Since there's a bunch of dipshits doing the "omg Russia #nuclear movements" BS again, my handy dandy guide on who's reliable regarding all such movements and their significance:
Principals in the nuclear chain of command. i.e: the President, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, or head of nuclear forces, or their official spokesperson; and even then ONLY if they deliver that message from the podium as an explicit statement on that subject
"$59 Million, Gone: How Bikini Atoll Leaders Blew Through U.S. Trust Fund"
Lines like this: "Recognizing the damage its testing caused, the U.S. government established two trust funds in the 1980s to help pay for Bikinians’ health care, build housing and cover living costs."
Clearly there are problems, and many are tied to post-colonial social disruptions along with permanently irradiated homelands, but this article is an example of victim blaming.
Do they get the irony that lowering the credit rating will increase the interest due and therefore increase the national debt? So will the reduced revenue from the disastrous consequences for economic activity.
Pretty soon we are gonna reach the point where it is less CO2 intensive for Germans to drive to France and cook dinner there then drive back, than to use an electric oven in Germany.
"Born Violent: The Origins of Nuclear Power" (2019)
The first 13 #nuclear reactors built in the US only manufactured plutonium. The 14th was for electricity.
This article traces the history of the development and construction of the first prototypes & operating nuclear power plants, all as part of the Manhattan Project. Beginning with CP-1, the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction in 1942, it details subsequent Manhattan Project reactors and then examines the construction & operation of the first modern nuclear power plants built at Hanford, WA. These were built for the sole purpose of manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. It argues that nuclear power was born violent: it was invented as part of the manufacturing process of nuclear weaponry. It was immediately essential to killing 100,00s of people.
"Analysis: Calls for South Korean nuclear arsenal unlikely to fade despite US deal"
A few things to unpack: " a sense that the South is a growing global power that should be among the nuclear-armed states."
This presumes nuclear weapons are a political status indicator rather than WMDs. You just get them when you are important enough.
Next, why can South Korea build nuclear weapons quickly? Because it has been stockpiling plutonium that it has been manufacturing by operating nuclear power plants for electricity. #Japan is in the same position.
Nuclear power & nuclear weapons are linked. Nuclear reactors were invented in the Manhattan Project for this exact purpose: to manufacture plutonium. Many countries stockpile PU in case they "need" it militarily later.
Today is the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
It is not over. Chernobyl spread radioactive particles across Europe and beyond. The fire in reactor #4 burned for over a month, releasing massive amounts of radionuclides which then would fallout and embed into the #ecosystem.
37 years later we still find food contaminated with Chernobyl fallout every year. Often with cesium-137 which is very adept at transporting in an ecosystem once the particle has deposited from the fallout cloud.
That's precisely why I asked for the dosage information — the article only casually mentions that the administrative standard in Norway is 1600 Bq/kg while the peak detected levels were around ~4000 Bq/kg, which is only slightly more if you look how small the Bq unit is. Even the Norway minimum is not based on a solid and unambiguous evidence of biological impact, but on a number of assumptions and precautions. For example, once popular Linear No-threshold model (LNT) postulated that any even slightest amount of radiation is harmful which goes right against the existing medical evidence of small doses of radiation having no negative controlsbiological impact.
Everything in this world is naturally radioactive, including human body. Every healthy human carries a number of radioactive isotopes, including potassium-40 which decays at rate ~4000 Bq (decays per second) on average. People living in some areas of high natural radioactivity are exposed to much higher doses, and just live with that because all living organisms evolved in environment literally soaked with background radiation and developed compensation mechanisms for it.
That is not to say that Chernobyl had no environmental impact, but its negative long-term impact is massively exaggerated for the purpose of anti #nuclear activism. As the article discusses elevated cesium levels in reindeer or fish, nobody seems to be stating the obvious: we're talking about living reindeer and fish that have been happily reproducing for the last 30 years with no visible biological impact. Quite the opposite, as the article notes:
> The Sami population turned out to have significantly lower cancer rates than the general population. This is probably due to a healthier lifestyle, according to Skuterud.
You’re absolutely right and I myself was given Lugol in 1986, even though the medical community in Poland later described this largely as a psychological rather than actual countermeasure as iodine-131 half-life is just 8 days and we were given it only like 3 days after the initial release because Soviets of course denied everything initially.
These topics are rather complex due to different biological metabolism of cesium and iodine, which is very well explained by prof. Geraldine Thomas in this video:
(in short, iodine has short life and thus high activity while the body sends it to a single place, so its carcinogenic potential is higher than cesium, which is spread evenly all around the body and has longer half-life)
There’s no disagreement between us on the need to monitor these levels and some form of food safety policies.
I’m just pointing out that we as society have a huge problem with perception of risk which specifically involves exaggeration of #nuclear related risks by orders of magnitude, which results in communal pressure being completely misdirected and resulting in policy decisions that have the exact opposite effect than intended.
An example being German nuclear phase-out where a non-existent (zero) health impact of nuclear power was effectively replaced by coal generation with very tangible health and social impacts estimated at 1000 extra deaths per year.
A dismal idea. I will not only provoke the North Korean, but also the Chinese leader, who is probably still choking on the idea of the future delivery of #US#nuclear #submarines to #Australia.
Subs seem to me the politically must inappropriate option. An aircraft carrier would have sent a very strong signal as well.
... An #aircraft#carrier would need to be moved into position openly, in contrast.
Now, of course, an aircraft carrier has a lot more #firepower (unless #nuclear#missiles are used) than a small #submarine. However, if I were Kim, I'd deal more easily with the visible than with the invisible enemy, larger provocation or not.
Let's hope I am wrong, though, and that #Xi in particular will not use the sub as a pretext to increase the heat on #Taiwan, which is what...,
... calling for the reincorporation of formerly #Chinese territory around #Vladivostok. (I do see a tripartite dissolution of the #Russian Federation as highly likely, one the remainder of the formerly proud #Soviet Army has spent itself in #ukraine
Fab map of the world's electric/telecom/oil/gas infrastructure, v @stewartbrand on Twitter, https://bit.ly/3LuNUNu, makes clear the cause of Fukushima: its sea wall was too low to protect against tsunamis. Onagawa Nuclear plant, 50mi to the north, closer to the quake epicenter, w/ sea walls built to the correct height of 10m, easily survived the magnitude 9.0 quake.
@helenczerski personally I'm okay with a heavy mix of wind and solar for charging the grid, then #nuclear for baseline (CANDUs in territories, with maybe 1 breeder reactor for reducing waste per country, possibly molten salt thoriums for small towns) - especially when small modular reactors are drop in replacements for base load in natural gas facilities.
that and fundamentally changing our energy consumption from gluttonous & instantaneous gratification to a "feast or famine" electric model.
Atomteller, Delft blue plates showing not pastoral windmills but German nuclear plants, a vision of tomorrow's nostalgia. “Monuments to error - yesterday's hope - tomorrow's folklore”
I’m sorry, if you seriously believe that Germany’s present #coal investments wouldn’t have happened if the country hadn’t shut down its remaining #nuclear power plants, that’s just incredibly naive.
Conflating the issues of nuclear power and coal and framing things as if these are the only two options benefits only those who benefit from either (or both) of them.
Both need to go. And one being successfully ended now after literally two whole generations of activism is absolutely a success and doesn’t hinder the fight against the other.
Don’t let yourself be played against your fellow comrades.
Excavating Six Decades of Buried Secrecy, Neglect, and Flat-Out Lies in the #SanFernando Valley
By Warren Olney, January 13, 2022
"The Field Lab (#SSFL) opened in 1947, at the onset of the Cold War, and the reactor accident happened in 1959. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and a nuclear contractor kept it secret for 20 years, but there was no denying the evidence we revealed on local TV, discovered in AEC archives by the watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap.
"Today, that accident is still news, as Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to be backing away from enforcing a cleanup of nuclear contamination that remains on the site. Sixty-three years since the accident, Santa Susana should remind us of the perils not only of nuclear materials but also of our short memories. This story’s hardest lesson is that when dangerous secrets get buried you often have to keep excavating them, over and over.
"Over the years, #residential development moved closer to the Field Lab, but no one ever told the public about the release of radioactive contamination which would remain dangerous for thousands of years. In 1989, a local newspaper reported on secret government studies showing extensive contamination at the site. That drew attention from unsuspecting homeowners, and a community group called the #Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition sprang up to oppose re-licensing of site facilities. Nuclear operations at Santa Susana finally halted in 1990."