Nuclear War

I hope not. But I am not a Christian Believer...

FAQ?: I am afraid of the end of the world. What should I do?This web siteis full of answers to that question. In a nutshell, though, the primary thing you need to do, in preparation for the coming end times, is to be sure you are right with God. World events, fear of the future, and uncertainty about theological issues can drive even the most solid believers mad. There is even more fear in the minds of those who are unsure of their relationship with the Lord.

Today (July 15) The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hezbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.”

Unless somebody blinks soon, this crisis has the potential to escalate into the fulfillment of Isaiah 17's Oracle against Damascus. With that in mind, I'm delaying the publication of our next chapter of the Book of Revelation to present this updated commentary on Isaiah 17.

Contributers to this Nuke Blog have been busy. Eric had a baby in late march and Justin got a new job in late June.

Meanwhile...well you know.

North Korea Launches misiles.
The peaceniks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation repeat their particular Nuke Age Mantra of "double standards," on their new blog.

Which leads me to plug the radio show Nuclear Ambitions and Double Standards which Justin and I produced along with Free Speech Radio News' Leigh Anne Caldwell.

Humankind has lived with the specter of nuclear war for more than 60 years. Despite the end of the Cold War, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons still threaten our entire existence, and some say the danger a nuclear conflict has never been greater than it is today.

On this edition, we'll look at the recent nuclear power deal between the United States and India, which critics say could spark a nuclear arms race in South Asia. We'll hear from top scientists who are speaking out against the Bush administration's policy on using nuclear weapons, and find out what the mainstream media is saying about a run-up to a possible US attack on Iran.

Iranian dancers holding aloft some brand new enriched Uranium
Seems weird to use the actual tubes though, instead of symbolic tubes, but what do I know...
Not as much as the bloggers at
arms control wonk.
I can only take the full-scale-wonk posts in small doses due to my low wonk-reading-comprehision-IQ. They are smarter than yer average blogger.

Like fer instance:

Iran probably made the announcement to celebrate the very first grams of LEU. Even if the cascade has been operating for a month, assuming 2 SWU per centrifuge per year, Iran can’t have produced more than a few (say half a dozen) kilograms of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent.

Hence the dancing guys with tiny lightsabers of LEU.

There's plenty more where that came from, including why "We're Not Going to Nuke Iran."

The Moscow Times is reporting that some Russians are concerned that they'll run out of Nukes and (this is my speculation) become vulnerable to a first strike by the United States.

According to the article, one of Russia's top missile designers - Yury Solomonov, head and chief designer at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology - told reporters that Russia still has plenty of nuclear warheads and nuclear capable missiles, namely the Topol-M and Bulava.

He said the two missiles were second to none in surviving a nuclear strike or an attempt to destroy them by laser beams.

They also can easily penetrate any missile shield, including the fledgling U.S. national missile defense system, Solomonov said.

Bulava and Topol-M drop their engines much faster than their U.S. analogs, making them hard to detect early, he said, adding that this and other features would allow the re-entry vehicles to pierce any missile shield "with a probability of one."

How close is Iran to enriching enough uranium to build one nuclear weapon?

Bloomberg - Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says

``Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. ``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.''

OR

New York Times - Analysts Say a Nuclear Iran Is Years Away

"They're hyping it," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, a private group that monitors the Iranian nuclear program. "There's still a lot they have to do." Anthony H. Cordesman and Khalid R. al-Rodhan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington called the new Iranian claims "little more than vacuous political posturing" meant to promote Iranian nationalism and a global sense of atomic inevitability.

THE IRAN PLANS - Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH paints a grim picture: If Iran is to be bombed, the best tool in the U.S. arsenal to eliminate Iran's Nukes is the use of U.S. nukes...

Here's a bit of the recent article:

...Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars...

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface...conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said...The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said...

Read more about theB61 Nuclear Bomb from Global Security dot Org.

READ the full New Yorker article

The Story created enough of a splash to warrant a reaction from the administration.
Bush: Talk of Iran attack 'wild speculation'

"There's just no way you can hide it." [said] Mr Donohue [who] is part of a multinational team of scientific sleuths attached to the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose latest monitoring report on Iran's nuclear programme is due next month...

A single stray picogram of plutonium, one trillionth of a gram, is all that is needed to raise suspicions that a civilian nuclear plant could be making weapons-grade material...

And...


The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday that it was up to Iran to ensure a diplomatic resolution of its nuclear standoff with the West, which suspects Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a statement on Wednesday calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which can produce fuel for atomic power plants or weapons, and asked the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear agency to report back on Tehran's compliance in 30 days.

The IAEA's Full Iran Page

Meanwhile:

Today Iran says it has test fired an underwater missile that they claim to be the worlds fastest, durring their `Holy Prophet war games' northwest of the Persian Gulf. Why not see what Fox News has to say about this latest development, which has a worst-case-nuke-warhead-scenario.

Nuclear plants to reassess limits on tainted releases:

Tritium leaks are not a new problem. They have been found over the last nine years at a closed plant in Haddam, Conn.; the Salem plants in southern New Jersey; the Savannah River plant in South Carolina; and the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, according to the NRC.

"It has not been a major issue," [NRC chief physicist Steve] Klementowicz said in an interview. But the recent string of disclosures has changed the situation, he said. "It just seems like the whole world is raining tritium right now."

Asbury Park Press claims to be "the Jersey Shores Biggest and Best News Source," which could be true. I blogged this article, in part, because of the remarkably comprhensive "RELATED ARTICLES" column.

Same link as yesterday: NRC on Tritium and the "leaks."

Tritium "EXIT" signs are radioactive, which is what makes them glow without plugging them in...

From the Nuclear Regulatory Comission Website's Tritium Fact Sheet:
"Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that typically is produced in nuclear reactors or high-energy accelerators. It decays at a rate of about five percent per year (half of it decays in about 12 years). Tritium’s decay makes it necessary for routine replenishing in U.S. nuclear weapons. The United States has not produced tritium since 1988, when the Department of Energy's (DOE's) production facility site in South Carolina closed. Immediate tritium needs are being met by recycling tritium from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons. According to DOE, resumption of tritium production is essential for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile."

No mention of whether supplies for EXIT signs are running out at this time.

item 22, on the Berkeley City Council's Agenda for last Tuesday:

a. Phase-Out of Tritium Exit Signs, from: Community Environmental Advisory Commission (PDF, 92 KB)

The City Councill passed the above resolution on it's consent calandar (in other words, without debate) this week, along with the plan from the city manager to implement the recommendations:

Berkeley won't buy any new Tritium Exit Signs, they're gonna count all of the tritium exit signs that are in city buildings before November, and they're gonna train city employees how to recognize the particular signs and dispose of them properly. According to this company selling an alternative EXIT sign technology, most of the radio active signs end up illegally thrown out in the garbage.

All of this, by the way, has little to do with the real Tritium News of the day.: NRC to investigate tritium leaks at Indian Point, elsewhere

NRC on Tritium and the "leaks."

From the Wichita Eagle:

"[Kansas Governor Kathleen] Sebelius signed a bill giving immunity to security guards at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington who use deadly force to defend the plant or its workers against intruders."

The stubby little Reuters piece:

"There's no doubt that nuclear facilities are a potential target for terrorists," said Sebelius in a press statement. "Kansas has one nuclear plant, Wolf Creek, and we must make sure it's properly protected. Allowing guards to use deadly force in certain circumstances increases the security of the plant, and of our state," said Sebelius... (pictured at right with Elmo and Rosita)

Texas and Arizona have similar laws...

From Kansas Homeland Security press release:

Kansas Army National Guardsmen of the 1st Battalion, 127th Field Artillery will train near the Wolf Creek Generating Plant this spring...

Approximately 200 soldiers will conduct "lanes" training in the vicinity of Burlington and Wolf Creek. The weekend drills will consist of anti-terrorism measures; establishing checkpoints; protecting against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; first aid and other tasks.

The Kansas Army National Guard provides support for homeland defense in addition to performing its wartime mission.

Wolf Creek Generating Station website:

FAST FACTS from the fabulous Wolf Creek site:

"Nuclear power plants in the United States supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity each year..."

"Worldwide, 31 countries are operating 434 nuclear plants for electricity generation. In 14 countries, 36 new nuclear power plants are under construction...."

You could probably avoid getting shot if you call ahead:
"For tour information, call Susan Maycock, (620) 364-4141 - For information about Speakers Bureau opportunities, call Tammy Hughes, (620) 364-4078 - For fishing information, call the Daily Lake Status hotline, (620) 364-2475."

Bush came to the the Riderwood Village retirement community last week in the DC suburbs to talk about medicare.

I am quoting below an enormous chunk of the transcript because it is incredible who was there, and their relationship to the history of global nuclear issues:

Bush worked the elderly crowd like a pro, and fielded nearly half an hour of genuine queries about the health care issues facing seniors, and then the following occured:


Q Mr. President, I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for your far-sighted policy in India, of assisting them in their civilian nuclear program.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, thank you, sir.

Q I was at Tarapur 40 years ago, when General Electric inaugurated the first nuclear plant in India. And I think it's going to go a long way towards keeping our friendship with that important country in Asia. Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for bringing that up. He's referring to a trip I just took to India and Pakistan and Afghanistan. And we were working on an agreement with India to encourage India and help India develop its civilian nuclear power industry. And one -- a couple of reasons why one would do that. One, when India's demand for fossil fuels goes up it causes the price of our fossil fuels to go up. And so, therefore, to encourage them to use a renewable source of energy that doesn't create greenhouse gas, this makes a lot of sense.

Secondly, India has been a -- is a non-proliferator, has proven to be a non-proliferator for the past 30 years. In other words, they've got a record, and in my judgment should cause the Congress to pass old law to treat them as a new partner. Thirdly, India wants to be a part of international agreements that will help deal with proliferation.

And so I thank you for your comments. I appreciate you saying that.

Yes, sir.

Q It was particularly courageous, in view of the fact that Pakistan is one of our allies in the war on terrorism, and of course, it's going to affect their attitude to some extent.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate you saying that. The good news is that, as I said in the speech there in India, we now -- I think Indians understand it's good for the United States to be friendly with Pakistan, and the Pakistanis understand it's good for the United States to be friendly with India -- which is, as you know, a change of kind of the relationship of the United States with those two countries.

I had a good visit with President Musharraf, who is dedicated to routing out al Qaeda if they hide in his country, and we really appreciate his dedication. And at the same time, he's dedicated toward advancing democracy. So it was a great visit. Thanks for bringing it up...


A little while later a different retiree spoke up:


Q Mr. President, there are some -- and I guess I would include myself -- who have different views about the Indian agreement, because they're concerned about the effect that the agreement will have on the capacity of India to stimulate its own production of nuclear weapons --

THE PRESIDENT: No, I understand.

Q -- by helping them. But I would go beyond that and ask you, while you're still President, to consider one aspect of this whole nuclear question. I guess I'm one of the three standing -- left standing Americans who helped -- who did the negotiation of the nonproliferation treaty. And the basic bargain there was that other countries would give up their nuclear weapons if we, the nuclear powers, would engage in a program of nuclear disarmament.

Now, I'm aware of all of the agreements that have taken place. I'm aware of the negotiations that you had with Mr. Putin. The point is that we cannot expect that agreement, that basic agreement to hold if the United States, particularly, goes on acting as -- and has the position that we might initiate a nuclear war if it is necessary.

And I would ask you just to think about the time -- while you're still President, taking the one position that only one American President has taken, and that is President Johnson, to consider a "no first-use" policy to help the prospect of nuclear proliferation in the long run.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for your contribution, by the way. I appreciate it. (Applause.)

Part of the Indian deal is to actually get them to formally join some of the institutions that you helped -- your work created. And you're right. I did do an agreement with President Putin -- thanks for noticing -- where we're -- both of us are reducing nuclear stockpiles. But I'll take your words to heart, and think about it. Thank you. No commitment standing right here, of course. (Laughter.) ....

And then there was a very pregnant pause...... after which Bush wrapped things up quickly, encouraging everyone to just give the contravesial new medicare system a closer look, and closing with a "God bless you all."

Apparently Tony Blair may usher in a new nuclear age in the UK, much like Bush here in the US. They're considering building new nuclear power plants in Britain.

Peter Hain has become the first member of Blair's cabinet to criticize the plan publicly.

Hain breaks ranks to oppose nuclear power

"...serious concerns must remain about nuclear: the financial costs are impossible to estimate, security implications are vast, its label as 'clean' is unwarranted as uranium enrichment is carbon-emitting and we rely on other nations for its supply."


I hadn't realized Uranium enrichment emitted green house gasses - I wonder how?

As for "relying on other nations for its supply." - One of the "other nations" that could supply the UK's growing uranium needs is Australia. Let's hear it for the old empire! (although the UK may have to bid against the likes of China and India for their share of the ore.)

U.S. May Hurt India-Pakistan Peace Efforts by opposing Iranian pipeline.

"Officials from India, Pakistan and Iran were meeting in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss the multibillion-dollar pipeline which has the potential to forge a lasting link between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars.

Analysts say U.S. opposition to the pipeline is aimed at curbing Iran, which Washington says is trying to build nuclear weapons, while the U.S. offer of nuclear aid to India reflects an effort to offset China's growing power in Asia. "

(LEFT) - W. leans in to speak with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during meetings Thursday, March 2, 2006, in New Delhi. White House photo by Eric Draper

(RIGHT) - W. is escorted by an honor guard as he reviews Pakistan troops at his official welcome to Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, March 4, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper



The President visited, India and Pakistan and even found time for a quick stop in Afghanistan on his wirlwind trip. While there, he struck a deal with India. A BIG DEAL:

" A landmark US deal extending civilian nuclear technology to India could open up 100 billion dollars in business ventures for Americans in the Indian energy sector, a top US business lobby group said overnight.

US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clinched the deal in New Delhi last week that still required mandatory US Congress approval for implementation."

As a jew by birth and identity (I don't go to temple) it bugs me when Al Jazeera repetedly calls Israel the jewish state.

Tough beans for me though. The place is full of jews, from what I've been told, and they do run the country.

That being said, this article straddles two recent stories regarding "The Jewish State" and nuclear war.

The presence of "U.S.-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Israel's fleet of Dolphin-class submarines, which provides the Jewish State with ultimate ability to strike any targets it wishes in any of its Arab neighbours..."

And:

Over 40 years ago, the UK provided Israel with Plutonium and other materials so the Jewish state could build some Jewish Nukes.

Depleted Uranium [DU] is a by-product left over when natural uranium ore is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. It is a toxic, dense, hard metal...about 40% less radioactive than [plain old] uranium. IAEA

...when alloyed, Depleted Uranium is ideal for use in armor penetrators [with] the speed, mass and physical properties to perform exceptionally well against armored targets. DU provides a substantial performance advantage, well above other competing materials. This allows DU penetrators to defeat an armored target at a significantly greater distance...On impact with a hard target (such as a tank) the penetrator may generate a cloud of DU dust within the struck vehicle that ignites spontaneously creating a fire that increases the damage to the target...globalsecurity.org

A recently released study shows increased levels of uranium in the air over England durring the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Scientists conducting the study requested the data from the AWE, the Atomic Weapons Establishment which had been collecting samples from the air around their weapons facilities and nuclear power plants ever since a public outcry over a large number of cancer cases. But the scientists had to wait a year to get the information they requested, until the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) became law in the UK. Then, when they did finally recieve the information, data for early 2003 was left out. The time period covering Gulf War 2.

After another long wait, the measurements of Uranium in the air over England durring that crucial time period (Shock and Awe) was made public through a different agency than the AWE.

UK officials are calling the increases a coincidence.

The Department of Defense has an old website dedicated to Depleted Uranium. GulfLink, the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses which has a lot of sober, reasonable data that proves that DU is no biggie. We all eat, drink and breath a little bit of Uranium every day according to the site, and then we piss it out. And DU is much less radioactive than regular U, they argue, plus only those at the point of impact are at risk of exposure.

But the study by Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan shows that there is at least some exposure to DU dust, far from the battlefield. The Full 18 page scientific paper concludes:

Despite many pieces of evidence that uranium aerosols are long lived in the environment and are able to travel considerable distances, this is the first evidence as far as we know, that they are able to travel thousands of miles...

From Baghdad to Reading.

The authors of the study then go on to compare the battlefield use of Depleted Uranium to the atmospheric atomic tests of nuclear weapons in the 1960's and the Chernobyl Melt Down. Events that were proven to have exposed the entire globe to radiation.

But the IAEA website downplays the risks from small amounts of DU, and would appear to agree with the thrust of the Department of Defense argument, while being more direct about the potential harm that exposure to DU may cause.

A very "nuts and bolts" description of the joint U.S. - Japanese military excersices, dubbed Keen Edge and taking place now, appears on the stars and stripes site.

What Stars and Stripes leaves out is any mention of the "enemies." Or the colors they've been assigned, as reported in a Tokyo daily, and repeated (in English, for our reading pleasure) by a Korean paper online:

...Neighboring countries have each been given a color: Japan is blue, the U.S. is green, North Korea is purple, Russia is red and South Korea is the color of tea...

Colors. Like playing RISK?

...The war games include a simulation where the U.S. finds North Korea getting ready to fire a ballistic missile...

yikes.

According to Stars and stripes, "Keen Edge" altenating yearly with "Keen Sword" has been taking place since 1986.

GlobalSecurity.org has a summary of some of these recent joint US/Japanese military excersizes. For example, this from before the Axis of Evil got it's name:

The November 1995 exercise 'Keen Edge' involved 26,500 troops from the US and Japan, including 400 planes and 27 ships, and was reportedly the largest ever joint exercise. Keen Edge may have been a substitute for the cancelled US-South Korean exercise 'Team Spirit', which was cancelled as part of the US-North Korean nuclear agreement.

I do not know whether or not outgoing commander of the 8th U.S. Army in Korea, Lt. Gen. Charles C. Campbell (pictured here showing off his new Korean name, 'Kim Han-soo') will be taking part in Keen Edge this time around.

Another scenario for hostilities between Japan and China described in the article, apparently involves some unihabited rocks that the nations can not agree upon. Read more about Japan not getting on to well with it's neighbors (all the way down at the bottom of the page) in the always informative CIA factbook, including the CIA's compact summary of why Russia and Japan still havn't signed a peace treaty to formally end World War Two!

Okay maybe two words: Zinc and Uranium...Canadian-based Scotiabank named the pair this years hottest commodities.

BIG MONEY DOWN UNDER: Export earnings for uranium are forecast to increase 50 per cent this year to $712 million through higher export prices.

Editorial: Mate, I nuked myself in the foot Taipei Times:
"One can almost hear the Australian government's saliva collecting in its mouth at the prospect of selling billions of dollars of uranium from its huge reserves to an eager customer for decades to come. Never mind that the customer is an unstable Third World despot with a big chip on its shoulder - and the owner of nuclear warheads and other munitions pointing in potentially inconvenient directions for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, India and Taiwan, not to mention US bases in the region."

In case you hadn't guessed, they're concerned with Australia's plans to sell uranium to China.

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, he agrees with the Taipei editorial, and ellaborates on some of the themes.

Despite the potential profits, some nations aparently "do the right thing" as matters of "principle." Sweeden wont be cashing in, according to the official website of the Nordic Council. Weird.

And then there's Russia's lattest plans for the Ore. See below...

Just where they will find that 10 billion is the question. But the Uranium is easy to find. It's in Siberia...and Buryatia...

In 2005, the country's three uranium producers mined just 3,325 tons of ore, one-fifth of the amount Russia annually consumes to fuel nuclear power stations and to meet military needs and export obligations...

...As Russia competes with France and the United States to build nuclear reactors for countries unable to build their own, setting up a reliable uranium network will be key.

"TVEL also supplies enriched uranium to countries which have nuclear reactors built by Russia, and they will want to stay in that market," Breach said. Russia supplies enriched uranium mainly to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, India and China, he said.

"RosAtom has no money, so where will the money come from?" said Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear industry expert at the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering close to Moscow."

The deal — announced by the two countries' top nuclear chiefs after a visit to a Russian-built nuclear plant in southern Iran — could deflect any move by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency at its March 6 meeting to recommend the Security Council consider action on Iran.

Iran's deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, warned that the deal would be off if the International Atomic Energy Agency refers Iran to the Security Council, a step that could lead to economic or political sanctions.

"If talk of referral is raised, then all ways will be blocked," Saeedi said.

960 feet below ground in the Nevada desert, the US and UK conducted a subcritical test - called Krakatau - on Thursday, to view the effects of a large explosion on plutonium. Subcritical means that the explosion falls short of a nuclear chain reaction.
Krakatau subcritical experiment is being prepared to be lowered into the floor of the tunnel of the U1a Complex at the Nevada Test Site. 2/22/2006

Nevada Test Site Press Release
video from the Nevada test site
And more pictures from the Test Site of this, and other subcritical experiments.

Hiroshima peace tower reset after nuclear test: "When Minoru Hataguchi, director of the museum, pressed the reset button, the tower displayed "639," the number of days since the last nuclear experiment was conducted by the U.S. government on May 26, 2004.

Hataguchi said, "I'm angry because it's an act that tramples on the feelings of the people of Hiroshima." "

and Hiroshima, Nagasaki mayors protest nuclear weapons testing by U.S. and Britain
"Anti-nuclear groups criticize the subcritical experiments as contrary to the spirit of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear arms. The U.S. has observed a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing since 1992, but has not ratified the treaty."

The article:
"Nuclear moves to front burner -
Bush push for energy reactors may not get much heat from former foes of atomic power"

One connection not yet explored in this here NuclearWarBlog, is nuclear war and global warming. They are, traditionally, two very separate possible apocalypses to worry about - for those of us who worry about these sorts of things.

Say what you will about spent nuclear fuel rods, they aren't contributing to the impending global climate crisis.

But Alice Slater, President of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) writes that there is a connection between Nuke Power and Nuke Proliferation.

I came accross the above essay from the anti-nuclear quote of the day blog that I enjoy now and again. The pro-nuke Blog takes issue with Slater's use of the verb "spew" to descrice nuclear waste - which is valid. Coal power plants spew, nuclear power simply "accumulates" - and then what? That's the billion dollar question. And then what?

Soaks in a pond? Sits in a parking lot?

My vote is for all the spent fuel rods to be sent on a rocket-ride into the sun - only that trip up into orbit is quite a gamble if the rocket fails to leave the earth's atmosphere. So I'm putting my hope for the future of clean, safe nuclear energy in the Space Elevator.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Fission is neat. I'll admit it.

NEI Nuclear Notes is very positive about the future of energy generated by Nuclear Fission, and the Blog includes links-a-plenty to other Positive Nuclear Power Blogs:
Like the Daily Chernobyl blog, which reminds me to check my irritational fear of nuclear power and ballnce it against MY VERY RATIONAL FEAR of nuclear power:

The spent fuel rods are killers, if I'm not mistaken... A couple of generations of nuclear power has left the planet an unmanagable legacy of radioactive waste. Building more, new nuclear power plants will only compound the problem

Unless I'm just being a reactionary.

I am, at the moment, too sleepy to delve deeply into all of these webblogs (like the intriguing Peak Oil Optimist) - but a surface scan of a few of them has revealed very little mention of my favorite term: spent fuel rods..." But I did come across some pro-bush (some anti-bush) asides and a blinky anti-islam banner ad. So there's that.

A day after the State of the Union speech, where Bush called US addicted to foreign oil, and said the cure would be coal, switchgrass, and nuclear power, some of the papers are all aglow: Clean, safe, nuclear power.

Like a mantra: clean, safe, nuclear power.

Apparently if you repeat it enough it becomes true.

The Utah State Legislature: responded swiflty to the President's call for new nukes (energy that is)

The House amended [and passed] HB46, which would create a new state energy office focus on alternative energy technologies, to include a specific mention of nuclear energy research...

Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, said that Utah — with its uranium availability, power delivery infrastructure, and thousands of acres of state-owned land — has a "great potential" to become a nuclear power supplier for the entire West...

"Everyone thinks, at first, about Chernobyl," [Rep. Mike] Noel said..."But the new technology makes nuclear power safe and available."

yet - the lawmakers acknowlege that "safe" has little to do with the nuclear waste, the spent fuel rods are never "safe" and they never will be. Everyone knows that.

Currently, state officials are trying to stop the shipment of nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Indian Reservation by Private Fuel Storage [(safe, clean)], a consortium of nuclear power plants who need to dispose of spent nuclear rods...

"'This does not send a message to bring all of your spent nuclear rods to this state...'[Rep. Brad] Daw said. 'All I'm saying is that we should be studying the use of nuclear power in the state. . . .nuclear energy is clean and it is safe.'

Anyway.

The money for this new endevour comes from the Enormous energy bill that the Bush Administration passed last year. Some called it a give away to the Republicans BIG donors in Oil, Coal, and Nuclear Power.

Listen to a fine radio program on the MASSIVE ENERGY BILL or read about it:
Nuclear Giveaways in House Energy Bill - Public Citizen

Chicago Tribune"No nuclear plants have been licensed since 1978, but utility companies nationwide are considering building at least 10 new reactors":

Politicians, the public and utility executives largely lost interest in nuclear power after enduring huge cost overruns and difficulty running the [clean, safe] plants efficiently. The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union seemed at the time to have buried nuclear energy.

So why the new interest now?

And what could this mean in other parts of the world? Like India?
"With less than four weeks to go before President George W. Bush arrives here, the focus is supposed to be on the prospect for Indo-US nuclear energy cooperation. Yet, there is little debate on India’s potential gains from the new Bush initiative, tentatively called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, that could engineer a revolution in the way the world thinks about atomic power."

I'm listening to Senor Peligroso deliver the BIG SPEECH, State of the Union 2006:

President George W. Bush-
"At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran -- because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well."

That's the only mention of North Korea. Despite this statement from the regime's official paper just a few days ago:

"Dark clouds of a nuclear war are hanging low over the Korean Peninsula..."

Speaking of Iran:
GWB: "The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions -- and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats.

And then later in the speech:

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world...To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy."

Clean? Safe? Nuclear Energy?

Tourists are invited to Scotland's Secret Bunker:

"Bookings will be taken throughout the year for parties, weddings and corporate events."

You can host a party in the bunker's original mess hall, or even an "underground" Rock Concert in this decomissioned Cold War Bunker.

According to the promotional site, this Bunker was built in secrecey in the 1950's and disguised as a Scottish farm house. Scottish officials and possibly NATO war planners would "winter" the Appocolypse here underground.

Read about Exercise Great Heart"...one of a number of war games held... at the Bunker...from the afternoon of Friday 6th May to Saturday 7th May 1988. Great Heart simulated the action that would have been taken had the Cold War turned hot and forced those involved [in Scotland] to confront the realities of Nuclear War."

I can only assume that Scotland has better, newer, much more secret bunkers - if this one is a tourist attraction.

This Indian film (Sohni Mahiwal) will play on the Big Screen in Pakistan, despite a decades long ban on Bollywood. Yet another small step in the cooling off of tensions between these two nuclear powers that have fought three wars against one another.

I'm all for it.

baby steps. baby steps

CIA drone attacked a village on the Afghan/Pakistan border.
The Guardian Article is very critical of the bombing.

The results of the attack in Pakistan have been wide-spread outrage according to some news accounts.

And there have been positive accounts of the attacks as well, calling them a "significant blow" in the war on terror: "The Jan. 13 attack... killed 13 villagers in the Pakistani hamlet near the Afghan border, and possibly four or five foreign militants whose bodies were reportedly spirited away by sympathizers..."

My question: Does the War on Terror mean that the U.S. can bomb any country it wants without Congressional declarations of war? Isn't this against the law?

This bombing was not necessarilly the first in Pakistan (CIA drone kills al-Qaida operative - Pakistan denies Predator strike took place on its territory - May 14, 2005)..."Sources told NBC News that the CIA has all the approvals necessary within its counterterror center in Langley, Va., to fire missiles within Pakistan when an al-Qaida target is spotted. The agency does not have to check with the White House or with Pakistani authorities or the CIA director."

These bombings could be a first, as far as the U.S. attacking a nuclear power (albeit a small village at the border)... There was the chinese embassy bombed in Belgrade.

This is the outline I used to put together my radio review of the genre of Nuclear War Movies. The reveiw was a collaboration between Justin and Myself before we started this web log. The films' links are big, and the historical links are smaller:

The Back Ground to most of these films
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki(1945)


First USSR test (1949)







Korean War (1950-53)

Invasion USA (1952)
This was the year the U.S. tested the first hydrogen bomb, on Nov. 1. The explosion was 750 times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima.

Sputnik launched (1957)

On the Beach (1959)

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Dr Strangelove (1964) Failsafe (1964)

Détente (late 60's-up to Reagan)

The Day After (1983) (TV) Threads (1984) (TV)
WarGames (1983)

Fall of Berlin Wall (1989)
September 11th 2001

The Sum of All Fears (2002)

Terminator 3 (2003)


This blog orriginally appeared at Making Contact's Web Log - where it was extremely usefull for me while I was immersed in writing the script... In the end , the radio piece was over 16 mins - instead of the 8 I was originally alloted. So Justin kindly restructured the 29min program, and I cut the piece down by 5 mins. Below is some parts of the script that I miss the most (though they had to go)...Mostly my thoughts on the later films of the 90's and 00's.

The latter part of the script below, before the final edits:


WarGames was released in 1983 - for my memory, it heralds the coming of the 1990's. No threat from the Soviet Union - just a teenager from Seattle (and his personal computer) that cause a bunch of fuss and then save the day.

"Stand down the missiles! Recall the bombers! Hooray!"

The 90's saw the end of the Soviet Union, and with no Evil Empire, there can be no fantasy of destruction. It would seem as though nuclear war movies would become a thing of the past.

But there are a significant handfull of big hollywood films that come along in the 90's to rekindle old fears. Notably The Hunt For Red October and Crimson Tide, both flicks about the posibility of nuclear war being started by a rogue submarine commander...

90's action flicks also addressed growing fears about terrorism, depicted in blockbuster movies like "True Lies," where Arnold Schwarzenegger fights Jihadists who nuke an island in the Florida keys- and "The Peacemaker" George Clooney and Nicloe Kidman verses balkan terrorists who get their hands on decomissioned-soviet nuke.
............
FADE UP MUSIC from SUM OF ALL FEARS

Just like the Cold War, the 90's had an ending too...

So if movies about nuclear war are in any way a barometer for the nation's anxiety, then what comes after September 11th 2001, is worth a closer look.

MORGAN FREEMAN, SUM OF ALL FEARS..."The Russian scientists have been working on a bomb! Nuclear! It arrived in Baltimore this morning!"

Cold war novelist Tom Clancy in 2002 brings us "The Sum of All Fears." AKA the evil empire strikes back.

In the Clancy book, Islamist Extremists unearth a 70's era Israeli nuclear bomb in the Golan Desert. In the movie version, it's an international cabal of neo-Nazi extremists. Either way, the bomb is planted in a packed football stadium to kill the president and set off a full scale conflict with the Russians. get it. The sum of all fears.

A fun movie. Ben Afleck saves the Day. But even a mushroom cloud over Baltimore didn't scare me one bit. Threads. Now that's a scary movie.

So with the USSR out of the picture what should we be scared of?

ARNOLD as TERMINATOR: "Judgment Day is inevitable..."

The first Terminator movie introduced us to Arnold Schwartzenegger as a cyborg from a post-apocalyptic future. The Terminator Arnold travels back in time to kill the mother of John Connor, the would-be leader of the human resistance movement against the killer robots.

Pretty cool. And in 1984 when it came out, film makers didn't have to give audiences any explanation as to "what caused nuclear Armageddon."

So the Question that must have faced the bearers of the Terminator franchise was how to keep the doomsday scenario alive for an audience largly in diapers at the end of the cold war.

Answer: Blame the computers...Here's post adolecent John Connor at the opening of 2003's Terminator 3, rise of the machines.

"I should feel safe but I don't... so I live off the grid, no phone no address. No one and nothing can find me..."

Terminator 3 ends with the misiles criss-crossing the globe and mushroom clouds sprouting up everywhere because the computer in charge decided to kill us all. T3- rise of the machines gets right to the heart of things regarding nuclear war- we still have plenty to be scared of, even without a plausible scenario for the fighting of world war three....

Unless there's some sort of accident that snow balls out of control or you believe in the Book of Revelations...

And while some may be scared of evil robots or permanent war, the second comming or Governor Ubermensh - (Shwartzenegger was voted into office while T-3 was still in theaters) There could be something else that's causing this unease at the core of Rise of the Machines:

There are still more than 10,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal and about 20,000 world wide. There are at least nine countries who posess nuclear weapons. There have been new cold wars - between India and Pakastan (they are in the midst of their own detante with a new bus route linking the two sides in the disputed region of Kashmir...
The Bush administration has plans for new nuclear weapons and new ways of using them, like bunker busters and mini-nukes. Lower yeild nuclear weapons for tactical use on todays battlefield. The recent conference on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty at the UN was a failure.

Of course there are a new generation of movies on the way to bring a new world of nuclear conflict to the screens. I'll go out on a limb and predict that we'll keep on making nuclear war movies until disarmament or doomsday. For Making Contact and the National Radio Project - I'm Eric Klein.
......

Interesting that the Iran/Israel "cold war" wasn't on the radar just 6 months ago. If I wrote this script now, it would have been mentioned.

The Sunday Times Article

"For the past few months, elite Israeli commandos have been training for an assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. One more full rehearsal has been scheduled for next month, said senior Israeli intelligence sources last week."

Is it just me, or does this article seem a little rediculous? If Israel is in fact planning these attacks, then this news report of their precise plans and tactics should really mess up the ellement of suprise.

"As the President has stepped up his defense of the war on terror, pray that the people of the world will hear and heed and that insurgent efforts will fail. Pray that the nation of Iraq will continue to grow toward democracy and that it will not become a terrorist sanctuary from which terrorists can plan and launch attacks. Pray that those terrorists who regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity will be defeated, that this vital front in the war on terror will be gained for good. Pray for a strengthening of understanding on the importance of this mission by all Americans."



As Associate Pastor of Cowboy Church of Ellis County, Texas,Rick McKenzie is probally praying for the president RIGHT NOW!

Join the Team

GRABLE EVENT - Part of Operation Upshot-Knothole, was a 15-kiloton test fired from a 280-mm cannon on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Proving Grounds. Frenchman's Flat, Nevada - Atomic Cannon TestHistory's first atomic artillery shell fired from the Army's new 280-mm artillery gun. Hundreds of high ranking Armed Forces officers and members of Congress are present. The fireball ascending.

I was too young to build up any real anxiety over the Cold War.

But when I was a junior in college I got good and scared over India and Pakistan's nuclear standoff.

Now there's Iran and Israel.

Of course, Iran doesn't have the bomb (for now, right?)...

Iran's new president, at a conference called "The World without Zionism" he attended today in Tehran, said, "Israel must be wiped off the map."

And then:
"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury."

Is that metaphorical fire?

The AP Article.

I found this photo on a blog... The sign on the podium is in English?

"The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity. While speculation is pointless, reaction to the threat of another Hiroshima is definitely not."
Noam Chomsky

READ ME

"Once nuclear testing went underground in 1963, and American babies stopped having fallout-induced radioactive milk teeth, Nevada fell off the map even as the nuke-a-month program continued unimpeded for almost three more decades."

In an article off Tom Dispatch, Rebecca Solnit links the war in Iraq to the struggle in Neveda, where bombs were tested and spent fuel rods were headed. But the article is mostly about water, gold mining and the Western Shoshone people, who've recently been offered $30,000 each for their chunk of Nevada when Bush signed the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill on July 7, 2004.

The Union of Concerned Scientists provides a useful clearing house on nuclear weapons policy.

Signatories to a statement opposing resumed nuclear testing include one of the co-discoverers of nuclear energy as the source of the Sun's power, the late Hans Bethe; a nobel-prize winning particle physicist, Steven Weinberg; and Raymond Jeanloz, a professor of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley.

As the world prepares to mark the anniversary of Hiroshima, Iran is poised to go nuclear amid a new global arms race, by Anne Penketh

Tomorrow at 8.15am, a minute's silence will reverberate around the world. The people of Japan will commemorate the victims of the first atomic bomb, which was dropped by an American B-29 on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

Half a world away, in Tehran, the new hard man of Iranian politics, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will take the oath of office before the country's parliament. His presidency heralds a new era of uncertainty in Iran's fraught relations with the West over its nuclear ambitions.

In Beijing, urgent talks on curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons program are close to collapse. And in Pakistan, efforts are still being made to roll up the world's biggest nuclear proliferation scandal. Sixty years after Hiroshima, whose single bomb killed 237,062 people, a new nuclear arms race has begun.
the article

"Little Boy"

Nostalgia is a powerful force when the Cold War is considered the good old days, but this War on Terror is in it's infancy and many folks are expressing a sort of wistfull desire for the simple bianary threat of total anihilation from decades past.

But just one crappy terrorist nuke screwing up a major city - where's the fun in that.

Here's an article from the chron that commemorates the 60th aniversary of the first day of the cold war and then describes why these days we're even worse off...

Of course, there's just a twinge of irrrationalality to the article: suggesting that "suicide bombers" and "terrorists" are scarrier nuke weilding enemies than the rational old days of the cold war.

The Australian article

"Bush's decision last week to reverse 30 years of US policy by opening nuclear trade with India may ultimately come to be regarded as the most dangerous and reckless move of his presidency."

--which is saying an awful lot considering this particular presidency...