CND Press Digest: Tuesday 1st August 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• Common Dreams on Russia’s nuclear energy firm Rosatom and asks why it has avoided sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

UK Nuclear Weapons

• UK Defence Journal reports on the recent visits of three US nuclear submarines to Faslane.

China

• China’s former deputy commander of the navy, Wang Houbin, has been named the new head of the PLA Rocket Force - which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons. One expert told The Telegraph that the appointment of an outsider was unusual and hinted at low political trust and corruption in the nuclear field.Wang’s predecessor, Li Yuchao, has been missing for months, with some alleging he was leaking military secrets.  

Oppenheimer

• Warner Brothers Japan has hit out at its US counterpart for the co-marketing of the nuclear biopic Oppenheimer with the film Barbie. #Barbenheimer has been criticised for trivialising the atomic bombings of Japan as promoters combine playful colourful imagery with mushroom clouds to promote both films.
• James Chadwick: The Brit chief who worked on the nuclear bomb.
• Column: ‘Oppenheimer’ is a great movie, but commits these historical blunders

Space

• Nasa is moving ahead with plans for a nuclear-powered rocket that could halve the time it takes to travel to Mars. About half a billion dollars is expected to be spent on an unmanned prototype, which the American space agency hopes to launch by 2027.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Coverage of CND Cymru’s march in opposition to new nuclear plants in Walescovered by Nation.Cymru and North Wales Live.
• City AM and The Financial Times on the UK government’s announcement of a new taskforce geared towards boosting skilled workers in the defence and civil nuclear sectors.
• Bloomberg and The Express join the coverage of the recent science and technology committee report that labelled the UK government’s nuclear plan a “wish list.”

Nuclear Energy

• America’s first new nuclear reactor in nearly seven years starts operations.
• Following last week’s coup in Niger, Reuters looks at the country’s role as one of the world’s top uranium producers.
•  China has approved expansion projects at three of its nuclear power plants.

In response…

• to yesterday’s column from The Belfast Newsletter, Ian Fairlie notes: The recent Belfast Newsletter article on nuclear power contains numerous statements and assertions which are not just wrong but blindingly so. For instance, it alleges that “the Conservatives… are most likely to act in the public good”. Of course, in recent years the reverse is the case on just about every issue that has cropped up…Brexit, Covid, Partygate, massive fiscal incompetence, you name it. It alleges that “Much of the criticism of nuclear power is …uninformed”  but the fact is that it is well-informed, scientifically speaking, compared to the unsupported fantasies maintained by the UK government. It alleges that “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 problems caused by Sellafield have mainly lain with its very large discharges of radioactive nuclides into the Irish Sea making it, by some margin, the most radioactively contaminated stretch of sea water in the world. Even Norway has complained about these discharges, because it, along with Ireland and Northern Ireland, receives no countervailing benefit from having their beaches and sea biota contaminated with the dangerous radionuclides from Sellafield. The author alleges there is ”no risk whatsoever from radioactive levels in the Irish Sea”.. This is simply untrue. It would be interesting to receive the information he has on this, as publicly available reports directly contradict his view. For example, what experience or qualifications in radiation biology does the author have that allows him to make such ill-informed assertions? The author further states that “real risks come millennia from now, because nuclear waste will still be toxic and future populations do not know that.” So does that mean the Sellafield waste is OK, then? The author alleges that “ …the fallout from the appalling Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s was much lower than thought”. No, the recent evidence shows that the fallout and its serious effects are indeed larger than previously thought. The writer also incorrectly alleges that the French nuclear reactors are “..well run”, but the reality is that about half of them are shut down due to technical problems from old age, and their inability to cool themselves due to the rising temperatures in French rivers. Currently Germany is having to supply France with large fractions of its electricity as a result. But the authors incorrectly alleges that Germany “is struggling with both meeting its energy needs and carbon reduction targets”. No, neither is the case. My conclusion is that readers of the Belfast Newsletter are poorly served by this ill-informed, incorrect article.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament