CND Press Roundup Tuesday 12th April 2022

War in Ukraine

• Robbin Laird’s latest column for Breaking Defense calls for a return to nuclear escalation management – something he sees as lacking from NATO’s diplomatic and military strategy after over two decades of focusing on counter-terrorism. He argues that since the end of the Cold War – western military thinking has failed to consider nuclear war alongside conventional warfare in the 21st century – leaving nuclear de-escalation skills in short supply when dealing with today’s authoritarian leaders.

• The Bulletin writes on why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should not mean more nuclear proliferation among other states.

• The Intercept looks at Joe Biden’s decision to forgo a restrained nuclear weapons policy – essentially keeping a first-strike policy in line with that of Vladimir Putin. Speaking to the Intercept, Tom Collina, policy director at the nuclear arms control group Ploughshares Fund, said that Biden had missed a great opportunity to de-escalate in the wake of Putin’s “nuclear blackmail” over Ukraine. “Its therefore deeply disappointing that the Biden administration just missed a key opportunity to reject first use. Instead, Biden’s policy also allows first use and is essentially the same as Russia’s, and this undermines Biden’s ability to build international opposition to what Putin is doing,” he said.

• Dylan Robertson writes to the Lancashire Telegraph calling for people to vote for peace candidates in May’s local elections.

• Denmark is to purchase 2 million iodine tablets as part of preparations for a nuclear accident, if the war in Ukraine was to spill over into a wider conflict. The Nordic state doesn’t have any nuclear power facilities itself, but is near ones in Sweden, Germany, or onboard nuclear-powered vessels traversing its coastal waters.

AUKUS

• Responsible Statecraft looks at the AUKUS military pact of the UK, US, and Australia, and its impact on security tensions in the Indo-Pacific. On the recent addition of developing hypersonic missiles to the pact’s remit: “The United States is widely considered to be behind China and Russia in hypersonic technology. However, Washington is very much implicated in Chinese advances. The United States probably sparked China’s drive for hypersonics when it withdrew from the bedrock Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2001.”

• I missed this when the story first came out, but with Australia about to head into election season – voters will be kept in the dark on why three locations were chosen as potential bases for nuclear-powered submarines procured under the AUKUS programme. Brisbane, Newcastle and Wollongong’s Port Kembla were all name-dropped by Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a high-profile security announcement last month – along with revelations that the AUKUS pact would involve AUS$10 billion in infrastructure work. But the opposition Labor Party are calling for the Morrison government to show its homework on why the sites were selected – accusing Morrison of a “marketing ploy” to shore up support before voters go to the polls.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The UK government has released the criteria for its nuclear regulated asset base (RAB) model – a new financial framework for funding new nuclear power plants.

• Labour has reiterated its backing for nuclear power to be a vital part of the UK’s energy mix and a long-term solution to skyrocketing gas and electricity prices. Speaking ahead of a trip to Scotland, Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said both the SNP government and Scottish Tories had failed to get a grip of the crisis. “We need real investment in green and renewables jobs, not more broken promises. But we also need to seize the opportunities for investment and energy security that come with nuclear energy,” Starmer said.

• Brian Kelly writes to the National arguing that “energy rich Scotland doesn’t need new nuclear plants.”

• Open Democracy looks at the holes in the UK government’s energy strategy. In addition to highlighting problems with the current “broken” electricity market – it says the short-sighted focus on new sources of energy is an inherent weakness of the plan – while Boris Johnson’s ‘big bet’ on nuclear is dubbed as “unrealistic.”

• Lancashire Live looks at the divided local opinion over the news that Heysham is on the shortlist for new nuclear development under the government’s energy strategy.

• The Cumberland News and Star looks at the designation of Moorside as one of the eight nuclear designated sites.

• Meanwhile, Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) has slammedBoris Johnson’s dream of getting a quarter of the UK’s electricity from nuclear as a “fantasy.” NFLA National Chair, Councillor David Blackburn said: “It defies common sense that the current government is turning to a technology that is too slow to install, too costly to build, remains risky to operate and vulnerable to military and terrorist attack, and leaves a toxic legacy of radioactive waste that has to be safely stored for 100,000 years.

• YouGov polling finds 7 in 10 Britons would support the construction of wind farms in their local area – while just over 3 in 10 would support a nuclear power station.

European Nuclear Energy

• Germany’s largest energy firm, EON, has ruled out extending the life of its nuclear power plant near Munich. The Isar 2 plant is one of three remaining in the country and is due to go offline by the end of the year.

• A subsidiary of Russian nuclear energy concern – Rosatom – will proceed as planned with a nuclear power plant project in Finland. The Hanhikivi 1 project was commissioned by a Finnish-Russian consortium dubbed Fennovoima, and they expect to obtain a construction licence to build the 1.2 gigawatt (GW) reactor from the Finnish government by this summer, with construction to commence in 2023.

North Korea

• South Korean officials say recent threats by North Korea to use nuclear weapons is being viewed by Seoul as an “existential threat.”