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Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
June 20, 2024
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SURGE
Nuclear weapons spending soars
A new report from ICAN shows that there was a $10.7 billion increase in spending on nuclear weapons worldwide in 2023 over 2022 figures with the United States accounting for 80% of the increase. The report — Surge: 2023 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending — shows that the world’s nine nuclear nations spent a total of $91.4 billion, or $2,898 per second on nuclear weapons. The United States spent more than all of the other nuclear-armed states combined, at $51.5 billion. China surpassed Russia as the second-highest spender at $11.9 billion, with Russia third, spending $8.3 billion. Nuclear weapons companies dedicate millions each year to lobbying to influence political decision-making, lavishing $118 million last year on the US and France alone.
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"ADVANCE ACT"
Dark day for anti-nuke cause
By 88 to 2, the ADVANCE Act passed the U.S. Senate June 18. Sens. Markey (D-MA) and Sanders (I-VT) were the two NO votes. On May 8, the U.S. House likewise passed this bill, by a 393 to 13 vote. Rep. Doggett of Texas was the only Dem to vote NO. President Biden will likely sign the bill into law.
It will change NRC's mandate from safety regulation to industry promotion, a half-century step backward. It will also promote so-called "advanced" reactor new builds, as well as high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, further risking safety, security, health, the environment, non-proliferation, and taxpayer pocketbooks. Such collusion risks radioactive catastrophe, as at Fukushima.
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EXPOSE OR EXPLODE?
Victims again of a nuclear conundrum
In a conundrum of their own making, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) wants to vent radioactive tritium gas to surrounding communities — under-resourced communities that have already suffered from past exposures and are burdened by legacy contamination, some of it remaining hidden until recently. Currently, the tritium waste is stored in long-neglected containers, subject to explosion. Searchlight New Mexico’s articleon the issue, quotes from Exploring Tritium Dangers by Arjun Makhijani: “[tritium] makes water, the stuff of life, most of the mass of living beings, radioactive.” Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear emphasized the danger to the human life cycle, particularly female fetuses that carry generational futures. Exposure to them can result in cumulative biological damage: “the kind that cuts across generations.”
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HOLTEC'S WOES
Troubles mount, state/fed levels
On June 14, Beyond Nuclear circulated an action alert for Michiganders, and backgrounder, focused on blocking another $150 million state bailout for the unprecedented, extremely high risk, insanely expensive Palisades zombie reactor restart. (Please share with those you know in the Great Lakes State!) On June 17, long-serving Holtec board member George Norcross was indicted by the New Jersey Attorney General on 13 felony racketeering counts. And Holtec has until June 27 to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court against the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling vacating the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for its consolidated interim storage facility in New Mexico (Interim Storage Partners in Texas, as well as NRC, have already appealed).
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