CND Press Digest - 31st July 2023

Posted: 31st July 2023


 War In Ukraine/NATO

  • Reuters: Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has sometimes raised the spectre of a nuclear conflict over Ukraine, said on Sunday that Moscow would have to use a nuclear weapon if Kyiv’s ongoing counter-offensive was a success.

UK Nuclear Weapons

  • BAE Systems for the ‘Detailed Design and Long Lead Items‘ phase of a new class of nuclear submarine.
  • BAE systems and Rolls-Royce are the big winners in Britain’s efforts to rearm, writes AUKUS

    • Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was confident a deal for the US to sell nuclear powered submarines to Australia was on track, ahead of talks between defence and foreign ministers of the two countries on Friday.
    • Guardian Australia: There’s Labor dissent over Aukus but it’s unlikely to spill into a rebellion at the ALP national conference.

    • Drones / AI

      • The US Air Force (USAF) has applied to the UK’s air regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to change airspace rules to allow RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper drones to fly from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. Read More on Drone Wars UK.
      • The Metro reports on the dozens of new technologies being developed by the MoD in the field of AI. Drone Wars founder Chris Cole said: ‘It’s clear that the MoD is crossing a line here. The projects in this list represent the building blocks needed to produce killer robots in the near future. The information revealed in this list raises significant questions about the government’s stated commitment not to develop autonomous weapon systems.’
      • The British government has just revealed the latest crash involving one of its Watchkeeper drones. The incident occurred on 10 November 2022 but is only being admitted to now. It brings to 8 the total number of Watchkeeper crashes since 2014 and has raised questions about both safety and value for money, with the project costing £1.3 billion so far.

      UK Nuclear Energy

      • A new report by MPs on the science and technology committee says that while nuclear power has a part to play in the UK meeting net zero targets, the government’s plan for a nuclear power “renaissance” in Britain lacks detail and reads more like a “wish list”. Lots of coverage in The Telegraph, Financial Times, City AM, Independent, Metro, Sky News, The Morning Star, and Nation.Cymru.
      • Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic, wants to “de-risk” its future capital expenditure and bring in investment partners for its small modular civil nuclear reactors, its development of battery-electric aviation and the transition of its traditional diesel engines to run on hydrogen.

      • Nuclear Energy

        • Belfast Newsletter: Much of the criticism of nuclear power is indeed uninformed, particularly on the island of Ireland. Politicians across the spectrum in the Republic have long talked nonsense about the risks from Sellafield, which showed that they do not know the real risks with nuclear. The real risks come millennia from now, because nuclear waste will still be toxic and future populations do not know that. There is no risk whatsoever from radioactive levels in the Irish Sea. Indeed scientists even found that the fallout from the appalling Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s was much lower than thought. Well run nuclear, as in a nation such as France, makes it much easier to slash carbon emissions. Germany, once the most advanced and scientific country in Europe, has foolishly scrapped its nuclear and is struggling with both meeting its energy needs and carbon reduction targets.
        • The end of Oppenheimer’s nuclear energy dream: Modular reactors supported by ideology alone.
        • Financial Times: First new US nuclear reactor in 3 decades may well also be its last. Opening of Georgia Power’s Vogtle unit 3 comes 7 years late and billions of dollars over budget.

        RadWaste

        • The Guardian looks at the radioactive waste scattered in cupboards and filling cabinets across Australia as the country fails to reach a conclusion on what is to be done with its growing piles of nuclear waste.

        Fukushima

        • An official in charge of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says the upcoming release of treated radioactive water into the sea more than 12 years after the reactors’ meltdown marks “a milestone,” but is still only an initial step in a daunting decades-long decommissioning process.

        Conspiracy

        • Cameras used to film nuclear tests were placed far enough away from the test site or designed to withstand the blast and radiation. Social media posts, however, are saying nuclear test videos must be a lie or a government cover up because cameras would not be able to survive the explosions. Read the debunkings from Reuters and Associated Press.

        Best,

         

        Pádraig McCarrick

         

        Press and Communications Officer

        Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament


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