundwater from a perched aquifer below the surface of the mine, and that water from the aquifer could potentially leak into the underground mine and become contaminated through contact with uranium ore or other harmful materials. That’s important because the mine sits fewer than 25 miles as water flows from the Colorado River, on which 40 million people rely.
By Tim Peterson, The Grand Canyon Trust | December 16, 2024 grandcanyontrust.org
After six years, there’s a speck of light at the end of the tunnel for a legal case challenging Daneros uranium mine, a controversial uranium mine on public lands near Bears Ears National Monument.
Perched below the towering walls of Wingate Mesa above Red Canyon and Fry Canyon, the Daneros Mine site and lands around it were proposed for inclusion in Bears Ears National Monument by the five tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition in 2015. When Bears Ears was designated in 2016, Daneros ended up outside the monument’s boundaries, but only by about three miles.
Uranium-ore hauling raises concerns about the risk of accidents and contamination. And uranium mining itself has a history of contaminating water, air, and land.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons Congratulates Nihon Hidankyo for Nobel Peace Prize
Gratitude to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for Recognizing the Cries and Witness of those Who Suffered the Effects of the Atomic Bombings
Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Japan; Santa Fe, NM; Seattle, WA – December 10, 2024 – As founding diocesan bishops of the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, we are grateful to The Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding Nihon Hidankyo this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons | December 10, 2024 pwnw.org
For far too long, the cries of all those who have suffered the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been muted by the false narrative that countries need to build their nuclear weapon capacity to “keep the peace.” In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo have been giving witness for decades to the folly of nuclear weapons and to the threat that they pose to human civilization as we know it.
We congratulate the Nihon Hidankyo for earning this year’s peace prize. May their call for the elimination of nuclear weapons be heard ever more clearly and change many people’s hearts in our war-torn world. May the souls of the victims of the atomic bombings rest in peace and rejoice in our work together for peace.
ARCHBISHOP PAUL D. ETIENNE of Seattle
ARCHBISHOP PETER MICHIAKI NAKAMURA of Nagasaki
BISHOP ALEXIS SHIRAH of Hiroshima
ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS JOSEPH MITSUAKI TAKAMI of Nagasaki
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
‘Nuclear accident’ warnings amid Russia missile strikes
By Paraic O’Brien | October 6, 2022 channel4news.com
Russia has faced weeks of military defeats in Ukraine, but today brought a reminder its military is still able to cause substantial destruction.
Overnight, and again this morning, the city of Zaporizhzhia suffered a series of missile attacks, including a direct strike on a residential apartment building.
The strikes raised concerns for the nearby nuclear power plant, leading to a warning from the International Atomic Energy Agency that an accident there is “a very clear possibility”.
NY TIMES: I’ve Studied 13 Days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This Is What I See When I Look at Putin.
By Michael Dobbs, The New York Times | October 5, 2022 nytimes.com
Two nuclear-armed states on a collision course with no obvious exit ramp. An erratic Russian leader using apocalyptic language — “if you want us to all meet in hell, it’s up to you.” Showdowns at the United Nations, with each side accusing the other of essentially gambling with Armageddon. For six …
Los Alamos National Laboratory’s pit production a year behind schedule
“Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said the lab has a history of delays and cost overruns that predates the pandemic.
“I suspect LANL and [the federal government] are using COVID as a convenient excuse for what’s going to happen anyway,” Coghlan said. “I’m certainly not saying there was no delay for COVID, but I doubt this much.”
Coghlan said the revelation is significant because it’s the first official confirmation the Los Alamos lab is running behind schedule with its planned pit production.”
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | October 5, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
(Tribune News Service) — Los Alamos National Laboratory’s effort to produce 30 nuclear bomb cores a year by 2026 was stalled for 13 months because of the coronavirus pandemic, calling into question whether it can make the much-touted target.
An anti-nuclear activist obtained a redacted management plan for the lab’s plutonium operations through a Freedom of Information Act Request, which describes how the production deadline is more likely to be missed because of preparatory work being delayed during a hard-hitting stretch of the pandemic.
STATEMENT: Archbishop Wester on Feast Day of St. Francis, Pray for Peace in Ukraine, Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
Today, October 4 is the feast day of St. Francis, the tireless promoter of peace and patron saint of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Pope Francis chose his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, and three days ago, he declared:
“The course of the war in Ukraine has become so serious, devastating, and threatening as to cause great concern… [W]hat about the fact that humanity is once again faced with the atomic threat? It is absurd… It increases the risk of nuclear escalation, giving rise to fears of uncontrollable and catastrophic consequences worldwide.”
This October is the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, about which then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said humanity survived only by luck. Sixty years later, we are facing the most serious nuclear threats since then.
Pope Francis has called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, declaring they can no longer be justified even by the deterrence strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Biden Thinks Non-Nuclear Threats Will Stop Putin. His Military Doesn’t
“We’re in uncharted territory,” says a senior intelligence officer. “Threatening to respond forcefully and creating catastrophic consequences for Russia [without] suggesting nuclear war: Is that strong enough to deter Putin? And is it really clear? I’m not so sure.”
BY | September 30, 2022 newsweek.com
The United States would “respond forcefully” to any Russian nuclear strike, President Biden said—but there’s a divide between his administration and some of his military advisers over the role of American nuclear weapons and the most effective way to deter Vladimir Putin, knowledgeable sources tell Newsweek.
“It’s the closest we’ve been to the use of nuclear weapons in over 50 years,” says one civilian working at the Omaha, Nebraska-based Strategic Command. “But I’m not so sure that we are communicating the right thing to deter Putin.”
The Age of Predatory Nuclear-Weapon States Has Arrived
Putin’s nuclear threat marks the start of a new era.
POLITICO | Opinion by Stephen Young, Union of Concerned Scientists | September 30, 2022 politico.com
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes at least one thing clear: It’s time for us to update how we think about nuclear weapons. For the first time in the nuclear era, one country used loudly issued nuclear threats — repeated just last week — to deter other countries from intervening in a large-scale conventional war of aggression. We have entered the age of “predatory nuclear-weapon states.”
For political analysts and military officials, this is not an unexpected phenomenon. On the contrary, the concept falls under the so-called stability-instability paradox. Because the threat of nuclear war is so terrifying and the risk of annihilation so real, lower-level conflict actually becomes more feasible. One nuclear-armed country can undertake major conventional military action, expecting that its nuclear capability will prevent outside intervention. That is what’s happening in Ukraine.
BREAKING: Putin illegally annexes 4 occupied regions, escalating war as Ukraine applies to join NATO
“Kyiv has vowed to keep fighting to retake its occupied land, and on Friday appeared on the verge of handing Russia’s military another significant setback.”
NBC NEWS | September 30, 2022 nbcnews.com
The Russian leader repeated his threats of nuclear war to defend his fragile hold over the annexed territory, a dramatic escalation of the seven-month conflict that has seen Moscow respond to heavy losses by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and intensifying its confrontation with the West.
The speech was met with an immediate response by Kyiv and its allies.
As well as announcing the annexation, Putin has partially mobilized his military — prompting domestic blowback and an exodus of Russians fleeing the draft — and ramped up his nuclear threats against Ukraine and the West. The moves are seen as a wider escalation after a series of punishing battlefield defeats at the hands of a lightning counteroffensive by Kyiv.
UN chief calls for end to ‘era of nuclear blackmail’
Guterres renews call for the abolition of nuclear weapons as concerns grow over Russia’s threat to use them in Ukraine.
ALJAZEERA | September 26, 2022 aljazeera.com
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has renewed his call for the global abolition of nuclear weapons as concerns grow over Russia’s threat to use them in the Ukraine war.
“Decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we can hear once again the rattling of nuclear sabres,” Guterres told a special UN General Assembly session on nuclear disarmament on Monday.
Nuke waste managers work to improve safety after incidents at repository near Carlsbad
Crews at Idaho National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad met last week to improve safety standards shared between the two facilities after a string of problematic waste shipments from the lab triggered a state investigation.
Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | September 22, 2022 yahoo.com
So far this year, WIPP personnel were alerted to issues with three shipments of transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste from the Idaho lab, leading to suspensions of waste shipments from the biggest shipper of waste to WIPP.
The first incident was reported on April 9, per a letter from the New Mexico Environment Department which regulates the U.S. Department of Energy’s permit to operate WIPP, and involved a liquid substance found on a waste drum that initially tested positive for radioactivity.
This led to an evacuation of the waste handling building, and a temporary halt on shipments of that kind from Idaho National Laboratory while the waste was sent back to Idaho.
Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection
“Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in almost all countries. Adaptation measures such as food waste reduction would have limited impact on increasing available calories.
We estimate more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the United States and Russia—underlining the importance of global cooperation in preventing nuclear war.”
NATURE | August 2022 nature.com
FULL ARTICLE – NATURE
Watchdog sues nuclear agency over LANL evaluations
“Coghlan said an example of why the full assessment is necessary is a note on last year’s report for the Los Alamos lab saying it had struggled with some production activities and experienced several challenges carrying out the plutonium mission, and “mission execution was impacted by lapses in safety performance.”
By Scott Wyland [email protected] The Santa Fe New Mexican | September 17, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
A New Mexico watchdog group is suing the federal agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons programs for issuing only summaries of its yearly report cards on national laboratories and withholding what the group contends is vital information on deficiencies.
The lawsuit seeks to compel the National Nuclear Security Administration to post in its public reading room the complete report cards for the eight national laboratories involved in nuclear weapons — ones it has withheld in the past and all future assessments.
Allowing the public to see, in particular, the full report on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s shortcomings is increasingly important as the lab gears up to make 30 plutonium bomb cores a year with an escalating federal budget, Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a statement.
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s yearly report cards assess the performances of contracted lab operators and award bonuses to the organizations based on their grades in a process that is not classified, Coghlan argued.
Continue reading
Archbishop Wester Pleas For Nuclear Disarmament At Annual United Nations Evening Prayer Service
The Los Alamos Reporter | September 15, 2022 losalamosreporter.com
The following is a link to the homily delivered Monday by Most Rev. John C. Wester at the Annual United Nations Evening Prayer Service at Holy Family Catholic Church in New York:
Exchange Monitor Round-Up: Anti-nukers sue for full performance evals
By Exchange Monitor | September 15, 2022 exchangemonitor.com
In a new lawsuit, the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Santa Fe, demanded that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) turn over “full and complete Performance Evaluation Reports” for the contractors managing the agency’s nuclear-weapon…
‘Scoping’ The New LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
BY JAY COGHLAN
Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico
‘Scoping’ The New LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
“Scoping” means determining the issues that should be included in public analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of proposed major actions by the federal government. According to the Department of Energy ‘s own NEPA implementation regulations, DOE must prepare a new or supplemental site-wide environmental impact statement (SWEIS) for its major sites when there are “significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns.” The last site-wide EIS for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was completed in 2008 and is badly outdated. Moreover, since 2018 the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), DOE’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, has been aggressively expanding the production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores for nuclear weapons at the Lab.
Lawmakers demand reparations for New Mexicans imperiled by nuclear bomb testing
“It’s very emotional to reflect on all we’ve lost as a result of being exposed to radiation,” said consortium founder Tina Cordova, herself a survivor of thyroid cancer who said members of her family also suffered from myriad forms of the disease.
By Adrian Hedden Carlsbad Current-Argus | September 10, 2022 currentargus.com
When the U.S.’ first nuclear bomb was detonated in south-central New Mexico, it was believed to set off a chain of cancers and health problems suffered by the surrounding communities for generations.
People who grew up near the Trinity Test Site, near the remote communities of Carrizozo or Tularosa, were denied federal relief dollars afforded to other “downwinders” impacted by nuclear testing around the country.
Both towns were within 50 miles of the blast site, and advocates say they were exposed to radiation from the bomb testing.
Agency to hold public comment on Los Alamos National Lab sitewide review
“Los Alamos lab’s plutonium modernization funding would climb to $1.56 billion from this year’s $1 billion, a more than 50 percent increase.
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, expressed concerns about the agency indicating it saw no need to assess expanded pit production itself in the review.
“NNSA’s dubious argument is that it performed the legally required NEPA analysis for expanded plutonium pit production” in past assessments, Coghlan wrote.”
By Scott Wyland, The Santa Fe New Mexican | September 12, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The federal agency that oversees nuclear weapons will hold two hearings this week to give the public a chance to comment about the first full sitewide environmental review of Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2008.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is conducting the sitewide review of the lab under the National Environmental Protection Act — breaking from its past resistance to doing fresh analysis of possible impacts as the lab gears up to annually produce 30 plutonium bomb pits by 2026.
Fighting rages near Russian-held nuclear plant in Ukraine
An official says the besieged Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility may be closed as residents near the plant are urged to evacuate for their own safety.
ALJAZEERA | September 9, 2022 aljazeera.com
Heavy fighting erupted in areas near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine after Kyiv warned it might have to shut down the plant to avoid a radiation disaster.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in its daily update on Thursday that some villages near the plant were bombed over the past 24 hours by “tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery”.
Overnight, Russian forces fired rockets and heavy artillery into the nearby town of Nikopol four times, the area’s regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on Telegram, damaging at least 11 houses and other buildings.
On Wednesday, an official said the nuclear plant may have to be shut down and called on residents in areas near the embattled facility to evacuate for their own safety.
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, MY VIEW JAY COGHLAN: LANL growth fueling new nuclear arms race
“Locally, while the lab grabs tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars for new, counterproductive nuclear weapons production, it plans to “cap and cover” and leave buried some 200,000 cubic yards of toxic and radioactive wastes that will permanently threaten our precious water resources.”
My View Jay Coghlan – The Santa Fe New Mexican | September 10, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The New Mexican‘s recent editorial on Los Alamos National Laboratory noted “LANL’s astounding growth” (“LANL’s growth creates pressure on safety,” Our View, Aug. 31). Cancer is defined as uncontrollable cellular growth invading other parts of the body. That is fitting here as the lab metastasizes into the city of Santa Fe (in English, “Holy Faith”). The potentially terminal disease is a second nuclear arms race. Ex-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said we survived the first arms race only by luck.
Where is the leadership, where is the vision? While busy legislating short-term nuclear pork benefiting the already privileged, our congressional delegation leads us toward Armageddon. This second arms race is more dangerous than the first because of multiple nuclear adversaries, new cyber and hypersonic weapons, and artificial intelligence. All of this destabilizes the old Cold War architecture of mutually assured destruction (which never really went away). But “MAD” is truly insane to begin with, involving total, civilization-destroying war.
“Details of foreign country’s nuclear capabilities among documents FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago: report” “Nuclear secrets reportedly found at Mar-a-Lago are ‘gamechanger’, experts say – as it happened”
THE GUARDIAN: Report appears to confirm security officials’ worst fears about the nature of the material Trump refused to hand back
THE GUARDIAN, FOX NEWS | September 7, 2022 theguardian.com, foxnews.com
Federal agents seized the document during their search of Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Palm Beach mansion in Florida, last month, the Washington Post reported. It appears to confirm officials’ worst fears about the nature of the intelligence he should have returned to the National Archives.
Shelling at Ukrainian nuclear plant highlights danger ahead of UN report – Reuters
U.N. seeks security zone near damaged Zaporozhzhia nuclear plant
By Pavel Polityuk and Francois Murphy, Reuters | September 6, 2022 reuters.com
Federal agents seized the document during their search of Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Palm Beach mansion in Florida, last
KYIV/VIENNA, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces shot down five Russian cruise missiles on Tuesday, most of them in the south, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, but he made no mention of a new military success in the east hinted at by officials earlier.
“This morning alone, five of six Russian X-101 missiles were downed,” Zelenskiy said in an evening address. “This is a costly loss for Russia, and it saves many Ukrainian lives. Four of these missiles were downed by the “South” district of the air command.”
Reuters was not able to independently verify Zelenskiy’s statement and there was no immediate response from Russia.
Though Ukrainian officials did not give specific details, several posts on social media from military bloggers and witnesses reported fighting around Balakliia, an eastern town of 27,000 people that lies between Kharkiv and Russian-held Izyum, a city with a major railway hub used by Moscow to supply its forces. One tweet by a Zelenskiy adviser spoke of “great news” coming from the president on the operation in Kharkiv region.
One Hundred and Fifteen NGOs and Individuals Ask for LANL SWEIS Comment Extension; LANL Virtual Scoping Meetings on September 13th and 14
August 31, 2022
This week 63 non-governmental organizations and 52 individuals requested that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant a two-month extension of time to provide informed public comments about the scope of the Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operations of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL SWEIS). On August 19th, DOE announced in its Notice of Intent to Prepare a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Los Alamos National Laboratory a 45-day comment period. Currently, comments are due on Monday, October 3rd, 2022. https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/nnsa-nepa-reading-room
In their August 30th letter, the groups and individuals asked that the DOE Secretary Granholm and her staff extend the comment period to Monday, December 5, 2022. No response has yet been received. LANL SWEIS 2022 Scoping Extension Request 8-25-22
The NGOs and individuals justified their extension request by noting, among other items, that the last LANL SWEIS was finalized in 2008 – 14 years ago. Generally DOE conducts a SWEIS every 10 years. DOE proposes that this LANL SWEIS will cover “approximately the next 15 years” of operations, or to approximately 2038 and beyond.
Extension Requested For Scoping Comments Deadline For LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
Dozens of environmental groups, non-government organizations and individuals have signed a request to the Department of Energy for a two-month extension of the Oct. 3 comment deadline for scoping comments on a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for continued operations of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
BY MAIRE O’NEILL, Los Alamos Reporter | August 31, 2022 losalamosreporter.com
A letter sent Tuesday states that the current comment period is simply not enough time for the public to make meaningful comments on the scope of a proposal as large, complex and technical as the LANL SWEIS. It is addressed to Sec. of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Jill Hruby, DOE/NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Ted Wyka and NNSA’s NEPA Compliance Officer at LANL Kristen Dors. The top two signatories are Joni Arends of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“The scope of the LANL SWEIS is of great national importance because it examines the environmental impacts associated with expanded plutonium pit production and cleanup at LANL,” the letter reads. “The 2008 LANL SWEIS is a formidable document, with 1942 pages, not counting the 144-page Summary and the 1207-page Comment Response Document. That’s a total of 3293 pages. This gives an idea of the amount of information analyses that are involved in preparing informed public scoping comments and why more time is needed.”
‘We’re losing our people’: COVID ravaged Indigenous tribes in New Mexico. Did uranium mining set the stage?
Today, hundreds of mines lie abandoned across New Mexico’s Indigenous lands. So do scores of eroding radioactive landfills meant to bury uranium mine waste.
By Eli Cahan, Capital & Main | August 26, 2022 usatoday.com
As a young girl, Arlene Juanico would rush to gather the laundry before the explosions started.
When the alarms sounded, Juanico would hustle to grab the clean garments off the clothesline before she was enveloped by dust clouds. But Juanico’s little legs usually couldn’t get her back to shelter in time.
That’s when the yellow-flecked dust – emerging from detonations in the sacred mesa the Laguna tribe knows as Squirrel Mountain – would catch up to her. That’s when it would enter Juanico’s throat, burrowing deep into her lungs.
It’s the same dust she would confront when, as an adult, she worked for the Anaconda Copper Co.
And it’s the dust that would persist in her lungs, kidneys and bones. There, hidden in the dark recesses of her chest, the particles lay until one day decades later a CT scan would show Juanico and people like her why they hadn’t been able to take a full breath in decades. They’d get a similar diagnosis – idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis – one mangled lung at a time.
As such, the dangers of one of the largest uranium mines in American history didn’t abate when the dust clouds dissipated.
NPT Review Conference fails to address current security environment
“In a year when a nuclear-armed state invaded a non-nuclear armed state, a meeting of nearly all countries in the world failed to condemn Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons in the context of its invasion, and failed to take any steps that would advance nuclear disarmament.”
After four weeks of meetings, the 10th Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference has failed. Despite the final draft outcome document being significantly weakened throughout the negotiations, Russia refused to accept the final version and the conference ended without an agreement.
ICAN (The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) | August 27, 2022 icanw.org
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.
BY MATTHEW GAULT | VICE NEWS | August 29, 2022 vice.com
…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.
The plan was for Webster to fly around, then land back on the aircraft carrier where the crew would unload the weapon. Webster never made it into the air. The Skyhawk rolled out of the elevator and the crew began to frantically wave at Webster, calling on him to hit the breaks. “According to testimony during the post-incident Board of Inquiry investigation, the pilot seemed oblivious to the whistles and was looking down,” Chief Petty Officer Delbert Mitchell, who was on the crew that loaded the bomb onto the Skyhawk, told the U.S. Naval Institute in 2019.
Navy crew desperately tried to stop the Skyhawk, but they only managed to pivot it in place as it rolled inevitably to the side of the carrier. It hit the netting on the side of the elevator, broke through it, and fell into the ocean. The nuke was armed. “We never saw Lieutenant Webster after he climbed into the cockpit or knew what efforts he might have attempted to get out of the Skyhawk, but we were stunned to witness a plane, pilot, and nuclear weapon fall into the ocean,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell and the rest of the ship looked into the ocean and watched as the Skyhawk sank into the ocean, its landing gear sticking straight up into the air. Efforts to save Webster and recover the nuclear bomb started immediately. The Navy called in other ships to aid with the search but discovered no sign of the missing nuke or plane—they only ever found Webster’s helmet.
The Navy did not talk about the incident for decades. It reported the incident to Congress a year later when the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was studying the shocking number of Broken Arrows, but the general public wouldn’t learn that America had lost an active nuke off the coast of Japan until 1989.
The US military is still missing 6 nuclear weapons that were lost decades ago
“After Robert McNamara took the post of Secretary of Defense later that year, he pointed to that incident and another nuke loss over Texas as evidence of how close the U.S. has come to accidental detonations, despite “spending millions of dollars to reduce this problem to a minimum.”
“By the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted,” McNamara was quoted as saying in an article by The Guardian.”
The U.S. military had 32 nuclear accidents during the Cold War, and several nuclear weapons remain unaccounted for.
BY DAVID ROZA | TASK AND PURPOSE | August 25, 2022 taskandpurpose.com
From car keys to glasses to rifles, everyone misplaces something important from time to time. But when you’re the U.S. government, sometimes that important thing is a superweapon that is designed to destroy cities and kill millions of people.
Over the decades, the U.S. military has had 32 nuclear accidents, also called “Broken Arrow” incidents. These incidents include accidental launches, radioactive contamination, loss of a nuclear weapon or other unexpected events involving nuclear weapons. Luckily, of those 32 accidents, there were only six U.S. nuclear weapons that could not be located or recovered, and of those six weapons, only one was capable of a nuclear detonation when it was lost.
While even one missing nuclear weapon sounds scary, it’s worth noting that the Soviet Union lost far more during the Cold War, often due to submarines sinking with a dozen or more nuclear missiles on board.
“Compared to the Soviet Union, the U.S. record is pretty impressive, given how many nuclear weapons it has operated and transported everywhere over the years,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, told Task & Purpose.
In fact, U.S. government agencies often go to great lengths to secure lost weapons. One such incident occurred on Jan. 17, 1966, when a B-52 and a KC-135 refueling tanker collided over southern Spain and scattered four B-28 thermonuclear bombs around the fishing village of Palomares. The conventional explosives for two of the bombs exploded, but the nuclear components did not detonate because they were not armed. The U.S. military sent troops to pick up the undetonated one that fell on land, clean up the radioactive pieces scattered by the two which detonated, and find the fourth which landed in the sea. The U.S. government even dispatched a submarine to find the one in the Mediterranean Sea. Called ‘Alvin,’ the small deep-ocean sub was high-tech for its time, but the crew nearly died when the sub was almost entangled in the parachute that was still attached to the bomb on the ocean floor. Meanwhile, the service members who helped find the landward bombs and clean up the wreckage also developed cancers which they say are linked to that mission 56 years ago.
Considering the extent to which the U.S. looks for lost nukes like it did in Palomares, the stories behind the five instances where recovery crews could not locate or recover weapons are extraordinary. Below is a list of those five accidents, one of which resulted in two missing nuclear weapons. Keep in mind that in all but one, the lost nuclear weapons did not include the pit or capsule that contains the components for triggering a nuclear detonation. That means we can all sleep a little easier knowing those weapons cannot blow up a city. However, the U.S. government still classifies those pit-less devices as nuclear weapons: sophisticated, expensive machines that at the time were closely-guarded tools of mass destruction. And there are many more out there from other governments like the Soviet Union which may never be found.
Nuclear waste shipments to repository near Carlsbad lagging behind goals for 2022
“So far in FY 2022, most of WIPP’s shipments came from Idaho National Laboratory to fulfill statutory agreements between the DOE and the State of Idaho.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | August 26, 2022 currentargus.com
Nuclear waste managers in New Mexico are about 90 shipments of waste short of their goal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for fiscal year 2022 which ends in about a month.
Records show WIPP accepted 206 shipments so far for FY 2022, which runs from Oct. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022.
During an Aug. 4 meeting before lawmakers, WIPP officials said the facility was targeting 299 shipments this year.
Transuranic (TRU) waste is shipped to WIPP near Carlsbad for permanent disposal in an underground salt deposit about 2,000 feet below the surface.
It comes from U.S. Department of Energy facilities throughout the nation, and is made up of clothing materials and equipment irradiated during nuclear activities.
Watchdog groups call review at US nuclear lab ‘sham’ process
“This is too little too late, a sham process designed to circumvent citizen enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “The key sentence in NNSA’s announcement is that absent any new decisions in the site-wide environmental impact statement, the agency will continue to implement decisions it previously made behind closed doors.”
By | August 19, 2022 apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. government is planning to review the environmental effects of operations at one of the nation’s prominent nuclear weapons laboratories, but its notice issued Friday leaves out federal goals to ramp up production of plutonium cores used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
The National Nuclear Security Administration said the review — being done to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act — will look at the potential environmental effects of alternatives for operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 15 years.
That work includes preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide and other projects related to national security and global stability, the notice said.
Watchdog groups contend that regardless of the review, the NNSA will march ahead with its production plans for plutonium cores at Los Alamos.
Federal agency to conduct sitewide review of Los Alamos National Laboratory
“This is in direct contradiction to the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement that federal agencies take a ‘hard look’ at proposed actions before implementation,” Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a statement.
So much happened after 2008 that called for a new, thorough impact study years ago, including the plutonium facility’s “checkered nuclear safety history” that led to its major operations shutting down for more than three years, Coghlan said.
A new sitewide analysis now, Coghlan said, will merely “rubber stamp the billions of taxpayers’ dollars being sunk into a predetermined decision to expand plutonium pit production at LANL.”
By Scott Wyland [email protected] The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 19, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The federal agency that oversees nuclear weapons will conduct a sitewide environmental review at Los Alamos National Laboratory, breaking from its past resistance to performing fresh analysis of potential impacts as the lab gears up to make 30 nuclear warhead triggers a year.
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced in the Federal Register on Friday it would do a sitewide analysis of the lab under the National Environmental Protection Act and would take public comment until Oct. 3.
It’s the first time the agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, has done a new sitewide environmental impact statement in 14 years.
ATOMIC MASS In Santa Fe, an Archbishop calls for nuclear disarmament through faith alone.
“Jay [Coghlan] of Nukewatch, invited by Wester to answer an audience question about Ukraine having lost deterrence when it returned Soviet nuclear weapons to Moscow, emphasized that Ukraine never had the controls to actually detonate nuclear weapons stored on its territory. Coughlin then echoed Beamont’s statement, saying ‘we can flip the argument, say that Russia is shielded from consequences because it has nuclear weapons. Deterrence has been flipped on its head.’”
BY: KELSEY D. ATHERTON, INK STICK MEDIA | August 10, 2022 inkstickmedia.com
At least 100 parishioners must have been in attendance at the special mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi on Aug. 9, 2022. The Tuesday afternoon service at the historically significant church did not fall under the usual schedule. Following an afternoon rich in monsoon thunderstorms, the clouds cleared, allowing regulars and visitors alike to file in to hear what, exactly, the Archbishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese had to say about the work of peace.
“In the way that 109 East Palace was the gateway to nuclear oblivion, I hope that the Basilica of St. Francis can be the gateway to global nuclear disarmament,” John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, told the assembled crowd.
The address is instantly familiar to those fluent in nuclear history and opaque outside of it. During the Manhattan Project, the US effort to develop and build an Atomic Bomb in Los Alamos, 109 East Palace was the place to arrive before being covertly whisked away to the lab.
WHEN IT COMES TO SALVATION FROM NUCLEAR OBLIVION, FAITH IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE TASK ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. THERE MUST BE WORK THAT MAKES IT REAL.
It was the work of Los Alamos that made Aug. 9 the occasion for a mass dedicated to nuclear disarmament. On Aug. 9, 1945, the US dropped Fat Man, the second and so far last nuclear weapon used in war. The bomb fell on Nagasaki, a Japanese city hastily added to the targeting list. While the bombardier claims the clouds parted for visual confirmation of the target, it is at least equally plausible the crew decided to drop the bomb by radar targeting and fly back to base, instead of ditching it in the ocean or crashing on the way back.
Archbishop Wester apologizes for harms caused by nuclear weapons industry
“I challenge us at the most personal level to ask ourselves, ‘How do we live each day? Do we live each day consistent with the core values of faith, love and compassion … for one another?” – Archbishop Wester
Catholic News Service | August 10, 2022 catholicnews.com
New Mexico archbishop whose archdiocese is home to two major federal nuclear weapons research facilities and an Air Force base apologized for the atomic bombings of Japan and to Indigenous New Mexicans, uranium miners and scientists suffering from ill health related to the nuclear weapons industry.
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe said the time has come for the world to fervently work to undertake the long process to achieve nuclear disarmament.
He made the comments in a homily during a Mass Aug. 9 marking the 77th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.Continue reading
On this solemn anniversary, another look at a nuclear future
“Continuing to develop weapons that don’t just kill but have the potential to decimate the planet is a seemingly accepted part of modern life.
Yet on this anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, it is useful to consider whether humanity can find a different path forward.”
OUR VIEW | The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 8, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
August is a particularly dark month in human history.
On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, humanity revealed it had the ability to destroy itself; the United States chose to drop atomic bombs first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender and end World War II. The destruction was horrific, with tens of thousands of people killed, buildings leveled and thousands more dying of lingering radiation sickness in the years that followed.
New Mexico played an outsized role in the bomb’s deployment. It was developed by the Manhattan Project scientists in the then-secret city of Los Alamos and tested at White Sands. Today, Los Alamos National Laboratory continues its mission of solving national security challenges, with the current emphasis gearing up to manufacture the plutonium pits at the core of nuclear weapons.
By 2026, LANL is supposed to be ready to make 30 pits a year, with another 50 pits annually coming from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by 2030.
The weight of a butterfly
“Of the 64 kilograms of uranium in the Hiroshima bomb, less than one kilogram underwent fission, and the entire energy of the explosion came from just over half a gram of matter that was converted to energy.
That is about the weight of a butterfly.”
By Emily Strasser, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | August 6, 2022 thebulletin.org
The design for the first atomic bomb was frighteningly simple: One lump of a special kind of uranium, the projectile, was fired at a very high speed into another lump of that same rare uranium, the target. When the two collided, they began a nuclear chain reaction, and it was only a tiny fraction of a second before the bomb exploded, forever splitting history between the time before the atomic bomb and the time after.
At 17 seconds past 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay released the bomb from a height of 31,600 feet above the target, a T-shaped bridge in the center of Hiroshima, Japan.
The morning was cloudless, as the weather plane sent to scout for the Enola Gay had reported in the hour before. If the weather had been poor, the plane would have set its course to one of the two alternate targets. As the bomb fell, a schoolboy closed his eyes and began to count as his friends hid along the way to school.
Nuclear threat higher now than in Cold War, British official warns
“’We are entering a dangerous new age,’ [Lovegrove] added, citing the spread of advanced weapons and cyberwarfare.”
BY Ellen Francis © WASHINGTON POST | July 28, 2022 washingtonpost.com
Britain’s national security adviser has warned that a breakdown in dialogue among rival powers is raising the risk of nuclear war, with fewer safeguards now than during the Cold War.
As such, he said, Britain strongly supports President Biden’s talking with Beijing.
The Economist on “The NPT at 50+”: Will the Ukraine war ring the knell for nuclear arms control?
“America offers to resume nuclear talks with Russia, and calls for China to join. But the outlook is dark”
© THE ECONOMIST | July 31, 2022 economist.com
Editor’s note (August 1st 2022): President Joe Biden today offered to “expeditiously negotiate” a new nuclear arms-control deal with Russia to replace the New START treaty, which expires in 2026. Mr Biden also put pressure on China to discuss limits on its growing nuclear arsenal. It is not clear whether either power will take up his call, but it allows America to cast itself as a responsible power at the start of a big nuclear conference in New York.
In the sea of hostility between America and Russia, an island of co-operation endures: the rival powers routinely share information about their long-range nuclear weapons, from the movement of warheads in and out of maintenance to telemetry from ballistic-missile launches. This is both striking and reassuring in the sixth month of war in Ukraine, as Russia periodically threatens to use nuclear weapons and America warns of “severe consequences” if it does.
Environment Department Unhappy With Pace Of DOE Characterization, Cleanup Of LANL Chromium Plume
“’We felt that the cleanup was not moving as quickly as it should be moving and then we entered into litigation with DOE. It was moved from state court to federal court. The current LANL cleanup end date for DOE is 2036, which is in the Consent Order, and we don’t feel that they’re going to be able to make that timeline based on the progress they’re making at this time,’ Catechis said.”
BY MAIRE O’NEILL | July 27, 2022 losalamosreporter.com
New Mexico Environment Department Resource Protection Division Director Chris Catechis is not mincing his words when he discusses NMED’s position on the hexavalent chromium plume discovered in 2005 which is part of the legacy waste clean-up mission at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
At a recent meeting of the Legislative Interim Committee on Radioactive & Hazardous Waste, both Catechis and Rep. Christine Chandler of Los Alamos raised concerns that Department of Energy Environmental Management program at LANL is not taking an aggressive enough approach to characterization of the chromium plume.
Catechis explained the 2016 Consent Order between DOE and NMED dealing with legacy waste from LANL left since the Manhattan Project era. The 2016 Consent Order, which is an update from the original 2005 Consent Order, NMED and DOE officials meet each year to set up a series of milestones, campaigns and targets for the coming federal fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Catechis said an example of those is the Chromium Interim Measure that deals with the characterization of the chromium plume.
From Russia to Ohio…to the Cancer Ward
“According to the Departments of State and Energy, there was a deliberate decision by the U.S. government that U.S. interests would be served by allowing a portion of the highly enriched uranium to be blended into low enriched uranium and to be rapidly removed from Russia while the details of the transparency measures were being worked out,” the GAO report states.”
BY Ken Silva | July 12, 2022 libertarianinstitute.com
Residents of Piketon, Ohio have long suspected that the area’s sky-high cancer rate stems from the nearby Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS), which served as a uranium enrichment facility for nuclear bombs throughout the Cold War.
Recent reporting from Local 12 WKRC-TV anchor Duane Pohlman sheds light on why the area’s cancer epidemic—more than 500 cases per 100,000, or about 10 percent above state average, according to the Ohio Cancer Atlas—has persisted decades after PORTS stopped helping Uncle Sam build nukes.
Pohlman revealed in May that the PORTS may have been the recipient of polluted uranium from Russia in the 1990s due to a Bill Clinton-era program called “Swords to Ploughshares,” which entailed the United States converting Soviet Union nuclear warheads to uranium that could be used to power U.S. nuclear reactors. Pohlman’s reporting suggests that some of that material was laced with plutonium.
MORE LAB EXPANSION: MAKING WAY FOR NEW PLUTONIUM PIT PRODUCTION ACTIVITY? NNSA/DOE Update: “Los Alamos Field Office Clears Way to Lease Warehouse, Storage Space within 150 miles of Laboratory”
“Multiple properties could be needed to meet LANL needs…Items that would be warehoused or stored include items that are needed for LANL operations,”
BY Carol A. Clark , Los Alamos Daily Post | July 22, 2022 ladailypost.com
The Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Field Office (DOE/NNSA) has issued a Categorical Exclusion to lease properties to provide warehouse and storage space for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) equipment within a 150-mile radius of LANL, which could include properties in several locations of northern New Mexico and southern portions of Colorado.
Nuclear strategy and ending the war in Ukraine
“Removing U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe and Turkey would not weaken NATO militarily, since nuclear weapons have little or no actual usefulness on the battlefield. If they are truly weapons of last resort, there is no need to deploy them so close to Russia’s border. ”
A bold idea: NATO offers to withdraw nukes from Europe (militarily useless, ineffective deterrents as we’ve just seen, & recklessly dangerous) in return for ending the invasion. Putin gets a “win” which costs us nothing worth having. https://t.co/P5txyLEcMs
— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) July 25, 2022
BY OSCAR ARIAS AND JONATHAN GRANOFF, The Hill | July 25, 2022 thehill.com
It is time for bolder efforts to make peace in Ukraine.
War, like fire, can spread out of control, and as President Putin keeps reminding us, this particular conflagration has the potential to start a nuclear war.
At a recent joint news conference with the President of Belarus, Putin announced that Russia would transfer Iskander M missiles to Belarus. Those missiles can carry nuclear warheads, and the move is apparently intended to mirror nuclear sharing arrangements the United States has with five NATO allies — Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey.
U.S. nuclear weapons were introduced into Europe in the 1950s as a stopgap measure to defend NATO democracies whose conventional forces were weak. The number of nuclear weapons in those five countries peaked around 7,300 warheads in the 1960s, then dwindled to about 150 today, reflecting NATO’s growing conventional strength and its diminishing estimation of the military usefulness of nuclear weapons. But even 150 nuclear weapons could be more than sufficient to touch off a dangerous confrontation with Russia.
Nuclear News Archives – 2021
WIPP Shipments Stopped Due to Maintenance Problems at Site
Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, “As early as November 2013, Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC, began to physically expand the WIPP underground. The fire and explosion shutdown that work. It remains evident that NWP is more interested in doubling the size of the WIPP underground and keeping it open forever than doing preventive maintenance.”
Due to on-going maintenance problems in the underground disposal facility, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) requested an extension of time from the New Mexico Environment Department to store waste in the Waste Handling Building. https://wipp.energy.gov/
The request for a 45-day extension to store 13 shipments of plutonium- contaminated waste comes on the heels of on-going maintenance problems at WIPP [PDF]. On October 14th, 2021, the Environment Department approved the extension to November 30th, 2021 [PDF]. All waste shipments to WIPP had previously been stopped from August 25th until September 30th.
Maintenance problems include ventilation problems on the surface in the Waste Handling Building and managing the floors in the underground. The salt can heave and create uneven surfaces where waste is transported for disposal.
To Avoid Armageddon, Don’t Modernize Missiles—Eliminate Them
Land-based nuclear weapons are world-ending accident waiting to happen, and completely superfluous to a reliable deterrent.
“Getting trapped in an argument about the cheapest way to keep ICBMs operational in their silos is ultimately no-win. The history of nuclear weapons in this country tells us that people will spare no expense if they believe that spending the money will really make them and their loved ones safer—we must show them that ICBMs actually do the opposite.“
By Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon thenation.com October 22, 2021
The single best option for reducing the risk of nuclear war is hidden in plain sight. News outlets don’t mention it. Pundits ignore it. Even progressive and peace-oriented members of Congress tiptoe around it. And yet, for many years, experts have been calling for this act of sanity that could save humanity: Shutting down all of the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Four hundred ICBMs dot the rural landscapes of Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Loaded in silos, these missiles are uniquely—and dangerously—on hair-trigger alert. Unlike the nuclear weapons on submarines or bombers, the land-based missiles are vulnerable to attack and could present the commander in chief with a sudden use-them-or-lose-them choice. “If our sensors indicate that enemy missiles are en route to the United States, the president would have to consider launching ICBMs before the enemy missiles could destroy them. Once they are launched, they cannot be recalled,” former Defense Secretary William Perry warns. “The president would have less than 30 minutes to make that terrible decision.”
The danger that a false alarm on either side—of the sort that has occurred repeatedly on both sides—would lead to a preemptive attack derives almost entirely from the existence on both sides of land-based missile forces, each vulnerable to attack by the other; each, therefore, is kept on a high state of alert, ready to launch within minutes of warning. The easiest and fastest way for the US to reduce that risk—and, indeed, the overall danger of nuclear war—is to dismantle entirely its Minuteman III missile force. Gen.
James E. Cartwright, a former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had been commander of the Strategic Command, teamed up with former Minuteman launch officer Bruce G. Blair to write in a 2016 op-ed piece: “By scrapping the vulnerable land-based missile force, any need for launching on warning disappears.”
Continue reading
Activists in Santa Fe concerned about plutonium shipping plan
“Santa Fe residents would see shipments of plutonium trucked through the city’s southern edge if federal agencies carry out plans announced nearly a year ago.”
By Scott Wyland The Santa Fe New Mexican santafenewmexican.com
Santa Fe residents would see shipments of plutonium trucked through the city’s southern edge if federal agencies carry out plans announced nearly a year ago.
The prospect worries activists, local officials and some residents because plutonium is far more radioactive than the waste — contaminated gloves, equipment, clothing, soil and other materials — shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, an underground disposal site near Carlsbad.
The U.S. Department of Energy issued a notice of intent in December to begin the process for an environmental impact statement as one of the first steps toward diluting and disposing of plutonium left from the Cold War.
The notice hints that “downblending” the plutonium would be necessary to reduce radioactivity enough for the waste to be accepted at WIPP, which only takes low-level nuclear waste.
When the US Air Force Accidentally Dropped an Atomic Bomb on South Carolina
On March 11, 1958, the Gregg family was going about their business when a malfunction in a B-47 flying overhead caused the atomic bomb on board to drop on to their S.C. backyard.
By Allison McNearney | thedailybeast.com
Given the history of nuclear proliferation throughout the 20th century, it seems like a miracle that only two atomic bombs were ever deployed against the human population. And, it turns out, it really was a very lucky break.
There is one part of atomic history that hasn’t made the history books. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. dropped several atomic bombs on unsuspecting people below, bombs that were multiple times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Rather than being acts of extreme aggression, these “broken arrows” as they became known, were pure accidents, explosive “oopsies” committed by the U.S. military against mostly U.S. citizens. In what has been hailed as either luck or very proficient engineering of safety devices, none of the nuclear components on the falling bombs actually detonated.
Santa Fe County Nuclear Waste Emergency Response Town Hall October 19th
In response to community concerns about the proposed increased shipments of more dangerous forms of plutonium along New Mexico State Road 599, Santa Fe County District 2 Commissioner Anna Hansen will host a Nuclear Waste Emergency Response Town Hall on Tuesday, October 19th from 6 to 7:30 pm. Town Hall Nuclear Waste Flyer 10-19-21 The Department of Energy (DOE) has made elaborate plans to transport plutonium nuclear weapons triggers to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for processing. 
The triggers are currently stored at the Pantex facility, north of Amarillo, Texas. Questions and comments from the public are encouraged during the Town Hall. Town Hall Nuclear Waste Meeting Agenda 10-19-21
The proposed route is approximately 3,300 miles. Interstate 40 at Clines Corners would be the primary route to U.S. Route 285. The shipments would then head north to Interstate 25, past the Eldorado communities, before connecting with the 599 Bypass around Santa Fe. Much of the bypass is located within Commissioner Hansen’s district. From the bypass, the shipments would travel north on 285 to Pojoaque, then west on 502 to LANL. After processing, the shipments would follow the reverse route to Interstate 40 and east to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for further processing. The shipments would once more head west to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Up to 47 metric tons of what is called “surplus” plutonium could be shipped, processed and disposed at WIPP.
In response to constituent concerns, Santa Fe County Commissioners Hank Hughes and Anna Hamilton held a similar Town Hall at the Arroyo Hondo Fire Station in August. https://www.sfreporter.com/news/2021/08/10/waste-on-wheels/
During the October 19th Town Hall, Cynthia Weehler, citizen activist and former chemistry teacher, will present highlights of the DOE’s proposal to expand the WIPP repository, including the transportation of additional weapons-grade plutonium throughout Santa Fe County. www.kob.com/new-mexico-news , www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/speak-out-on-the-future-of-wipp/
Santa Fe County Fire Chief Jackie L. Lindsey will give a presentation about Santa Fe County’s emergency preparedness and response in the unlikely event of a toxic and radioactive waste incident. https://www.santafecountynm.gov/fire/fire_chief_and_command_staff
New Mexico State Representative Tara Lujan will also be in attendance. https://nmlegis.gov/Members/Legislator?SponCode=HLUTA
The Town Hall is being held at the Nancy Rodriguez Community Center, at One Prairie Dog Loop, in Santa Fe, which is off County Road 62 between the Agua Fria Fire Station and La Familia Medical Center.
For more information, please contact Anna Hansen, Santa Fe County Commissioner, at 505-986-6329, or [email protected]. https://www.santafecountynm.gov/county_commissioners/anna_hansen
Radioactive Waste Fell On Some LA-Area Neighborhoods During 2018 Woolsey Fire, New Study Shows
The majority of samples found just “background” or normally occurring levels of radioactivity. But 11 samples showed significantly elevated levels of radioactive materials.
ByJoel Grover and Josh Davis abclosangeles.com
High levels of radioactive particles landed in neighborhoods from Thousand Oaks to Simi Valley during the massive 2018 Woolsey fire, which started at the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab, according to a peer-reviewed study just published by a team of scientists known for studying environmental disasters.
What’s stunning about the findings is that they run contrary to what California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said to calm public fears in the hours after the Woolsey Fire, “We do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials… associated with contamination at the [SSFL] site.”
“The DTSC lied. They said that contamination from hadn’t migrated away from Santa Susana and the study proves that it has,” said Jeni Knack, part of a group of volunteers who helped collect samples analyzed in the study.
Knack participated in the sample collection because she had a background doing data collection on archaeological sites, and because she’s the mom of a 6-year old who lives in Simi Valley, just five miles from Santa Susana.
“I was afraid that radioactive and chemical contamination were being carried by wind and smoke during the fire,” Knack told NBC4.
Radioactive Waste Could Be Killing Residents in Missouri Community, Say Federal Scientists
For decades, North St. Louis residents have lived in fallout from the Manhattan Project. Now, federal scientists are finally linking today’s cancers to the nation’s nuclear warfare legacy.
n Bridgeton, on the northern edge of St. Louis County, Missouri, a fire burns underground in a vast landfill, creeping closer and closer to a pile of radioactive waste from the World War II era that was dumped there back in the 1970s. This “subsurface smoldering event,” as these odorous, high-temperature chemical reactions are called, at the West Lake Landfill has burned continuously for almost a decade now, keeping nearby residents all too aware of the Superfund site in their backyard.
For years, many of these residents have filed lawsuits against Cotter Corporation and Mallinckrodt, the companies responsible for dumping the radioactive nuclear waste in the unlined landfill (a former limestone quarry) as well as in open piles on a field near what’s now the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. These residents say that this waste has contaminated their homes. Many have sparred in open forums with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. Others have met personally with EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. All want answers to an unending list of questions.
As Dawn Chapman, co-founder of the grassroots advocacy group Just Moms STL and a mother of three who lives 2 miles from landfill, told me, “The battles at this site never end.”
Meanwhile, the fire burns. Closer and closer to the radioactive waste, like a ticking time bomb. But for many North County residents, that bomb has already gone off, and it’s fallen to members of the community to pressure local and federal officials to help pick up the pieces. Now, federal scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are finally starting to admit the mistakes of the nation’s toxic past.
Navy nuclear engineer and his wife charged with trying to share submarine secrets with a foreign country
By Devlin Barrett and Martin Weil | washingtonpost.com
The court papers say that in December 2020, an FBI official received a package that had been sent to the foreign country containing U.S. Navy documents, a letter and instructions for how to conduct encrypted communications with the person offering the information.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Father of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program, Dies at 85
Starting from scratch in 1976, he acquired the technology and knowledge that allowed Pakistan to detonate its first nuclear device in 1998.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist who became known to Western intelligence services as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and a worldwide dealer in weapons technology, died Sunday at a hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was believed to be 85 years old.
Dr. Khan’s death was reported by Pakistan’s interior minister, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad. The apparent cause was complications from Covid-19, he said.
Dr. Khan was the man who made Pakistan a nuclear power. For at least 25 years, starting from scratch in 1976, he built, bought, bartered and stole the makings of weapons of mass destruction.
To millions of Pakistanis, he was a national hero, the man who developed a nuclear program to match the country’s rival, India. To the C.I.A., he was one of the more dangerous men on earth.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, on Sunday said that he was “deeply saddened” by Dr. Khan’s death, praising him for “his critical contribution in making us a nuclear weapon state.”
“This has provided us security against an aggressive, much larger nuclear neighbor,” Mr. Khan tweeted, referring to India. “For the people of Pakistan he was a national icon.”
International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons at Ghedi Base in Italy
View photos below of the initiative near the Italian base of Ghedi, which hosts US nuclear warheads, on the occasion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
How do humans make sense of the bomb?
This stunning photo essay by Robert Del Tredici details the history of the atomic bomb through portraits of monuments, culture, and humans who co-exist with the bomb, from survivors to activists to nuclear scientists in At Work in the Fields of the Bomb.
Photography and introduction by Robert Del Tredici. Captions by Robert Del Tredici and Gordon Edwards. | October 9, 2021
From the moment the atomic bomb was invented, humanity has struggled to make sense of it. It is a weapon of war, an enforcer of peace, a talisman of sovereignty, a fountainhead of undying radioactivity, and a fateful burden for humans into the far future. Yet the bomb’s physical presence—its deep grit and material magnitude of its mass production—has remained culturally invisible.
I wanted to take on this invisibility. I found out that the American bomb’s home ground had 12 factories, each making different materials and parts. I learned that each factory had a public relations officer. And I found out that the airspace above each plant was unrestricted.
But before engaging with the US nuclear weapons complex, I went to Hiroshima. I needed to find the human meaning of the bomb. One Hiroshima survivor told me, “If you weren’t there when it happened, you can have no idea what it was like.” Another told me, “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist.” I told them I wanted to photograph all of the American bomb-factories. An elderly survivor came over to me, put her hand on my arm and said, “Yes, you must do this.” Five years later, I completed my book of photographs and field notes, At Work in the Fields of the Bomb.
Model of the Uranium Atom
American Museum of Science and Energy, Los Alamos, New Mexico
June 11, 1982
Of all the naturally occurring materials found on Earth, uranium is the only element whose atoms can be split in a process that releases energy and neutrons in a chain reaction. The neutrons go on to split more atoms, which release more energy and more neutrons, until an exponential increase in energy ignites an atomic fireball. In the photo, two boys play at shouldering the model of the atom, which is too big for them to handle.
The atomic bomb was conceived within living memory, and unless abolition ends it, the bomb will be passed on to our grandchildren’s grandchildren—a burden weightier than Atlas could have imagined.
Nuclear talks with US to resume ‘soon,’ Iranian foreign minister says
The US left the JCPOA in 2018, citing continued malign behavior by Iran in the region, and implementing a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, but Biden seeks a return to the policy.
“Until Iran returns to the negotiating table, the other parties must also make new decisions and show their will and intention for the success of the talks and fulfilling their commitments,” he added.
Ex-CEO who oversaw doomed nuclear project sentenced
An executive who lied to regulators about two South Carolina nuclear plants that never generated a watt of power has been sentenced to two years in prison
By abcnews.go.com October 7, 2021
FILE – In a Sept. 21, 2016 file photo, Kevin Marsh, CEO of SCANA Corp., speaks to the media at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville, S.C. Marsh and prosecutors have agreed to ask for a two-year prison sentence on federal and state charges he lied about the progress of two nuclear plants that were never finished. A judge will sentence Marsh Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A utility executive who repeatedly lied to keep investors pumping money into South Carolina’s $9 billion nuclear reactor debacle will spend two years in prison for fraud, a federal judge decided on Thursday.
Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh agreed with prosecutors that he should serve the sentence and the judge approved the deal, making him the first executive put behind bars for misleading the public on the project, which failed without ever generating a watt of power.
Biden administration reveals number of nuclear weapons in US stockpile
“The Biden administration’s decision to declassify updated information on the number of nuclear warheads in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is a welcome step that reverses an unwise decision by the Trump administration to classify this information,” the Arms Control Association said in a statement Wednesday.
“It also puts pressure on other nuclear armed states that maintain excessive secrecy about their arsenals.”
By Chandelis Duster and Nicole Gaouette, CNN, benningtonbanner.com October 7, 2021
(CNN) In a reversal from the Trump administration, the State Department revealed the number of nuclear weapons in the US stockpile for the first time in four years on Tuesday.
“Increasing the transparency of states’ nuclear stockpiles is important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts, including commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and efforts to address all types of nuclear weapons, including deployed and non-deployed, and strategic and non-strategic,” the State Department said.
Nuclear submarines will not deter China from conflict with Taiwan, but Australia has an alternative arsenal
As a committed supporter of international institutions and the world’s 13th largest economy, Australia has real clout
“As the gap between China’s military and Australia’s widens, it is unlikely that Australia’s capability – even with a fleet of nuclear submarines, supplied by its Aukus partners – will determine the balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific.”
By Jonathan Pearlman October 6, 2021 The Guardian theguardian.com
For an emerging superpower prone to petulant outbursts and coercive retaliation, China’s initial response to the recent announcement of the new three-way security pact between Australia, the United States and Britain seemed surprisingly tepid.
Hours after the trio unveiled their “forever partnership”, known as Aukus, China formally requested that it be allowed to join an 11-member Asia-Pacific trade grouping, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
This was an odd move by China, whose application requires the consent of the grouping’s members, which include Australia. In recent years, China has responded to previous perceived slights from Canberra by imposing economic sanctions worth $20bn and freezing ministerial contacts.
Nuclear-Weapon-Free States Demand Immediate End to Deterrence Policies, Start of Dismantling Atomic Arsenals, as First Committee Continues General Debate
Calling for swift remedies to mend a fractured non-proliferation landscape, nuclear-weapon-free States demanded an immediate end to deterrence policies and the start of dismantling atomic arsenals, as the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) moved into the third day of its general debate.
UNITED NATIONS MEETINGS COVERAGE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FIRST COMMITTEE SEVENTY-SIXTH SESSION, 4TH MEETING (PM)
As thousands of atomic bombs located around the world pose grave risks to humanity, delegates implored nuclear-weapon States to steer the planet onto a path of peace. Some suggested such ways to do so, with delegates agreeing that dismantling nuclear arsenals must start now, in line with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and under safeguards established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Many urged all nations with atomic arsenals to sign, ratify and fully implement existing conventions, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in January, and some decried the quarter of a century delay in entering into force the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. To rectify this, many called for nuclear-weapon States to sign and ratify it so that atomic bomb testing can become part of the past.
One Man Shouldn’t Control the Nuclear Button
Congress should require consultation, so generals wouldn’t have to break the rules to save the world.
The critics are missing the point. The overriding issue is not whether Gen. Milley was correct in his assessment, or whether he was authorized to take the reported actions, but what the consequences could have been if his concern had been warranted. It is not hyperbole to say that the consequences could have been a profound tragedy and, in the worst case, the end of civilization.
The Stealthy F-35 Fighter Jet Is One Step Closer to Carrying Nuclear Weapons
“A pair of F-35s from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada released dummy nuclear bombs at a nearby test range this month, moving the advanced stealth fighter closer to carrying the world’s most powerful weapons into combat, the Air Force said.”
The flights on Sept. 21 marked the “graduation” test exercise necessary for the Air Force variant of the F-35 to move ahead with what’s called the nuclear design certification process, according to the service’s press release.
It’s still not clear when the F-35A will receive its full nuclear certification allowing it to move from training ranges and dummy bombs to real-world battlefields. But when that happens, the Air Force will have a second stealth aircraft in its fleet that can carry nukes.
“The B-2 [Spirit] bomber was the prominent nuclear-capable stealth aircraft,” Lt. Col. Daniel Jackson, division chief for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration at Air Combat Command, said in the press release.
F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16C and D Fighting Falcon fighters do not have stealth capability but can carry nuclear weapons. The B-21 Raider heavy bomber will also have the capability and is expected to join the Air Force’s fleet in the mid-2020s, according to the latest estimates.
Opinion: Too many ‘downwinders’ are still suffering
“We are sponsoring a bill that would make sure the government’s responsibility to those who were harmed by nuclear testing does not get swept under the rug.”
By deseret.com
Any objective study of American history brings us to the realization that there are many Americans who quietly made, and continue to make, great sacrifices for our national security. Many of these women and men willingly give of themselves to ensure that our country remains free.
Tragically, under the banner of national security the United States government exposed Americans to radioactive uranium ore and radioactive dust — subjecting them to lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses.
On July 16, we marked the 76th anniversary of the detonation of the first nuclear weapon — code-named Trinity — in the desert of New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. Three weeks after the Trinity detonation, the United States exploded the Little Boy bomb over Hiroshima and, three days later, the Fat Man bomb over Nagasaki. Six days later, Japan surrendered. In the aftermath of World War II, a nuclear arms race began that reached its zenith with over 60,000 nuclear weapons worldwide in 1986.
Many lives were lost or severely altered by the nuclear weapons program. Thankfully, the world stockpile of nuclear weapons has steadily declined since 1986 and will, hopefully, continue to do so in the future. Yet, the effects of detonating over 1,100 nuclear weapons since the Trinity test in 1945 continue to mar the lives of Americans to this day.
Through atmospheric weapons tests, as well as mining, transporting and milling of uranium ore, many Americans have been slowly killed by radiation exposure. Thousands of Utahns were infected by radiation exposure simply by living “downwind” of the federal government’s nuclear weapons testing sites. Additional Utahn miners were affected as they worked the uranium necessary for these weapons. These “downwinders” and miners and their families friends, and communities often suffered excruciating illness, loss and devastation.
In response to this malfeasance, Congress rightly enacted (and later amended in 2000) the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1990. This legislation was a good first step in making recompense to those who mined and hauled uranium ore and those who processed the ore at a mill. The RECA legislation also addresses those exposed to radiation downwind from nuclear test sites.
It has been more than 20 years since any meaningful reform to RECA has been made for those whose lives have been taken or irreversibly altered by our foray into the arms race. Several classifications of workers such as core drillers and ground workers have been denied justice by being excluded completely from the process.
Some diseases that should have been compensable have been excluded. Numerous geographical locations exposed to downwind radiation have been left out. Uranium miners continued to mine after the United States stopped buying uranium for its nuclear weapons programs in 1971. These so-called post-1971 workers were excluded from accessing benefits since the original RECA legislation had an arbitrary cutoff date of Dec. 31, 1971 — even though the federal government continued to regulate uranium mines long after 1971. To make matters worse, RECA is scheduled to sunset in July 2022 — potentially leaving all classifications of exposure victims without redress.
We are honored to represent some of these “downwinders” and their family members and want them to know their suffering — and the sacrifices they made for our nation — are not forgotten.
That is why we are pleased to be the lead Republican members of the House of Representatives on the “RECA Amendments Act of 2021,” legislation that will reauthorize RECA for those still suffering the consequences of nuclear testing.
The tragic consequences of the nuclear arms race cannot be swept under the rug of history. We urge our colleagues in Congress to support the “RECA Amendments Act of 2021.” Our country must act now to address the injustices of those who have been forgotten by their own government.
Rep. Burgess Owens represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District. Rep. Chris Stewart represents Utah’s 2nd Congressional District.
Four Takeaways from the 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report
“Although net nuclear capacity rose last year, the 0.4-gigawatt increase was minuscule in comparison with the gains made by renewable energy. ‘Nuclear is irrelevant in today’s electricity capacity newbuild market,’ the industry report concludes.”
By Dawn Stover | October 1, 2021 The Bulletin thebulletin.org
Although there are 23 fewer nuclear reactors in the world today than at the 2002 peak of 438, the past year saw a small uptick in the number of reactors operating worldwide and a corresponding increase in the global fleet’s net operating capacity.
That’s one data point in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021, the latest in a series of annual industry reports compiled by an international team of independent experts led by Mycle Schneider, a consultant based in Paris. The 409-page report, released this week, is packed with information about global and country-specific trends, but several findings stand out, and they don’t bode well for the nuclear energy industry.
First, although nuclear capacity is up, nuclear electricity production is down.
As of mid-2021, there were 415 nuclear reactors operating in 33 countries, seven reactors more than a year earlier. Their total capacity was 1.9 percent higher than a year earlier. But in 2020, the worldwide nuclear fleet generated 3.9 percent less electricity than in the previous year. That was the first decrease in output since 2012, when many reactors remained shut down in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Without China, where most of the new construction is happening, the decrease in production would look even bigger. In 2020, China for the first time produced more nuclear electricity than France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy. Only the United States produced more.
NRDC: Legislation Offers Path Forward on Nuclear Waste
“This legislation could end years of debate and acrimony and help determine a path forward for disposing of nuclear waste. Placing nuclear waste under bedrock environmental laws could ensure strong repository standards, while giving states the power to approve what is sequestered within their borders.”
– Kit Kennedy, managing director for the Climate and Clean Energy program at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) introduced legislation today that could end a 60-year impasse over our nation’s nuclear waste.
The bill would establish a task force to consider removing exemptions for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from our bedrock environmental laws. Doing so would allow for geologic repositories for nuclear waste that have strong environmental protections and the consent of state leaders and local residents.
Senator Markey and Rep Levin Introduce Legislation to Determine a Viable Consent Based Path Forward for Nuclear Waste
Currently, the United States has no permanent geologic repository for disposal of high-level nuclear waste
“The current system of spent nuclear fuel storage is not sustainable, particularly for sites that no longer have operating reactors and could be redeveloped for other beneficial uses, such as the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,” said Representative Levin.
PRESS RELEASE September 28, 2021 markey.senate.gov
Washington (September 28, 2021) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chair of the Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Congressman Mike Levin (CA-49) today introduced the Nuclear Waste Task Force Act, legislation to establish a new task force to consider the implications of amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to remove exemptions from environmental laws for nuclear waste. Eliminating this loophole could help enable consent-based siting of long-term storage solutions for nuclear waste. The task force would also be responsible for providing a clear explanation of what constitutes “consent-based siting.”
“Enabling consent-based storage is the key to developing real, practical solutions for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. This nuclear waste task force will play a critical role in determining how to make that happen.”
Survivors Of The Trinity Nuclear Test Weren’t Warned — Then Were Lied To After
NPR’s Leila Fadel talks with Lesley Blume about the struggle of the survivors of the Trinity nuclear test in 1945 — one locals didn’t know was coming and caused serious health issues.
“The compensation act – RECA as it’s called – is about to expire next July…What’s happening right now is that several members of Congress from New Mexico and from other Western states are trying to extend RECA, and they’re making a bid to have the Trinity downwinders included under this legislation at last, among other exposed communities.”
Heard on All Things Considered
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
This was most of America’s introduction to nuclear power.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HARRY TRUMAN: A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
FADEL: President Harry Truman’s announcement in August of 1945 heralded a terrifying new weapon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMAN: It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
FADEL: But the Atomic Age actually began the month before At the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. The first nuclear test, codenamed Trinity, was a closely guarded secret. Locals, some as close as 12 miles away, had no idea it was coming. Lesley Blume wrote about them for National Geographic.
Welcome back.
LESLEY BLUME: Thank you so much.
FADEL: So, first, tell us what happened during that first test, codenamed Trinity.
BLUME: It was a huge success, but it also – the bomb was a lot more powerful than they had expected, three to five times as powerful. And, you know, initially they thought that the cloud was only going to go up about 12,000 or 13,000 feet. Well, guess what. It went up between 50,000 and 70,000 feet. It created sort of an estimated fallout zone about 100 miles long and 30 miles wide…
“Now is the time to eliminate nuclear weapons from our world, and usher in a new era of dialogue, trust and peace”, declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday, marking the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Addressing the threat of nuclear weapons, said Mr, Guterres, has been central to the work of the United Nations since its inception; the first General Assembly resolution in 1946 sought “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
The UN chief pointed out that, although the total number of nuclear weapons has been decreasing for decades, some 14,000 are stockpiled around the world, which is facing the highest level of nuclear risk in almost four decades: “States are qualitatively improving their arsenals, and we are seeing worrying signs of a new arms race.” Humanity, continued the UN chief, remains unacceptably close to nuclear annihilation.
Veterans Group Urges President Biden to Adopt No First Use Policy
To mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, September 26, Veterans For Peace is publishing an Open Letter to President Biden: Just Say NO to Nuclear War!
ST. LOUIS, MO –
Veterans For Peace, with over 140 chapters in the United States and affiliates abroad, is calling on President Biden to step back from the brink of nuclear war by declaring and implementing a policy of No First Use and by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. The full letter will be published on the VFP website and offered to mainstream newspapers and alternative news sites: Click here to view.
While timed to coincide with the UN-declared International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a major motivation for the letter is the Nuclear Posture Review, currently underway.
The letter therefore states, “As veterans who have fought in multiple U.S. wars, we are concerned about the very real danger of a nuclear war that would kill millions of people and could possibly even destroy human civilization. Therefore we are asking to have input into the Nuclear Posture Review that your administration has recently initiated.”
A Little Radiation Is Not Good For You
“…between 1977 and 1990, scientists tripled their estimate of the damage inflicted by a given dose of radiation. A 1992 study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found that nuclear weapons production workers exposed to small doses were four to eight times more likely to contract cancer than previously estimated…even the very lowest background levels of radiation exposure are harmful to health and have statistically significant negative effects on DNA.”
In a rare pushback against the radioactive pollution industry, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — well known as a rubber stamp for the nuclear lobby — has flatly rejected an attempt to further weaken the agency’s radiation exposure regulations.
After six years of deliberation, the NRC’s three commissioners, two Democrats and one Republican, voted unanimously to reject formal petitions submitted in February 2015 urging the agency to adopt a cost-cutting scheme known as “hormesis” which claims that “a little radiation is good for you.” The September 16 decision by the NRC says this “threshold theory posits that “there is some threshold dose below which there is either no radiation-related health detriment or a radiation-related health benefit that outweighs any detriment.”
The order then rebukes this concept, finding the petitioners “fail to present an adequate basis supporting the request,” and “Convincing evidence has not yet demonstrated the existence of a threshold below which there would be no … effects from exposure to low radiation doses.”
The basis for hormesis had been explicitly rejected ten years earlier, the NRC pointed out, by the National Academy of Sciences in its 2005 report “Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation, 7th Ed” or BEIR-VII. The National Research Council summed up its book-length BEIR-7 report saying, “the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
Biden’s nuclear agenda in trouble as Pentagon hawks attack
“The decision to fire Leonor suggests to me that the first draft of NPR is going to be a continuation of the line of thinking we saw in the Trump administration’s NPR…They have put themselves on the course that is a first draft that is 180 degrees to what Biden said on the campaign trail.” – Jeffrey Lewis, a professor and nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies and host of the podcast Arms Control Wonk.
By BRYAN BENDER and LARA SELIGMAN | September 23, 2021 politico.com
One of President Joe Biden’s leading allies in his decadeslong attempt to reduce nuclear weapons has lost a battle with the Pentagon’s hawks.
The ouster of Leonor Tomero, who questioned the status quo on nuclear weapons, signals the Biden administration’s ambitious agenda to overhaul America’s nuclear policy might be in trouble.
Early in his administration, Biden installed national security officials intent on negotiating new arms control treaties and curtailing nuclear weapons spending. One of them was Tomero, a leading voice for nuclear restraint on Capitol Hill and in the think tank community, who was appointed to oversee the Nuclear Posture Review that will set the administration’s atomic weapons policy and strategy.
But officials with more traditional views on nuclear weapons, who promote a status quo agenda to include modernizing the land, sea and airborne legs of America’s nuclear arsenal, did not take kindly to Tomero’s progressive ideology, according to 11 current and former defense officials, as well as others with insight into the debate.
New push on to expand nuclear radiation compensation in US
“There is always money when there’s political will. This is a social, environmental and restorative justice issue that we, as a nation, can no longer look away from.” — Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is renewing a push to expand a U.S. compensation program for people who were exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.
Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, where the U.S. military detonated the first atomic bomb, and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.
Under legislation introduced Wednesday by U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, other sites across the American West would be added to the list of places affected by fallout and radiation exposure. Eligibility also would be expanded to include certain workers in the industry after 1971, such as miners.
The legislation also would increase the amount of compensation someone can receive to $150,000 and provide coverage for additional forms of cancer.
Op-Ed: Gen. Milley did the wrong thing for honorable reasons. We need new rules for starting nuclear war
“But let’s be clear about where the problem lies: It’s with the existing U.S. system for controlling the use of nuclear weapons… If the United States is intent on maintaining at the ready a large nuclear strike force, as is apparently the case, the nation needs comprehensive safeguards to prevent reckless and ill-considered decisions regarding their use.”
September 16, 2021
A new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa contains a singularly startling allegation. In the waning weeks of the Trump administration, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, twice called his counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, of the People’s Liberation Army, offering assurances that the United States was not about to launch an attack against China.
“If we’re going to attack,” Milley told Li, according to Woodward and Costa, “I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
The surprise turns out to be the revelation of Milley’s actions. Some in the Defense Department may have known about the calls, but one thing seems clear: President Trump, the U.S. commander in chief, did not. Milley acted of his own volition, without prior presidential approval. On that point, Christopher Miller, then serving as acting Defense secretary, is emphatic, describing Milley’s actions to Fox News as a “disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination.”
Providing adversaries with advance notice of U.S. military actions does not number among the prescribed duties of the chairman of the joint chiefs. Arguably, the Woodward-Costa allegations, if accurately reported, qualify as treasonous. At the very least, they raise serious doubts about Milley’s respect for the bedrock principle of civilian control of the military. To state the matter bluntly, when adherence to that principle raised the possibility of an outcome not to Milley’s liking, he seemingly granted himself an exemption.
Of course, all of this happened in a specific context: Woodward and Costa’s chilling account is only the latest to depict the unraveling Trump presidency following the November election. Unwilling to accept defeat, the incumbent all but ceased to govern and instead devoted himself to overturning the election’s results by any means necessary, violating the rule of law and waiving the Constitution.
Kildee Introduces Bipartisan Resolution Opposing Proposed Canadian Permanent Nuclear Storage Site Near Great Lakes
By Devlin Barrett and Martin Weil | September 16, 2021 Press Release dankildee.house.gov
Woodward/Costa book: Worried Trump could ‘go rogue,’ Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons
“Woodward and Costa write that after January 6, Milley ‘felt no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump and believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable and take any and all necessary precautions.’
Milley called it the ‘absolute darkest moment of theoretical possibility,‘ the authors write.”
September 14, 2021
Washington (CNN) Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trump’s top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons, according to “Peril,” a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.
Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, ‘was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.’
“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.
A private company got federal approval to store nuclear waste in Texas. The state is fighting back.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of the planned facility opens a new front in a decades-long battle to find a home for the country’s nuclear waste.”
By: Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Gregg | THE WASHINGTON POST September 12, 2021 washingtonpost.com
A private company has won federal approval to build an expansive nuclear waste site in Texas, even as residents, state lawmakers, environmentalists and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) rail against it.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Monday issued a license for Andrews, Tex.-based Interim Storage Partners to store as much as 5,000 metric tons of radioactive waste. It’s one of two proposed storage sites — the other is in southeastern New Mexico — that has been under agency review for several years.
Nuclear waste facility near Carlsbad sees COVID-19 surge as infections rise in New Mexico
COVID-19 infections resurged at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in recent weeks as cases of the virus climbed in the communities surrounding the nuclear waste repository in southeast New Mexico.
There were 14 positive cases among workers at the site or associated with the facility reported between Aug. 17 and 31, per the latest report from Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) – WIPP’s primary operations contractor.
In total, WIPP reported as of Aug. 31, there were 25 active cases.
WIPP officials did not report the identities of patients or companies where the infected workers were employed.
All employees at WIPP were encouraged to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, per an NWP news release, and required to wear protective face masks when indoors, vaccinated or not, and social distance when possible.
U.S. still prepared to engage with North Korea after missile test
“North Korea’s cruise missiles usually generate less interest than ballistic missiles because they are not explicitly banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions. However, analysts said calling it “strategic” could mean it was a nuclear-capable system.”
Reuters reuters.com September 13, 2021
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Sept 13 (Reuters) – The United States remains prepared to engage with North Korea, a White House spokeswoman said on Monday, despite Pyongyang’s announcement that it had tested a new long-range cruise missile over the weekend.
“Our position has not changed when it comes to North Korea, we remain prepared to engage,” principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
North Korea’s state media announced on Monday what it said were successful tests of a new long-range cruise missile that analysts said could be the country’s first such weapon with a nuclear capability. read more
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said initial indications were that North Korea had carried out such a test.
Biden blasted for ‘wishful thinking’ as new ‘potential nuclear crisis’ looms
“Iran deserves a measure of the blame for resurrecting a matter that diplomats spent more than a dozen years putting to rest…It is the US that is overwhelmingly responsible for the current crisis.”
The US President promised throughout the 2020 election campaign he would restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, which Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. However, his administration are reportedly getting “closer” to giving up on the deal.
Since Mr Biden took office on January 20, Iran elected hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi as their new President.
While talks have been held between Washington and Tehran on renewing the JCPOA, no new agreement has been struck.
Borzou Daragahi, senior non-resident fellow at Washington think tank the Atlantic Council, said Mr Biden’s administration “still needs to figure out what it wants in Iran”.
Why China’s attack on Nato ‘double standards’ suggests it will continue to build up nuclear arsenal
“The alliance’s head Jens Stoltenberg accused Beijing of increasing its firepower ‘without constraint’ and urged it to sign up to international arms controls – But Beijing hit back by criticising Nato’s nuclear sharing arrangements and said the US and Russia should lead the way by disarming”
scmp.com September 12, 2021
China is expected to continue building up its arsenal of nuclear weapons despite Nato’s appeal for it to sign up to international arms controls. Last week Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg criticised China’s efforts to develop its nuclear capacity – by building more warheads, delivery systems and silos – “without any limitation or constraint”.
He told Nato’s annual arms control conference in Brussels that this was making the world “more unpredictable, more competitive and more dangerous”.
Jay Coghlan on the Richard Eeds Show – September 12, 2021
Jay Coghlan, Director @ Nuclear Watch New Mexico, on public hearings and the comment period on the expansion of the “Pit” building program at LANL.
20 years after 9/11, Yankee’s nuclear fuel still poses security risk
“Deb Katz, the executive director of Citizens Awareness Network, a New England-wide anti-nuclear group, said her group supports ambitious improvements to the storage facilities.
“We support hardening the waste on site. This includes double walling the casks, increasing the distance between the casks, if possible, berming them in to protect them from acts of malice,” she said.
“The waste must stay on site until there is a scientifically sound and environmentally just solution,” she said, referring to a nuclear industry move toward building interim nuclear waste storage facilities. One is proposed for west Texas, the other in New Mexico.”
By Susan Smallheer, Brattleboro Reformer benningtonbanner.com September 11, 2021
VERNON — The Vermont Department of Health is still planning for the worst at the Vermont Yankee site in Vernon.
But the worst, thanks to the active decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee site currently underway, is not as bad as it could have been six years ago, when Vermont Yankee shut down and its nuclear fuel was moved out of the reactor core and put into storage in giant steel and concrete casks.
“The Health Department’s Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response Plan originally had a heavy emphasis on releases from Vermont Yankee, which could impact large areas and populations while it operated. Even with the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, we continue to maintain many of our resources for radiological emergency response,” said William Irwin, the state’s radiological health chief.
Texas bans storage of highly radioactive waste, but a West Texas facility may get a license from the feds anyway
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday night signed a bill into law that attempts to block a plan to store highly radioactive nuclear waste at a site in West Texas.
House Bill 7 effectively bans highly radioactive materials from coming to Texas, targeting one company’s plan to build such a facility near the New Mexico border in Andrews County.
But, the new state law may soon be in conflict with federal regulators. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is advancing the company’s application for a license to allow the high-level nuclear waste to Texas, and a decision from the federal agency could come as early as Monday, a spokesperson with the commission said.
For years, environmental and consumer advocates have protested a proposal by a West Texas company, Waste Control Specialists, to build with a partner an interim storage site for high-level nuclear waste, which is mostly spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. Waste Control Specialists has been disposing of the nation’s low-level nuclear waste, including tools, building materials and protective clothing exposed to radioactivity, for a decade in Andrews County.
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Lawmakers set for battle over next-gen nuclear missile
“For the W87-1, whose plutonium cores, or pits, are to be produced in part by the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina, at stake are jobs and billions of federal dollars to upgrade buildings or construct new factories. It’s all intertwined with shaky plans launched by the Trump administration to have Savannah River and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico produce a combined 80 pits per year by 2030.”
defensenews.com September 9, 2021
WASHINGTON ― Nuclear modernization opponents and defenders are gearing up to fight again over the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile and other efforts.
Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and a skeptic of nuclear spending on the House Armed Services Committee, confirmed he plans to offer nuclear-themed amendments when the annual defense bill receives House floor consideration later this month. One aims to pause the Air Force’s nascent Ground Based Strategic Deterrent in favor of maintaining the missile it would replace, the Minuteman III; another would zero out funds for the GBSD’s warhead, the W87-1.
“The bottom line is that we could pause the entire GBSD program and push forward into the future a $100 billion expense,” Garamendi, who chairs the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee, told Defense News.
With the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review due early next year, Garamendi said the amendments are part of his “strategy to raise the issues, to gather the data, test the arguments against the opposition … and create an occasional success.”
More nuclear waste may be heading to WIPP on US 285
[WIPP is the world’s only operating underground nuclear waste dump. It is limited to nuclear weapons waste, but the federal government is trying to expand WIPP and break its promises and social contract with New Mexicans.
Help Us STOP FOREVER WIPP-Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The nuclear waste dump is permitted to operate until 2024, but the Federal government wants to expand the amount and types of waste allowed with NO end date.
We need your help to protect New Mexico!]
“At a recent Santa Fe County Town Hall, activist Cindy Weehler of 285 ALL said the U.S. Department of Energy made it clear that it’s going to expand its nuclear waste program, she said. She said she’s concerned about the new type of radioactive waste that would be traveling through the county, which would be diluted plutonium, instead of contaminated items.”
Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal
Spanning the length of the state, U.S. Highway 285 is a major thoroughfare for truck transports and other traffic. This busy highway, nicknamed “Death Highway” due to the number of fatal accidents on it, may get busier.
Concerned citizens in Santa Fe County recently called out the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for expanding its mission in a permit renewal application to include more nuclear waste being shipped along the 285 corridor.
Part of Highway 285 goes along the southern edge of the city of Santa Fe, and local activists are calling on local and federal leaders to halt this increase in nuclear waste transportation.
The permit application is requesting to add two nuclear waste storage panels to WIPP that would increase the waste volume in these areas.
Montco offering potassium iodide tablets in the event of a nuclear emergency
Radioactive iodine, a contaminant that could be released in the event of a nuclear accident, can increase the risk of thyroid cancer. Potassium iodide (KI) can help protect the thyroid gland against radioactive iodine.
If you live, work, or attend school within a 10-mile radius of the Limerick nuclear power plant, local health officials have a freebie for you — albeit not a sexy one.
Montgomery County’s Office of Public Health will be handing out potassium iodide tablets to those in close proximity to the Limerick Generating Station.
The distribution is part of a statewide emergency preparedness effort — the Limerick site is one of Pennsylvania’s four active nuclear power plants.
General Assembly President calls for halt to nuclear tests
The President of the UN General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, on Wednesday called for an end to nuclear tests, as ambassadors gathered to commemorate the International Day against Nuclear Tests, observed annually on 29 August.
news.un.org September 8, 2021
Despite recent developments in advancing nuclear disarmament, more remains to be done, said Mr. Bozkir, urging countries which have yet to sign or ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to do so without delay.
“More than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted since the advent of nuclear weapons. While the rate of testing has declined, they have not stopped,” he said.
“These tests have long lasting health and environmental consequences. They devastate the communities they impact. They displace families from their homelands.”
Progress on disarmament
Underlining the General Assembly’s commitment to nuclear disarmament, Mr. Bozkir welcomed progress achieved over the past year amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
US attorney details illegal acts in construction projects, sealing the fate of the “nuclear renaissance”
“The indictment reveals important new information about how Benjamin and Westinghouse conspired to hide crucial information about reactor completion dates from the owners…It states that the defendant made “false and misleading statements” and “knowingly devised a scheme” to continue the project based on misrepresentations.”
By Tom Clements | thebulletin.org
The ill-fated construction of new nuclear reactors in South Carolina—one of two such troubled Westinghouse reactor construction projects in the United States—was abruptly terminated on July 31, 2017, but the effort to determine legal accountability for the project’s colossal failure is only now hitting its stride.
The South Carolina legislature conducted hearings about the project’s collapse. But it has fallen to the United States Attorney for South Carolina to outline internal decisions that led to project abandonment—via court filings, plea agreements, and indictments. These filings are proving to be the best documentation so far of criminal behavior related to projects that were part of a much-hyped “nuclear renaissance” that began in the early-2000s but has since petered out in the United States.
On August 18, 2021, a second Westinghouse official was charged in a federal grand jury indictment filed with the court in Columbia, South Carolina. The charges outline “the scheme” to cover up key details about the problem-plagued project to construct two 1,100 megawatt (MW) Westinghouse AP1000 light-water reactors at the VC Summer site north of Columbia.
The project was initiated in May 2008 and gained final approval in February 2009.
According to the 18-page indictment, former Senior Vice President of New Plants and Major Projects Jeffrey Benjamin “had first-line responsibility for Westinghouse’s nuclear reactors worldwide.” He was charged, according to a news release, “with sixteen felony counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record.” On August 30, the US attorney’s office announced that Benjamin would be arraigned on August 31.
In order for SCANA, parent of utility South Carolina Electric and Gas, to gain a federal production tax credit of $1.4 billion, essential to the financial viability of the project, both units had to be finished by December 31, 2020.
Benjamin and Westinghouse knew that the dates would never be met, but SCANA doggedly stuck with them given production-tax-credit pressure.The indictment reveals important new information about how Benjamin and Westinghouse conspired to hide crucial information about reactor completion dates from the owners, the publicly held utility SCANA, now defunct, and its junior partner, the state-owned South Carolina Public Service Authority (known as Santee Cooper). It states that the defendant made “false and misleading statements” and “knowingly devised a scheme” to continue the project based on misrepresentations via Westinghouse to the owners, state regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission, investors, and ratepayers. Nervous SCANA officials played along with the inept cover-up efforts and passed on false and inaccurate information to regulators.
Benjamin, the fourth official to be charged, faces 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine. Issuance of the indictment suggests he intends to face trial rather than plead guilty—a risky proposition given the waste of $9 billion on construction of a project that delivered nothing to consumers (and potential jury members) but a series of nine rate hikes. While those hikes were eventually eliminated and further rate hikes were avoided, a small nuclear construction charge in current bills stands as an enduring reminder of the debacle.
On May 21, 2021, Carl Churchman, Westinghouse Electric Corporation vice president and project director, was indicted on the felony charge of making false statements to the FBI about the status of the project. He pleaded guilty on June 10.
In February, Kevin Marsh, former SCANA CEO, also entered a guilty plea in federal court for conspiracy to commit felony fraud. And Stephen Byrne, former SCANA chief operating officer and executive vice president, pleaded guilty in July 2020 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Both gave false testimony numerous times to regulators.
The August 18, 2021 news release from the South Carolina US Attorney’s Office made clear that the investigation continues: “`This indictment with its attendant allegations and charges is another step toward justice for all those responsible for the VC Summer nuclear plant fiasco,’ said FBI Special Agent in Charge Susan Ferensic.”The two SCANA officials and Westinghouse’s Churchman are subject to five-year prison sentences and stiff fines but will likely face reduced sentences in exchange for fully cooperating with investigators, something required in their plea agreements.
Both Westinghouse and SCANA were eventually forced into bankruptcy. Westinghouse was acquired by Brookfield Business Partners, and SCANA vanished after an easy takeover by Dominion Energy, approved in December 2018. The fate of the debt-strapped, state-owned partner Santee Cooper rages on in the South Carolina Legislature.
One entity that will likely never be held responsible for the disastrous project that it authorized is the South Carolina Public Service Commission. Members of this body unanimously voted in favor of anything SCANA requested during the entire course of the project and balked at providing oversight as it fell apart. All were replaced by the Legislature at the end of their terms with new members, who have been less accommodating to utility requests.
Public interest intervenors were prescient in their early assessments of the project. Friends of the Earth, which intervened before the Public Service Commission against the project in August 2008, noted SCANA’s disregard for energy efficiency and alternative forms of energy. That organization predicted that the project’s fate would be what the US Attorney’s Office affirmed in the August 18, 2021 indictment: “from the outset, the Project was characterized by cost overruns and significant delays.” Likewise, toward the end of the project in June 2017, just after Westinghouse declared bankruptcy, Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club filed a formal complaint detailing why the project must be canceled. As money hemorrhaged, the owners made that earth-shaking decision a month later. And the mighty crash still reverberates.
In Georgia, construction of the other AP1000 project, located at Plant Vogtle, stumbles along to massive cost overruns and significant schedule delays. A main difference between the projects: Georgia Power has a large enough customer base to absorb the financial blow of its struggling project. With cost projections for the two Vogtle units nearing a stunning $30 billion, finishing dates presented to the Georgia Public Service Commission remain open to question.
The Carolina and Georgia reactor projects went forward under laws related to “construction work in progress” that allowed financing charges to be billed to the ratepayers from the start of construction, long before the reactors were online. Both the South Carolina law, the Baseload Review Act, and Georgia’s Nuclear Energy Financing Act have been repealed.
The fault for the shocking AP1000 misadventure falls squarely on the shoulders of Westinghouse and the involved utilities. They all fell victim to their own reactor-promotion propaganda but lacked the technical and management competence to pull off the projects as envisaged. With pursuit of large light-water reactors in the United States all but dead, the nuclear industry is now endlessly touting an array of “small modular reactors” and a dizzying menu of so-called “advanced reactors,” all of which exist only on paper. It’s unclear if there’s a path forward for this nuclear renaissance redux, and if there is, whether taxpayers will be put on the hook for financing some of it.
Germany Calls on Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks
Informal negotiations stalled after Iran’s new hardline president was elected in June. Tehran has caused an international outcry in recent months over the broadening scope of its nuclear program.
“US President Joe Biden has signaled his eagerness to resume direct talks, but Iranian officials have yet to do the same.”
The German Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said it “vehemently” urged Iran to restart negotiations aimed at reviving a defunct nuclear deal.
“We are ready to do so, but the time window won’t be open indefinitely,” a ministry spokesman said.
The French foreign ministry made a similar statement later on Wednesday.
In 2015, Iran, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, China, plus EU representatives, worked out a deal to place curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) sought to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons by restricting the extent to which it could enrich uranium, install nuclear centrifuges, and stockpile radioactive material. In exchange, the other signatories agreed to drop certain sanctions against Tehran.
‘A combination of failures:’ why 3.6m pounds of nuclear waste is buried on a popular California beach
The San Onofre nuclear power plant shut down years ago – but residents and experts worry what will happen with the waste left behind
More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA.
But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise.
The San Onofre reactors are among dozens across the United States phasing out, but experts say they best represent the uncertain future of nuclear energy.
“It’s a combination of failures, really,” said Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the top federal enforcer, between 2009 and 2012, of the situation at San Onofre.
‘Star Wars’ no longer fiction
ABQ at center of research for tomorrow’s weapons
“Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the epicenter of directed energy research in the United States…If the arms race for directed energy indeed takes off, much of the action could take place in Albuquerque.”
BY RYAN BOETEL / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal August 20, 2021 abqjournal.com
Force fields protecting us from drones and missiles.
Guns that shoot lasers instead of firing bullets.
Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots zapping at each other on the battlefield.
A new report by the Air Force Research Laboratory titled Directed Energy Futures 2060 describes the sorts of “directed energy” weapons that may come to exist in the next 40 years. And the expected technology – much of which may be researched and developed in Albuquerque – is like something out of a science fiction movie.
Officials from multiple Department of Defense entities, partners with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other experts came together to write the report, which says the world is at a “tipping point.”
MOX failed. But plutonium pit production is different, argues NNSA exec.
“Even with a potential surge in production at Los Alamos, there remains uncertainty about that capability, especially with their history of outages,” U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson
By Colin Demarest [email protected] postandcourier.com August 21, 2021
