The ignored horror of radioactive dust from depleted uranium weapons
The problem is, when DU armor piercing projectiles penetrate their targets, they become incendiary spewing radioactive dust
The Toxic Legacy of Depleted Uranium Weapons 11-26-2012, EcoWatch, By Paul E McGinniss “……… how many of us know about the current manufacturing and active use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons? DU (Uranium 238) is a radioactive waste by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It results from making fuel for nuclear reactors and the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
In a frightening adaptation of the “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy in manufacturing, which seeks to use waste in the manufacturing process to create other “useful” products, militaries around the world have come up with the “brilliant” idea of taking DU and making “conventional” weapons with it. Read more »
How nuclear bombs were tested over the Pacific ocean
Going Nuclear Over the Pacific , Past Imperfect, Smithsonian.com August 15, 2012“…Fifty years ago this summer there were strange doings in the skies above earth as well….. But of all the things happening in the skies that summer, nothing would be quite as spectacular, surreal and frightening as the military project code-named Starfish Prime . Just five days after Americans across the country witnessed traditional Fourth of July fireworks displays, the Atomic Energy Commission created the greatest man-made light show in history when it launched a thermonuclear warhead on the nose of a Thor rocket, creating a suborbital nuclear detonation 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Read more »
Cyber weapons – the new arms race
Atomic scientists compare cyberwar to development of nuclear bomb Cyberbombs are the new atom bombs. Fox News, 15 June 12, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned Friday that the race to build and deploy cyberweapons — secret programs only recently discovered by security researchers, the extent of which is not yet fully known — closely resembles the race to build the first nuclear weapons. Read more »
USA’s ‘peaceful’ nuclear spending – it’s all controlled by military interests
The Nuclear Weapons Industry’s Money Bombs, How millions in campaign cash and revolving-door lobbying have kept America’s atomic arsenal off the chopping block. —Mother Jones, By R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public
Integrity Jun. 6, 2012 Employees of private companies that produce the main pieces of the US nuclear arsenal have invested more than $18 million in the election campaigns of lawmakers that oversee related federal
spending, and the companies also employ more than 95 former members of Congress or Capitol Hill staff to lobby for government funding, according to a new report. Read more »
Plutonium weapon versus uranium one
Uranium or plutonium? , The Korea Times, By Andrei Lankov”….. It makes a big difference whether they test a plutonium device, as they have done twice before, or if this time we will see the first test of a uranium one. There is a major difference between the two.
Militarism of Israel and USA
How the US and Israel are Shredding the NPT, The Real Nuclear Outlaws CounterPunch, by CARL BOGGS, 5 April 12, While United States and Israeli leaders, duly assisted by a warmongering media, ramp up war talk against Iran, two troublesome pieces of information are ritually ignored. First, even American intelligence reports conclude that Iran is not close to building a nuclear-weapons program. Second, it is the U.S. and Israel – not Iran – that stand in flagrant violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The real nuclear outlaws are located in Washington and Tel Aviv rather than in Tehran. Read more »
USA military want nuclear powered drones – but government not yet ready to agree
No Go On A Nuclear-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle? http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/03/25/no-go-on-a-nuclear-powered-unmanned-aerial-vehicle/ Ottawa Citizen, David Pugliese, March 25, 2012. There have been a number of articles lately about the U.S. developing a new unmanned aerial vehicle in secret. Dave Majumdar, at Air Force Times, recently had an article about how the U.S. Air Force’s decision to postpone development of a next generation unmanned combat aircraft suggests that service might be developing something else in the “black world.”
The article quoted USAF intelligence chief Lt.-Gen. Larry James who said that there is no immediate need for a next generation replacement for the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. And the Predator-C Avenger UAV the USAF is buying will be used only as a test plane, he added. Those comments have started speculation among some analysts that the U.S. already has plans for an advanced UAV to be built in secret….but others say the Pentagon will make due with the current systems.
Then the Federation of American Scientists had this last week:
A certain technology that could extend the mission duration and capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was favorably assessed last year by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation. But they concluded regretfully that “current political conditions will not allow use of the results.”
The assessment was carried out to explore the feasibility of next generation UAVs. The objective was “to increase UAV sortie duration from days to months while increasing available electrical power at least two-fold,” according to a June 2011 Sandia project summary.
And that objective could have been achieved by means of the unidentified technology, which “would have provided system performance unparalleled by other existing technologies,” the project summary said.
“As a result of this effort, UAVs were to be able to provide far more surveillance time and intelligence information while reducing the high cost of support activities. This technology was intended to create unmatched global capabilities to observe and preempt terrorist and weapon of mass destruction (WMD) activities.”
But it was all for nought.
“Unfortunately, none of the results will be used in the near-term or mid-term future,” the project summary stated. “It was disappointing to all that the political realities would not allow use of the results.”
Not only that, but “none of the results can be shared openly with the public due to national security constraints.”
Virtually permanent radioactive pollution from Colorado nuclear weapons plant
The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center hired independent contractors to test the soil and find out what the level of present plutonium contamination really looks like – but they were barred from actually entering the refuge. Instead, they tested the soil along the outside of the fence, and found that the level of contamination hasn’t changed since the 1970s.
Plutonium particles in the soil at Rocky Flats will one way or another, sooner or later, come into people’s lungs and lives, since, with a half-life of 24,000 years, it poses a radiation hazard essentially forever
the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center has filed a lawsuit to attempt to block any construction.
Former Colorado Nuclear Weapons Plant Just As Contaminated 40 Years Later http://www.care2.com/causes/former-colorado-nuclear-weapons-plant-just-as-contaminated-40-years-later.html, Care 2, by Julie Rodriguez February 24, 2012 16 miles northwest of Denver, CO sits the Rocky Flats site, formerly home to a plant that produced nuclear weapons from 1952-1989. These operations were shut down for repeated safety violations, which whistleblowers started bringing to the attention of the EPA and FBI in 1987. The extent of the contamination of the site was never revealed publically. Read more »
A nuclear weapons proliferation danger: Silex Laser Uranium Enrichment
many of the good things GE is using to make a case about Silex—less use of resources and electricity and increased efficiency—are actually negatives that make it easier for rogue states to hide clandestine plants…..methods for the production and use of nuclear materials that would be more difficult to detect,” the report states
New Uranium Enrichment Technology Alarms Aviation Week, By Kristin Majcher Washington 23 Nov 11 General Electric says it has successfully tested a faster, cheaper way to produce nuclear reactor fuel, and is planning to commercialize the technology by building a facility in Wilmington, N.C. While the prospect of saving resources to generate energy at a lower price sounds like a breakthrough, scientists are concerned that the top-secret method of enrichment that GE is using will indirectly elevate proliferation risks around the world, thus inspiring rogue states to develop their own laser enrichment facilities for nuclear weapons.
The enrichment technology is the Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation (Silex). It was developed by Silex of Australia in 1992. The technology company USEC funded early research on Silex, but abandoned it in favor of focusing on centrifuge enrichment. In 2006, GE signed an exclusive agreement to commercialize and license the technology and spearhead further research and development.
Although Silex is the only known method of laser enrichment that works and could be commercially viable, scientists are concerned because many countries have funded laser-enrichment projects. According to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, more than 20 countries have researched laser isotope separation techniques, including China, India, Iraq, Russia, Japan and Pakistan. Although they were unsuccessful, scientists say that putting Silex back into the public eye, regardless of the safeguards GE promises, poses a problem. Showing that it works could renew efforts by countries to develop the process. Read more »
Los Alamos’s gigantic new Plutonium Complex
“The warhead cores of these “plants,” would be “the successors to the bombs used on Nagasaki. They’d each have a yield that’s 50 times greater than the bomb used there in World War II.”
Despite President Obama’s campaign rhetoric of a world without nuclear weapons, despite the recent catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima complex, and despite the new START nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia last February, it seems the desire among our leaders for nuclear power and nuclear weaponry remains as strong today as it was at the height of the Cold War. What’s just as disturbing, though, is the disregard our government shows for any input from its citizenry — pro or con. Read more »
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