Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) of the UAE and Korea Electric Power Cooperation (KEPCO) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to increase research and investment opportunities in nuclear energy in third countries.
     The MoU was signed on May 29 this year in Seoul, Korea by ENEC Managing Director and CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi and KEPCO President and CEO Dong-Cheol Kim. The signing of the MoU was witnessed by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed AL Nahyan.
     ENEC said, “This partnership marks the next step in the two nations’ collaboration to spearhead nuclear energy development in other countries by providing the relevant expertise to accelerate the deployment of this crucial source of clean baseload electricity.” It explained that the partners “will explore co-investing in the establishment of nuclear energy plants globally and seek to address the instrumental role nuclear energy plays in addressing climate change and achieving net-zero targets”.
     The MoU, ENEC said, builds on its and KEPCO’s expertise in various fields, including “the efficient, safety and quality-led development and implementation of nuclear energy plants, and the significant transmission and distribution infrastructure required to integrate into national grids”.

     KEPCO mentioned that the global nuclear power plant market has recently started changing from “a pure construction project (EPC) method, in which ordering countries build nuclear power plants with their own resources, to a method that requires operators to participate in a certain level of financing”.
     KEPCO said, “Accordingly, the ability to raise financial resources is emerging as one of the key factors for business success. If we combine the strengths of Korea and the UAE, which can carry out profitable nuclear power projects through this MoU, we will be able to secure a differentiated comparative advantage over competing countries in the global nuclear power plant market.”
     Kim Dong-cheol is the President of KEPCO. He said, “As the overseas nuclear power plant export business is a national competition … a trustworthy partner like the UAE is absolutely necessary in the fierce overseas nuclear power plant export competition. With the signing of this MoU, we will do our best to create a success story for the second nuclear power plant export.”
     Under a twenty-billion-dollar deal announced in December 2009, four Korean-designed APR1400 reactors have been constructed at the Barakah site in the UAE by a consortium led by KEPCO. First concrete for Barakah 1 was poured in July 2012. Concrete for Units 2-4 was poured in April 2013, September 2014 and July 2015, respectively. Unit 1 started commercial operation in April 2021, Unit 2 in March 2022 and Unit 3 in February 2023. Unit 4 was connected to the UAE grid in March of this year and is scheduled to begin commercial operation later in 2024.
     ENEC said that the Barakah plant is the flagship project of the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program. The company is “now focused on exploring opportunities in the UAE and overseas in large-scale plants, SMRs and advanced reactors, related clean technologies such as hydrogen generation and R&D to maximize the full value of the expertise developed in nuclear mega project program delivery, capacity building and technology deployment”.

Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 77 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 127 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
      Peterson noted that it also involves Food and Drug Administration approvals, which are expensive but “desperately needed.”
     Dr. David Schauer is the head of the radiation generators division and DTRA’s liaison at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute. He deals with the medical prophylactics and countermeasures that personnel would need before or after a nuclear explosion.
     The Institute receives funding from the Defense Health Agency with contributions from the Department of Health and Human Services. It is developing the life-saving medicine “on a shoestring budget,” Schauer said.
     He went on to say that “As we get into the gaps, the gaps exist largely because [of] the lack of a pipeline that has been funded within the Defense Department”.
     Schauer said after protecting personnel comes decontaminating equipment. He noted that “We have to decon it. We have to be able to bring it back into the fight. We have to advance through that. We cannot have a weapon going offline, meaning that we have to abandon our battle plans in that area.”
     However, with such a small budget, the newly formed office must prioritize technology updates. He described the detectors, more commonly called RADAICs, as still based on 1920s-era Geiger-Muller tubes.
     Campbell stated that, “What was built well, in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, we’re finding is not as easy to build today, but we’re still relying on that, and that actually drives costs, that drives maintainability, that drives supportability on a lot of these things.”
     A new generation of detectors is a “low-hanging fruit” technology, which is why his office has chosen it as its top priority, Campbell said. This technological advance will include handheld detectors, leave-behind sensors and wide area surveillance, he added.
     Campbell continued, “We’re trying to improve the ability for a commander to understand what the threats are and what the hazards are — the radiation hazards — so that he can make the best decisions, or she can make the best decisions, about where to flow the people on the battlefield. This is networking. This is predicting. This is modeling. This is forecasting.”
     Campbell’s office is actively working with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force to make them start thinking about the problem so they can write requirements and start mapping out budgets.
     After dealing with the detector/sensor shortfalls, the office will look into protection: filters, masks, other personnel protection.
     Peterson said, “Hopefully we’ll be able to get there. But our budget simply can’t help that right now.”
     The other agency when it comes to developing rad-nuke research and development is the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
     Rob Prins is the chief of its nuclear detection division. He said his office’s main line of effort now is creating a common operating picture as the four main services are all bringing together intelligence on different screens, with the Space Force currently still not involved.
Prins said, “What we have isn’t necessarily a technology problem. We have a translation problem. We don’t have enough people with the expert knowledge or even baseline knowledge in order to push [programs] through. That’s got to start out with the different services’ training and doctrine.”
     Budgets are definitely an issue, Prins said. Continuing resolutions in Congress makes moving money out to projects challenging. This challenge forces him to ask, “Where are those incremental areas such that I can realize a bigger investment or return on investment later?”
     Schauer suggested that those with the proper security clearances look at the Army Science Board report.
     It took eighteen months to launch, and the board left few stones unturned when interviewing sources and examining the threats along with assessing the U.S. military’s ability to fight its way through a nuclear battle.
     Schauer said that “We think this report will shine bright light on where we stand on this topic.”

Ambient office = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 76 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     When he was asked about the funding after his presentation, Campbell said he was rounding up. The funding is more like four million three hundred thousand per year. However, his office is grateful for that. He noted that for the past few decades, funding was “zero.”
“We hope to grow it,” Campbell said.
     The funding will be put toward about eight technologies, including better radiological-nuclear detectors. His office can do a lot with that small amount of funding, including transitioning the DTRA projects and commercial off-the-shelf products.
     Campbell noted that “If we’re trying to solve all the problems at once, yeah, it’s not a lot of funding. But we also recognize that … it’s enough to move it in a timeline that the services can afford. If I can have everything done today, it still may take the services two or three years before they have dollars to bring something online.”
     He continued that there are radiation detector programs that have been moving at a glacial pace that his office using the funding can help speed up with the funding. “The idea is to prime the pump, show success, then make the argument that we can do more.”
     The next priority will be education.
     Campbell said that we “actually have to have tabletop exercises where we don’t stop right after the event occurs, which seems to be the theme of a lot of ones that I’ve been at: the [bomb] goes off, ‘I guess we’ll stop, the world’s going to end.’ Now comes the question: what does a commander do two minutes after an explosion? What does he do 12 hours after an explosion? What does he do 24 hours before he starts getting the supplies from the U.S. if they can get there?”
     Richard Peterson is the director of the new radiological and nuclear defense capabilities development program. This new program falls under the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Threat Reduction and Arms Control. He said that he tries to look at the problem from a “glass half full” point of view. There is renewed emphasis and discussions at highest levels in the Office of the Secretary of Defense about the problem of whether U.S. forces can fight through a nuclear war.
     Peterson added that “A few years ago, we wouldn’t have seen this kind of verbiage in the high-level strategy documents. So, I’m taking this as a big win, and that is a positive sign.”
     His newly formed office is an indication that the radiological-nuclear protection problem isn’t being passed around the Pentagon anymore.
     Rhetoric and doctrine from potential adversaries, however, have suggested using tactical nuclear weapons as a means for area denial.
     Peterson said, “We have to have the ability to not have aerial denial be the name of the game for the weapons. We have to make that clear to our adversaries: ‘This is not going to work. Don’t bother trying.’”
    “Survivability” is a key word, but it can’t just consist of decontaminating equipment and putting weapons back in the fight. There needs to be an emphasis on the wellbeing of personnel, he said.
     What does the commander have available to him to make the decisions to go save the lives of those who can be saved, but also advance the fight? Peterson asked.
      He added that “We do not have a medical countermeasure pipeline to be able to protect our people, and that’s a big problem. … It’s a problem we’re aiming to solve over time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Please read Part 3 next

Ambient office = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Corn from Central Market = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 3 Parts
     The Army Science Board in September finished work on a report titled, “An Independent Assessment of the Army’s Ability to Fight and Win on a Nuclear Battlefield.”
     The conclusions of the report were not revealed to the public and are available to read only on classified networks. However, listening to a handful of government experts at a recent presentation who did have access to the report, its overall conclusions are alarming.
     Craig Campbell is the principal director in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Threat Reduction and Arms Control. He said that if a nuclear fight did break out overseas in regions such as Europe or the Indo-Pacific, it would be a terrible day for U.S. forces.
     Campbell said, “We may be able to operate in the United States, but we would not be able to operate in Eucom, Indo-Pacom or any other combatant commands. We would fail. That’s where we’re at.” He made these remarks at the spring meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Division.
     He continued, “We have gaps that are much broader and gaps that span the breadth of the … environment from doctrine, operations to materiel.”
     Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin has repeatedly brought up the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.
     Retired Army Brig. Gen. William King IV, NDIA’s CBRN Division chair, said, “I don’t think you can pass a day in the news where you’re not listening to Russia talking about repositioning capability and potentially using new tactical nuclear weapons — or what today is called nonstrategic nuclear weapons — talking about it almost as if it’s commonplace.”
     The last two U.S. Defense Department Nuclear Posture Reviews have acknowledged the increased threat of nuclear warfare and recommended more training and readiness, but King has not seen any of that come to fruition.
     King said, “I haven’t seen that dramatic increase. In fact, my sources are telling me there have been probably less than a handful of [trainings] over the last two [Nuclear Posture Reviews]. So, we really don’t know what we don’t know.” King is also a senior fellow and principal director at Booz Allen Hamilton.”
     King added, “We’re no longer at a point of risk in this mission space. We’re actually gambling in this mission space because of a lack of knowledge and awareness, lack of education, lack of readiness and preparation.”
     The National Guard has a mandate to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear detonation or accident in the United States. It has been the lone voice in the military advocating for new equipment over the past two decades, panelists noted. However, the National Guard and its Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams are not intended to operate outside of U.S. territory.
     Campbell said U.S. soldiers overseas must have the ability to operate, survive and prevail in a radiological-nuclear environment. They must be able to protect themselves, detect and identify threats, then mitigate or provide consequence management. And this must be done all the way from the “forward leading edge” with remote sensors, overhead sensors and include reach back to the U.S. “And it has to be networked and interoperable with a multitude of systems,” Campbell added.
    In order to help achieve that, the office established a new radiological and nuclear defense capabilities development program. The new program has a budget of five million dollars a year. These funds will help transition research-and-development projects funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to the field.
Please read Part 2 next