German official: Nuclear would do little to solve gas issue abcnews.go.com

Questions remain after false alarm sounds at Seabrook Station nuclear plant wmur.com

Nuclear industry applauds Tennessee Valley Authority request for 5 GW of clean energy by 2029 utilitydive.com

Officials: Siren Inadvertently Activated at NH Nuclear Plant usnews.com

Ambient office = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Tomarto from Central Market = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 133 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
     Last May, Israel completed their “Chariots of Fire” (CoF) wargame. It was the most significant and comprehensive wargame in the history of Israel. The CoF featured hundreds of Israeli warplanes in coordination with its regular army, reserves, and elite special forces. The purpose of the CoF was to train its military in anticipation of scenarios that Israel may encounter on multiple fronts.
     The CoF emphasized being nimble to coordinate and adapt because an enemy rarely follows a nation’s war plans. (Indeed, an old saying goes “The first casualty of war is the plan.”) The scope and scale were totally unprecedented for Israel. Some of Israel’s intelligence and security agencies have corroborated that there is no ambiguity in Israel about the need to halt Iran’s goal to dominate the Middle East with nuclear weapons.
     Israel is well aware of the fact that if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran will launch the estimated one hundred and fifty thousand Hezbollah missiles in Lebanon and Hamas’s arsenal of rockets in Gaza and as well as attacks from Iran’s new bases in Syria and Iraq. Such a scenario would dwarf the 2006 Hezbollah Second Lebanon War and the combined five Hamas Gazan wars. There would also be Palestinian unrest in the disputed territories and inside Israel which would also complicate matters.
     New alliances are sprouting up as well as changing relationships between nations in the Middle East. These changes are driven by the prospect of an Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear arsenal. These changes include Russia’s relationship with Iran in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s contradictory relationship with Israel which allows it unrestricted access to strike Iranian weapons factories. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is acting behind the scene but moving toward closer cooperation with Israel in response to Iranian territorial expansion and threshold nuclear weapons status. In addition, U.S. allies Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan are all being affected by estimation of how far Iran might go and how far Israel can bend before it feels that it is has to take action.
     The Iranian leaders are intelligent and pragmatic in spite of their ideological Islamist extremism and hatred for Israel. They know that Israel would feel compelled to act when the Iranian nuclear program crosses a “red” line. There is a great deal of debate on just where that red line is.
     Unfortunately, the possibility of miscalculation is high. Iran has been flaunting its obligation to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and ignoring its restrictions on peaceful atomic development in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The situation is swiftly approaching Israel’s nuclear red line. A report recently issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) offers details about Iran increasing its nuclear enrichment on the eve of U.S. President Biden planned trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
      If Iran is confident that it knows where Israel red line is, Iranian leaders will probably stop before crossing it. They will then accept the Biden administration’s prompting a return to the JCPOA which will restore critical Iranian economic lifelines. Such a return to the JCPOA would have happened already if Iran could not sell oil to China at high price without any Significant U.S. sanction of penalty.
Please read Part 2 next

Nuclear waste protesters want vote over seismic testing in Irish Sea bbc.com

Construction of nuclear reactors in Korea to resume in 2024 asianews.network

OPG, X-energy to examine industrial applications for Xe-100 world-nuclear-news.org

Regulators Recommend License for Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage usnews.com

 

 

Ambient office = 149 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Strawberry from Central Market = 129 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 154 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 144 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

France says only a few weeks left to save Iran nuclear deal reuters.com

Bechtel affiliate awarded WIPP management contract world-nuclear-news.org

South Korea aims to resume reactor construction by 2024 world-nuclear-news.org

Russia takes Satan-2 hypersonic nuclear missile into forest for imminent new tests  dailymail.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Life extension for Russia’s BN600 fast reactor neimagazine.com

Upper section of the steel containment shell installed at China’s SMR neimagazine.com

Westinghouse and Energoatom push ahead on AP1000 plant license process world-nuclear-news.org

New US-Israel agreement to prevent Iranian nuclear bomb arabnews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Hierloom tomato from Central Market = 154 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water =78 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 64 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 13 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Dobken goes on the make the claim that “many environmentalists who once opposed nuclear power have looked at its safety record and its carbon-free generation of electricity and declared it good for mankind” and that the anti-nuclear movement is ignoring “new data, new facts.” Having said that, he fails to mention even one nuclear skeptic. This can confuse a reader into thinking that the unnamed persons and facts are so obvious that they do not need to be spelled out.
     Dobken attempts to rebut Johnson’s statement by saying that “every scientist knows that radioactive exposure is cumulative in its effects” with an unsubstantiated “this is simply false….” Without any justification, he negates what anyone searching the Internet can confirm is true in two minutes. Namely, that radiation effects are indeed cumulative. He attempts to confuse a reader’s rational mind with totally irrelevant measures. For instance, he says that the amount of radiation that we receive from natural and man-made sources (such as x-rays and CT scans) and the amount that San Onofre dumped into the ocean in one radioactive water batch release in May are similar.
     None of the numbers that Dobken mentions say anything about the impacts of radioactivity accumulation into the local marine food chain from bioaccumulation over decades of ocean dumping, or what level of radiation exposure could result from routine surfing at San Onofre Beach on water batch release days. He also intentionally uses numbers that would be unfamiliar to most readers to cloud their thinking and hide that the comparisons are not relevant to the issue of cumulative effects. The fact that San Onofre has been releasing radioactive materials into the ocean and the atmosphere for more than fifty years with unknown health impacts goes unaddressed.
      Dobken muddies the issue raised by Johnson of possible cancer risks from living near nuclear power plants by pointing to unrelated research on nuclear power plant workers and veterans who have been exposed to radiation. He quibbles over whether on not there has been any research in the U.S. to distract from the importance of the issue that Johnson is raising. Dobken is correct that one study of children in Illinois living near nuclear power plants showed no association with cancers. However, he is guilty of cherry picking by not acknowledging compelling studies from abroad that have found significant associations. He obviously hopes that reads will miss Johnson’s main point which is just that we should welcome and not block research on possible cancer streaks in communities within thirty miles of San Onofre and other nuclear power plants around the country.
     It can be challenging and exhausting to counter such obfuscation. The purpose of obfuscation is not to have an honest debate or to seek the truth. Some have said that it is like trying to nail a blob of mercury with a needle. Although it may be true that Johnson’s article is not flawless, it is well-documented and well-intended. His purpose is to alert the public to the renewed rush to embrace nuclear energy as a solution to the climate crisis when the U.S. is no closer to addressing the dangers associated with nuclear power and its deadly waste than we were when California blocked expansion of nuclear power plants in 1976. Momentum toward clean energy sources should not be derailed by bring back dirty and dangerous nuclear energy. Dobken’s article uses obfuscation at every turn to confuse and lull the public into a false sense of safety about nuclear power and its deadly waste. Hopefully, the public is not that gullible.