The new cold war panic

The world has seen a power struggle between nuclear powers before, and has seen those countries inch closer to military conflict. But it’s never before seen a cold war between two countries as interconnected — with each other and with the rest of the globe — as the U.S. and China.

Why it matters: Escalating antagonism between the world’s two superpowers is likely to hinder global cooperation to fight climate change, divert resources to costly arms and tech races, complicate diplomacy for U.S. allies, and victimize Chinese and American citizens living in each other’s countries.

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The big picture: Experts have long debated whether a “cold war” is the right way to think about the rivalry between the U.S. and China.

• President Biden’s top aides reject that framing as a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” arguing that it should be possible for the two superpowers to “compartmentalize” on issues of mutual interest, The New York Times’ David Sanger reports.
• But so far, the Chinese have shown no interest in any such arrangement.

Driving the news: A report this weekend that China had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile immediately drew comparisons to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite, which raised alarms that the U.S. was falling behind in a technology race.

Yes, but: “This is not a Sputnik moment,” Joshua Pollack, a leading expert on nuclear and missile proliferation, told Axios. “The point about Sputnik is that the Soviets had beaten us to the punch, they put the first satellite up. … Weapons payload aside, this is old hat for the United States.”

Context: The missile launch is only the latest in a series of major headlines shaking the foundations of the U.S.-China status quo.

• Satellite images recently showed hundreds of new nuclear missile silos in western China.
• Recent months have seen a dramatic spike in Chinese incursions near Taiwanese air space.
• In September, the U.S., U.K., and Australia announced a new security pact, referred to as AUKUS, aimed at countering China in part through the transfer of U.S. nuclear submarine technology to Australia.
• Even NATO, the quintessential Cold War-era alliance, is expanding its focus to include Beijing.

Between the lines: Although the parallels to the Cold War are easy to draw, the world is a very different place now than it was in the 1950s — in ways that have direct implications for the nature of this competition and the people caught in the middle.

• China is the world’s top trading partner, whereas the Soviet Union implemented an economic embargo, blockading itself from trade with nations outside the Soviet bloc.
• The U.S. and China have close economic, educational, and people-to-people ties. There are 5.4 million people of Chinese heritage in the U.S.
• “The most important element of [U.S.-China] competition globally is economics and economic capabilities, and not military power and military capabilities, which makes it different from the Cold War,” M. Taylor Fravel, a professor of political science at MIT, told Axios.

There’s one point of broad agreement, though — just about nobody wants another cold war.

• Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass warned last year that adopting a cold war lens would mean tensions with China would become “the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy,” which would in his view be a “major strategic error.”
• President Biden has repeatedly rejected that framing, saying at the United Nations in September, “We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs.”
• Beijing regularly accuses the U.S. of harboring a “Cold War mentality,” a claim it made most recently after the launch of AUKUS.

The bottom line: The U.S.-China relationship has deteriorated significantly over the past five years, but we’re not yet doomed to repeat the past.

Go deeper: The “new Cold War” started in Beijing

Source: https://www.axios.com/us-china-cold-war-missile-taiwain-submarines-475e719b-60b1-48aa-9281-d0d38442c39f.html
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US discloses size of nuclear stockpile for first time since 2018

The Biden administration on Tuesday disclosed the U.S. nuclear stockpile for the first time since 2018, the Trump administration having refused to disclose the information for the past two years.According to the …

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/575483-us-discloses-size-of-nuclear-stockpile-for-first-time-since-2018
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Fusion energy nears reality thanks to an ultra-powerful magnet

Fusion energy just had its second breakthrough in as many months. Motherboardnotes an MIT- and Commonwealth Fusion Systems-led research team has successfully demonstrated a high-temperature superconducting electromagnet producing a field strength of 20 tesla — the most powerful field of its kind on Earth. The technology could be the key to SPARC, a fusion device due in 2025 that could foster a plasma field producing more energy than it consumes.

Systems based on superconducting electromagnets aren’t new. The under-construction ITER device in France will use low-temperature superconductors. However, the MIT-CFS hardware’s high-temperature technology (built using a ribbon-like tape material) allows for much stronger magnetic fields. It can match the field of a low-temperature magnet system 40 times its size, according to MIT.

SPARC and its net positive energy output would be just the start. MIT and CFS still plan to develop a fusion power plant, ARC, that might go online as soon as 2033. Should that happen, fusion energy would finally become a practical reality — just in time to help a world transitioning to electric vehicles that demand more from power grids.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/fusion-energy-superconducting-electromagnet-172303204.html?src=rss
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Fukushima operators to build undersea tunnel to dump contaminated water

Japanese government claims water from nuclear plant released through 1km tunnel will be safe as all radioactive elements will have been removed

Operators of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have unveiled plans to construct an undersea tunnel to release more than a million tonnes of treated water from the site into the ocean.

Plans for the 1km tunnel were announced on Wednesday after the Japanese government decided in April to release the accumulated water in two years’ time.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/26/fukushima-operators-to-build-undersea-tunnel-to-dump-contaminated-water
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U.S. concern over China nukes buildup after new silos report

A report on Monday said satellite images showed China was building a new field of silos near Hami in the eastern part of its Xinjiang region.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-concern-over-china-nukes-buildup-after-new-silos-n1275247
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Climate events are the leading cause of nuclear power outages

Enlarge / Cooling water is only one factor that limits the productivity of nuclear power plants. (credit: Getty Images)

With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it’s increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn’t designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it’s not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it’s the full range of climate disturbances.

Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious.

Overall this latest analysis calculates that the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is almost eight times higher than it was in the 1990s. The analysis also estimates that the global nuclear fleet will lose up 1.4 percent—about 36 TWh—of its energy production in the next 40 years, and up to 2.4 percent, or 61 TWh, by 2081-2100.

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Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/climate-events-are-the-leading-cause-of-nuclear-power-outages/
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‘A big blow’: Washington’s arms controllers brace for loss of their biggest backer

For the Washington think tanks and foundations that work to control the spread of nuclear weapons, the Doomsday Clock is inching closer to midnight.

That’s because a leading financial backer of their efforts to reduce nuclear proliferation is ending its support, sending shockwaves through arms control institutions that are already struggling to remain influential.

For more than 40 years, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States, has been a primary benefactor of a host of non-profit research centers, academic programs and grassroots organizations dedicated to reversing the spread of nuclear weapons and training a generation of arms control experts.

Since 2015 alone, MacArthur directed 231 grants totaling more than $100 million to “nuclear challenges” — in some cases providing more than half the annual funding for individual institutions or programs.

But its recent conclusion that it wasn’t achieving its goals and decision to pull out of the arena could be detrimental without alternative sources of funding, according to multiple veterans of the nuclear policy community.

“It’s a big blow for the field,” said Joan Rohlfing, president and COO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that has been one of the largest recipients of MacArthur’s grants. “It is moving in the opposite direction of the needs of the community right now.”

Indeed, while she said the MacArthur grants make up only a small share of NTI’s budget, the move couldn’t come at a worse time for the wider community of nuclear policy practitioners.

“The threat of nuclear use is growing,” she said. “This is one of the most dangerous periods in our history since the bomb was created.”

Rohlfing cited a litany of worrying trends: “the complexity of nine nuclear weapons states; the tension between nuclear weapons states; things like cyber vulnerabilities to nuclear systems; rising and continuing threat of nuclear terrorism.”

They “all contribute to an extremely dangerous threat environment,” she added. “Now is the time to be really investing more resources in innovation for problem solving within this space.”

Other leaders in reducing global nuclear threats are similarly concerned. “We are at a crossroads right now,” added Emma Belcher, president of the Ploughshares Fund, another leading philanthropy focused on nuclear disarmament. “We really need a strong civil society to produce that independent analysis to inform the public and hold governments accountable.”

MacArthur’s unexpected decision was revealed in June with little explanation, in a report published on its website.

“We know that our decision to exit after 2023 will have a wide-ranging impact on the nuclear field,” the foundation told POLITICO in a statement in response to questions. “It was a hard decision, and not one we made lightly.”

The foundation says that while its decision was based on a number of factors, it cited an assessment it completed last year that concluded it had no “line of sight” to achieve its latest “big bet” on the nuclear front of halting the production of new bomb material.

The foundation stresses, however, that it is not pulling its funding immediately. It is engaged in a three-year, $30 million “capstone” effort to tackle nuclear challenges before it winds down the support in two years.

That final round of funding is aimed at developing a more diverse pipeline of experts, mitigating the security risks of nuclear power and to “rethink” long held assumptions about how to deter nuclear conflict, according to MacArthur.

But “at the conclusion of the capstone grants in 2023,” it told POLITICO, “MacArthur will exit the nuclear field.” The funding is expected to be directed to a host of other policy work and issues the foundation supports, from combating climate change to education and public health.

That could be dire news to a host of major beneficiaries of MacArthur funding over the years.

Other major recipients of funding are the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where then-Vice President Joe Biden laid out his nuclear policy vision in 2017, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, which has trained a generation of government nuclear experts.

Some organizations depend on the foundation for a major share of their annual budgets.

For example, the Arms Control Association, a Washington think tank with a $1.6 million budget, last fall was awarded a one-year, $400,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

Daryl Kimball, the organization’s executive director, said he remains puzzled as to why, if MacArthur determined it could not meet the goals it had set in the nuclear area, it didn’t just change its strategy.

“It would be a mistake to believe that nuclear weapons no longer pose an existential threat to humanity,” Kimball said in an interview. “Investments in civil society efforts to halt and reverse [the] growing global nuclear arms race and get back on the path towards a world without nuclear weapons are as important, if not more important and urgent, than ever.”

Robert Gallucci, a former president of MacArthur and diplomat who helped secure Russian nuclear weapons after the Cold War and negotiated with North Korea over its nuclear program, called the decision “unwise and profoundly regrettable.”

He also cited “the continuing threat to national and international security presented by the possession and spread of nuclear weapons.”

The organization that has been operating the Doomsday Clock, a measure of the risk of global annihilation, has also been dependent on MacArthur for decades.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded in 1945 by the scientists who invented the atomic bomb to engage the public on the risks of the nuclear age, received a $700,000 grant two years ago, said Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO. It’s annual budget is $2.8 million.

“The percentage that goes into the community from MacArthur is a big deal,” she said. “They’ve gotten us through some very difficult times. It’s really disappointing they are stepping away.”

The clock, which is now at 100 seconds to midnight, she added, is “the closest it’s ever been to midnight in the history of the clock.”

Another group that is bracing for fallout is the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, which says it has relied on MacArthur for more than half of its funding.

“MacArthur was providing something like 40 to 55 percent of all the funding worldwide of the non-government funding worldwide on nuclear policy,” said Matthew Bunn, who directs the program.

Without such support, Bunn and others worry about losing voices that have shaped nuclear policy in Washington and beyond for decades.

He has outlined a series of nuclear policy decisions that were influenced by such nongovernmental organizations.

One is the Global Threat Reduction Initiative initiated during the George W. Bush administration and expanded on under former President Barack Obama that removed supplies of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for atomic bombs, from vulnerable reactors around the world.

Another was the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2010, and extended for another five years by President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in January.

“A reasonable case can be made that had the non-government community funded by MacArthur not existed, the treaty might not have been ratified,” Bunn contends. “Had that happened, we would today be in a world with no limits at all on U.S. or Russian nuclear forces, for the first time in half a century.”

Some have even argued that nuclear arms control and disarmament groups played a significant role in ending the Cold War.

More recently, leading beneficiaries of MacArthur funding such as the Arms Control Association and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have also been on the front lines in the fight to scale back a series of new nuclear weapons.

For example, they have been pressing Congress to cut or cancel the Air Force’s new intercontinental ballistic missile and reverse the decision in 2019 to deploy a new low-yield warhead on submarines.

Many of these programs have also been incubators for generations of nuclear experts, including those who have filled top positions on the National Security Council and at the State, Defense and Energy Departments.

One high-profile example: Bonnie Jenkins, Biden’s nominee to be undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, who studied at the Harvard program.

MacArthur’s decision to back out also comes as other leading philanthropies in the nuclear area have either pulled out or curtailed their level of funding in recent years, including the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Skoll Foundation and W. Alton Jones Foundation.

“There is no obvious successor,” said Rohlfing at NTI. “We’re going to need to work hard to develop new relationships with donors and help make the case for why this is important.”

The Ploughshares Fund’s Belcher, who also previously oversaw MacArthur’s nuclear challenges portfolio, said the wider community will need to rethink how it raises money.

“The nuclear danger is growing,” she said. “I think looking at traditional foundations might not be the answer. I think this is an area that could be very attractive for people who haven’t invested in this before — entrepreneurs in their own right who may have more of a tech background. We could tap into a type of different funding than we’ve seen before.”

“I think for more savvy and dedicated, maybe daring investors, there’s a real opportunity,” she added. “The field is ripe for investment.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/washington-arms-controllers-nuclear-weapons-500126
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China building more than 100 ‘nuclear’ missile silos in desert

Satellite footage shows ‘alarming development’ that signals possible expansion of nuclear capabilities

China is building more than 100 missile silos in the desert, according to an analysis of satellite photos, which researchers say signals a possible expansion of the country’s nuclear capabilities.

Analysts warned the expansion signified an “alarming development” but also urged caution against “worst-case thinking”, noting tension between major nuclear powers over disarmament.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/01/china-building-missile-silos-nuclear
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Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK

Canadian company General Fusion is set to build a $400m fusion demonstrator near Oxford.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57512229
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Biden goes ‘full steam ahead’ on Trump’s nuclear expansion despite campaign rhetoric

President Joe Biden ran on a platform opposing new nuclear weapons, but his first defense budget backs two controversial new projects put in motion by former President Donald Trump and also doubles down on the wholesale upgrade of all three legs of the arsenal.

The decision to retain a low-yield warhead that was outfitted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles in 2019, and to initiate research into a new sea-launched cruise missile, has sparked an outcry from arms control advocates and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which is vowing a fight to reverse the momentum.

“We must instead spend money on threats that Americans are actually facing like pandemics and climate change, instead of on new destabilizing weapons when we can extend the lifespan of the ones we already have for much cheaper,” progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Khanna and other Democrats are spoiling for a fight over nuclear funding in the coming months, including slashing money for a new fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the new sea-launched missiles.

“The signal this budget is sending is full steam ahead: ‘We like what Trump was doing and we want to do more of it,’’ said Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, a leading disarmament group. “It is not the message Biden was sending as a candidate. What we have here is Biden essentially buying into the Trump nuclear plan, in some cases going beyond that.”

Emma Claire Foley, a researcher at Global Zero, a disarmament group, said the latest budget “essentially preserves the priorities of the Trump administration,” despite the new administration’s rhetoric about pursuing a more responsible nuclear posture.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden told the Council for a Livable World, an arms control group, that the current arsenal is “sufficient” and the United States does not need new nuclear weapons. In July 2019, Biden also called Trump’s move to introduce new capabilities a “bad idea.”

The Democratic Party platform in 2020 also bluntly stated that “the Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.”

The former vice president, who has a long history of pushing for less reliance on nuclear weapons, cautioned against investing in a nuclear expansion just days before he left office in 2017.

“If future budgets reverse the choices we’ve made, and pour additional money into a nuclear buildup, it harkens back to the Cold War and will do nothing to increase the day-to-day security of the United States or our allies,” Biden told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But his budget plan now reflects different priorities. In total, Biden is requesting $43.2 billion for nuclear weapons, a slight decrease from the $44.2 billion appropriated in fiscal 2021.

That includes modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad: the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which is the replacement for the fleet of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles; the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines; and the new B-21 stealth bomber.

The budget also proposes $609 million for the Long Range Standoff Missile, which is designed to be outfitted on bomber planes. That’s $250 million more than what was projected by the Trump administration for fiscal 2022.

Most controversially, the Pentagon’s request maintains the W76-2 low-yield warhead that is now outfitted on submarines and sets aside $5.2 million for a new sea-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Another $10 million is being requested for the warhead in the budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department.

The low-yield warhead, which has less explosive power than other atomic bombs, was recommended by the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which concluded that Russia’s growing reliance on such weapons in war planning required the United States to develop more “flexible” options to deter their use.

“Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression,” the review stated.

The weapon is a new version of an existing warhead. “The modification had already been purchased and fielding began in FY 2020 and may already be completed,” said Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association.

The Trump nuclear review also made the case for building a new version of a sea-launched cruise missile that could carry a lower yield warhead, a class of weapon that was taken offline at the end of the Cold War. Biden’s research and development budget has a provision to “design, develop, produce and deploy a Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile.”

The arms control and disarmament community is making clear its disappointment. “President Biden ran on a campaign to reverse the budget and outrageous policies put forward by the Trump administration,” the Council for a Livable World said in a statement Wednesday. “However, this budget expands nearly every nuclear program put forward by that administration. This is not acceptable.”

As “a long-time supporter of arms control and nuclear threat reduction,” the group said, Biden “can — and should — do better.”

Collina also noted the contradiction in Biden’s previous statements and the budget request. “Now Biden wants to fully fund all of Trump’s nukes,” he said. “Which is the real Biden?”

A White House spokesperson deferred to DoD. A Pentagon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision to keep the low-yield weapon is seen as particularly worrisome because it would have been relatively easy to jettison compared to some of the other major programs.

“I would say that the preservation of the low-yield weapon project is pretty disheartening,” said Foley of Global Zero, which published its own alternative Nuclear Posture Review in 2018.

“There is a number of systems, like the low-yield warhead for the submarines and the nuclear cruise missiles, that Trump began under his watch that are completely unnecessary and would have been quite easy for the Biden administration to pick off,” Collina added. “They were the low-hanging fruit.”

He also cited proposed funding increases for projects such as the Long Range Standoff Missile. “They have added to the momentum,” Collina said. “The more billions you pump into these things the harder it is to kill.”

Foley sees the budget as evidence that the new administration is embracing the view that the United States needs to match every weapon that Russia or China develop.

“We don’t need this mentality of capability matching, which is driving this low-yield weapon and is driving the ICBM conversation,” she said. “If we are thinking in terms of deterrence we need to meet the threats that are out there, which we can do with a smaller force of bombers and submarines. We don’t need to have everything everybody else has. That’s not a strategically valid thought.”

Progressive Democrats who have sought to cut a number of the programs, including the GBSD, the LRSO, the low-yield warhead and the new cruise missile, also see the current approach as “misguided.”

Khanna and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), another vocal progressive, are objecting to Biden’s nuclear budget request and contend the money could be better spent on domestic programs and efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawmakers are pushing legislation to bar funding for the GBSD program or the new W87-1 warhead intended for the missiles and to shift $1 billion from research efforts on the new land-based missile to coronavirus vaccine.

“Spending trillions on the Pentagon budget didn’t stop this devastating pandemic, and I’ll continue fighting for cuts to this perennially-bloated line item,” Markey said.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO he also “strongly” believes “the United States needs to alter its modernization strategy from one that’s predicated on dominance to one that is based on deterrence.”

Other senior Democrats want to block funding the new nuclear cruise missile, a version of which was removed from Navy ships in the early 1990s and formally retired in 2013.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who chairs the House Armed Services’ Seapower panel, have sponsored legislation to nix all funding for it.

Van Hollen slammed the program as “not only reckless, but costly and unnecessary” and chided the Biden administration for advancing the Trump-era effort.

“I’ll be working to prevent additional funds from going to this endeavor and to ensure Navy funding goes where it’s needed most,” Van Hollen said.

Some supporters of the current nuclear portfolio suggested that the Biden budget may simply be a “placeholder” until the administration completes its own Nuclear Posture Review.

Tim Morrison, who oversaw the nuclear portfolio on the Trump National Security Council and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said he believes that any major proposals to slash weapons programs will first require building a consensus across the executive branch before trying to convince Congress.

“The most dangerous place I think they can be is to cut or scale back programs before they could do these reviews,” Morrison said. “It would show such decisions were based on ideology. If they are going to kill the triad they need buy-in. The last thing they want is any of those military leaders saying they weren’t consulted on any decisions.

“This is a holding action while they run their reviews,” he added. “We’ll see next year.”

Collina sees it differently. “To me if you were going into a placeholder you would freeze or pause,” he said. “This makes me worried that the NPR is not going to be an open review but that what we are seeing is kind of the administration tipping their hand, that they are not going to spend any political time on it. They are letting themselves stay boxed in.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/02/biden-trump-nuclear-weapons-491631
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Protests grow in South Korea over Japan’s Fukushima water plan

Fishing communities worry water will contaminate the seas despite promises it will be cleaned of radioactive substances.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/3/protests-grow-in-south-korea-over-japan-fukushima-disposal-plan
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North Korea has more nuclear weapons than ever. What should Biden do?

After decades of sanctions, threats and diplomacy, including Trump’s showy summits, North Korea has more nukes than ever and missiles that can hit the U.S.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/north-korea-has-more-nuclear-weapons-ever-what-should-biden-n1263983
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Ukraine may seek nuclear weapons if left out of NATO: Diplomat

Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany calls on the transatlantic security alliance to grant Ukraine long-sought membership.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/16/ukraine-may-seek-nuclear-weapons-if-left-out-of-nato-diplomat
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Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

Enlarge (credit: US DOE)

More details have emerged about the climate and energy priorities of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, and they include support for nuclear power and carbon capture with sequestration (CCS).

In a press conference yesterday with reporters, White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said the administration would seek to implement a clean energy standard that would encourage utilities to use greener power sources. She added that both nuclear and CCS would be included in the administration’s desired portfolio. The clean energy standard adds a climate dimension to the Biden administration’s recently announced infrastructure plan, seeking to put the US on a path to eliminating carbon pollution.

“We think a CES is appropriate and advisable, and we think the industry itself sees it as one of the most flexible and most effective tools,” McCarthy told reporters. “The CES is going to be fairly robust and it is going to be inclusive.”

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Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/nuclear-should-be-considered-part-of-clean-energy-standard-white-house-says/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Tim De Chant

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US warns North Korea could be planning ICBM test ‘in near future’ in test for Biden

Comments come as US secretary of state and defence secretary begin visit to Japan and South Korea to discuss security

North Korea could be planning to flight test an upgraded inter-continental ballistic missile [ICBM] “in the near future,” a senior US military official has warned, in what would be the regime’s first serious policy challenge for Joe Biden.

The warning, by Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who as head of the Northern Command is in charge of defending the continental US, appeared to be based on North Korea’s unveiling at a parade in October of what would be its largest ICBM yet, and not on specific intelligence about an imminent launch.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/17/us-warns-north-korea-could-be-planning-icbm-test-in-near-future-in-test-for-biden
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies

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The Fukushima disaster in maps and charts

Ten years after Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami, we take a look at how the disaster unfolded.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/10/fukushima-disaster-in-maps-and-charts
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The man who saves cats in Fukushima’s nuclear zone – in pictures

Sakae Kato stayed behind a decade ago to rescue abandoned cats whose owners fled radiation clouds from the Fukushima nuclear plant

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/mar/05/the-man-who-saves-cats-in-fukushimas-nuclear-zone-in-pictures
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

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State Department: U.S. would accept EU invite to return to Iran deal talks

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/us-uk-europe-allies-reaffirm-iran-nuclear-deal-stance-paris/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Charlie Cooper and David M. Herszenhorn

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Air Force prepares for budget battle over nuclear weapons

The battle lines are being drawn for what is expected to be the biggest clash over the Pentagon budget this year: whether to keep pursuing a new $100 billion replacement for the nuclear missiles now on standby across three Western states.

The Air Force and its allies in Congress, think tanks and defense contractors are sharpening their arguments for why any delay or reversal in replacing the 400 Minuteman III missiles that were first deployed in 1970 would weaken the U.S. nuclear deterrent while Russia and China are updating or expanding their arsenals.

But progressive lawmakers and disarmament advocates are lobbying allies in the Biden administration for a pause in the program, arguing that holding off could save billions, considering that future arms control agreements might require fewer intercontinental ballistic missiles, if any at all.

The fate of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent contract, which was awarded to Northrop Grumman last year — along with new and refurbished warheads that will go with it — will prove to be an early test of whether the newly empowered progressive wing of the Democratic Party can make significant inroads toward shrinking the nuclear weapons budget.

“It is the most contentious part of the modernization program and one most likely to take the most heat in the first phase of the attack,” said Franklin Miller, who oversaw the arms control portfolio on the National Security Council for President George W. Bush and advised the Trump administration on nuclear issues. “It will be the one that will probably be pressed hardest by the progressives because it’s got a big dollar target associated with it.”

The military’s nuclear commanders and conservative national security scholars are making a collective effort to educate policymakers and the public, while hawkish members of Congress are grilling Pentagon nominees on their plans for the program. Military officials are briefing the press and members of Congress on the need for the program and their plans to begin preparations this summer for testing the new missile, as well as publishing dire warnings about Russia and China’s aggressive nuclear ambitions.

So far, Biden’s top Pentagon nominees have publicly backed all three legs of the nuclear triad — the land-based missiles as well as nuclear-armed submarines and bombers — but they have stopped short of endorsing specific programs while they prepare to craft their first defense budget request.

Several senators pressed Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks at her confirmation hearing on her views, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who specifically tried to get her to commit to the GBSD program as it is currently planned and funded.

“It’s difficult for me to assess exactly what the timeline and the margin, if you will, is,” she responded, “and also the technical feasibility issues, not just resource issues but technical feasibility issues.”

But the Air Force says it is confident its arguments will prevail after the Biden administration reviews the nuclear modernization plan, which also includes plans to build a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines, a next-generation bomber that can carry nuclear weapons, and a suite of new air- and sea-launched missiles to replace other outdated systems.

“I think when those organizations, in particular you mentioned the new administration, look at all the homework that’s been done behind GBSD, they’re going to see the equation the same way,” Maj. Gen. Michael Lutton, commander of the 20th Air Force, said in an interview. His organization is responsible for operating and maintaining the Minuteman III missiles located in underground silos at bases in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman an inital $13.3 billion contract for the GBSD program in September. It will give the ICBM force “increased accuracy, enhanced security and improved reliability” and offer a “broader array of strategic nuclear options to address the threats of today and the future,” the service said. The missile would begin to be deployed in the later part of this decade, the announcement said.

Lutton stressed that the public should understand that the program is not designed to expand the nuclear arsenal, only to replace weapons that are getting increasingly difficult to maintain.

“This effort is about modernization,” he said. “Not about more. That’s lost in a lot of the discussion. We’re looking at how we modernize our force, not how we get more ICBMs. That modernization is the way to go. We can’t life-extend this weapon system any longer.”

It’s a major refrain from the nuclear brass, which maintains that pausing the program or reversing course would effectively begin phasing out the land-based leg.

“Let me be very clear, you cannot life-extend Minuteman III,” Adm. Charles Richard, head of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees all three legs of the nuclear triad, recently told reporters as he cited the difficulty of finding replacement parts. “That thing is so old that in some cases the drawings don’t exist anymore.“

He also took a swipe at critics outside of government who suggest they know better about the challenges facing the Air Force to ensure the aging weapons system is reliable. Or as he called them, “someone in a think tank who actually doesn’t have their hands on the missile.”

Lutton also maintains that the nuclear threat from Russia and China requires a new missile. “Those countries are increasing the numbers and capabilities of weapons,” he said. “Those countries are developing new delivery systems. Those countries are developing nuclear weapons with smaller yields. We’re looking at modernizing our forces, not growing our force.”

But these arguments are also increasingly coming under scrutiny from those who question the assumption that the U.S. will need 400 ICBMs on alert for decades to come.

“It is possible to further extend the life of the Minuteman III and doing so would save a significant amount of money,” said Kingston Reif, director of disarmament and threat reduction at the Arms Control Association, which is calling for a halt in the contract as a first step. He was citing a 2017 analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that estimated that $20 billion could be saved by delaying the new missile program for 20 years and in the meantime continuing to refurbish the current missiles.

Moreover, the Biden administration has stated its desire to negotiate new arms control limits after extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia for five years this month. And both sides pledged to begin negotiations about reductions.

“If it turns out that ICBMs are further reduced as part of that [future] agreement, you don’t need to replace as many, or you may not even need to replace them,” said Sharon Weiner, who was a program examiner for the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2014 to 2017 and responsible for the nuclear weapons budget. “You can cannibalize them for longer.”

Weiner, who now teaches at American University, believes the savings could be greater, depending on what the next few years hold on the arms control front. She notes, for example, that those estimates “presume that then you would buy GBSD in the same numbers that you were planning to buy.”

“I think we need a big debate, now that we are in the majority, about the $100 billion acquisition cost of a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a leading advocate for reducing the nuclear weapons budget. “The Air Force knows they can extend the lifespan of the existing Minuteman IIIs.”

“It is something I plan on raising so we are debating these issues,” he added in an interview. “That’s something we can do this year, begin to scale back the amount of unnecessary investment in the making in the new ICBM.”

Progressive lawmakers and other leading advocates for scaling back the ICBM program are also armed with the influential voice of former Defense Secretary William Perry, who has called for phasing out the land-based leg of the triad. He argues that the missiles are too vulnerable to an accidental launch and that nuclear-armed submarines and bombers are sufficient to deter Russia, China and other potential adversaries.

“We will be continuing to push the administration on this and there’s a good chance, I think, of success, in pushing them to where it will get discussed, whereas with the previous administration there wasn’t any point to pushing,” Perry said in an interview.

Perry is recommending that “we simply stop the new contract, put a pause on the new contract, while we’re debating it.”

A spokesperson for Northrop Grumman pointed to recent remarks by CEO Kathy Warden on the value of the program. “We see this part of the triad as the most resilient … and one of the most important of the three legs,” she told the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday.

In November, Warden also cited support for the GBSD from the Obama and Trump administrations following reviews of nuclear programs. “Both of those concluded that the path that we’re on for modernization of the ICBMs with the current GBSD program is the right path,” she said. “And I fully expect that to be the conclusion if another review was conducted.”

Proponents of curtailing the program are also pointing to new polling data indicating the public is lukewarm on spending so much over the coming decades on a new missile, in addition to the warheads and support facilities that will be required.

But the obstacles to changing course may be insurmountable. Republicans in the Senate, who would have to ratify any new arms control treaties — which require a two-thirds majority — are certain to continue to demand a robust nuclear modernization program in return for their support.

“I would fully expect Senate Republicans to continue to make that argument now that the Biden administration has agreed to a five-year extension of New START,” said Rebeccah Heinrichs, a specialist on arms control and nonproliferation at the hawkish Hudson Institute. “We must continue on our investments and that 100 percent includes getting GBSD online.”

That was the “grand bargain” President Barack Obama struck when he got Senate approval for New START in 2010.

“Therein lies the frustration of the progressives and that is behind the renewed vigor with which they’re pushing their agenda,” Miller said. They feel “we got screwed by Obama. This is our real chance to make a difference.”

Then there are the powerful political interests in both parties, in the defense industry and in the states where the ICBM force is a major source of economic activity.

“It is a huge issue,” said Peter Zwack, a retired Army brigadier general who served as defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 2012 to 2014. “There are a lot of agendas and lobbies tied to this. It is big money. Gotta keep the production facilities going,” as the argument goes, “gotta keep the research labs going. There is momentum.”

But even simply having a serious public debate about the need for such a large-scale investment is an end in itself, added Zwack, who is now a scholar at the Wilson Center.

He predicted that in the not-too-distant future there will likely be “a different mix” of weapons in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. “I am for modernization but I’m wary that we are about to go into a massive, expensive upgrade,” he said. “I think we both have massively more than enough. Whether it’s 100 or 1,000 ICBMs, it means the end of the world.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/11/nuclear-weapons-pentagon-budget-468454
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Bryan Bender

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Mini Nuclear Reactor at Government Lab Shut Down After Radiation Leak

A small-scale nuclear reactor at a government neutron research facility was shut down last week after it began to spew elevated amounts of ionizing radiation. No employees received dangerous doses of radiation, according to officials, who are now devising a plan to determine the cause of the leak.

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Source: https://gizmodo.com/mini-nuclear-reactor-at-government-lab-shut-down-after-1846241556
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The Article Was Written/Published By: George Dvorsky

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