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Geiger Readings for Jul 13, 2017
Ambient office = 110 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 85 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 88 nanosieverts per hourCrimini mushroom from Central Market = 76 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 83 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 78 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Weapons 290 – South Korean Has Contigency Plans For Dealing With Attack By North Korea
There is a great deal of talk about North Korea and their nuclear program in the global media. While North Korean missiles pose a threat to Japan, other Southeast Asian countries and the U.S., the greatest danger it poses is to South Korea. Seoul, the capital of S.K., is only twenty five miles from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between N.K. and S.K. The North Koreans have thousands of artillery pieces aimed across the DMZ at Seoul which is home to twenty million people.
The worst threat is that S.K. faces is from a N.K. nuclear warhead. It is believed that N.K. currently has a few nuclear warheads and is building more. They are working on miniaturizing their nuclear warheads so they can be delivery by missiles. Even short range N.K. missiles could easily reach Seoul.
S.K. does not have nuclear weapons. It has been relying on the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States under bilateral treaties. Lately, the current U.S. administration has been suggesting that perhaps countries that have been relying on U.S. nuclear deterrence should consider building their own nuclear weapons. South Korea has been mentioned explicitly in this context. S.K. may not have nuclear weapons to protect itself from the N.K. threat but they do have plans on how to deal with the threat with their existing military technology.
In order to counter the N.K. nuclear threat, S.K. is putting together a collection of conventional weapons. They have Global Hawk high-altitude surveillance drones as well as other types of surveillance and reconnaissance systems. They have advanced fighter-bombers, cruise and ballistic missiles. And highly trained special forces from the S.K. army could be called upon.
S.K. surveillance assets will be looking for signs of preparation for N.K. missile attacks in the form of a dispersal of mobile platforms for short range and intermediate missiles. Convoys of fuel trucks for liquid fueled missiles would be another sign. N.K. missiles carrying submarines leaving port is a possible indication of coming attack. A movement of the N.K. elite to shelters under Pyongyang or to the country side might also signal preparations for attack.
If and when the S.K. government is certain that an attack is coming, they will activate at plan called “Kill Chain.” S.K. Marines will be flown into N.K. to check out possible missile sites. If the teams find missiles, they could use their own weapons to attack the missiles or they could call in air strikes by bombers or cruise missiles. S.K. F-15K Slam Eagle bombers can fire their air to surface missiles from beyond the range of N.K. radar. German Taurus cruise missiles with a range of 310 miles are being integrated into the F-15K arsenal. These missiles could be fired from Seoul and reach beyond Pyongyang. They can even take out buried bunkers where the N.K. elite might be hiding. Intermediate range Hyunmoo ballistic and cruise missiles are also available to pound targets anywhere in N.K.
When Kill Chain is initiated, hundreds of missiles and aircraft will head north to destroy N.K. missiles. Kim Jong-un will be a high priority target as well as the nuclear command communications system of N.K.
In addition to the Kill Chain plan, there is also another contingency plan called Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR). The primary goal of KMPR is the elimination of the N.K. leadership and the end of the current regime. A S.K. official said that “Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon. In other words, the North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the map.”
KMPR would also send three thousand S.K. Marines across the border to take out the top leadership of N.K. Considering the concentration of power in Pyongyang, this likely means that the special forces would invade the capital city.
The big question with respect to Kill Chain and KMPR is whether or not they would or could work. They are ambitious plans to deal with a very dangerous and complex situation on the Korean peninsula. A new Korean war could result in the deaths of millions of Koreans and the devastation of the whole peninsula. As complicated as the situation is, S.K. should be applauded for coming up with a plan based on conventional weapons as opposed to moving forward with a nuclear weapons program of its own.
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Geiger Readings for Jul 12, 2017
Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 92 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hourAvocado from Central Market = 158 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 147 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 139 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Weapons 289 – U.N. Approves Treaty To Ban All Nuclear Weapons
On July 7th, one hundred and twenty two nations signed the first United Nations treaty banning all nuclear weapons. The treaty negotiations were led by Austria, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and New Zealand. Only the Netherlands voted against the treaty and Singapore abstained. The U.S., Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel are the countries which currently have nuclear weapons and they did not participate in the negotiations. Most members of NATO were also not involved in the negotiations. Although Japan is the only country to suffer nuclear attack, it also boycotted the treaty talks.
The President of the U.N. conference on the ban said “It’s been seven decades since the world knew the power destruction of nuclear weapons. This agreement is a very clear statement that the international community wants to move to a completely different security paradigm that does not include nuclear weapons.”
The ten-page treaty “prohibits signatories from developing, testing, manufacturing, possessing, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.” Signatories are also prohibited from giving nuclear weapons to other signatories. Now that the treaty has been approved by the U.N., it will be open for parties to sign after September 20th. At least fifty nations will have to ratify the treaty in order for it to take effect.
While the fact that one hundred and twenty two nations are agreed that all nuclear weapons should be banned, the opposition of nuclear armed nations and other powerful countries is a serious problem for implementation of the treaty. A joint statement by the U.N. ambassadors from the U.S, Britain and France made it clear that their nations had no interest in being a part of the treaty. They said that the treaty “clearly disregards the realities of the international security environment.” A major criticism of the treaty by the three ambassadors is the fact that it fails to address the problem of North Korea and its nuclear weapons program.
Instead of participating in the new treaty, the U.S., Britain and France want to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) which discourages countries other than the original five nuclear power of U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia from embarking on their own nuclear weapons programs. In return for the support of the international community for the NPT, the five original nuclear powers say that they will continue to work for nuclear disarmament and provide nuclear technologies to other countries for the production of electricity.
Critics of the NPT say that the movement towards nuclear disarmament has been too slow. The new treaty is an explicit call for the banning of all nuclear weapons on Earth. It is hoped that it will put pressure on nuclear nations to move forward with disarmament at a faster pace. The very existence of the treaty changes the legal landscape. The director of a U.K. organization that opposes nuclear weapons said that the treaty “stops states with nuclear weapons from being able to hide behind the idea that they are not illegal.”
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Nuclear News Roundup Jul 11, 2017
China rejects Trump’s calls for it to do more to rein in its neighbour, saying the ‘China responsibility theory’ must stop theguardian.com
Although Rocky Flats was dismantled and cleaned up more than a decade ago, the controversy surrounding the former nuclear weapons facility has not gone away. Denver.cbslocal.com
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Geiger Readings for Jul 11, 2017
Ambient office = 108 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 129 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 121 nanosieverts per hourIceberg lettuce from Central Market = 65 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 117 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 99 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 992 nanosieverts per hour -
Radioactive Waste 236 – New Hand-Held Device Can Cheaply And Quickly Measure Trace Amounts Of Uranium In Water
It is important to be able to monitor the level of uranium in bodies of water. Unfortunately, current methods of testing water for uranium are expensive and complicated.
Gary C. Tepper, the chair of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, and a graduate student have invented and patented a new device that will make it easier, faster and cheaper to monitor the amount of uranium in water. The new device is more sensitive than previous monitoring equipment and is able to detect lower levels of uranium pollution.
Uranium is common in many different minerals. It can enter surface and ground water in many different ways. These include uranium mining, the production of nuclear weapons, leakage from nuclear fuel storage canisters, the illegal dumping of nuclear waste and agriculture. Fertilizer runoff can result in chemical reactions that release uranium from minerals in the ground.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act provides the standards for what is considered a safe level of uranium in drinking water. The problem is that testing is expensive and takes time which lowers the actual monitoring and compliance with the standards from the EPA. Tepper says that “Right now, you test for uranium by taking water a single sample [of water] and sending it out to a lab. This is impractical. You need a device that takes measurements in real time. It should also be easily used across various regions of the water source because concentrations vary from place to place.”
The new device that Tepper and his graduate student invented uses a nanoporous material that collects and concentrates particles of uranium in water and then employs an ultraviolet light which makes the collected particles visible. When uranium compounds are dissolved in water, they are fluorescent. Because of this effect, ultraviolet light can be used to create a measurable signal in the form of visible light. Tepper says “But water quenches that reaction and makes it difficult to detect and quantify uranium at very low concentrations.”
The device that Tepper invented uses tiny beads of silica get that are commonly used as a desiccant. Tepper explains that “The uranium compounds attach to silica gel and accumulate inside the small pores. This enhances the signal and minimizes the quenching effect of water, so now if uranium is present, it lights up and can been seen in the visible spectrum.”
Combining the silica gel and an ultraviolet light source results in a cheap portable hand-held device that can reliably read low concentrations of waterborne uranium. An early version of the device required an hour to read uranium concentration after being dipped in water. An improved model added a pump to move the water through the device. This resulted in the ability to read uranium concentration is a matter of seconds.
Tepper and his graduate student have provisional U.S. and international patents for their device. They are working with Virginia Commonwealth University’s Innovations Gateway to bring their device to market.
