CND Press Roundup Thursday 26th May 2022

War in Ukraine

• Nuclear historian Dr Alex Wellerstein writes on the threat posed by low-yield nuclear bombs – and assesses the chance one may be used during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the US side, Wellerstein describes the type of weapons the US holds at its NATO bases in Europe: “According to Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists, it has around 230 B61 gravity bombs deployed for tactical use, including many fielded in Europe as part of the NATO nuclear arsenal. These come in various yields, including as low as 300 tons of TNT. These would need to be dropped out of bombers or fighter planes. The U.S. has also, in recent years, begun deploying a new warhead variant (the W76-2) on U.S. submarine ballistic missiles that are estimated to be around eight kilotons in yield. This was started during the Trump administration, which argued that the U.S. needed a more rapid means of delivering a lower-yield weapon than an airplane. Whether this is a good idea has been hotly debated; those in favor say it will deter Russia from using its low-yield weapons, and those against say it will possibly lower the threshold for nuclear use. It would be impossible for Russia to know it was ‘low-yield’ until it detonated, leading to real dangers of swift escalation.”

Trident

• Outsourcing of key MoD services to private companies has come under serious scrutiny in a new report by MPs on the defence select committee. Capita, the firm in charge of firefighting services at the UK’s Trident nuclear base in Faslane, was particularly criticised for what the report said amounted to cutting corners in order to boost profits. In 2019, Capital won a 12 year contract worth £525 million to take over responsibility for half of the specialist firefighters attached to the Defence Fire and Rescue Service (DFRS) – which includes Faslane. However, since then the number of firefighters at the base has halved with the Guardian reporting that a “total of 38 out of 524 had left on a voluntary basis as of last December” with 150 more asking to be allowed to quit. The committee concluded that: “The MoD’s outsourcing practice is not exemplary…Contractors drop standards and squeeze employees to raise their profit margin, but the MoD is not always willing to step in.”

• YouGov polling for The Times has found that 45 percent of Scots would back the continuation of basing Trident nuclear submarines in Scotland in the event of independence. 34 percent were opposed while a further 21 percent said they didn’t know. Those least likely to support nuclear weapons were SNP voters. The survey also found large support for an independent Scotland joining NATO, with 73 percent supporting membership, 8 percent opposing and 19 percent saying they didn’t know.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Dr Paul Dorfman argues against nuclear energy as the solution in the move away from fossil fuels in The New Statesman. He writes: “Nuclear isn’t just slow and expensive – it’s far too inflexible to ramp up and down with the swings of demand. When the wind fails to blow and the sun doesn’t shine, that’s when grid upgrades, interconnection (which enables power to be shared between neighbouring countries), energy efficiency management, and rapidly evolving storage technology steps in to make up the difference. Nuclear’s contribution has, can and will only ever be very marginal. The reality is, it’s already well past its sell-by date.” An opposing view by Wade Allison can be found here.

• A Guardian exclusive has found that security warnings at the UK’s nuclear facilities have hit a 12 year high – leading to concerns that the nuclear regulation will be unable to cope with the government’s plan to massively expand the civilian nuclear sector. “A total of 456 incident notification forms documenting security issues at UK nuclear facilities were submitted to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) over 2021…This is 30% higher than the 320 reports filed during the whole of 2020 and more than double the 213 reports that were filed in 2018.”

• Who ruined the UK’s civilian nuclear sector is discussed in thisarticle by Investment Monitor. Thankfully it seems that both the main parties are to blame: “It is true that during the 13 years Labour was most recently in power, between 1997 and 2010, construction did not begin on any new nuclear power reactors. Yet Johnson’s Conservative Party has been in power ever since, and those 12 years have seen no new nuclear power stations completed either.”

• Nuclear energy firm EDF has commenced de-fuelling of the Hunterston B nuclear plant in Scotland.

Global Nuclear Energy

• South Korea and Bangladesh will expand co-operation in the nuclear sector, with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to assist Bangladesh with the “development, utilisation and upgrade of research reactors, the production and application of radioisotopes, development of radiation technology, neutron science and the management of radioactive wastes.”

Iran Nuclear Deal

• The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp will remain on the US terrorism watchlist, according to a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennett. “I commend the US administration, led by my friend President Joe Biden, on the decision to keep the [IRGC] in their rightful place – on the foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list,” he said. Removing the IRGC’s terrorist designation is one of the outstanding demands being made by Iran in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

Global Abolition

• Counter Currents has a write up on Bertrand Russell to coincide with his recent 150th birthday. Needless to say, CND and his pacifism gets several mentions.