In 2023, all 9 of the world's nuclear-armed nations (incl Israel) increased nuclear weapons spending at a rate of $250 million/day. The largest rise was by the U.S. at 18% incr over 2022 to $51.5 billion--that's $98,000/minute, more than the other 8 countries combined.
Global hunger could be eradicated by 2030 for less than what these countries will spend on nukes. Homelessness, drug rehab, daycare for children of working parents could all be resolved with this kind of money. Of course, if they use the nukes (which is becoming increasingly likely with all the bellicose talk and provocative actions around Ukraine, Iran, China, and N. Korea), hunger, housing, childcare, education, will be the least of our concerns.
Who profits most directly from this weapons build-up? In this order:
Honeywell
Northrop Grumman
BAE
Airbus
Boeing (1 reason why they put so little effort into making their passenger jets safe)
Trump ripped up the nuclear agreement because it was one of Obama’s achievements. And now, predictably:
“[Iran’s Fordow facility] had ceased making enriched uranium entirely under the terms of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. Iran resumed making the nuclear fuel there shortly after the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the landmark accord in 2018.”
Putin promised unspecified technological help to #NorthKorea, which could advance its #NuclearWeapons prgm.
As Putin’s #Russia & #Xi’s #China deepened confrontation w/the West over the past decade, they were united w/the #US on at least one #geopolitical project: dismantling or at least containing North Korea’s #nuclear arsenal.
That is, until the #war in #Ukraine broke out 2 yrs ago.
In one of the starkest back-to-the #ColdWar moments yet, #Putin’s visit Wed to Pyongyang — & the announcement of a pact to provide “mutual assistance in the event of aggression” — underscored that efforts by the world’s 3 biggest #nuclear powers to halt nuclear proliferation by #NorthKorea had been dying for some time. Putin & #KimJongUn, the North’s leader, just presided over the memorial service.
#Putin did more than drop any semblance of a desire to ensure #nuclear restraint. He promised unspecified technological help that —if it includes the few critical technologies #Kim has sought to perfect— could help #NorthKorea design a #warhead that could survive re-entry into the atmosphere & threaten its many adversaries, starting w/the #UnitedStates.
Nowhere in the stmnts made Wed was there even a hint North Korea should give up any of its ~50 or 60 #NuclearWeapons.
The political right is always talking up nuclear power.
They don't love it. They love coal and gas.
#Australia Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has unveiled plans for taxpayers to build seven #nuclear power plants by 2050.
"THE CLIMATE COUNCIL has slammed the Coalition’s energy scheme as “a smokescreen for its commitment to coal and gas” and “radioactive greenwash”, which would delay Australia’s urgent and accelerating shift to clean energy and away from fossil fuels."
Weakening safety standards and oversight makes it cheaper to build nuclear power plants, and more "attractive to investors". What about people living around one?
Scientists Say Senate Bill Will Endanger People 'Living Downwind' of #Nuclear Plants
"This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a long-standing industry goal," says one #NuclearSafety expert.
Nuclear reactors were invented to kill people. Within a year of the first full-scale reactor coming online at #Hanford in 1944, they were the key to killing almost 100,000 people in #Nagasaki.
A #Chicago activist Michael McLean demonstrating 30 years of spent fuel in a LaSalle County #nuclear power plant. That's it, these containers represent over quarter of century of low-carbon generation.
And it's incorrect to call it "waste" - the fuel in these containers still contains 90%+ usable uranium which is just unsuitable for generation as it has been "polluted" by fission byproducts. But it can be reprocessed back into new fuel - the only reason why it's not being done today is that it's cheaper to use newly mined uranium for that purpose. This may change in future and then these containers will be opened and reused.
On average, only 4% of each container is actual "nuclear waste" that needs to be stored somewhere long-term. But even that doesn't means "millenia", because the very point of radioactive decay is that this waste loses activity pretty quickly. The more active it is, the faster it decays - and the byproducts separated from spent fuel will drop down to 7% of their original activity in only 100 years.
American military leaders were aware of the dangers of radioactive particles long before #Hiroshima or #Trinity.
On #DDay there was a special unit under Operation Peppermint, that came ashore in Normandy with Geiger Counters in anticipation that the Nazis might "pepper" the beaches with uranium particles to sicken and slow the invasion.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing at #Normandy, #France, where ~160k #Allied troops pulled off the largest invasion by sea in history. From that point on #America was in charge of #AlliedForces & it was the beginning of the end of #WWII
Russian warships are heading to the Caribbean for exercises. And according to NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Christopher Cavoli, Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic are "at a higher level than we’ve seen in years.”
Why?
Because the U.S. and NATO keep escalating their involvement in the Ukrainian war, incl plans to station hundreds of thousands of troops, inclu US soldiers, along Russia’s entire western border, from Finland to the Balkans. Not surprisingly, Russia is treating this as an existential threat.
But a direct military confrontation between NATO & Russia dramatically increases the risk of accidental, or deliberate, use of nukes, which is an existential threat to the entire planet. And even without the firing of nukes, a ground war on this scale would lead to mass slaughter unseen since WWII.
What about Ukraine, you ask. Well, they've already lost >200,000 lives in this war, which they've been losing badly, hence the rationale for the increased NATO involvement. However, escalation of the conflict will only increase the pace, and the scale, of the slaughter of Ukrainians. And in a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, Ukraine would likely be decimated. So, no, an increase in NATO involvement doesn't help save Ukrainian lives, and might not even lead to its independence.
A negotiated settlement is the only way out of this morass. Yet that isn't even on the table. And news coverage is so scant, and so biased, that most people don't even realize how serious the threat currently is. Even the peace movement is barely making a squeak.
#Biden calls #America’s democratic values the “grounding wire of our global power” & its #alliances “our greatest asset.” …#Trump, called for withdrawing American forces in #Europe & #Asia & has promised… to cut loose even our closest #allies if they don’t do as he tells them. …Trump sees all countries as unreliable, the relations between them #transactional. That sentiment has spread throughout a #GOP that once championed America’s values abroad…
…#Biden responds to a question about America’s relationship w/ #SaudiArabia by saying that the #US has 2 kinds of #alliances: “There are #values-based, & there are #practical-based.”
…One of his first moves in office was to cut off certain #arms supplies over the kingdom’s #war in #Yemen, which has #displaced 4.5M people & #killed 377k, including 11k children…. Soon after, the de facto Saudi ruler… #MBS, met w/ #China’s FM & proposed greater cooperation on #nuclear energy & #security….
"coal generators in Australia agree that baseload is dead as a concept. AGL says there is simply not the demand to operate coal fired power stations as “baseload,” and EnergyAustralia is pushing for contracts that will allow its last remaining coal generator, Mt Piper, to switch off completely in certain seasons"
It’s a signal that the concept of “baseload” power – interpreted by most as “always on” generation – is dead in the water.
" The deal with the government only requires Origin to operate Eraring at just one quarter of its rated capacity, about the same capacity factor as your average solar farm, and less than most wind farms."
@InfoMgmtExec
One point, touched on obliquely in the article, is that nuclear is even worse at load-following than is coal. Load-following is the term for what fossil fuels and nuclear are supposed to do: fill in the gaps left by renewables (which storage does better, but that's a different argument).
Some French designs do load-follow, but they do it by wasting energy. Fuel is consumed at a constant rate, but the heat is bled off, instead of generating electricity. The result is less electricity for the same cost. That is, higher cost per unit of electricity. @SuperMoosie #Nuclear #RenewableEnergy #BaseloadParadigm #Coal #FossilFuels
@InfoMgmtExec
The term "baseload" originally referred to the minimum electricity that a coal generator could output before it had to be turned off completely. That was a function of "spinning reserves" in pure coal grids. Spinning reserves are generators, kept fired-up and running, to take over when units fail (as they inevitably do). Traditionally, enough spinning reserves were kept online to cover failure of the largest unit in the system.
Because those spinning reserves always generated their baseload, storage was invented to save the energy that would otherwise go to waste. Hence, pumped hydro energy storage, first implemented in 1907.
Tomorrow afternoon Sydney time, join my hybrid lecture, either at #UNSW, or register on Zoom at the link below.
It will be a book talk about my book, Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale 2022). The subtitles is: How millions harmed by #nuclear weapons & power have been made invisible during the Cold War & after
Today in Labor History May 20, 1956: In Operation Redwing, the U.S. dropped the first airborne hydrogen bomb over the Bikini Atoll. From May to July, the U.S. detonated 17 nuclear devices in the Bikini and Enewetak atolls. They tested both thermonuclear and fission weapons. They cynically named each of the tests after a different Native American tribe, and then, in the following years, went on to devastate indigenous lands within the U.S. mainland through nuclear mining, testing and waste storage.
Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear devices in the Marshall Islands. According to anthropologist Holly Barker, it was the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized bombs dropped on the islands every day for 12 years. As a result of these tests, the U.S. completely vaporized three of the Bikini Islands and polluted huge swaths of water and land, poisoning countless indigenous people there. Many starved to death because they were relocated to places that couldn’t produce enough food. Each resident now receives $550 annually from the U.S. government to cover medical treatment related to radiation poisoning.
Today in Labor History May 18, 1979: An Oklahoma jury ruled in favor of the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood. Kerr-McGee Nuclear Company was ordered to pay $505,000 in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination. On appeal, the court reduced the settlement to a pitiful $5,000, the estimated value of her property losses. In 1984, the Supreme Court restored the original verdict, but Kerr-McGee again threatened to appeal. Ultimately, Silkwood’s family settled out of court for $1.38 million and the company never had to admit any wrongdoing.
Silkwood first started working at Kerr-McGee in 1972. She joined the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers union and participated in a strike. After the strike, her comrades elected her to the union’s bargaining committee. She was the first woman to attain that status at Kerr-McGee. In this role, one of her duties was to investigate health and safety issues. Not surprisingly, she discovered numerous violations, including exposure of workers to contamination. The union accused Kerr-McGee of falsifying inspection records, manufacturing faulty fuel rods and other safety violations. After testifying to the Atomic Energy Commission, Silkwood discovered that her own body and home were contaminated with radiation. Her body contained 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination and she was expelling contaminated air from her lungs. Her house was so contaminated they had to destroy much of her personal property.
Later, she decided to go public with documentation proving the company’s negligence. She left a meeting with union officials in order to meet a New York Times journalist. She brought a binder and packet of documents supporting her allegations with her. However, she never made it, dying in a suspicious car crash. The documents were never found. Some journalist believe she was rammed from behind by another vehicle. Investigators noted damage to the read of her car that would be consistent with this hypothesis. She had also received death threats shortly before her death. However, no one has yet substantiated the claims of foul play.