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| | | published Tuesday, February 02, 2010 | 758 Views :: 0 Comments |
Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010
By Martin Matishak
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON
-- The Obama administration yesterday unveiled a spending plan that
would increase funding for the U.S. National Nuclear Security
Administration to $11.2 billion in the next fiscal year (see GSN, Jan.
29).
The agency, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, would
receive a 13.4-percent budget increase in fiscal 2011 to maintain the
country's nuclear stockpile and conduct nonproliferation activities
around the globe, according to the White House funding request.
More than $7 billion would be devoted beginning Oct. 1 to "weapons
activities," which ensure the safety and performance of the nation's
atomic stockpile. The amount is a $624 million increase from this year.
Another
$2.7 billion would be funneled to the agency's Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation program, a hike of 25.8 percent above fiscal 2010.
That effort seeks to secure nuclear materials around the globe that
could be used for weapons and convert them for peaceful purposes.
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| | | published Friday, January 29, 2010 | 732 Views :: 0 Comments |
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
January 29, 2010 8:02 a.m. EST
Hanford Nuclear Site, Washington (CNN) -- The federal government has set aside nearly $2 billion in stimulus funds to clean up Washington State's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site, once the center of the country's Cold War plutonium production.
That is more stimulus funding than some entire states have received, which has triggered a debate as to whether the money is being properly spent.
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| | | published Monday, January 25, 2010 | 654 Views :: 0 Comments |
Published on National Catholic Reporter
by Joshua J. McElwee
The
Obama administration is moving ahead with the development of new
nuclear weapons components at three key weapons facilities at the same
time it is conducting a sweeping review of U.S. nuclear weapons
policies that could lead to further slashing the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
For
the moment, U.S. nuclear weapons policies appear to be running in
contrary directions, and while some critics of U.S. nuclear policy are
cautiously optimistic, they are also worried President Obama’s nuclear
disarmament vision is not yet being supported by concrete policy
actions.
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| | | published Thursday, January 14, 2010 | 376 Views :: 0 Comments |
KC breaks silence about environment
http://www.unews.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&uStory_id=9b342a90-2271-4cac-bdaf-484d476624e6
By: Alexia Lang
Posted: 1/11/10
Consider the silence broken in Kansas City.
Several
hundred Kansas Citians gathered Jan. 8-9 at the Reardon Convention
Center in Kansas City, Kan. for the third annual Breaking the Silence
Environmental Conference.
Organized by Building a Sustainable
Earth Community, the theme for the conference this year was how health
and the environment connect.
Richard Mabion, founder of the
conference and popular voice on KKFI, said the conference is about
making connections with other people who are passionate and
knowledgeable.
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| | | published Monday, December 21, 2009 | 824 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Modernization of the US Nuclear Weapons Complex in Light of the Renewal of the START Treaty
December 16, 2009
The United States nuclear stockpile of more than 2,000 warheads is
safe, secure and reliable; over the next ten years, the number of
warheads in our deployed stockpile will drop by twenty-five to thirty
percent, and both the US and Russia have indicated these reductions are
only a first step toward deeper reductions. Even so, as long as the US
relies on a nuclear deterrent, the need for confidence in our arsenal
increases as the number of warheads in our arsenal decreases. The
recently released JASON report on Stockpile Stewardship indicates that
the US stockpile is, at present, safe, secure and reliable. That is the
starting point for the discussion about new warhead production
facilities.
The current nuclear weapons complex is comprised of
eight facilities spread across the southern United States, from
Lawrence Livermore in California to Savannah River in South Carolina.
At three of these sites, the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons
wing, the National Nuclear Security Administration, has major new
facilities on the drawing board, and in the budget. These facilities,
if they are built, will expand the United States’ capacity to design
and build new nuclear weapons.
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| | | published Friday, October 30, 2009 | 1314 Views :: 3 Comments |
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has again urged the
Department of Energy (DOE) to take immediate action to reduce the risk
of a release of plutonium from a fire at Technical Area 55 at Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) following a seismic event.
http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/recommendations/lanl/rec_2009_02_la.pdf
This is the latest in a series of letters, reports and recommendations
to DOE about the potential consequences of a release of plutonium from
the Technical Area 55 Plutonium Facility following a seismic event
resulting in a fire. The Board stated that the consequences to people
living downwind and downstream of LANL have been underestimated by 100
times.
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| | | published Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | 1190 Views :: 4 Comments |
Immediate release
October 27, 2009
DOE ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR NEW BOMB PLANT IN OAK RIDGE, TN
LONG AWAITED DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
INCLUDES PLAN FOR $3.5 BILLION “URANIUM PROCESSING FACILITY”
TO BUILD THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
AT Y12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
The National Nuclear Security Administration is slated to release the
long-awaited draft of the Y12 Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement
with a Notice of Availability in the Federal Register by October 30,
2009. Copies of the Y12SWEIS were sent to the NNSA’s distribution list
earlier this week and posted on the web at www.y12sweis.com
. Among the alternatives considered in the draft EIS is the siting and
construction of the Uranium Processing Facility, a new facility which
would produce thermonuclear “secondaries” out of highly enriched
uranium, lithium deuteride, beryllium and other materials.*
The New Bomb Plant
The Draft Y12SWEIS embraces a full-scale nuclear weapons production
facility capable of producing 50-80 secondaries a year, or enough
capacity to double the size of the US arsenal every 20 years, and to
maintain an enduring nuclear stockpile. The preferred alternative,
called the “Capability-sized UPF” would lead to an initial increase in
construction employment but the eventual downsizing of nearly half the
Y12 workforce and fails to address increased mission requirements for
dismantlement and disposition of retired nuclear weapons.
for more information: Ralph Hutchison 865 776 5050 | orep@earthlink.net
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| | | published Monday, October 19, 2009 | 515 Views :: 1 Comments |
Comment of the Western States Legal Foundation on the scope of the proposed
Environmental
Impact Statement for the Continued Operation of the Department of
Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Test Site
and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada
Submitted by Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director
and Andrew Lichterman, senior research analyst
October 16, 2009
Introduction
Western
States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest peace
and environmental organization which, since 1982, has participated in
administrative proceedings, litigation and grassroots advocacy to
promote the end of the nuclear race and global abolition of nuclear
weapons and cleanup of federal facilities engaged in nuclear weapons
research, development and production.
Since 1994, WSLF has
participated as an accredited Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
observer in every Preparatory Committee meeting and Review Conference
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva, New York and
Vienna. In 1994, WSLF participated as an accredited NGO observer in
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations in Geneva, and in
2001 was an accredited NGO observer at the CTBT Entry-Into-Force
Conference at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Summary
The
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Continued Operation of the
Nevada Test Site (NTS) should include an alternative based on closure
of the NTS as a matter of good faith, in connection with the
anticipated Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT), and in consultation with the Western Shoshone National Council.
This analysis should separately examine alternatives for all nonnuclear
activities currently conducted at the NTS and off-site locations in
Nevada.
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| | | published Monday, October 05, 2009 | 879 Views :: 4 Comments |
It takes courage and skill to lead, even more to lead the world. As
chair of the U.N. Security Council, President Obama won unanimous
approval from all 15 nations —including Russia and China—for his bold
roadmap toward a nuclear weapons-free world (“Obama nuclear goals
backed,” Sept 25). It was a stunning victory on the world stage. And
one of those rare times when a politician chooses the tough but
effective road instead of easier, half-hearted approaches more likely
to pay off before the next election.
Originally appeared in the The Spokesman Review, October 2, 2009, http://www.spokesman.com/.
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| | | published Monday, September 14, 2009 | 663 Views :: 1 Comments |
Originally published at
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090910_a_hundred_holocausts_an_insiders_window_into_us_nuclear_policy/
Posted on Sep 10, 2009
By Daniel Ellsberg
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of Daniel Ellsberg’s
personal memoir of the nuclear era, “The American Doomsday Machine.”
The online book will recount highlights of his six years of research
and consulting for
the Departments of Defense and State and the White House on issues of
nuclear command and control, nuclear war planning and nuclear crises.
It further draws on 34 subsequent years of research and activism largely on nuclear policy , which followed the intervening 11 years of his preoccupation with the Vietnam War . Subsequent installments also will appear on Truthdig. The author is a senior fellow of theNuclear Age Peace Foundation .
American Planning for a Hundred Holocausts
One
day in the spring of 1961, soon after my 30th birthday, I was shown how
our world would end. Not the Earth, not—so far as I knew then—all
humanity or life, but the destruction of most cities and people in the
Northern Hemisphere.
What I was handed, in a White House office,
was a single sheet of paper with some numbers and lines on it. It was
headed “Top Secret—Sensitive”; under that, “For the President’s Eyes
Only.”
The “Eyes Only” designation meant that, in principle,
it was to be seen and read only by the person to whom it was explicitly
addressed, in this case the president. In practice this usually meant
that it would be seen by one or more secretaries and assistants as
well: a handful of people, sometimes somewhat more, instead of the
scores to hundreds who would normally see copies of a “Top
Secret—Sensitive” document.
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