John Oliver rips union busting by companies: ‘It’s all about killing momentum’


Last Week Tonight host explains how large companies break up unionization drives and the ineffective consequences for breaking the law

John Oliver: ‘Union busting is all about killing momentum, splintering unity, and exhausting workers’ spirits.’ 

Photograph: YouTube


Adrian Horton
@adrian_horton
Mon 15 Nov 2021 16.46 GMT

John Oliver explored the many sinister and effective methods through which US companies bust unionization drives on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, at one of the worst times for organized labor in the country’s history. Though nearly half of non-union workers say they would like to be in a union, only 10.8% of American workers belong to one, just above half the rate of unionization in 1983.

“If you’ve never been through a union organizing drive yourself, you might assume that a union vote is a completely free and fair election,” the host explained. But “that is an illusion fed by executives like Jeff Bezos,” who told Business Insider in 2018 that Amazon didn’t “believe that we need a union to be an intermediary between us and our employees, but of course at the end of the say, it’s always the employees’ choice”.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m personally not comforted by hearing one of the richest men on earth say ‘it’s your choice,’” said Oliver. “No matter the context, all I can hear is, ‘spear or arrow, how would you prefer to be hunted, it’s your choice.”

Oliver delved into a major reason for unions’ declining power in the private sector: the ability of large companies such as Amazon, Starbucks and Target to prevent unionization drives and protract contract negotiations with relatively few and meaningless consequences.

Such “union busting” begins, Oliver explained, with preventing workers from holding a secret ballot election, typically through influence campaigns and intimidation. During a recent unionization attempt at a center in Bessemer, Alabama, for example, Amazon inundated workers with anti-union signs throughout the workplace, including in bathroom stalls, and used workers’ contact information to send multiple anti-union text messages per day. Both Starbucks and Amazon held “captive audience meetings” disguised as union information sessions to persuade workers not to organize.


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Companies also engage in scare tactics regarding union dues; in 2019, Delta Airlines produced posters which told employees to use the $700 for union dues toward “a new video game system with the latest hits.”

“Telling your workers to play video games instead of unionizing is incredibly condescending, and doubly so when you consider video game characters are the ultimate example of exploited labor,” Oliver said. “Think about it: they take orders all day, usually get paid in coins, and not once in 36 years of playing Mario have I ever seen him get to take a bathroom break. Not once!

“And you might say, well, of course a union collects dues, how else are they going to have the resources to fight for their members?” he continued. But anti-union consulting firms retained by large companies “will insist that unions simply take money and offer nothing in return”.

One 2016 video by the Labor Relations Institute, Inc, an anti-labor consulting firm, argued that unions sent out “high-pressure salespeople” to sell a “bill of goods” because declining membership meant unions were “in danger of going out of business”.

“Just to be clear, that is a for-profit consulting firm being paid by a for-profit company arguing that unions are only in it for the money,” said Oliver. “It’s not even the pot calling the kettle black, it’s the pot calling the kettle a pot. It’s like being called a bad first date by Ted Bundy.”

It is also easy for companies to engage in illegal intimidation with little recourse. Though it is against the law for companies to threaten workers’ jobs if they unionize, it is legal for companies to “predict” that a workplace will close should a workforce unionize, “which is obviously not a real distinction”, said Oliver. “When a loanshark threatens to break your legs, that’s not meaningfully different from a loanshark predicting that legs will be broken as a result of market forces related to lack of payment.”


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Penalties for companies wrongfully terminating pro-union employees are “just pathetic”, said Oliver. A company might be forced to provide backpay, “but that on its own is a pretty small price for them to pay if it helps them crush a union”.

Which is why US employers are charged with violating federal law in over 41% of union election campaigns, “because why wouldn’t they?” Oliver exclaimed. “Even when the charges are proven, the consequences are laughable.”

The host then offered a few potential fixes, starting with the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or Pro Act, currently working through Congress, which would outlaw captive audience meetings and prevent employers from protracting negotiations for years. “Perhaps most importantly, it would put real financial penalties in place to prevent companies from violating workers’ rights without consequence,” Oliver said.

“But until that law is passed, and it should pass, one of the most important things a worker could do is to try not to get disheartened during a campaign,” he added, “which I know isn’t easy, but union busting is all about killing momentum, splintering unity, and exhausting workers’ spirits.”

Hollywood crew union narrowly ratifies new contract with industry producers

PUBLISHED MON, NOV 15 2021
Sarah Whitten@SARAHWHIT10

KEY POINTS

Members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees have ratified two contracts with Hollywood’s studios that address the union’s call for better working hours, safer workplace conditions and improved benefits.

Around 56% of the 641 delegate votes from all 36 locals voting for the basic and area standards agreements were in favor of the deal, while 44% voted “no.”

Around 72% of the union’s total membership, which is more than 63,000 strong, cast ballots. 

The popular vote was even closer than the delegate voting, with 50.3% voting yes to ratification and 49.7% voting against it.


A driver displays their support for the IATSE union on October 07, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

Members of a union that represents film and television crews have ratified two contracts with Hollywood’s studios that address the union’s call for better working hours, safer workplace conditions and improved benefits.

On Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees said 56% of the 641 delegate votes from all 36 locals voting for the basic and area standards agreements were in favor of the deal, while 44% voted “no.”

“From start to finish, from preparation to ratification, this has been a democratic process to win the very best contracts,” said Matthew Loeb, IATSE’s international president. “The vigorous debate, high turnout, and close election, indicates we have an unprecedented movement-building opportunity to educate members on our collective bargaining process and drive more participation in our union long-term.”

The ratification of these contracts comes one month after the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major film and television production companies, reached a tentative agreement after months of failed negotiations.

IATSE had even voted to initiate a strike if talks with AMPTP had stalled once more.

IATSE uses an electoral college style system where locals are assigned delegates based on the size of their membership. Members vote within their local union and their vote is assigned to the majority result.

Around 72% of the union’s total membership, which is more than 63,000 strong, cast ballots. The popular vote was even closer than the delegate voting, with 50.3% voting yes to ratification and 49.7% voting against it.

“Our goal was to achieve fair contracts that work for IATSE members in television and film—that address quality-of-life issues and conditions on the job like rest and meal breaks,” said Loeb. “We met our objectives for this round of bargaining and built a strong foundation for future agreements.”

The new three-year contracts include a 10-hour turnaround between shifts, 54 hours of rest over the weekend, increased health and pension plan funding and a 3% rate increase every year for the duration of the contract.

There are also stiff financial penalties if these break periods are violated.

 

Google executives tell employees it can compete for Pentagon contracts without violating its principles.

November 15, 2021 

 

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Google executives told employees last week in a companywide meeting that it is interested in a Pentagon contract for cloud computing and that working for the military would not necessarily conflict with principles created by the company for how its artificial intelligence technology would be used.

Google is pursuing the contract three years after an employee revolt forced the company to abandon work on a Pentagon program that used artificial intelligence and to establish new guidelines against using A.I. for weapons or surveillance.

The pursuit potentially sets up another clash between company leaders and employees. Google’s cloud unit prioritized preparation for a bid on a Pentagon contract, The New York Times revealed this month, pulling engineers off other projects to focus on creating a winning proposal.

The rush to pursue the contract is a dramatic shift for Google, which said in 2018 that it would not bid on a major cloud computing contract with the Defense Department, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, because the work would conflict with its A.I. principles.

The JEDI cloud computing contract was estimated to be worth $10 billion over 10 years, and was awarded to Microsoft in 2019. But facing legal challenges from Amazon, the Pentagon scrapped the contract in July and announced a new plan to purchase cloud computing technology. The new version of the contract, known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, will split the work between multiple companies.

The segmented nature of the contract allows Google to work on parts of the Pentagon cloud without violating its ban on weapons, Google executives told employees in the videoconference meeting on Thursday, a recording of which was obtained by The Times.

The exact scope of the work is still unclear because the government has not submitted a formal request for proposal. While it has not been invited to bid, Google has said it is interested.

In a blog post published the same day as the meeting, Thomas Kurian, who oversees the company’s cloud unit, wrote: “If we are invited to be part of the J.W.C.C. contract, we will absolutely bid.”

At the meeting, Mr. Kurian said there are many areas where Google’s capabilities and expertise can be applied “with no conflict to Google’s A.I. principles.”

“We have governance processes that provide guidance and oversight into what A.I. products we will offer and what custom A.I. projects we will and we will not pursue, and we will follow those governance processes,” he said.

Mr. Kurian’s remarks, which were reported earlier by CNBC, were made in response to a question from an employee about Google’s interest in the Pentagon contract and The Times’s reporting on it.

“We understand that not every Googler will agree with this decision, but we believe Google Cloud should seek to serve the government where it is capable of doing so and where the work meets Google’s A.I. principles and our company’s values,” Mr. Kurian said.

Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, echoed his remarks. “I think we are strongly committed to working with the government in a way that’s consistent with our A.I. principles,” Mr. Pichai said.

A spokesman for Google declined to comment.

Can Hydrogen Save Aviation’s Fuel Challenges? It’s Got a Way to Go.

Small, experimental hydrogen-powered planes are paving the way for net-zero carbon aviation by 2050. But the route is rocky.


Credit...Matt Williams

By Roy Furchgott
Nov. 15, 2021

This article is part of our series on the Future of Transportation, which is exploring innovations and challenges that affect how we move about the world.

A fully fueled Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner can fly roughly 8,000 miles while ferrying 300 or so passengers and their luggage. A battery with the energy equivalent to that fuel would weigh about 6.6 million pounds. That’s why — despite environmental advantages — we don’t have battery-powered electric airliners.

But aviation companies working to make cleaner aircraft are exploring the use of hydrogen, the world’s most abundant element, to power both electric and combustion engines — and to make air travel more eco-friendly

Hydrogen-powered planes are already aloft, although mostly as small, experimental aircraft. Yet those planes are helping to pave the way for net-zero carbon aviation by 2050, the goal set by many government and environmental groups. But hydrogen isn’t without controversy: For now, it’s expensive, not always green, and some say dangerous.

“There are three ways of using hydrogen as fuel onboard an aircraft,” said Amanda Simpson, who leads green initiatives for the aircraft manufacturer Airbus. Hydrogen can be a source of power for batterylike fuel cells, in hybrid aircraft, or as combustible fuel.

Alternative-fuel technologies are well established in the automotive world, of course. Cars that burn alternative fuels — remember diesels converted to burn used French-fry oil? — have been around since the earliest days of horseless carriages. And hybrid gas and electric cars, such as the Toyota Prius, have been available since 1997. But only a few models, including the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Nexo, use hydrogen fuel cells.

When Val Miftakhov founded ZeroAvia to develop electric aircraft, he first considered battery power. A Siberian émigré and physicist, his earlier start-up converted gasoline cars to electric, then incorporated an improved charging system. But batteries can sustain only the shortest excursions, like training flights. “Where a mission is an hour, batteries might work,” he said. Battery-powered trainers also exist, such as the Pipistrel Alfa Electro which claims a one-hour flight time.

ZeroAvia instead chose fuel cells, which are essentially a chemical battery that substitutes lighter-than-air hydrogen for the weighty lithium ion. Hydrogen is notable for its energy density — the amount of energy per kilogram — which is about three times that of jet fuel. The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water. Hydrogen can be made from water and renewable energy, although most is now made from natural gas, which is not particularly green.

Mr. Miftakhov acknowledged that hydrogen storage containers, which were generally designed for ground transportation, were not practical for aircraft. “We need to focus on reducing the weight,” he said, “We have some fairly low-hanging fruit.”

Unlike electric batteries, hydrogen fuel cells can be recharged in minutes, but there is a lack of fueling stations, and building them would be a huge undertaking

That problem is less critical for hybrid aircraft, which use a combination of electric and combustion power, said Pat Anderson, a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “It can pull up to a fuel pump that exists today and fill up,” he said.

Mr. Anderson’s students used a hybrid system in a 2011 eco-flight competition. They didn’t win, but it sold Mr. Anderson on the merits of hybrid power engines, which he now builds at VerdeGo Aero, a Florida company that counts Erik Lindbergh, an X-Prize Foundation board member and Charles Lindbergh’s grandson, as executive chairman.

Modern hybrid systems can use a variable mix of electric and combustion power, and can even use the combustion motor as an electric generator in flight. It may give planes more range than battery or fuel cells alone, Mr. Anderson said.

Whatever the power source, there are some advantages specific to electric engines, said Roei Ganzarski, who leads two companies: MagniX, which makes electric propulsion systems for aircraft, and Eviation which is developing the futuristic-looking Alice electric aircraft. One advantage is cost.
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“Airplanes today are really, really expensive, and the main reason is the engines,” he said. They require a lot of maintenance and consume a lot of expensive fuel. “I can reduce the operating cost of that plane around 40 to 50 percent on average,” he claimed. That’s because electric motors are comparatively maintenance free.

Harbour Air, which bills itself as “the world’s largest seaplane airline,” is seeking permission to carry passengers on its MagniX electric-powered de Havilland dhc-2 Beaver. A 10-passenger Cessna Grand has also flown with a MagniX engine.

There are some things electric power cannot achieve, like lifting that 787. But that doesn’t mean big jets can’t go green, or at least greener. Several fuel refiners and airlines are experimenting with Sustainable Aviation Fuels, known as SAFs. These fuels, which burn just like the common “Jet A” fuel, can be made from waste such as used cooking fats. Some companies, like Neste, use hydrogen in refining its SAF fuel.

Although aviation safety organizations allow commercial aircraft to use fuel containing 50 percent or less SAF, in demonstrations, existing jets have burned 100-percent SAF, “and the engines are very happy with it,” Ms. Simpson of Airbus said.

But SAF may be seen as a stopgap, as larger planes have flown happily burning emissions-free pure hydrogen. In 1957, a Martin B-57B powered part of a flight using hydrogen as fuel. In 1988, a Soviet TU-155 airliner flew on hydrogen fuel alone.

For Senator Spark Matsunaga, a Democrat of Hawaii who died in 1990, it was a missed opportunity — as significant as Soviet’s Sputnik satellite beating the United States into space. “Once again we’ve missed the boat,” he said, “and we can only hope that the next administration will be more interested in hydrogen than this one has been.”

Any mention of hydrogen aircraft means addressing the zeppelin in the room. Although hydrogen has been used in ballooning since 1783, its aeronautical future dimmed on May 6, 1937, when the zeppelin Hindenburg very publicly burned in Lakehurst, N.J. killing 36. It is still debated if the flames, immortalized on radio and in newsreels (and a Led Zeppelin album cover), were caused mostly by hydrogen or the incendiary paint used on the airship’s fabric skin. Regardless, the damage to hydrogen’s reputation lingers today.

More recently, ZeroAvia experienced a bad news/good news scenario when its hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Piper Malibu Mirage M350 crash landed last April. The good news was that no one was hurt, despite the plane losing a wing. Better still, with no fuel to leak and no hot engine to ignite it, there was no Hindenburg-like conflagration.

“The hydrogen system itself all held up perfectly,” Mr. Miftakhov said. “The emergency crew said if it were a fossil-fuel plane it would have been a major fire.”

But the big argument against hydrogen has not been safety but cost. Although “green” hydrogen can be produced with water and renewable energy, most produced now is so-called “gray hydrogen” made using fossil fuels, which is not much cleaner than burning those fuels themselves.

Hydrogen proponents say that technological improvements and larger scale facilities could bring the cost down to $1 per kilogram, the point at which it is competitive with fossil fuel. Part of the Biden administration’s “Earthshots” initiative is a proposed $400 million investment in 2022 toward reaching the $1 per kilogram mark within 10 years.

Hydrogen boosters like Mr. Ganzarski argue that while green hydrogen may initially be costly to make, the cost of not pursuing hydrogen aircraft may be greater. It is with some understatement that he said, “Emissions are not good for our health.”


A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 16, 2021, Section B, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Will Hydrogen Be Aviation’s Eco-Friendly Fuel?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

  

Why You Should Care About Small Nuclear Reactors

The future might depend on it.

Nov 11, 2021By  Brad Bergan

A computer rendering of a future SMR site.Rolls-Royce 

Nuclear power could become a crucial feature in a world free of fossil fuels.

This is why Rolls-Royce secured financial backing from a consortium of private investors and the U.K. government to build small modular nuclear reactors capable of generating cleaner energy in the region, according to a press release from the company.

As of writing, roughly 16% of the United Kingdom's electricity comes from nuclear power, but this could start dropping soon. "A lot of existing reactors [in the U.K.] are nearing the end of their lifetime," said Professor Michael Fitzpatrick, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engineering, Environment, and Computing at the U.K.'s Coventry University, who's also an expert in nuclear energy, to Interesting Engineering. "We have to be replacing these just to stand still in terms of keeping nuclear at its portion of the electricity grid."

And, as more nations face the hard facts of solar and wind's intermittency issues, new investments in nuclear power like Rolls-Royce's small modular reactors could help the world balance the energy gaps left by renewables, and achieve net-zero carbon goals, on time.

Rolls-Royce's new SMR nuclear reactors will help the UK achieve its net-zero carbon goals

Following the roughly $260 million (£195 million) cash injection from private firms, in addition to the roughly $280 million (£210 million) from the U.K. government, the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) company was formally announced. And it could generate up to 40,000 jobs by 2050, according to a BBC report. Small Modular Reactors are essentially just like conventional ones; they use fuels like uranium to heat water, and then transfer that thermal energy into electrical energy, releasing only harmless steam (water vapor) into the atmosphere. But SMRs are tailored to suit any economic scenario. "SMRs allow you to do a mix where the endpoint is the same," said Fitzpatrick to IE. "The same ability to meet energy demands, but at different levels of commitment", both financially and in terms of scale. "It's a lower up-front cost, with a shorter build time."

In the release, Rolls-Royce SMR said one of its power stations would take up the space equivalent to roughly one-tenth of the space of conventional nuclear plants, and generate enough power to supply electricity to one million households. One SMR plant could generate 470 MW of power, which could be thrown into the mix of conventionally renewable power, like the more than 150 onshore wind turbines. Each SMR should cost roughly $2.7 billion (£2 billion) to construct, far less than the roughly $27 billion (£20 billion) needed to build conventional (full-scale) reactors. This lower cost makes SMRs a more viable alternative to fossil fuels, on similar financial standing as major wind and solar installations.

Solar and wind lack the means to store adequate power

Critics of the new investment in nuclear and the Rolls-Royce SMR business argue that the focus of the energy industry should be on renewable power, instead of new nuclear. But according to Fitzpatrick, this is a false dilemma. "The question of renewables and nuclear shouldn't be seen as an either/or," he said. "In the same way, we should be investing in many energy storage options, including hydrogen." Still, this raises the question: is nuclear really clean energy? It still produces toxic waste, and that's bad for the environment. But the kind of waste we see from nuclear power isn't driving a global climate catastrophe. "The waste is unpleasant stuff and it's potentially harmful," explained Fitzpatrick to IE. "But stacked against CO2, you're not really comparing like with like." The surge in global temperatures is directly linked to CO2 levels, which are drastically reshaping our atmosphere to the limits of human habitability, almost single-handedly thanks to fossil fuel industries.

"In other words, nuclear waste does not raise the same problem that fossil fuel pollution creates," said Fitzpatrick. And they also address a major issue with solar and wind power, which can't store enough power when there's no wind or sunlight. "Right now renewables suffer from intermittency. When wind speed drops, you need a gas turbine to cover" for wind turbines. "In the U.K. we've restarted coal fire plants to cover the gap. You need a way of storage for what's being generated by renewables (and we're no way near at the scale to do that)." It's difficult to overstate how serious this flaw in solar and wind can be on a practical level. "Would society accept on a calm still winter night that we should be prepared to do without heating in hospitals, or industry in general?" asked Fitzpatrick, rhetorically. The waste from nuclear power is also a flaw, but its effects don't tread water next to the ravages of excess CO2.

France, too, is investing in nuclear power

"Some people say you just can't store waste underground" like it's an absolute ethical principle, added Fitzpatrick to IE. "But carbon storage is exactly that; storing waste underground. And CO2 is the same forever. It has no half-life." The advantages of using nuclear often go unspoken because it simply hasn't shared the same spotlight that renewables have in the last decade or two. But "with nuclear, you're taking a tech that we know works, and investing it to deploy rapidly at scale." And the U.K. is not alone in realizing this.

On Tuesday, President Macron announced that France will build new nuclear reactors, specifically to meet global warming targets and keep energy prices under control, according to a Reuters report. This fits Fitzpatrick's rationale for emphasizing nuclear in national grids throughout the world. "If you're serious about making decarbonization commitments, you have to be investing in nuclear. We need a low-carbon baseload, and I think more governments are going to come to that conclusion, and I think that's going to drive a global nuclear renaissance." Right now, solar and wind power have already reached a serious limit, and it's one that was there all along: when the sun goes down, and the wind calms, there's not enough stored energy to keep an energy grid going. "Right at the moment the way we cover the intermittency gap is by using fossil fuels," said Fitzpatrick. But nuclear can fill these gaps, maintain energy levels, and it's just getting started. "Nuclear should not just be about technologies we have today, but also about the technologies we want to build in 30, 40, or 50 years."

Thorium-Fueled Reactors Offer Huge Potential Benefits for the Nuclear Power Industry

Nuclear power opponents often point to radioactive waste as one of their main concerns. However, most people don’t realize that problems associated with long-lived waste can actually be solved in an economic way with technology that’s already well-proven. Long-lived actinides can be “burned” in a thorium molten salt reactor (MSR), or a breeder reactor. They do not burn fast, but in this way, it is possible to convert the most problematic part of the waste from something that needs to be stored safely for tens of thousands of years to fission products that only need to be stored safely for about 300 years.

“Breeding is where you actually convert what’s called a fertile fuel—and thorium is one of these fertile fuels—you convert that into something which you can fission, and then you have to make sure that that process actually doesn’t stop—that it continues to create more and more new fuel,” Thomas Jam Pedersen, co-founder of Copenhagen Atomics, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “That’s what Copenhagen Atomics is trying to prove to the world—that it’s not merely something that you can show from physics that it’s possible, but you could actually also build it and make it work.”

The concept is not new. MSRs—a class of reactors that use liquid salt, usually fluoride- or chloride-based, as either a coolant with a solid fuel or as a combined coolant and fuel with the fuel dissolved in a carrier salt—underwent significant testing in the 1950s and 1960s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. Subsequent design studies in the 1970s focusing on thermal-spectrum thorium-fueled systems established reference concepts for two major design variants, one of which was a molten salt breeder reactor with multiple configurations that could breed additional fissile material or maintain self-sustaining operation.

One reason the testing stopped was because thorium is not well-suited for making nuclear weapons, so the military was not interested in investing in the technology. “It was, from the very get-go, far behind the investments in the uranium fuel cycle, and therefore, most people were educated in the uranium fuel cycle,” Pedersen said.

In the late 2000s, that changed, because documents from the ORNL testing were released to the public. “People started to discover, ‘Oh, there’s actually something here that is quite exciting.’ Because thorium is the only element where you can make breeder cycle, or breeder reactor, in thermal spectrum, and thermal spectrum is sort of, you can say, the easy reactors to build,” Pedersen explained

Molten salt is an important part of the process because it allows fission products to be removed from the reactor during operation. In the past, corrosion was a serious problem when using molten salt, but with today’s advanced materials, it’s less of a concern and less expensive to control. “Back in the day, there was not that much material science, and it was difficult to make the salt clean enough that you could minimize the corrosion,” said Pedersen. “I think this is where we’ve gotten a step ahead now with modern technology.”

Copenhagen Atomics’ goal is to have a 100-MWth (roughly 45-MWe) reactor unit available commercially by 2028. Units are expected to be built in a factory, using an assembly-line process, and will be roughly the size of a standard shipping container, which will allow them to be delivered easily to plant construction sites around the world. Customers would be able to install multiple units at a site to effectively create almost any size plant.

“One of the problems with classical reactors is that they’re usually really, really big and built onsite, and are quite expensive, and take many years to build,” Pedersen said. “We started this company because we want to change that. We want to be able to deploy these reactors much faster. Our ambition is to build more than one every day.”

The company expects to have a non-fission prototype unit ready for operation next year. “We will be able to test it—it’s a one-to-one scale model of the reactor—we will not be able to run fission inside, but we can start it up and we can pump the salt around and we can test all the systems—see that it’s working,” Pedersen said. Copenhagen Atomics is targeting 2025 to have a fully functioning demonstration reactor in operation.

One additional advantage of the MSR is that molten salt is a great energy storage medium, so Pedersen said he envisions storage tanks at plant sites that will allow units to operate as baseload units, even in a renewable-filled market. “We plan to put all the output energy into that tank when, say, the wind is blowing. And then when the wind is not blowing, then you can both take the power from the reactor and you can take some of the additional power from those storage tanks.”

The cost? “I think it’ll be a much cheaper energy form than classical nuclear reactors, and I think we can even compete with some of the cheapest forms of wind power or solar power,” said Pedersen. Furthermore, the thorium-fueled units will be dispatchable. “We can supply energy 24/7, and therefore, the value of our energy source is higher in the grid than it would be if you buy the same electricity from solar.”

To hear the full interview with Pedersen, which includes information about partners, the research and development process, how exciting new reactor technology is inspiring younger people to join the industry, and more, listen to The POWER Podcast. Click on the SoundCloud player below to listen in your browser now or use the following links to reach the show page on your favorite podcast platform:

The POWER Podcast · 101. Thorium-Fueled Reactors Offer Huge Potential Benefits for the Nuclear Power Industry

For more power podcasts, visit The POWER Podcast archives.

—Aaron Larson is POWER’s executive editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine).

Industry’s First Complete Accident-Tolerant Nuclear Assembly in Operation at Calvert Cliffs

The first complete accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) assembly is now operational at Exelon’s Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 in Maryland, bringing an industry-led quest to accelerate commercialization of the new nuclear technology closer to fruition.

Inserted during the plant’s recent spring refueling outage, the lead fuel assembly (LFA) features a Framatome PROtect fuel design that was developed under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Accident Fuel program. The pioneering LFA includes 176 chromium-coated rods and chromia-enhanced pellets that are “more tolerant to changes in reactor core temperatures increasing coping time, while reducing corrosion and the production of hydrogen under high-temperature conditions,” the French nuclear giant said.

According to the DOE, the advanced fuel will now operate in the reactor for the next four to six years and will be routinely inspected to monitor its performance. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in January amended Exelon’s Calvert Cliff operating license, allowing Exelon to install up to two Framatome PROtect lead test assemblies at the 1.9-GW nuclear plant’s two 860-MW pressurized water reactors for up to three cycles.

The Framatome PROtect accident tolerant fuel assembly undergoes final

 inspection before delivery to Exelon’s Calvert Cliffs Unit 2 in Lusby, Maryland. 

Courtesy: Framatome

Framatome noted that the LFA was fabricated at its manufacturing facility in Richland, Washington, as part of a 2019 contract with Exelon Generation. However, the new fuel prototype builds on previous testing in the U.S., including an 18-month fuel cycle test, and Switzerland through Framatome’s PROtect program.“Loading the first complete accident tolerant fuel assembly is a huge milestone for Framatome and the nuclear energy industry,” said Lionel Gaiffe, senior executive vice president of Framatome’s Fuel Business Unit.

Frank Goldner, a nuclear engineer within DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, noted the milestone is also a triumph for Exelon and “the entire industry at large.” ATF, an industry concept used to describe new technologies in the form of new cladding and/or fuel pellet designs, has morphed into a key priority for the U.S. nuclear power industry because it promises to improve the existing nuclear fleet’s cost competitiveness in power markets that are increasingly inundated with cheap renewables and natural gas power. “Accident tolerant fuels are expected to enhance the performance of today’s reactors and will help fuel our future path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050,” Goldner added

ATFs Set for ‘Widespread’ Adoption by 2030

While ATF technologies have been under development since the early 2000s, they received a marked boost in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima accident as the DOE aggressively implemented plans under its Congressionally mandated Enhanced Accident Tolerant Fuel (EATF) program to develop ATFs for existing light water reactors (LWRs). The DOE has said these technologies are being developed under an “accelerated timeframe,” owing mainly to the status of the nation’s current fleet of reactors. Earlier this year, the agency told POWER a private-public collaboration to commercialize ATFs is “still on track for initial commercial introduction of accident tolerant fuel by 2025.”

Backed by the DOE and monitored by the NRC, since spring 2018, GE’s Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), Westinghouse, and Framatome have so far loaded lead test assemblies (LTAs) containing “near-term” ATF technologies at 10 U.S. nuclear plants. Tests of loaded fuel are ongoing or planned at another four nuclear plants.

Key accident-tolerant fuel milestones at various U.S. power plants. 

Courtesy: Nuclear Energy Institute (August 2021)

The DOE said on Tuesday all three vendors are “currently on track to have their accident tolerant fuels ready for batch loading by the mid-2020s and with commercial widespread adoption by 2030.”

A Brief Recap of ATF Achievements

So far, GNF has tested several different iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) alloys for cladding. In December 2020, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said it received the first GNF-developed nuclear fuel test rods, which spent 24 months at Southern Co.’s Edwin Hatch nuclear plant. The test samples feature IronClad, an FeCrAl fuel cladding, and ARMOR, a hard, oxidation-resistant coating layered on top of zirconium cladding with uranium oxide (UO2) fuel (which GNF originally created outside of the DOE’s ATF program).

Framatome, meanwhile, is working to commercialize a near-term ATF design that involves chromium-coated zirconium alloy cladding with chromia (Cr2O3)–doped UO2 fuel. Four GAIA LTAs containing Framatome’s advanced chromium coating (which is added to its proprietary M5 zirconium alloy cladding) and the chromia-doped pellets were removed after an 18-month cycle at Southern Co.’s Vogtle 2 plant in August 2020. Two other 18-month cycles of operation for the LTAs are planned. Framatome’s concepts are also being tested at Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) Unit 1. In the fall of 2019, ANO Unit 1 inserted 32 Framatome Cr-coated lead test rods. The full assembly inserted at Calvert Cliffs this spring includes Cr-coated M5 cladding and Cr2O3-doped UO2 fuel.

Westinghouse is also testing several “near-term” technologies developed under its EnCore Fuel brand. These include “improved chromium-coated cladding that inhibits the zirconium-steam reaction and increases maximum temperature by an additional 300C,” as well as Westinghouse’s proprietary ADOPT fuel pellets, which are chromia and alumina (Cr2O3 + Al2O3)—doped UO2. The additives in the doped fuel “facilitate greater densification and diffusion during sintering, resulting in a higher density and an enlarged grain size as compared to undoped UO2,” the company said in topical report that the NRC accepted for review in September 2020.

—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).

The Forty Years War: Tariq Ali and Afghanistan

BY PAUL BUHLE
NOVEMBER 12, 2021


Photograph Source: Mike Pryor – Public Domain

Tariq Ali’s book, The Forty Years War, is an event, within the larger event of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. No one, Left or Right, has followed the misadventure of US policy there with such dogged attention and keen insight. Nor, within the UK itself, of much higher visibility. From the pages of the Guardian to the London Review of Books and even in public dialogue with a key British foreign advisor (under Labour), his views have been discussed and debated, we can imagine, at the highest levels. Recent turns of the wheel (or screw) have vindicated him a thousand times over.

Tariq Ali, a Marxist theorist and historian of note, lecturer across continents, an editor of New Left Review, longtime contributor to CounterPunch and so on, happens also to be very much a participant in the regional events around the Indian subcontinent and nearby Afghanistan. He is Pakistani by origin—or rather in the part of India that would become Pakistan—as everyone knows. Far away from his homeland more than a half-century, apart from visits, he commands intimate knowledge of the people of the region, the contradictions, hopes and despair marking the post-colonial era. All this is part of him.

Here is a source, if by no means the only source, of his unique insights. There is no “Afghanistan Question” without a “Pakistani Question.” The flow back and forth across the borders artificially created by the colonial powers has not ceased, but rather accelerated with the internal strife, the blundering Russian effort to perpetuate a buffer state against Western instrusions, and the following catastrophe of US invasion and occupation.

Ali explains and explores briefly the deep reality of geography and demography. Afghanistan is one of the poorest regions of the world, under any or all ideological or military or any other leadership. The names of the rulers do not alter the multiplicity

of different populations divided by tradition more than ideology, nor do the claims made for “change” or “modernization” create more water or arable land. Poppies thrive, now 90% of the world’s source for heroin, because alternatives do not allow survivable conditions.

Thus follows the geopolitical nightmare of US efforts, a redux of the British imperial project in the same valleys, updated by vast military technology and the capacity to create an almost American Suburban lifestyle that British soldiers would have envied (perhaps only the invaders’ access to the local sex traffic has remained largely the same). As the text reveals, beyond the boundaries of the invaders’ temporary holdings an artificial civil society can be created (we can be sure yesteryear’s British Afghanistanis read English novels and played cricket), the rest of society is lagely untouched except by devastating attacks on all sides, endless poverty and misery.

But Ali’s focus for much of this precise and careful book is the nature of the Western and if especially American, also British illusion. As he says, China, Russia and and most of Kabul expressed a collective relief by the overthrow of the Taliban whose origins could be readily traced to US assistance. The “Wahhabite Emirate” was driven out, but now what? The heart of the problem, of course, had already been obscured by US (and Britiish) response to the 9/11 Bombings. To trace the origins to Saudi citizens would be intolerable.

Somehow, an invasion of something in the region seemed the righteous and masculine thing to do for leading Americans who were looking to consolidate post-Cold War global hegemony everywhere, but especially the Middle East. The confidence of the Bush presidency was supreme. But as Ali says, “the problem was not lack of funds but the Western state-building project itself, by its nature an exogenous process” that “bore no relation to the realities on the ground.” (p.106).

Warring factions, shifting alliances, the incomptence and corruption of the Karzai regime installed by the US, all this and more was kept from reporters or, we may guess, most did not want to know. The billions of dollars of aid never reached ordinary Afghanis, quite the reverse: the rich became richer while the poor suffered more and more deprivations. The NGOs, swarming but taking their orders from afar, living within heaquarters and constructed neighborhoods with no relation to the rest of the country, soon had to hire mercernaries to protect then when they ventured outward.

The cries of “Victory” could be heard far away, as press releases and statements to Congress, but back in Afghanistan itself, only by those on the take. The Taliban grew its fresh supply of fighters from a population desperately alienated and eager for revenge.

It is a gloomy note, if not a large portion of the book, to learn once more that Obama the peace candidate (of sorts), who could have ended the Afghanistan farce as soon as he gained the presidency, was not the peace president by a long run. Afghanistan was only one continuing spectacular blunder for the first no-white chief executive in the Oval Office and Colin Powell had already marked the path of empire-defense. The Obama administration’s choreographed execution of Osama Bin Laden and the mysterious burial of him at sea, the misuse of presidential authority to ramp up war in the district, this time in Libya, the discounting of any contrary intelligence—all this can only bring dismay to those who hoped for better from Democrats. Viewed differently, perhaps Obama’s own failures, plus Trump’s eagerness to get out of Afghanistan, made the final moves inevitable.

It is a less gloomy note, really a sidebar comment by Tariq Ali, to be reminded that the biggest antiwar demonstrations in history, within the millions in Europe and the UK alone, emerged as the US prepared to pounce upon a hapless Iraq. This peace movement was not successful but it was not in vain. We can, we must, mobilize again and again.


Paul Buhle is a retired historian, and co-founder, with Scott Molloy, of an oral history project on blue collar Rhode Islanders.