Ambient office = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

     Global spending on nuclear weapons is estimated to have increased by thirteen percent to ninety-one billion four hundred million dollars during 2023. This estimate was based on calculations from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) pressure group.
     The new total spending is up ten billion seven hundred million dollars from the previous year. The increase is driven largely by sharply increased defense budgets in the U.S. This is a time of wider geopolitical uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
     All nine of the nations with nuclear weapons are spending more, ICAN added. China is judged to be the second largest spender with a budget of twelve billion dollars.  China’s total is well below the fifty-one billion nine hundred million dollars attributed to the US.
     Russia is the third largest spender, at eight billion three hundred billion dollars. They are followed by the U.K. at eight billion one hundred million dollars and France at six billion one hundred million dollars. Estimates for authoritarian states or the three countries with undeclared nuclear program (India, Pakistan and Israel) are all complicated by a major lack of transparency.
Susy Snyder is one of the authors of the research. She warned that nuclear states are “on course to be spending one hundred billion dollars a year on nuclear weapons” and said that the money could be used on environmental and social programs instead.
     Snyder said, “These billions could have been used for combating climate change and saving animals and plants that sustain life on Earth from extinction, not to mention improving health and education services around the world.”
     Over the past five years nuclear weapons spending has soared by thirty-four percent or twenty-three billion four hundred million dollars. Spending by the U.S. increased by forty five percent during that time and by forty-three percent in the U.K., and at current trends will surpass one hundred billion dollars in 2024.
     Vladimir Putin is Russia’s president. He has referred repeatedly to his country’s nuclear arsenal to warn the west of a direct military intervention in Ukraine since launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia also started a series of exercises simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons near the Ukrainian border in May.
     Data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that the total number of active nuclear warheads is also slightly higher, at five thousand five hundred and eighth five. This increase has been driven largely by China increasing its arsenal from four hundred and ten to five hundred. 
     The largest nuclear states are the U.S. and Russia, who possess around ninety percent of all warheads. Russia has four thousand eighty nuclear warheads deployed or in storage, compared with the US three thousand seven hundred and eight.
     The SIPRI researchers said that “Russia is estimated to have deployed about 36 more warheads with operational forces than in January 2023.” However, they added that there was no firm evidence that Moscow had deployed any of its nuclear missiles in Belarus, despite public statements from Putin and Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko.
     Britain’s nuclear weapon arsenal is estimated to remain unchanged at two hundred and twenty-five warheads (as is France’s at two hundred and ninety warheads). However, three years ago the U.K. said it would raise the cap on the number of warheads it was willing to stockpile to two hundred and sixty Trident warheads to counter perceived threats from Russia and China.
     Wilfred Wan is the director of SIPRI’s weapons of mass destruction program. He said, “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the cold war.”
     He contrasted the numbers of warheads deployed with a joint statement signed by the U.S., U.K., France, China and Russia in 2022. Building on earlier statements, the five countries with the most nuclear warheads declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”.

Ambient office = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Asparagus from Central Market = 83 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

     Iran has started up new cascades of advanced centrifuges. It plans to install others in the coming weeks after facing criticism over its nuclear program, the United Nations’ atomic watchdog said Friday. The U.S. said that it considers the moves ‘nuclear escalations.’
     Spinning up new centrifuges further advances Iran’s nuclear program. The program already enriches uranium at near-weapons-grade levels. It boasts a stockpile big enough for several nuclear bombs if it chose to pursue them.
     The acknowledgement from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did not include any suggestion that Iran planned to go to higher enrichment levels in spite of increased tensions between Tehran and the West as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.
     The IAEA stated that its inspectors verified last Monday that Iran had begun feeding uranium into three cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility. Cascades are clusters of centrifuges that spin uranium gas to more quickly enrich the uranium.
     Iran has been enriching uranium in those cascades up to two percent purity. Iran already enriches uranium up to sixty percent. That is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of ninety percent.
     Iran also plans to install eighteen cascades of IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz and eight cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordo nuclear site. Each of these classes of centrifuges enrich uranium faster than Iran’s baseline IR-1 centrifuges. The IR-1 centrifuges remain the workhorse of the country’s atomic program.
     Iran did not immediately admit their decision. It comes after Iran threatened to take action following a vote earlier this month at the IAEA’s Board of Governors that censured Iran for failing to cooperate completely with the agency.
    The decision was immediately criticized by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. He said, “Iran aims to continue expanding its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose. These planned actions further undermine Iran’s claims to the contrary. If Iran implements these plans, we will respond accordingly.”
     Miller did not give any detail on what steps the U.S. and its allies might take. Iran already faces grinding economic sanctions from Washington and others that have deeply hurt its economy and sent its rial currency crashing over recent years.
     Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers collapsed following the U.S.’ unilateral withdraw from the accord in 2018. Since then, it has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels. U.S. intelligence agencies and others do not believe that Iran has begun a weapons program yet.
     Iran is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It has pledged to permit the IAEA to visit its atomic sites to ensure its program is peaceful. Iran agreed to additional oversight from the IAEA as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. However, for years it has curtailed inspectors’ access to sites. It also does not fully answer questions about other sites where nuclear material has been found in the past.
     Rafael Mariano Grossi is the IAEA’s director-general. He visited Iran in May in an effort to increase inspections, but there hasn’t been any major public change in Iran’s stance.
     All this comes as Iran also appears to be trying to contain the risk it faces from the U.S. following an unprecedented attack on Israel. The assault was a response to a suspected Israeli strike on April 1 which killed two Guard generals and others in Damascus, Syria. This attack has pushed a yearslong shadow war between Israel and Iran out into the open.

Ambient office = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 83 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

     Ammonia is an important industrial chemical. It is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula NH3. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many chemicals.
      A project centered in Utah is being developed to make cleaner ammonia with nuclear energy. It’s a project that, if scaled, could eliminate the more than one percent of global carbon pollution production that is generated from ammonia-making. It’s a unique combination of multiple cleaner energy solutions in one project with government backing.
     Experts at Utah State University and scientists from Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory are collaborating on the ammonia project. The project is being funded by the Department of Energy, which set aside fifty-six million dollars for sixty-eight projects last year to support the development of nuclear energy.
     It all begins with making ‘green hydrogen’ with nuclear-powered electrolysis, which uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is often generated through a steam-reforming method that uses natural gas which limits its clean-energy potential.
     By using small modular fission reactors from Oregon’s NuScale Power to power the electrolysis, the experts can ensure an air-pollution-free process cost-effectively. Small modular reactors offer about one-third the power generation of typical larger reactors, making them well-suited for the task.
     Hydrogen is already being used to fuel vehicles without making planet-warming fumes, and more innovations are in development. As part of a circular benefit, ammonia is an effective way to store hydrogen.
     About forty three percent of hydrogen produced globally is used to make ammonia through another process using high heat and pressure. About one and two tenths percent of global air pollution comes from ammonia production.
     The New York Health Department notes that about eighty percent of industry-produced ammonia is used in fertilizer for crops. Ammonia demand increases with food demand. We live in a hungry world with a population expected to exceed ten billion by 2060, per U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
     “A significant increase in ammonia production is expected with population growth, according to historical data. Thus, decarbonizing the existing ammonia market represents a big opportunity for carbon-free ammonia to significantly reduce global [greenhouse gas] emissions,” according to a recent report on ammonia production.
     The nuclear ammonia project is an interesting intersection of nuclear science, hydrogen, and ammonia. All of these are mentioned by experts to some degree as part of a more sustainable energy future. Eliminating harmful air pollution by even a couple of percentage points would have a huge impact. Researchers expect agricultural productivity to be reduced as temperatures continue to rise and limit crop yields. That is just one problem linked to our planet’s warming.
     The Utah and Argonne experts hope their project will lead to a scalable technique that can be deployed ‘essentially everywhere.’
     Kathryn Huff works in the Department of Energy nuclear energy office. She said in the press release announcing the projects that the “The funding will help ensure researchers and educators have the resources they need to keep making a difference.”

Ambient office = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Roma tomato from Central Market = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 87 nanosieverts per hour