SATELLITE images show increased tunneling at North Korea’s secret nuclear site– indicating that the crackpot country could be preparing another nuke test. Thesun.co.uk

Nuclear strikes could be launched by mistake because aging or unsophisticated weapons systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks, an international relations think tank warned Thursday. Nbcnews.com

Nuclear bombs—with a few exceptions—are designed to create huge explosions. In some cases, they’re supposed to have extra bits and pieces in the service of making even HUGER (it’s a word now) explosions. Occasionally all of that fails, and what you get is called a “fizzle.” Here’s why it happens. Foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com

A newly installed melter at the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the US Department of Energy’s Savannah River site has poured its first canisters of vitrified radioactive waste. World-nuclear-news.org

Part 1 of 2 Parts

               The United States Nuclear Posture Review is a process to determine what the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy should be. The first review was held in 1994 and has been repeated every eight years since then. The final report is submitted to Congress and classified as National Security related.

        The 2002 NPR required the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for possible use against seven countries including China, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia and Syria.

         The 2010 NPR by the Obama Administration renounced the creation of any new nuclear weapons and ruled out nuclear attacks against any states without nuclear weapons as long as they comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea and Iran are excluded from protection under this rule.

          Now it is time for the Trump administration to carry out a new NPR. A draft of the new NPR has been released and there are significant changes from the 2002 NPR. Last October, it was reported that Trump was talking about having a nuclear arsenal that was ten times as big as the current arsenal. The new NPR draft does not include anything that dramatic.

          One change to the review has to do with the rule about not creating any new nuclear weapons. The draft calls for the development of new low-yield nuclear weapons. The argument for these new weapons is that the current nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal are too big and devastating to ever be used. If we had low-yield nuclear weapons, other countries would be more ready to believe that we would actually use them. Trump’s NPR refers to the new low-yield weapons as supplemental devices that will enhance deterrence.

         The draft NPR says that Russia is threatening to use such weapons and the U.S. has to match Russian weaponry. It is a fact that Vladimir Putin has bragged about his arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons and has said that if he was losing a conventional ground war with NATO troops, that he would consider being the first to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.

         Critics of the expanding the low-yield option point out that the U.S. already has over a thousand nuclear weapons with a low-yield option in its arsenal. There is little military justification for the creation of more.  The current senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation said, “Making the case that we need more low-yield options is making the case that this president needs more nuclear capabilities at his disposal, regardless of the fact that we have 4,000 nuclear weapons in our active stockpile, which is more than enough to destroy the world many times over. So I don’t think it makes a convincing case that we somehow lack capabilities. And, in fact, I don’t think you can make the case that this president needs any more capabilities.”

       The draft NPR contradicts itself. On the one hand, it says that we need to have more low-yield options to convince potential enemies that we would be more likely to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Then it says that having more low-yield options does not increase the likelihood that we would resort to nuclear weapons in a conflict. The NPR offers no evidence to support its characterization of potential enemies’ opinion of our readiness to use nuclear weapons.

       The bottom line is that the Trump administration wants to spend a lot of money to build more nuclear weapons. Considering that we and the Russians already have enough nuclear warheads to end human civilization many times over, their request for more of these weapons would appear to be primarily motivated by political and economic considerations. Political because they believe that having more weapons will make the U.S. appear more powerful. Economic because defense contractors will make billions of dollars building the new weapons. One thing their request for more nuclear weapons is not is good military policy.   

         Another change from the previous NPR is the fact that the new draft of the NPR makes scant reference to the critical role that diplomacy should play in nuclear strategy. No one can “win” a nuclear war. The best nuclear strategy is to prevent a nuclear war. Unfortunately, the nation’s diplomatic corps have been decimated by the Trump administration with many critical diplomatic posts going unfilled for more than a year.

       The new draft NPR also makes no mention of Article VI of the U.N. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons although it does make vague references to reduction on nuclear weapons in the U.S. from Cold War levels. The U.S. has signed this treaty which obligates it to work on nuclear disarmament. If the U.S. proceeds with a major investment in the creation of new nuclear weapons, other signatories of the treaty may decide that the U.S. is not really serious about disarmament. This could reduce their commitment to disarmament. 

        The U.S., while not a signatory of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, did voice strong support for the work of the Treaty organization in the last NPR. The new NPR states that the U.S. will not resume nuclear testing unless it is deemed necessary, what ever that means.

        The draft NPR does affirm the U.S. support for NATO. However, Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO in his speeches and tweets. He has said that other NATO nations are not paying their fair share for the security that NATO provides.

        There has been great concern that Trump is erratic and juvenile. People are afraid that he might capriciously order a nuclear strike against a perceived adversary. After all, the U.S. president has the sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. The draft NPR tries to reassure readers that “Any U.S. decision to employ nuclear weapons would follow a deliberative process.” The truth of the matter is that the Joint Chiefs would have about five minutes to try to talk the President out of using nuclear weapons. If he cannot be dissuaded from such action, then the entire U.S. military is bound by the Constitution to obey him.

        In any case, the new draft NPR primarily reflects the policies of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford. It cannot be said to be the policy of Trump except in such broad strokes as “spend more money on more nukes.” Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail when it comes time for Congress to pass budgets for military hardware.

Please read Part 2

A state-wide poll of conservative Ohio voters finds that 85 percent would pay something extra in their monthly bills for power generated by renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Cleveland.com

The reactor at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station went back online Wednesday night, six days after operators powered the reactor down due to partial loss of offsite electricity during a nor’easter that lashed the region with high winds and flooding. Capecodtimes.com

California’s last nuclear power plant — Diablo Canyon, whose contentious birth helped shape the modern environmental movement — will close in 2025, state utility regulators decided Thursday. Sfchronicle.com

Europe’s biggest pension fund, ABP of the Netherlands, plans to ax tobacco and nuclear weapons from its investment portfolio. Ft.com

      As soon as drones could be made cheaply enough, there were concerns that groups of drones could be “weaponized” into armed swarms that could pose a threat. There have been reports of individual drones causing problems but now the fears of armed swarms have proven to be real.

        The Russian Khmeimim air base and the Russian Tartus naval facility, both in Syria, were just attacked by swarms of small drones with bombs attached. The Russian military successfully fought off both attacks without casualties or significant damage.

       The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement that said, “As evening fell, the Russia air defense forces detected 13 unidentified small-size air targets at a significant distance approaching the Russian military bases. Ten assault drones were approaching the Khmeimim air base, and another three – the CSS point in Tartus.”

          Six of the drones were intercepted and forced down by Russian Electronic Warfare Units. Three of those landed safely and the other three blew up when they hit the ground. The remaining seven drones were destroyed by Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missiles. While minimal damage was done by the drone attack, the Russians are taking it seriously.

       When the Russians examined the intact drones, they appeared to be cobbled together but were effective nonetheless. They were launched from about thirty miles away and used GPS and altitude control sensors to guide their attack. The Russians say that the drones had a maximum range of about sixty miles. This new threat makes the two bases much more vulnerable than they were in the past.

       So far, no organization has claimed responsibility for the drone attack. The Russian believe that the drones are too technologically sophisticated to have been constructed and launched by local forces. There are rumors that the U.S. forces in the area might have supplied the drones, but the Pentagon denies this. Putin has order the creation of a special force to protect key nuclear power plants in Russia from drone attacks.

        Although there is a great deal more to learn about this attack, one thing has been made abundantly clear. This marks a major change in weapons that will require a major change in defense. A reporter at the Drive said, “Who knows how accurate some of these details really are, but if the number of drones launched at the facility is anywhere near correct, it would seem to be the first self-contained, large scale, coordinated, standoff drone assault on a fixed installation like this. It seems that the age of drone swarms has arrived, and that’s a terrifying reality to comprehend.”

        A large drone swarm could possibly overwhelm the defenses of a land base or a big naval ship with sheer numbers. The drones are much cheaper than the missiles used to destroy them at the Russian base. The drones can be constructed from readily available components. With a range of sixty miles, they could be easily transported close enough to just about any military facility in the world and launched to cause havoc.

       In addition to the threat of massive attacks on military targets, swarms of drones have great potential for terrorist attacks against civilian targets. And, with the addition of face recognition, they could be used to target and kill individuals. The reason that I am blogging about drones in on a blog about nuclear weapons is that it would be possible to attach a small nuclear warhead to a drone which could then be flown at low altitude to a target. Nuclear power plants would also be prime targets for drone swarms. While drones have many peaceful uses, they are also a threat to public safety and national security.

Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria:

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station remained shut down Tuesday after power lines that connect the plant to the region’s electric grid failed during last week’s winter storm. Officials at Entergy Corp., a Louisiana-based company that owns the 46-year-old nuclear plant, declined to say when Pilgrim would resume producing power. Bostonglobe.com

Santee Cooper has asked federal regulators to stop SCANA Corp. from giving up its licenses to build a pair of nuclear reactors north of Columbia, a move that could imperil billions in tax credits meant to pay down the project’s costly failure. Postandcourier.com

These countries are using nuclear energy to provide more than 50% of their power. Forbes.com

The US nuclear regulator is satisfied that NuScale Power’s small modular reactor (SMR) design can operate safely without the need for safety-related electrical systems. The reactor uses passive safety features, such as relying on convection, not pumps, to circulate water in the primary circuit. World-nuclear-news.org

 

 

 

            In my last blog post, I talked about an accident that sank a Soviet nuclear submarine in the Bay of Biscay which is north of Spain in1970. Today I am going to talk about another accident involving a Soviet nuclear submarine in 1985.

      By 1985, the U.S. had stationed nuclear missiles in countries around the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had not such option in their desire to threaten the U.S. so they turned to nuclear cruise missile submarines. The Echo I class carried six P-5 Pyatyorka nuclear land attack cruise missiles while the Echo II class carried eight of the cruise missiles. The P-5s could be equipped with either a two hundred or a three hundred and fifty kiloton nuclear warhead. They had a range of three hundred and ten miles. They had a circular error probability of 1.86 miles meaning that at least half of the missiles aimed at a particular target would land within a circle around the target that was 1.86 miles in diameter.

       The P-5 missiles were kept in big horizontal silos attached to the sides of the deck of the submarine. When a P-5 was going to be launched, the submarine had to surface and deploy a tracking radar systems before launching the P-5. The missile depended on the targeting information being relayed in real time from the targeting radar system. There were problems with the system such as the vulnerability of the command system to jamming. The fact that the submarine had to remain on the surface until the missile reached its target also made it vulnerable to detection. Eventually, the P-5 missiles were replaced with the P-6 version which had its own radar targeting system.

       The arrival of the P-6 extended the life of the Echo II class of Soviet submarines. In 1985, the Echo II class K-431 was twenty years old but was still in use. It was powered by two pressurized water reactors that provided sixty thousand shipboard horsepower. In early August, refueling of the K-431 reactors began at Chazhma Bay Soviet Naval facility.

       On August 10^th, the reactor lid with new fuel rods installed was lifted into the air. A beam was placed on the lid to prevent it from being lifted beyond the safe position. Unfortunately, the beam was not placed correctly, and the reactor lid was lifted too high. This caused the starboard reactor to achieve critical mass followed by a chain reaction and then an explosion.

       The explosion blew out the twelve-ton reactor lid with the attached fuel rods and ripped open the pressure hull of the reactor. This totally destroyed the core of the reactor and killed ten men standing near the reactor. A plume of radioactive fallout two thousand feet wide and two miles long moved downwind along the Dunay Peninsula. Debris and Cobalt 60 was thrown over the docks nearby.

        The scene of the accident was seriously contaminated with radioactivity. There was some gamma radiation, but the main danger came from the iodine-131, an isotope known to cause cancer. Forty-nine members of the emergency crew showed symptoms of radiation sickness.

        Fortunately, the fuel rods being loaded into the K-431 reactor core were a new type, created especially for the naval engine. If they had been loaded with the old type of fuel rod used in land based nuclear power reactors, the fallout would have contained high levels of other dangerous radioactive isotopes including strontium-90 and cesium-137. The K-431 was towed to Pavlovsk Bay and operations soon resumed at the Naval facilities at Chazhma Bay which is still contaminated with radioactive materials to this day.

K-431 Soviet Submarine:

 

Iran’s foreign minister is visiting Moscow for talks focusing on the future of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and the situation in Syria, where both nations support President Bashar Assad. Foxnews.com

Mining giants in Australia will lobby the Turnbull Government to dump a ban on nuclear power to help keep the lights on and bankroll the country. Myaccount.news.com.au

The first four EPR nuclear units are under construction in three countries: Olkiluoto 3 in Finland began construction in August 2005, Flamanville 3 in France began construction in December 2007, and Taishan 1 and 2 in China began construction in November 2009. Each of the new units is behind schedule and over budget, but recent progress may signal an end to some of the construction difficulties. Powermag.com

Two former Japanese prime ministers have jointly unveiled a plan for legislation to immediately scrap all nuclear power plants in the country, and to completely shift to renewable energy sources by 2050. Nhk.or.jp