WWIII  ICBM

Russia’s missile ‘warning’ to Ukraine and West: what we know



By AFP
November 21, 2024

The nature of the the missile remains unclear - Copyright COME BACK ALIVE/AFP -
Didier LAURAS

Russia on Thursday fired an experimental missile at Ukraine in a clear warning of its capabilities, officials from Western governments said, even as they pushed back against Ukrainian claims of a more provocative action by Moscow.

Ukraine initially accused Russia of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in combat for the first time in history.

But a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Russia had not fired an ICBM but rather an “experimental” medium-range ballistic missile.

In an address late Thursday, President Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia had used a new, experimental “hypersonic” medium-range ballistic missile named “Oreshnik” (“Hazel”) in an attack on Dnipro.

In what analysts said was intended as a warning to the countries arming Ukraine, the Russian leader hinted the missile was capable of unleashing a nuclear payload.



– What was fired?



Analysts and the United States pushed back against Kyiv’s initial claims that Moscow had launched a nuclear-capable ICBM as part of a barrage towards the central city of Dnipro.

As their name suggests, intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of striking one continent from another, with a range of at least 5,500 kilometres (3,400 miles).

Intermediate-range missiles by contrast typically have a reach of between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometres — still long enough to make good on Putin’s threat of striking the West.

In his speech, the Kremlin leader said Russia had tested one of its “newest intermediate-range missile systems in combat conditions. In this case, a ballistic missile with a non-nuclear hypersonic configuration.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Moscow had informed Washington of the missile’s launch half an hour before it was fired through an automatic nuclear de-escalation hotline, in remarks cited in state media.

While not naming the missile used or giving technical specifications, the US official said Russia “likely possesses only a handful of these experimental missiles”.

“Ukraine has withstood countless attacks from Russia, including from missiles with significantly larger warheads than this weapon,” the official said.

In London, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters that Russia’s strike on Ukraine was a “ballistic missile” with “a range of several thousand kilometres”, the first time Moscow had used such a weapon in the war.



– What is the context?



Tension has been building between Moscow and Kyiv’s allies in the West since Ukrainian forces struck Russian territory with Western-supplied long-range weapons on Tuesday after getting the green light from Washington.

US President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to fire the missiles into Russian territory for the first time while Washington will soon provide Ukraine with antipersonnel land mines to shore up its defences against Russian forces.

On Tuesday, Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons, a move Western powers condemned as “irresponsible”.

Biden is moving to boost Ukraine’s war effort in the final two months of his administration, before Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised to end the war quickly, takes power in January.

“The United States will continue to surge security assistance to Ukraine to strengthen capabilities, including air defence, and put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield,” the official said.

In London, the British government spokesman said of the Russian strike: “It is another example of reckless behaviour from Russia, which only serves to strengthen our resolve in terms of standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said Russia’s use of the missile would “neither change the course of the conflict nor deter” the US-led defence alliance from backing Kyiv.



– What message is Moscow seeking to send?



Despite the initial confusion about the nature of the missile fired, it is clear the strike on Dnipro was unusual and aimed at grabbing the attention of Kyiv and its allies.

“We are really on something unprecedented, and it is much more a political act than a military act. The cost-effectiveness ratio of the attack is zero,” said Heloise Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.

“This change of scale is significant,” she said, adding this was “the first use by the Russians on the battlefield of a missile with a range greater than 2,000 kilometres”.

But she said the use of this missile would “not change the situation significantly on the operational level. They obviously have very few and they are expensive.”

Local authorities said an infrastructure facility was hit in Dnipro and two civilians were wounded.

For Nick Brown of British defence analysis organisation Janes, using the missile was “really about sending an escalatory message or warning, an expensive and potentially dangerous way for Russia to rattle its sabre.”

According to the US official: “Russia may be seeking to use this capability to try to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters… but it will not be a game changer in this conflict.”

Putin hints at strikes on West in ‘global’ Ukraine war

By AFP
November 21, 2024


The attack on Kyiv is the latest in an uptick in escalating strikes on Ukrainian cities, mainly in the south of the war-battered country - Copyright POOL/AFP NICOLAS TUCAT
Florent VERGNES

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the conflict in Ukraine had characteristics of a “global” war and did not rule out strikes on Western countries.

The Kremlin strongman spoke out after a day of frayed nerves, with Russia test-firing a new generation intermediate-range missile at Ukraine — which Putin hinted was capable of unleashing a nuclear payload.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky branded the strike a major ramping up of the “scale and brutality” of the war by a “crazy neighbour”, while Kyiv’s main backer the United States said that Russia was to blame for escalating the conflict “at every turn”.

Intermediate-range missiles typically have a reach of up to 5,500 kilometres (3,400 miles) — enough to make good on Putin’s threat of striking the West.

In a defiant address to the nation, Russia’s president railed at Ukraine’s allies granting permission for Kyiv to use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets on Russian territory, warning of retaliation.

In recent days Ukraine has fired US and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions in the brutal nearly three-year-long conflict.

“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” Putin said.

He said the US-sent Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and British Storm Shadow payloads were shot down by Moscow’s air defences, adding: “The goals that the enemy obviously set were not achieved”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did however say Moscow informed Washington of the missile’s launch half an hour before it was fired through an automatic nuclear de-escalation hotline, in remarks cited in state media.

He earlier said Russia was doing everything to avoid an atomic conflict, having updated its nuclear doctrine this week.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Washington saw no need to modify the United States’ own nuclear posture in response.



– ‘Reckless behaviour’ –



Ukraine had earlier accused Russia of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time in history — a claim later downplayed by Washington.

The Ukrainian air force said Moscow had launched the missile as part of a barrage towards Dnipro, where local authorities said an infrastructure facility was hit and two civilians were wounded.

Putin said that Russia had carried out “testing in combat conditions of one of the newest Russian… missile systems” named “Oreshnik”.

Criticising the global response to the strike — “final proof that Russia definitely does not want peace” — Zelensky warned that other countries could become targets for Putin too.

“It is necessary to urge Russia to a true peace, which is possible only through force,” the Ukrainian leader said in his evening address.

“Otherwise, there will be relentless Russian strikes, threats and destabilisation, and not only against Ukraine.”

The attack on Dnipro comes just days after several foreign embassies shuttered temporarily in the Ukrainian capital, citing the threat of a large-scale strike.

“It is another example of reckless behaviour from Russia,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters.

The spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said the new missile’s deployment was “another concerning and worrying development,” warning the war was “going in the wrong direction”.

Yet a US official played down the threat, saying on condition of anonymity that Russia “likely possesses only a handful of these” experimental missiles.



– UK ‘directly involved’ –



The head of the Dnipropetrovsk region where the city of Dnipro is located said the Russian aerial bombardment damaged a rehabilitation centre and several homes, as well as an industrial enterprise.

“Two people were wounded — a 57-year-old man was treated on the scene and a 42-year-old woman was hospitalised,” said the official, Sergiy Lysak.

Russia and Ukraine have escalated their use of long-range missiles in recent days since Washington gave Kyiv permission to use its ATACMS against military targets inside Russia — a long-standing Ukrainian request.

British media meanwhile reported on Wednesday that Kyiv had launched UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Russia after being given the green light from London.

With ranges of 300 and 250 kilometres respectively, both missile systems’ reach is far dwarfed by the experimental intermediate-range system fired by Russia.

Russia’s envoy to London on Thursday said that meant Britain was “now directly involved” in the Ukraine war, with Andrei Kelin telling Sky News “this firing cannot happen” without UK and NATO support.

But the White House’s Jean-Pierre countered that it was Russia who was behind the rising tensions, pointing to the reported deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to help Moscow fight off a Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s border Kursk region.

“The escalation at every turn is coming from Russia,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that the United States had warned Moscow against involving “another country in another part of the world” — referring to Pyongyang.



– Kyiv in retreat –



The defence ministry in Moscow said Thursday its air-defence systems had downed two Storm Shadows, without saying whether they had come down on Russian territory or in occupied Ukraine.

The missile escalation is coming at a critical moment on the ground for Ukraine, as its defences buckle under Russian pressure across the sprawling front line.

Russia claimed deeper advances in the war-battered Donetsk region, announcing on Thursday that its forces had captured another village close to Kurakhove, closing in on the town after months of steady advances.

Moscow’s defence ministry said Russian forces had taken the small village of Dalne, five kilometres (three miles) south of Kurakhove.

Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said that 26 people had been wounded in another strike on the town of Kryvyi Rig, where Zelensky was born.

Op-Ed: Escalation or desperation? Russia fires ballistic missile at Ukraine


By  Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 22, 2024

Ukraine has long demanded authorization to use the US-made ATACMS missile against targets inside Russia - Copyright DoD/AFP John Hamilton

According to Ukraine, Russia fired the first ICBM ever used in warfare at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Two people were injured by the conventional warhead.

The missile was part of a barrage of various types of missiles including hypersonic missiles. Other sources say it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is a sort of scaled-down ICBM with a shorter range.

The attack comes after the US approved the use of long-range ATACMS missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.

The attack also came with a lot of rhetoric attached. Russia has now “updated” its nuclear doctrine to state that any non-nuclear power acting in partnership with a nuclear power is to be considered a “joint attack”.

This is more or less standard Russian dogma, emphasizing its nuclear capabilities. There is no comparison between an ATACMS missile and any sort of nuclear weapon.

Russia’s military situation in Ukraine is now such a total failure that rhetoric makes far more headlines than actual military achievements. Most of their “advances” in Donetsk are minuscule, taking back what they claim to be their own territory.

In an additional escalation, this time a real one, North Korean troops and weapons are said to be operating in Russia. Various sources state these troops are operating in the Kursk region and taking significant casualties. They don’t seem to be particularly combat-effective.

Despite claims by the incoming Trump administration, this situation is likely to be difficult to defuse. Russia is trying to save face. Its military has taken a severe beating for nearly three years.

Ukraine won’t back down. Ukraine has nothing to gain from a pseudo-peace which may simply turn into another attack after the Russian military has regrown itself. A lasting peace is beyond US capabilities to deliver.

The big loser in a failed peace deal would be the US. America would simply look weak and naïve, and in many ways simply stupid. It would also look as though the US was trying to save Russia, which is the exact opposite of saving face for Putin.

The highly skeptical rest of the world wouldn’t be impressed. It’s the wrong message to send to this planet’s other 8 billion people. Trump has a unique ability to damage America’s reputation and credibility in a few sentences. He spent most of his first term annoying America’s allies making baseless statements about them.

He’s not seen as a “strong leader” outside the US. He’s seen as a highly personally compromised figurehead at best and chronically incompetent on average. He certainly can’t even pretend to lead the rest of the world social media propaganda notwithstanding.

That’s a big shift in the wrong direction. America was in fact a leader of the free world. Under Trump, it’s likely to be purely antagonistic and entirely insular, with no trust.

Add to this self-inflicted mess the various other messages about tariffs, deportations, and democracy in general, and the US could lose just about all of the goodwill of the last century in a month or so.

The winner would be China. In comparison to a tariff-addled, backward-looking, fact-ignoring America and a crippled Russia, China can only look good.

Nothing can save Russia from the consequences of this idiotic self-inflicted war. Europe is rearming. China can pull the plug whenever it wants. It’s game over in so many ways.

America can only be “great” by enforcing a just and permanent peace.

Let’s see who the vertebrates are in this scenario.

___________________________________________________

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

Inside the South Korean weapons factory that could supply Kyiv

By AFP
November 21, 2024

South Korean engineers work on a 120mm self-propelled mortar at the Hanwha Aerospace factory in Changwon - Copyright AFP JUNG YEON-JE
Kang Jin-kyu

At the outskirts of a South Korean industrial city, workers at a sprawling weapons factory were conducting final-stage testing for a newly built surface-to-air defence system that could, eventually, head to Ukraine.

Longstanding domestic policy bars Seoul from sending weapons into active conflict zones, but ever since its spy agency accused the nuclear-armed North last month of sending thousands of soldiers to help Moscow fight Kyiv, South Korea has warned it might change course.

If so, likely top of the list for Ukraine would be the “Cheongung” — or Sky Arrow — air defence system, a domestically-produced Iron Dome-style interception shield that AFP saw Thursday during an exclusive tour of the Hanwha Aerospace factory in the southern city of Changwon.

As the melody of Beethoven’s Fur Elise played on repeat over the in-house speaker, veteran welders worked on huge cylinders that will become part of the inceptor system, which is defensive in nature — although Hanwha also produces an attack-focused variant.

“The Cheongung system can be thought of as similar to the US Patriot missile system,” said senior manager Jung Sung-young at Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea’s largest defence contractor.

Ukraine is reliant on Western air defence systems, particularly Patriots, to protect itself from Russian missile barrages — and has been calling for more deliveries.

Washington said in June it would prioritise deliveries to Kyiv, ahead of other countries that have placed orders.

But were South Korea, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North and has maintained production of weaponry long ignored by Western arms industries, to get involved, it could potentially make a huge difference, experts say.

“As a divided nation, we have systematically established and implemented standards at the national level, from the development of these weapon systems to quality control,” said Jung.

“The quality, capability and manufacturing supply chain of our products is sufficiently competitive compared to those of other countries,” he added.

Whether — or how — South Korea decides to help Ukraine directly depends on “the level of North Korean involvement”, President Yoon Suk Yeol said earlier this month, adding Seoul was “not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons.”

If South Korea were to supply arms, the initial batch would be defensive in nature, Yoon said.



– Combat ready –



To fend off the steady barrage of missiles that have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and civilian areas, Kyiv urgently needs more air defences, Han Kwon-hee of the Korea Association of Defence Industry told AFP.

“Counteroffensives require stability in the rear zones, which is why Kyiv has also conducted drone attacks within Russia, including Moscow,” Han explained.

“They will help Ukraine hold off Russia’s offensives by intercepting drones and missiles flying deep into their territory,” he said — a huge boost for Kyiv, alongside the recent US move to let it use long-range American missiles against targets inside Russia.

The South has remained combat-ready since its 1950-53 war with the North ended in a truce, and while Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea’s largest defence contractor, was once seen by analysts as retrograde for its focus on land weapons, it is now in high demand.

AFP saw a wide range of weaponry moving along assembly lines at the company’s sprawling Changwon factory, from infantry armoured vehicles to surface-to-air missile systems designed to intercept incoming missiles.

The heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe have heavily benefited the South Korean company, which saw its on-year operating profit soar over 450 percent in the latest quarter to $343.3 million.

It has signed major arms deals with countries such as Poland and Romania, including the export of K9 Howitzers and Chunmoo missile systems.



– Weapons exports –



Seoul has long harboured ambitions to join the ranks of the world’s top arms exporters — aiming to be the fourth-largest, behind the US, Russia and France — something that is now possible, industry research indicates.

It has already sold 155mm artillery shells to Washington — but with a “final user” agreement in place meaning the United States would be the military that uses the munitions.

Experts have said this allows the United States to then provide their own shells to Kyiv.

Hanwha’s other weapons offer that could shift the balance of war in Ukraine is its Chunmoo guided missile system, experts said.

“With a maximum range of 290 km (180 miles), Chunmoo can strike targets in Pyongyang if launched from the border area in the South,” said Choi Gi-il, professor of military studies at Sangji University.

“What Ukraine urgently needs to turn the war in its favour are offensive weapons like Chunmoo missiles and K9 howitzers, capable of inflicting significant damage on the enemy,” Choi added.

“If North Korea’s direct involvement in the war escalates, (Seoul) may consider sending lethal weapons, in addition to defensive ones.”

Nationalist raves galvanise traumatised Ukrainian youth


By AFP

November 21, 2024

The mix of party and military reflects the split reality of young Ukrainians - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC
Barbara WOJAZER

At a rave in a former silk factory in Kyiv, Bogdana Lukyanchuk was out partying for the first time since her father was killed fighting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

The party raised funds for the Third Assault Brigade, a controversial unit which has gained countrywide name recognition thanks to its military feats and marketing.

“I knew it was a charity event with people that I respected, so I could come and let my emotions run wild for just a day,” Lukyanchuk said, showing a photo of her dad with a broken heart emoji on her phone screensaver.

“There is still life in Ukraine. Life pulsates. Blood pulsates,” the 23-year-old said, shouting over the loud bass.

The Saturday night rave featured a combat drone simulator and merchandise from the Third Assault Brigade.

It was also attended by members of a linked nationalist youth group, Centuria.

The mix of party and military reflected the split reality of young Ukrainians, whose attempts to enjoy life are constantly marked by grief, air raid alerts and strikes.

It showed the efforts being made to galvanise young people exhausted by the war as the Russian invasion nears the three-year mark.



– ‘Gently involve young people’ –



Around 80 percent of Ukrainians have a close relative or friend who has been wounded by Russian forces, according to a survey from the Kyiv Institute of Sociology.

To process the violence against their country, some young Ukrainians find a sense of purpose and camaraderie in nationalist military organisations.

Lukyanchuk came to the rave with friends she met at workshops teaching civilians to handle rifles and use tourniquets, life-saving devices to staunch massive bleeding.

“There are conscious people here,” she said.

She worried that others were forgetting the war.

The patriotic fervour of the beginning of the war has subsided, leaving brigades short of funding and recruits.

In that struggle, the Third Assault Brigade, created by far-right politician Andriy Biletsky, has distinguished itself with its Instagrammable branding.

A neon orange logo in support of the brigade lit up the drone simulation room, which looked like a gamer’s den filled with teenagers slouched on a couch.

Some watched the drone flight simulator on a large computer screen, over which hung the white neon logo of Centuria.

Centuria says it “despises the modern cult of weakness” and aims to raise “strong and proud Ukrainians”.

The group boasts over 16,500 followers on Instagram, where it posts about a variety of events ranging from lectures to knife fights.

The blend of genres serves a purpose, said rave organiser Viktor Mazur.

“We gently involve young people. We don’t do it harshly with heavy propaganda but rather through entertainment, and that way we develop their loyalty,” the 29-year-old said.

Sofia Tabatska was surprised how quickly she worked out how to fly the drone under the guidance of an instructor.

“It’s like playing a computer game, like Grand Theft Auto,” said the 24-year-old.

“It would be nice if I could use it in some way in the future,” Tabatska said.

But she ruled out joining the army any time soon, describing herself as a pacifist.



– ‘Children of the war’ –



Marianna Tkalych, a psychologist, said some militarisation of Ukrainian society was inevitable following the Russian invasion.

But she believes the effect may not be lasting and the real test will come when the war ends and Ukraine’s political process, frozen by martial law, resumes.

The popularity of patriotic and militaristic organisations after the war, she said, will hinge on Ukraine’s capacity to deal with a traumatised generation.

“There will be some young people who have not found their purpose in any other sphere and who haven’t experienced normal life,” said Tkalych, who also heads the research platform Rating Lab.

“The generation growing up right now are children of the war.”

Fourteen-year-old Yury was just a toddler when Russian-backed forces launched a first armed aggression in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

He can hardly remember a life outside the conflict that escalated in 2022.

The teenager says he plans to enlist if the war is still ongoing when he turns 18.

He is already preparing with Centuria.

“I found myself there,” he said, mentioning classes on using assault rifles and fighting.

He said he thought his family would support his plans.

“My mum knows. I hope it will be okay.”

Trump: Isolationist in Instinct, Unpredictable in Action

Selective engagement will replace liberal internationalism.

By Walden Bello

November 21, 2024

Source: FPIP


There are a number of certainties about the coming Trump administration. One is that it will be bad for the climate. Another is that it will be bad for American democracy. A third is that it will be largely bad for minorities and for women.

But when it comes to many other matters, like foreign policy, the key word is unpredictability, for Trump, as the world learned during his first term in office, is unpredictability personified. Observing this caveat when it comes to what to expect in terms of concrete actions and policies, one can nevertheless discern what are likely to be the fundamental thrusts of Trump 2.0. This is as much the case in the area of foreign policy as in domestic policy.
Liberal Internationalism as “Grand Strategy”

To use a common phrase these days, the coming Trump presidency will not only be an “inflection point” for U.S. domestic politics but for U.S. foreign policy as well. This should not be surprising since it is domestic priorities and domestic public opinion that, in the last instance, determine a country’s stance towards the outside world—what is called its “grand strategy.” The last time the United States experienced the kind of transformative event in foreign affairs that is coming on January 20, 2025, is 83 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the United States into World War II. FDR had a hell of a time overcoming isolationist sentiment and may well have failed had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor and changed public sentiment overnight from isolationism toward global engagement.

The grand strategy that Roosevelt inaugurated can best be called “liberal internationalism.” Following the end of World War II and the beginning of the competition with the Soviet Union, that strategy was consolidated as “containment liberalism” by President Harry Truman, and it has been the guiding approach of every administration ever since, with the exception of the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021. The fundamental premise of liberal internationalism was best expressed by President John F Kennedy in his inaugural speech in 1961, when he said that Americans “shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Another much quoted characterization of this outlook was provided by another Democratic Party personality, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, when she said that for the maintenance of global order, the United States was “the indispensable country.”

Liberal internationalism had its hard and not-so-hard versions, the former often termed containment liberalism or neoconservatism. But whatever their differences when it came to rhetoric or implementation, the differences between liberal internationalism and neoconservatism were matters of nuance, not substance. The rhetoric was lofty but the subtext of the rhetoric of liberal internationalism was making the world safe for the expansion of America capital by extending the political and military reach of the U.S. state.
The Unraveling of Liberal Internationalism

The grand strategy of liberal internationalism, however, became mired in its own ambitions, its first major setback occurring in Southeast Asia, with the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Toward the end of the twentieth century, globalization, the economic component of liberal internationalism, led to the unmooring of U.S. capital from its geographical location in the United States as American transnationals went out in search of cheap labor, resulting in the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States and the building up of a rival economic power, China. Power projection, the military prong of the project, led to overextension or overreach, with the ambitious effort of President George W. Bush to remake the world in America’s image by carrying out the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq during Washington’s so-called “unipolar moment” in the early 2000s. The result was a debacle from which the United States has never recovered. Both the crisis of globalization and the crisis of overextension paved the way for the rebirth of the isolationist impulse that broke to the surface under Trump’s presidency in 2017-2021.

Only in retrospect can one appreciate how radically the isolationist, anti-globalist, and protectionist foreign policy of the first Trump administration broke with liberal internationalism. Trump, among other things, tore up the neoliberal Trans-Pacific Partnership that both Democrats and Republicans championed, considered NATO commitments a burden, demanded that Japan and Korea pay more for keeping U.S. troops and bases in their countries, trampled on the rules of the World Trade Organization, ignored the IMF and World Bank, negotiated the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban, and broke the West’s united front against North Korea by stepping across the DMZ to pat Kim Jong Un on the back on June 30, 2019. Some have said that his foreign policy was erratic or chaotic, but there was an underlying logic to his supposed madness, and this was his felt need to play opportunistically to an important part of his white, working-class and middle-class base that felt they had had enough of bearing the burdens of empire for the sake of the American political and economic elites.

But like Roosevelt in his efforts to break with isolationism in the early 1940s, Trump’s drive to break with liberal internationalism was plagued with obstacles, foremost of which were some of his appointees, who were open or covert adherents of liberal internationalism and proponents of globalization, and the entrenched national security bureaucracy known as the “deep state.” With Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 elections, these elements of the old foreign policy regime bounced back with a vengeance during the Biden administration, which proceeded to give full backing to Ukraine in its fight with Russia, expand the remit of NATO to the Pacific, and plunge the United States into full-scale military containment of China.

For Trump, there is a second chance to remake U.S. foreign policy beginning on January 20, 2025, and it’s unlikely he’ll allow partisans of the old regime spoil his efforts a second time. In this regard, one must not be fooled by the pro-expansionist or interventionist rhetoric or record of some of his cabinet picks, like Marco Rubio. These folks have no fixed political compass but political self-interest, and they will adjust to Trump’s instincts, outlook, and agenda.
Orban on Trump’s Grand Strategy

Probably the world leader that Trump admires most is Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban. Indeed, Trump and Orban form a mutual admiration society. Prior to the elections, Orban was channeling Trump to the world. On the question of America’s relations with the world under a second Trump presidency, Orban had this to say:


[M]any people think that if Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Americans will want to retain their world supremacy by maintaining their position in the world. I think that this is wrong. Of course, no one gives up positions of their own accord, but that will not be the most important goal. On the contrary, the priority will be to rebuild and strengthen North America. ..And America’s place in the world will be less important. You have to take what the President says seriously: “America First, everything here, everything will come home!”… For example, they are not an insurance company, and if Taiwan wants security, it should pay. They will make us Europeans, NATO and China pay the price of security; and they will also achieve a trade balance with China through negotiations, and change it in favour of the US. They will trigger massive US infrastructure development, military research, and innovation. They will achieve – or perhaps have already achieved – energy self-sufficiency and raw material self-sufficiency; and finally they will improve ideologically, giving up on the export of democracy. America First. The export of democracy is at an end. This is the essence of the experiment America is conducting in response to the situation described here.

Let’s parse and expand on Orban’s comments. For Trump, there is one overriding agenda, and that is to rejuvenate, repair, and reconstitute what he regards as an economy and society that has been in sharp decline owing to policies of the last few decades, policies that were broadly shared by Democrats and traditional Republicans.

For him, neoliberal policies, by encouraging American capital to go abroad, particularly to China, and free-trade policies, have greatly harmed the U.S. industrial infrastructure, resulting in loss of good paying blue-collar jobs, stagnation in wages, and rising inequality. “Making American Great Again” or MAGA is mainly an inward-looking perspective that prioritizes economic rejuvenation by bringing American capital back, walling off the American economic from cheap imports, particularly from China, and reducing immigration to a trickle—with that trickle coming mainly from what he would term “non-shithole countries” like Norway. Racism, dog-whistle politics, and anti-migrant sentiment are, not surprisingly, woven into Trump’s domestic and foreign policy rhetoric since his base is principally—though not exclusively—the white working class.

Foreign policy is, from this perspective, a distraction that must be seen as a necessary evil. The MAGA mindset, which is basically isolationism cum nationalism, sees U.S. security arrangements abroad, whether in the guise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or mutual defense treaties such as those with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, as obsolete commitments that may have been appropriate at a time that the United States was an expansionist power with tremendous resources but have since become bothersome relics for a power in decline, gaping holes that leak both money, manpower, and energy that would be better deployed elsewhere.

Trump is not interested in expanding a liberal empire via free trade and the free flow of capital—an order defended by the political canopy of multilateralism and promoted via an economic ideology of globalization and a political ideology of liberal democracy. What he is interested in is building a Fortress America that is much, much less engaged with the world, where the multilateral institutions through which the United States has exercised its economic power, NATO and the Bretton Woods institutions, would be much less relevant as instruments of U.S. power. Deal-making, like the one Trump conducted with Kim Jong-Un during his first term, would, instead, be one of the main methods of defending American interests. Unilateral military and economic actions against those outside the fortress that are seen as threats, rather than allied endeavors, will be the order of the day.
Selective Engagement and Spheres of Influence

Rather than isolationism, probably a better term for Trump’s grand strategy is “selective engagement,” to contrast it with the open-ended global engagement of liberal internationalism.

One aspect of selective engagement will be disengagement from what Trump denigrates as “shithole countries,” meaning, most of us in the global South, in terms of trying to shape their political and economic regimes via the IMF and the World Bank and providing bilateral economic and military aid. Definitely, there will be no more talk of “exporting freedom and democracy” that was a staple of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Another aspect of selective engagement will be a “spheres of influence” approach. North America and South America will be regarded as being Washington’s natural sphere of influence. So, Trump will stick to the Monroe Doctrine, and maybe his choice of Marco Rubio to be secretary of state might reflect this, since Rubio, a child of Cuban refugees, has been very hostile to left-leaning governments in Latin America.

Eastern Europe will likely be seen as belonging to Moscow’s sphere of influence, with Trump reversing the post-Cold War U.S. policy of extending NATO eastward, which was a key factor that triggered Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union will be left to fend for itself, with Trump unlikely to invest any effort to prop up NATO, much less expand its remit to the Asia Pacific, as Biden has done. It would be a mistake to underestimate Trump’s resentment of the western allies of the United States, which, in his view, have prospered at the expense of America.

The downgrading of the United States as a central player in the Middle East will continue, with Washington’s confining itself to providing weapons for Israel and encouraging a diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and the reactionary Arab states like Saudi Arabia to stabilize the area against Iran and the wave of radical Islamism that direct U.S. intervention failed to contain. Needless to say, Trump will gladly turn a blind eye to Tel Aviv’s carrying out its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.

Finally, in the Asia Pacific, there is a strong likelihood that while Trump will pursue the trade and technology war with China that he initiated during his first term, he will dial down the military confrontation with Beijing, mindful that his base is not going to like military adventures that take away the focus from building Fortress America. Concretely, he’ll raise the price for keeping U.S. troops and bases in Japan and South Korea. He’ll reengage Kim Jong Un in the dialogue he was carrying out when he crossed the DMZ in 2019—a dialogue that could have unpredictable consequences for the U.S. military presence in South Korea and Japan. He already gave an indication of this during his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention when he said he had to initiate a dialogue with Kim owing to the fact that he “is someone with a lot of nuclear weapons.” Could the withdrawal or radical reduction of Washington’s military umbrella for South Korea and Japan be the price of a grand deal between Kim and Trump? This is the specter that haunts both states.

Trump is likely to cease sending ships through the Taiwan Straits to provoke China, as Biden did, and one can expect him to tell Taiwan that there’s a dollar price to be paid for being defended by the United States and that Taipei should not expect the same assurance that Biden gave it that Washington will come to Taiwan’s rescue in the event of a Chinese invasion. I think Trump knows that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan was never in the cards anyway and that Beijing’s strategy was always cross-straits economic integration as the means to eventually absorb Taiwan.

As for the Philippines and the South China Sea, a Trump administration is likely to tell Manila that there will be none of that “iron clad” guarantee promised by Biden of an automatic U.S. military response under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty in support of Manila in the event of a major confrontation with China in the South China Sea, like the sinking of the Philippine vessel. Trump, it must be remembered, has gone on record saying that he would not waste one American life for what he called “rocks” in the South China Sea. The Pentagon’s push to build up the Philippines as a forward base for the military confrontation with China that Biden fully supported is likely to be reviewed, if not put on hold or abandoned.

In short, Trump is likely to communicate to Xi Jinping that the Asia Pacific is China’s sphere of influence, though this message will be delivered informally and covered up by rhetoric of continued American engagement with the region.

In conclusion, one must restate the caveat made at the beginning of this piece: that there are few certainties when it comes to an unpredictable figure like Trump. These few certainties are that Trump will be bad for the climate, for American democracy, for women, and for minorities. As for the rest, one can speculate based on past behavior, statements, and events, but one would be wise to always remind oneself that while his instincts are isolationist, unpredictability in policy and action has been and will continue to be the hallmark of Donald Trump.

Walden Bello is currently the International Adjunct Professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and Co-Chairperson of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. He is the author or co-author of 25 books, including Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right (Nova Scotia: Fernwood, 2019), Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash (London: Bloomsbury/Zed, 2019), Food Wars (London: Verso, 2009) and Capitalism’s Last Stand? (London: Zed, 2013).

 

Kiribati Has Benefitted from Abolishing Its Military

by Richard Westra / November 20th, 2024

David Swanson asked me to write about Kiribati after I wrote to him to point out Costa Rica is not the only “full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarised.” Kiribati, and other small countries I suspect, have no military. In Kiribati’s case this was a deliberate decision taken by the first President and Government of Kiribati as it was becoming Independent in 1979. Like Costa Rica it has almost certainly benefitted from that foundational decision. Many other newly independent ex British colonies suffered from coups and military rule as a result of the British policy of promoting nationhood on the British model: Westminster type parliament, independent judiciary, and a military force. It was interesting interviewing Sir Ieremia Tabai, the first President and a leading campaigner at the time when it was an issue, stating that the motivation was heavily economic – we are a small country with very little money so we can’t go wasting it on buying guns. If only more leaders would adhere to such basic commonsense!

But first of all a bit of an introduction to Kiribati, as most people have never heard of us and even fewer know much about us. Kiribati sits right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but tending to the Western side. It is the only country in the world with a claim to be in all four hemispheres, north, south, east and west, spanning as it does the Equator and the 180 meridian, the International Date Line. There are 33 islands spread over 3000kms from west to east along the Equator. The population is currently 130,000 and rising fast, with more than half living in the capital Tarawa. The population is over 90% ethnically homogenous Micronesian, I-Kiribati, with its own language and unique culture. Kiribati dance is a unique cultural form and is central in the culture, an integral part of every occasion from the opening of Parliament to weddings, birthdays, and public holidays. It is one of the main ways in which the culture preserves itself, the Kiribati diaspora using it as an excuse to come together wherever they are and teach it to the children.

Current revenue is predominantly from fishing licences for the right to fish in Kiribati’s vast Exclusive Economic Zone, mainly tuna. The country is very democratic with 45 MPs elected from all the islands who then choose Presidential candidates from amongst their number and these then go up for election by the whole country. The President, who sits for 4 years, barring a vote of no confidence, then chooses a Cabinet from amongst their supporters. The country is now on its fifth President in 45 years. Presidents can have a maximum of three terms. Despite being classified by the UN as a Least Developed State Kiribati has free universal education and health provision, a form of Universal Basic Income, state provision for disabled people, and a non-contributary pension scheme for all those over 60. While some of these benefits are well below the standards provided in more wealthy countries they all represeent advances on previous times. Kiribati has a sovereign wealth fund of $1.5 billion and receives foreign aid from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, the USA, Cuba, the UN, and the EU. The logistics of Kiribati ensure that it is never likely to become a developed state: the isolation and distances involved, and the consequent difficulties of providing services to tiny communities of only a few hundred people separated by thousands of kilometres ensuring that it continues to be underdeveloped, by world standards.

Isolation has not prevented Kiribati from suffering the depradations of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism. The islands were initially settled by various waves of settlement over the past few thousand years resulting in a homogenous culture and language developed over that timescale. Western Europeans started to arrive in the 19th century, particularly whalers operating out of America and elsewhere which started the first great exploitation, decimating the whale population which has not recovered to this day. This was followed at the turn of the 20th century by the beginning of phosphate mining on Banaba, or Ocean Island as it was called by the British. Banaba was mined to such an extent that its inhabitants were forced to resettle on another island which had been bought for them with their own money. It has been suggested that Banaba’s phosphate was used to subsidise the exponential growth of agriculture in Australia and New Zealand, Britain’s partners in exploiting Kiribati, to the tune of $800 million until the phosphate ran out in 1979, the year of Kiribati independence from Britain. Banaban phosphate royalties also covered the cost of Britain’s colonial administration of the Kiribati.

During WWII, the Japanese invaded Kiribati and fortified one island heavily which then became the site of one of the first major battles of the Pacific war when it was retaken by the Americans at the Battle of Tarawa. In the post WWII decades the British used Kiribati as a nuclear testing ground, doing atmospheric tests on Kiritimati Island in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The U.S. tested its bombs on Bikini and Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands immediately north of Kiribati, while the French tested theirs in Muroroa to the south, inflicting on Kiribati and its Pacific island neighbours what Western nations’ own populations refused to accept.

Whilst fishing revenues are now the basis of the Kiribati economy, it is also true that this is the main way in which the country is exploited as its fishing licence revenues are only a small percentage of the profits gained by foreign fishing companies fishing in its EEZ. Kiribati has had to work hard, along with other Pacific countries, Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNU), to get even the comparatively small amount it gets in licences, gradually building on its success in forcing American fishing fleets to pay in the mid-1980s. Faced by the complete refusal of U.S. fishing companies to pay for fishing in Kiribati waters Kiribati sold the fishing rights to the Russians, exploiting their superpower rivalry so effectively that the following year the U.S. started to pay as prescribed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) – a great example of a microstate manipulating two superpowers to achieve its own ends!

Although to date Kiribati has suffered little from climate change it is quite possible that this could provide an existential threat in the future if ocean acidification and temperature increases, sea level rise and weather pattern change combine to make life impossible and cause dispersal of Kiribati’s people, despite Kiribati having made minuscule contributions to the causes.

Kiribati has hosted visits from foreign warships from the U.S., China, Taiwan, Australia, France and others but these are courtesy visits often bringing medical and other teams to share their expertise. Kiribati benefits from the assistance of an Australian patrol boat to police its EEZ and has occasionally held fishing boats illegally fishing in Kiribati waters. It also benefits from New Zealand Air Force search and rescue teams assisting searches for missing fishermen.

Pacific countries generally, and Kiribati particularly, are seen by the United States and its allies as being stategically important in their geo-political rivalry with China – or their need to have an enemy in order to justify their military spending and safeguard the profits of the military industrial complex. Whenever Kiribati is mentioned in articles and programmes in the Western media it is usually accompanied by references to its strategic significance and the threat of it being taken over by China, particularly over recent years since 2019 when Kiribati returned its diplomatic recognition to China following recognition of Taiwan in 2003. The fear seems to be that Kiribati will allow China to build ports and airbases from which China would be able to attack the United States and disrupt trade, although neither Kiribati nor China has shown any inclination to do this, a case it seems of the pot calling the kettle black. The United States has multiple military bases in the Pacific, and indeed throughout the world, and seems to think that everyone else wants to waste money and resources in the same way. Following the switch from Taiwan to China in 2019 the U.S. has been keen to make connections in Kiribati but has been thwarted by the lack of a military it can entice with hardware and a shortage of land in the capital Tarawa where it could build an Embassy. Kiribati sees itself as a Christian country and is naturally culturally connected to the U.S. – its first missionaries were American. U.S. churches have a strong presence in the country. It was liberated by U.S. forces defeating the Japanese in World War II. It has benefitted in the past from Peace Corps volunteers. And its official language is English which makes it part of the Anglophone world. There is a Kiribati diaspora including communities in the U.S. At the same time, the people of Kiribati have no wish to be controlled by any foreign power, and resent any country that interferes with Kiribati’s independence. Experience has also taught Kiribati that it can exploit rivalry for its own benefit. The dangers for Kiribati in this are that should the rivalry escalate to war it is likely that rival powers would prefer to fight in somewhere like Kiribati rather than in their own countries.

Whilst thinking about writing this article it occurred to me that a major benefit of Kiribati’s lack of a military is the lack of guns in the country. I can’t remember anyone ever having been shot, and on asking around I found that no one else could either – hardly surprising as there are no guns to shoot with! This was not always the case. Early contact with Europeans, mainly whalers and traders, was characterised by a trade in tobacco, alcohol, guns, and metal — knives, pots and pans, nails etc. Various chiefs and factions acquired guns to gain an advantage over local rivals, which led to a number of conflicts on and between different islands in the latter half of the 19^th century. This came to an end however with the declaration of a Protectorate by the British in 1892 when HMS Royalist raised the Union Jack on all the different islands and rounded up all the guns at the same time.

It feels to me that Kiribati has much to teach the world. Its culture is very communal with an expectation that we should help each other, most strongly within the extended family but also on a wider level. Strangers and visitors are welcomed and treated very well. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of maneabas, communal meeting houses where everybody is welcome, often offering accomodation to anyone who needs it. The expectation is that decisions should be reached by consensus. Most houses are not locked and many are indeed open sided without walls. Kiribati clearly demonstrates the benefits of any people having their own space over which they have control and which they can call their own, without being dominated or subjugated by other ethnicities — a principle which if applied worldwide would lead to the break up of bullying superpowers and other countries that have usually been created through conquest. We could see hundreds, or indeed thousands, of states offering all peoples their own autonomy within a cooperative world framework. Many conflicts in the world are caused by the domination of one group by another within the confines of a larger state, whether that be the Palestinians in Israel, the indigenous peoples of the Americas within their colonised lands, the Rohingya in Myanmar/Bangladesh, the Uyghers in China, the Basques and Catalans in Spain, the Kurds within Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, the West Papuans in Indonesia, or innumerable ethnicities within the colonial imposed boundaries of Africa.

In conclusion, it is worth reiterating the main benefits of Kiribati’s lack of a military. Ieremia insisted that the rationale was wholly economic – we cannot afford to spend money financing a military as that will deprive far more essential services such as education and health of much needed resources. And who is going to attack us anyway out here in the middle of the ocean? The other benefits, which are difficult to be so sure about, include the political stability that has allowed peaceful development and the unchallenged primacy of the democratic electoral system without interference from unelected military officers enforced by soldiers. Then there is the lack of a gun culture leading to completely unnecessary deaths. It is difficult to imagine any advantages that would be gained by having a military!

Richard Westra is Designated Associate Professor, Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan. His work has been published in numerous international refereed journals. He is author and editor of 10 books including Confronting Global Neoliberalism: Third World Resistance and Development Strategies, Clarity Press 2010. Read other articles by Richard.

 

OPG wraps up Darlington 1 refurbishment early

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Refurbishment activities have been completed five months ahead of schedule at the third of four nuclear units to undergo the process at the Ontario Power Generation plant, which will soon be reconnected to the grid.

The turbine hall at Darlington 1 (Image: OPG)

The 875 MWe unit was taken offline for refurbishment in February 2022, following units 2 and 3, which completed refurbishment in 2020 and 2023, as part of a 10-year CAD12.8 billion (about USD9.7 billion) mega-project to refurbish all four Candu units at the site. The final unit undergoing refurbishment, unit 4, is currently in the reactor rebuilding phase, and is on schedule to be completed by the end of 2026.

Separately, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced it has removed the fourth and final regulatory hold point for the Darlington 1 refurbishment, allowing Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to exceed 35% full operating power for the refurbished reactor and proceed with normal operations. Hold points are mandatory checkpoints where CNSC approval is required before the licensee can move on to the next stage of the process to return the unit to operation.

The refurbishment will allow the units to continue generating electricity for a further 30 years. In addition, unit 1 will become the first Darlington reactor to produce cobalt-60, a vital radioisotope whose uses include sterilising single-use medical devices, such as syringes, implants, and surgical instruments. About half of the global supply of the isotope is produced in Ontario's Candu reactors.

"With the refurbishment of another unit, OPG, our employees, and our project partners continue to demonstrate that we can execute major nuclear projects not only on time, but ahead of time, and with a clear commitment to quality," OPG President and CEO Ken Hartwick said. "This latest milestone reflects our decade of preparation and planning, as well as our dedication to quality and innovation, and the hard work of our entire project team, vendors, skilled trades, and energy professionals."

"Ontario needs more electricity - 75% more by 2050 - to power new homes, historic new investments and an electrifying economy," the province's Minister of Energy and Electrification Stephen Lecce said. "Delivering this massive clean energy project five months ahead of schedule is a testament to the incredible knowledge and skill of Ontario workers and positions us for success as we build out our plan to meet the soaring energy demand over the next 25 years."

According to a report by the Conference Board of Canada, the Darlington refurbishment project and the subsequent 30 years of station operation are expected to generate a total of CAD90 billion in economic benefits for Ontario and create 14,200 jobs per year.

Norway SMR options to be explored with X-energy

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Norsk Kjernekraft has signed a memorandum of understanding with high-temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear reactor developer X-energy to explore the deployment of small modular reactors in Norway.

A conceptual rendering from earlier this year of how a data centre with an SMR power plant and a green electrolysis factory might look (Image: Norsk Kjernekraft)

The memorandum of understanding also encompasses DL Energy and DL E&C, from South Korea's DL Group, who signed a collaboration agreement with Norsk Kjernekraft in August. The Norwegian company said the aim was to combine the Korean firm's expertise and experience in building nuclear power facilities with the US-based X-energy's reactor technology.

The August agreement included a feasibility study of constructing a nuclear power plant at the Mongstad oil refinery in the Austrheim and Alver municipality, with the Norwegian firm aiming for such a plant to be built by the mid-30s if there is "political will". In August Norsk Kjernekraft also submitted a proposal to Norway's Ministry of Energy for an assessment of the potential construction of a power plant based on multiple SMRs in the municipality of Øygarden, west of Bergen. That proposal followed proposals submitted for SMR power plants in Aure and Heim municipalities, as well as Vardø municipality.

Last month internet shopping and web services giant Amazon announced it was taking a stake in X-energy with the goal of deploying up to 5 GW of its small modular reactors in the USA by 2039.

Jonny Hesthammer, CEO of Norsk Kjernekraft, said: "South Korea has extensive experience in the efficient construction and operation of nuclear power plants, while the US has the leading technology. The recent investment by Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, in X-energy underlines the importance of this agreement. This is simply because it increases the chances of succeeding. While the SMRs to be developed by X-energy are considered fourth generation, the technology is well-proven. Their use of TRISO fuel in the form of tennis ball-sized pebbles means that meltdown is not possible, something that many worry about."

Alistair Black, Senior Director for X-energy, said: "We’re delighted to be working with DL Energy to assess the potential for an Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor project in Southwest Norway for the nuclear development company Norsk Kjernekraft. We have projects under way in the US and could help Norway decarbonise its industrial sector and transport network and meet growing electricity demand from the booming artificial intelligence and cloud computing sectors."

In June, the Norwegian government announced the appointment of a committee to conduct a broad review and assessment of various aspects of a possible future establishment of nuclear power in the country. It must deliver its report by 1 April 2026.

X-energy's Xe-100 is a Generation IV advanced reactor design which X-energy says is based on decades of high temperature gas-cooled reactor operation, research, and development, and is designed to operate as a standard 320 MWe four-pack power plant or scaled in units of 80 MWe. At 200 MWt of 565°C steam, the Xe-100 is suitable for a range of uses and power applications including mining and heavy industry. The Xe-100 uses tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel, which has additional safety benefits because it can withstand very high temperatures without melting.

X-energy says its design makes it road-shippable with accelerated construction timelines and more predictable and manageable construction costs, and is well suited to meet the requirements of energy-intensive data centres.

Generator stator arrives at Hinkley Point C

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

The turbine generator stator for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset, England, has been delivered from the manufacturing plant in Belfort, France.

The stator arrives at the construction site (Image: EDF Energy)

The stator - measuring 12 metres in length and weighing 450 tonnes - was supplied by EDF subsidiary Arabelle Solutions. It was delivered to the construction site on 17 November following a journey via road, rail and sea.

(Image: EDF Energy)

The stator is a key component of the turbine generator, serving as the stationary portion of an electric generator that converts the rotating magnetic field into electric current.

(Image: EDF Energy)

EDF completed its acquisition of a portion of GE Vernova's nuclear conventional islands technology and services, including its Arabelle steam turbines, in May this year. The transaction included the manufacturing of conventional island equipment for new nuclear power plants as well as related maintenance and upgrade activities for existing nuclear plants outside of the Americas. EDF's acquisition of the business - at that time, known as GE Steam Power - was first announced in early 2022 and the final agreement was signed in the November of that year.

Construction of Hinkley Point C - composed of two EPR pressurised water reactors of 1630 MWe each - began in December 2018, with unit 1 of the plant originally scheduled to start up by the end of 2025, before that was revised to 2027 in May 2022. In January, EDF announced that the "base case" was now for unit 1 being operational in 2030, with the cost revised from GBP26 billion (USD32.8 billion) to between GBP31-34 billion, in 2015 prices.

When complete, the two EPR reactors will produce enough carbon-free electricity for six million homes, and are expected to operate for as long as 80 years.

SMRs to help decarbonise Dutch energy system, study concludes

Monday, 18 November 2024

Small modular reactors could play an important role and contribute to the Dutch energy transition, a joint report by NRG-Pallas and TNO concludes. The study shows that there is room for more than 13 SMRs in 2050.

(Image: NRG-Pallas / TNO)

The study, the partners said, utilises "NRG-Pallas' expertise in innovative reactor technologies and TNO's energy system model OPERA".

Two scenarios drawn up by TNO were used in this study: ADAPT and TRANSFORM. These scenarios are based on different visions of the future for the Dutch energy system. In both visions, the aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050.

In order to investigate the sensitivity of the results with respect to boundary conditions and assumptions, a few 'what-if' analyses were performed. These what-if analyses examined whether investment in and use of SMRs change when input parameters are varied.

"The results show that SMRs have a role to play in the Dutch energy transition," the study says. "The optimal contribution of SMRs to 2050 was calculated for various assumptions about future society. The results show that two to more than 13 SMRs (of 150 MWe) can be deployed with room for further expansion of this number in 2050."

It adds: "These results are contingent on policy objectives, expected market availability and realisation periods. If constraints on the potential deployment capacity are partially lifted, as is done in some of the what-if analyses, it is observed that there may even be room for more than 27 SMRs (of 150 MWe). This what-if analysis result can be interpreted as a more economically optimal solution, but is obviously conditional on the aforementioned aspects used to define the potential limits for the scenarios being sufficiently adjusted to allow for this to occur.

"On the other hand, with delayed introduction of SMRs or no nuclear at all, a carbon neutral energy system in 2050 is possible as well. The exact optimum depends mainly on the future of industry, and more specifically on the future heat demand from activities such as refineries and (bio-)aromatics production, and the degree of electrification in society. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that SMRs are an important option for decarbonisation of the industry by supplying process heat."

An earlier scenario study by TNO showed that in an energy system without new nuclear power plants, the system costs are 1% to 2.5% higher than with nuclear energy. "Although nuclear power plants are initially more expensive than wind turbines and solar panels, the loss of nuclear energy as an energy supply should be compensated for by greater use of more expensive flexibility options, such as energy storage," NRG-Pallas noted.

In April 2023, in its draft Climate Fund for 2024, the Dutch government budgeted funds totalling EUR320 million (USD352 million) for the development of nuclear energy. The funds will be used for the preparation of the operational extension of the existing Borssele nuclear power plant, the construction of two new large reactors, the development of small modular reactors and for nuclear skills development in the Netherlands.

In August 2022, the UK's Rolls-Royce SMR signed an exclusive agreement with ULC-Energy to collaborate on the deployment of Rolls-Royce SMR power plants in the Netherlands. ULC-Energy - established in 2021 and based in Amsterdam - aims to accelerate decarbonisation in the Netherlands by developing nuclear energy projects that efficiently integrate with residential and industrial energy networks in the country.

Chernobyl considered as site for new small modular reactors

Monday, 18 November 2024

The area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is one of the places being looked at as potential locations for Ukraine's planned future wave of small modular reactors.

The former Chernobyl nuclear power plant is surrounded by an exclusion zone (Image: CHNPP

Representatives of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management and specialists from Ukraine's nuclear energy giant Energoatom, joined Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) officials last month to visit several areas within the exclusion zone and around the plant, CNPP reported. "This was followed by a technical discussion on the suitability of these sites for future SMR construction," it added.

It was the second on-site meeting to "review potential locations for small modular reactors (SMRs) proposed by Chornobyl NPP and discuss land allocation matters".

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant lies about 130 kilometres north of Kiev and about 20 kilometres south of the border with Belarus. Following the 1986 accident, a 30-kilometre exclusion zone was created around it. (Read more: World Nuclear Association's guide to the Chernobyl accident)

Ukraine's big plans for SMRs
 

Ukraine has plans for as many as nine new Westinghouse AP1000 large reactors across the country, as well as developing a programme for SMRs. Progress on its new nuclear has continued amid the on-going war with Russia, which has seen its largest nuclear power plant - Zaporizhzhia NPP - under Russian military control since early March 2022.

Energoatom signed an agreement last year which could pave the way for up to 20 of Holtec's SMRs. It has also been exploring options with a number of other potential SMR providers.

On Saturday at the COP29 UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Bonnie Jenkins, and Ukraine Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko announced three project partnerships:

- To build a pilot plant in Ukraine to demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia "using simulated safe and secure small modular reactor technology". The project is being carried out by a multinational public-private consortium from Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, and the USA.
- Project Phoenix funding to help facilitate the transition of Ukraine’s coal-fired power plants to SMR nuclear power plants, carrying out siting and feasibility studies.
- To develop a roadmap and provide technical support to rebuild, modernise, and decarbonise Ukraine’s steel industry with SMRs.  The roadmap will pave the way for using clean electricity, process heat, and hydrogen from SMRs for clean steel manufacturing and production

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (AMSE) said it would be working to support the clean steel programme, with CEO Tom Costabile saying: "Small modular reactors are an important part of the clean energy future, as well as an economic redevelopment opportunity for Ukraine."

Russia places 'tit-for-tat' ban on US uranium exports

Monday, 18 November 2024

Russia has announced restrictions on exports of enriched uranium to the USA. The temporary ban is in response to US restrictions on imports of Russian uranium products which came into force earlier this year.

President Vladimir Putin said in September that Russia would consider placing restrictions on uranium exports (Image: Kremlin)

The Russian government announced the ban on its official website on 15 November as an amendment to Government Decree No 313 of 9 March 2022. It covers exports "to the United States or under foreign trade contracts concluded with persons registered in the jurisdiction of the United States". Exemptions will be made for deliveries under one-off licences issued by the Russian Federal Service for Technical and Export Control.

"The decision was made on the instructions of the President in response to the restriction imposed by the United States for 2024-2027, and from 2028 - a ban on the import of Russian uranium products," the Russian government said. "Vladimir Putin instructed to analyse the possibility of restricting supplies to foreign markets of strategic raw materials in September at a meeting with the Government."

According to the Tass news agency, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said the ban was legal and the expected "tit-for-tat response to actions of the US authorities". Deliveries of Russian uranium to countries other than the USA "will continue without changes, on conditions agreed with customers and subject to requirements of national laws", Rosatom said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Tass that "in cases where it serves our interests, Russia’s Federal Service for Technical and Export Control may decide to exclude certain items from this list of bans", but said the government had assessed the implications and consequences of the "absolutely reciprocal" countermeasures. "But the key point is that this should fully align with our interests and not undermine them. That is the basis for what has been done," he said.

US President Joe Biden signed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act in May after the bill was passed unanimously by the US Senate. The prohibition came into effect in August, and will last until the end of 2040. Waivers may be granted to allow the import of limited amounts of Russian-origin LEU, under certain circumstances, until 1 January 2028.

US enrichment company Centrus received such a waiver from the US Department of Energy in July, allowing it to import low-enriched uranium from Russia for delivery to US customers in 2024 and 2025. Tenex - a Russian government-owned company - is Centrus' largest supplier of low-enriched uranium for delivery to its US and international customers pursuant to a 2011 contract.

Tenex has now notified Centrus that its general licence to export the material to the USA has been rescinded under the decree, "effective through December 31, 2025", and that it is now required to obtain a specific export licence from the Russian authorities for each of its remaining 2024 shipments to Centrus and for shipments in 2025.

"Tenex has informed Centrus of its plan to seek the necessary export licences, in a timely manner, to allow it to meet its delivery obligations for the pending Centrus orders," Centrus said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The US company said it will be in communication with its customers whose pending orders may be affected and is assessing actions to mitigate adverse impacts.

"If TENEX is unable to secure export licences for our pending or future orders, it would affect our ability to meet our delivery obligations to our customers and would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and competitive position," the company said.

According to US Energy Information Administration data, owners and operators of US nuclear power plants purchased a total of 51.6 million pounds U3O8 (19,848 tU) of deliveries from domestic and foreign suppliers in 2023. Most of this came from Canada (27% of total deliveries), Australia (22%) and Kazakhstan (22%): Russian-origin material accounted for 12% of total deliveries. Domestically produced material accounted for 5%. But while US facilities provided 28% of the uranium enrichment services - measured in separative work units, or SWU - purchased by US owners and operators in 2023, 27% came from Russia, more than any other foreign supplier.

World Nuclear News