CND Press Roundup Tuesday 17th May 2022

War in Ukraine

• While Russia’s Vladimir Putin said he has “no problem” with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Russian state media has been broadcasting more bellicose rhetoric on the announcement. Defence committee deputy chairman, Aleksey Zhuravlyov, was the latest official to mention a possible nuclear confrontation, telling the Russia 1 channel that Britain and other NATO members could be struck with nuclear missiles – referencing its newest missile the Sarmat II. “If the United States threatens our state, it’s good: here is the Sarmat for you, and there will be nuclear ashes from you if you think that Russia should not exist. And Finland says that it is at one with the USA. Well, get in line,” he said. “We can hit with a Sarmat from Siberia, and even reach the UK. And if we strike from Kaliningrad… the hypersonic’s reaching time is 200 seconds – so go ahead, guys,” he added.

• The regular mentioning of nuclear annihilation by Russian officials and media commentators has not been lost on The Telegraph. Never ones for hyperbole themselves, they call the recent threat of unleashing a nuclear tsunami over Britain and Ireland as “new depths of insanity.” The add: “Too often in the West, people imagine that all decisions in Russia are taken by Putin completely on his own, as if he were not influenced by advisors or the ecosystem in which he operates. This is palpably untrue. The Russian media is not just a mouthpiece or passive subject of the regime but also an actor within it and, currently, it is normalising talk of nuclear annihilation and feeding a war frenzy that is convincing Russians they are under existential attack.” Doesn’t sound like the British media landscape at all.

Trident / Nukes in Britain

• Suffolk News has reported the details of CND’s upcoming demonstration at RAF Lakenheath.

• SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has told an audience in Washington that NATO membership would “absolutely” feature as a “cornerstone of an independent Scotland’s security policy.” Sturgeon made the comments during a lecture given to the Brookings Institute. However, The Telegraph wryly notes that Sturgeon “failed to mention to her American audience her policy of removing Trident from the Faslane naval base on the Clyde if Scotland separated from the UK.”

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Guardian looks at plans to build an underground nuclear waste dump off the Lincolnshire coast and the local resistance to the plan. Located near the village of Theddlethorpe and the resort town of Mablethorpe, the plan is to convert a gas terminal near Mablethorpe beach into an onshore facility for accepting the waste. The dump itself would be six miles off the beach, buried between 100 and 200 metres below the sea. The dump “would be made up of subterranean tunnels and vaults, with natural and artificial barriers to minimise the escape of radioactivity,” the paper said quoting documents from Radioactive Waste Management, now part of the Nuclear Waste Services (NWS). While locals only found out that talks about the dump were underway thanks to a BBC news report, many have been voicing their opposition since. One Mablethorpe resident said: “I was totally shocked when we found out. This area was just not somewhere we ever thought they would put a nuclear dump. This is a tourist area, we have this beautiful beach, there is investment in tourism here. We rely on that tourism income and the idea that they could consider putting a nuclear dump here is just shocking to me.”

• A freedom of information request submitted by The Metro has revealed that 20 reports of sightings of drones were logged by security personnel at British nuclear sites between 2020 and 2021 – with many of the drones seized. Other reports covered sightings of drones near the facilities, as well as at “nuclear objects such as reactors, boats and submarines.” Peter Burt from the nuclear monitoring group Nukewatch told the paper : “There have certainly been cases of coordinated swarms of drones spotted flying over nuclear facilities in other countries, for example in France and the United States, so this raises questions about the security of our own nuclear facilities. I think it’s a legitimate question to ask whether similar incidents have occurred in this country and, if they have, who do we think is behind them?”

• French nuclear firm EDF has countered claims by the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng – that new nuclear power projects will result in a “small increase” in customer’s bills. EDF – who is currently building the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset – released a statement saying that nuclear power will actually result in cheaper bills over the course of the plant’s lifetime. “Nuclear power is zero carbon and will play a vital role in preventing any future energy crisis,” a spokesperson said. “If Hinkley Point C were online today, it would have saved consumers more than £1bn on energy bills for 2022 alone.”

• Nuclear Free Local Authorities is seeking assurances from both EDF and the Climate Ministry that uranium originating from Russia is not used to power British reactors. The Chair of the UK/Ireland NFLA, Councillor David Blackburn said: “From the onset of the conflict in Ukraine, the UK Government has made plain its desire to move away from Russian supplied energy resources. Many British citizens and EDF Energy customers will, I am sure, wish to join me in seeking reassurance from the nuclear plant operator and the government that Britain is no longer dependent for any part of its energy needs on Russian supplied uranium.”

Nuclear Energy

• The German government announced Monday that it will oppose EU plans to include nuclear power as a sustainable investment in its “taxonomy” policy for labelling green investments. “The Federal Government has expressed its opposition to the taxonomy rules on nuclear power. This ‘no’ is an important political signal that makes clear: Nuclear energy is not sustainable and should therefore not be part of the taxonomy,” a joint statement from Germany’s environment ministry and its economy and climate ministry.

Global Abolition

• Arms Control Association has an interview with Alexander Kmentt on the humanitarian case for nuclear disarmament. Kmentt – who currently serves as President-designate of the 1st Meeting of States Parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) – said the current global security situation could see nuclear proliferation go one of two ways: “It is a real threshold moment. Are we ‘jumping back to the 1950s,’ so to speak, into a situation where we did not yet have a nuclear treaty regime and basically have to restart again with rules and treaties, or can we use this as an opportunity to try to strengthen the framework that we have and prevent it from falling apart? The TPNW is the new kid on the block in this framework and we need to strengthen it.”

• The Critic has published a response to Patrick Porter’s recent article arguing why global nuclear abolition efforts should fail. In ‘Too dangerous to live with,’ Ward Wilson counters that there is no realist argument to keep nuclear weapons: “If nuclear weapons are so militarily useless, and if deterrence is bound to fail one day, how can one explain the strange attraction they seem to have? How can one explain the fact, which Porter points to, that no nuclear-armed state — or one even protected by a nuclear ally — has shown the slightest inclination to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? The answer is that they have become symbols of national stature. They are regularly referred to as the ‘currency of power’ Governments and experts cling to nuclear weapons because they are symbols of greatness, dark talismans of power. But as any first year college literature student will tell you, symbolism is tricky business, often prone to wild exaggeration. The practical record of non-use shows that the symbolism wrapped around nuclear weapons does not align with the reality.”

Fukushima 

• The Financial Times reports on comments made by Japan’s nuclear industry that the war in Ukraine has been the “best opportunity” for Japan’s nuclear industry to rebound since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Akihiko Kato, who heads the nuclear division at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, told the paper that nuclear energy was a safer supply than relying on Russian oil and gas imports. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. “It may be challenging to import fuel from Russia in the future. People are realising that as long as we import fuel from overseas, there will always be fear of instability,” Kato said. Calling nuclear power a “stable” and “safe” source of energy, Kato added that public opinion had been changing on nuclear power in the decade since the Fukushima disaster.