Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     The commission’s new report goes on to say that “As a result, the Navy must consider schedule tradeoffs between the two classes of submarines. The [Office of Management and Budget] as well as the Commission are skeptical that the current infrastructure can simultaneously support conventional and nuclear sustainment, modernization, and construction as scheduled. The AUKUS agreement may place further stress on this capacity.”
     The Congressional commission report’s release comes as the Senate Armed Services Committee pushes for supplemental funding in the Fiscal Year 2024 defense policy bill.
     While marking up the National Defense Authorization Act, the committee called on President Joe Biden “to send emergency supplemental funding requests to address those concerns, to include continued support for Ukraine, additional munitions production, and additional naval vessels and combat vehicles.”
     Under an agreement between Biden and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the debt ceiling limit, lawmakers had to adhere to the administration’s FY 2024 $886 billion request for national defense. Wicker has argued that any supplemental funding request must also include additional support for AUKUS to strengthen the U.S. defense nuclear industry.
     Wicker said in an August statement, “If we hope to realize the full potential of the AUKUS deal, it is imperative that the president articulate an achievable plan of action to increase American submarine production that meets both American and Australian needs. The enhanced security of the United States and our partners depends on our mutual collaboration and cooperation.”
     The Pentagon’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation has laid out a roadmap for long-term investment to pursue AUKUS. However, lawmakers have yet to see the report.
     In his statement accompanying the release of the commission’s new report, Wicker repeated the lawmakers’ push for the defense supplemental request. He said, “It is essential that Congress move forward quickly with a plan to provide our military with the resources necessary to restore our nuclear deterrent and rebuild the capacity to find and win two wars if necessary. Passing a defense supplemental in the near-term and guaranteeing real growth in the annual defense budget will help us meet this moment. Failing to make these investments now will leave the United States weaker and invite costly new threats from our adversaries.”
     The report argues that the U.S.’s current posture is not ready to deter nor compete with Russia and China. “Decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared to address the threats from these two nuclear-armed adversaries arising during the 2027-2035 timeframe. Moreover, these threats are such that the United States and its Allies and partners must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously.”
     There is new activity at U.S., Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear sites. It appears that the U.S. is confronted with a new nuclear arms race as Russia announces intention to pull out of the nuclear arms treaty limiting nuclear weapon construction and deployment. The problem with nuclear weapons is that a global nuclear war would destroy human civilization.

Part 1 of 2 Parts
     A congressional commission issued a new report recently that called for a third shipyard that can build nuclear powered ships so that the U.S. Navy can keep up with Russian and Chinese modernization.
     A third private shipyard would expand the nuclear industry’s capacity to construct nuclear-powered submarines in order to expand U.S. strategic forces. The call for the third shipyard came from the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the U.S.
     The commission suggests that the Pentagon “increase shipbuilding capacity, by working with industry to establish or renovate a third shipyard dedicated to production of nuclear-powered vessels, with particular emphasis on nuclear-powered submarines.”
     A potential third shipyard would add to the work of the General Dynamics Electric Boat and Hii Newport News Shipbuilding which currently constructs the Navy’s nuclear-powered boats. The recommended third private shipyard would require significant investment from the U.S. government.
     Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said in a statement that “The report is also a stark reminder of the significant work needed to expand our nuclear submarine industrial base to increase production and reduce repair time. The details of this report should serve as a wakeup call for our armed forces and the national security community as a whole.”
     Electric Boat and Newport News construct the Navy’s nuclear-powered ships while the service’s public shipyards have historically maintained the nuclear-powered submarines. However, with the backlogs at the public yards in recent years, the private yards have taken on some of the submarine maintenance work.
     The new Congressional report includes a wide range of recommendations on nuclear policy, weapons procurement, force posture and infrastructure. The analysis meets a requirement in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act calling for a commission to assess the strategic posture of the U.S.
     The commission’s report makes several references to AUKUS. This is the technology sharing agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the U.S. The agreement includes the U.S. selling Australia several Virginia-class attach boats while Australia develops the ability to construct and maintain nuclear-powered attack boat indigenously.
     However, lawmakers have expressed concerns over the U.S. nuclear industrial base’s capacity to support AUKUS while continuing to construct submarines for the U.S. Navy. Newport News and Electric Boat are currently constructing approximately one Virginia-class boat a year. The overall program is hundreds of months behind schedule. Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday previously said that the nuclear industry must build more than two boats per year if the U.S. is going to sell attack submarines to the Royal Australian Navy. During the same period, the Navy is also recapitalizing the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad with the Columbia-class submarine program. This is the Navy’s top acquisition priority.
     The commission’s report says that “In the sea leg, the Navy is scheduled to construct one Columbia-class submarine per year and sustain the Ohio-class in parallel relying on the same infrastructure for both (manufacturing facilities, dry docks, etc.). Additionally, this same workforce and industrial base also support Virginia-class submarine production.”
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     The great advantage of nuclear fusion is that a great amount of energy can be generated from just a few grams of fuel. One gram of fuel in a fusion reactor has the potential to generate the equivalent of eight tons of oil.
     Something similar happens with nuclear fission. This is the process that produces energy in operating commercial nuclear power plants. The amount of fuel (uranium or plutonium) is very small when compared to the fuel required by thermal power plants that burn coal, gas, or oil. No matter how great the use of fusion energy in the future, its use will never be so great as to alter the composition of our atmosphere.
     The use of hydrogen isotopes will be required in order for fusion reactors to become widespread. Isotopes are atoms of the same element but with different numbers of neutrons. This feature means the different isotopes of an element have the same chemical properties, but they have different physical properties.
     The fusion reactions that take place at the lowest temperatures are those produced between deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is very abundant in both seawater and fresh water. It can be extracted by hydrolysis. Tritium is rare in nature but can be produced by the fusion reaction itself. Neutron from the fusion reaction impact a regenerating mantle composed of lithium, among other elements. A neutron and a lithium atom produce tritium as a byproduct that will be reused as fuel in plasma. Plasma is an ionized gas with a temperature higher than eleven thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
     Nuclear reactions occur in fusion as well as fission. However, they are different from the processes we know from burning fuel. Burning fossil fuels is a chemical reaction. In order to initiate fusion, nuclei must be brought closer together so than the nuclear forces come into play and attract each other strongly. When these nuclei fuse, the form a new element that weighs less than the sum of the masses of the initial nuclei. This difference in mass can be transformed into energy by Einstein’ equation E=mc2. The fusion process for commercial fusion reactors involves very light elements. Hydrogen isotopes generate the most energy when fused. By joining two hydrogen nuclei through a nuclear fusion reaction, the result is a helium nuclei and a highly energetic neutron.
     In order to understand the amount of fusion fuel needed for a fusion reactor, the density of plasma in a fusion reactor has a density of one million times smaller than the density of air at sea level. The density of plasma is so low, than no matter how many reaction occur with the release of helium, it will never be able to alter the composition of the atmosphere no matter the consumption of hydrogen nor the emissions produced by fusion.
     This fact alone means that converting to fusion fueled reactors will help reduce climate change that is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels today. In addition, the reduction of waste produced by fossil fuels and nuclear fusion power is a very attractive feature of fusion power.

     An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expert mission has concluded that reports compiled by the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission will provide a good basis for a feasibility study into Jordan’s use of small modular reactors (SMRs) for generating electricity generation and desalinizing seawater.
     Jordan is considering the use of an SMR to provide the necessary electricity to operate a reverse osmosis desalination plant. The SMR will also pump an estimated four hundred million cubic yards of drinking water each year from the Red Sea coast to the capital Amman which is about two hundred and fifty miles away and two thousand three hundred feet above sea level.
     The IAEA expert review mission was held at its Vienna headquarters in August of 2023. The review team consisted of eighteen IAEA staff and three external experts. It evaluated whether reports submitted by the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) included all the required information to support decision making for deploying an SMR for power generation and desalination. Areas covered by the IAEA review included nuclear power technology and safety, siting and licensing, nuclear desalination, nuclear law and stakeholder engagement, among others.
     The IAEA mission found that Jordan’s reports provide a good basis for a feasibility study. The mission also suggested areas where work could be expanded or improved. These included conducting a study on the selection of the nuclear unit size while taking into account the need to strengthen electric connections to the nodal points of the grid and neighboring countries. Exploration of potential alternative fuel suppliers was also suggested.
     Khalid Khasawneh is the Commissioner for Nuclear Power Reactors at JAEC. He said, “This endeavor exemplified an agency-wide collaborative effort that addressed all aspects of the feasibility study, providing essential guidance on IAEA services that Jordan could benefit from in enhancing the assessment and progress of our SMR project.”
     The IAEA said that Jordan was one of a growing number of countries that have expressed interest in deploying SMRs. To better assist such countries, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi established the SMR Platform in 2021 to provide coordinated, agency-wide support on all aspects of SMR development, deployment and oversight.
     The mission followed an IAEA workshop last year in Amman which explored the technologies and requirements for the development of nuclear desalinization.