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A Nice, Healthy Glow

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COMMENT: An impor­tant arti­cle appeared in For­eign Pol­i­cy, high­light­ing Depart­ment of Ener­gy rul­ings which will make access to radi­o­log­i­cal mate­ri­als eas­i­er. Now head­ed by Rick Perry–who advo­cat­ed abol­ish­ing the Depart­ment he now leads–the agency has facil­i­tat­ed the poten­tial use of radi­o­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al by ter­ror­ists, Nazi/White Suprema­cists, in par­tic­u­lar.

” . . . . In June, the depart­ment decid­ed to reclas­si­fy high-lev­el nuclear weapons waste to a low­er cat­e­go­ry. . . . Accord­ing to the Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil (NRDC), the reclas­si­fi­ca­tion would allow the Ener­gy Depart­ment to aban­don stor­age tanks of more than 100 mil­lion gal­lons of some of the ‘most tox­ic and radioac­tive waste in the world’ across three states at low ground lev­els. The byprod­uct of the pro­duc­tion of nuclear weapons is a dan­ger­ous cock­tail of IAEA Cat­e­go­ry 1 radi­o­log­i­cal mate­ri­als, includ­ing stron­tium-90, ameri­ci­um-241, and plu­to­ni­um-238. ‘The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is attempt­ing to alter five decades of nation­al con­sen­sus on han­dling the most tox­ic waste in the world,’ said Geof­frey Fet­tus, a senior attor­ney for the NRDC. . . .”

Impor­tant in that con­text, is the pres­ence of White Suprema­cist Matthew Gebert in the State Depart­men­t’s Bureau of Ener­gy Resources, charged with pro­mot­ing ener­gy secu­ri­ty:

. . . . Mean­while, on Aug. 9, the U.S. State Depart­ment con­firmed that Matthew Gebert, a for­eign affairs offi­cer assigned to the Bureau of Ener­gy Resources, was linked to a white nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tion. One of the main goals of the Bureau of Ener­gy Resources is pro­mot­ing ener­gy secu­ri­ty. In 2018, Gebert alleged­ly told a pod­cast, ‘[Whites] need a coun­try of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lick­ety split.’ . . . .”

We also note that the Steam online gam­ing site–home to Nazi/White Suprema­cist mes­sag­ing and 173 sites pro­mot­ing school shootings–has gam­ing mate­r­i­al involv­ing “Dirty Bombs.” Per­haps we will hear more from that direc­tion.

“White Suprema­cists Want a Dirty Bomb” by Will Cath­cart and Joseph Ari Epstein; For­eign Pol­i­cy; 8/16/2019.

. . . . An RDD [radi­o­log­i­cal dis­per­sal device] does not have to be a bomb; it could be a radi­o­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al in a crop duster or any oth­er tool that can dis­perse the mate­r­i­al. Posi­tioned cor­rect­ly, even wind itself could dis­perse a radi­o­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al like cesium-137, which is a pow­der in its most com­mon form. . . .

. . . . The country’s nuclear and radi­o­log­i­cal secu­ri­ty falls under the aus­pices of the Ener­gy Depart­ment, which is cur­rent­ly run by for­mer Texas Gov. Rick Per­ry. The appoint­ment of Per­ry as ener­gy sec­re­tary has caused con­cern among experts as Per­ry pre­vi­ous­ly called for the dis­so­lu­tion of the IAEA, which mon­i­tors nuclear stock­piles.

Per­ry also said he would get rid of the depart­ment dur­ing his 2012 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and was unaware that one of the Ener­gy Department’s main respon­si­bil­i­ties was nuclear and radi­o­log­i­cal secu­ri­ty, which com­pris­es near­ly two-thirds of its annu­al $30 bil­lion bud­get.

In July, the sec­re­tary found him­self in hot water after it was dis­cov­ered that for six years radioac­tive ship­ments from Ten­nessee to Neva­da were mis­la­beled and shipped not in com­pli­ance with safe­ty reg­u­la­tions. This prompt­ed Neva­da Rep. Steven Hors­ford to call for Perry’s res­ig­na­tion. This came six months after the Ener­gy Depart­ment dis­closed that it secret­ly shipped weapons-grade plu­to­ni­um from South Car­oli­na to Neva­da. The gov­er­nor of Neva­da took the depart­ment to court on the grounds that it dis­re­gard­ed the dan­gers of mov­ing the plu­to­ni­um to an area that is sub­ject to flash floods and earth­quakes. In the words of Rep. Dina Titus of Neva­da, “The lev­el of incom­pe­tence at the Depart­ment of Ener­gy is only matched by its dis­hon­esty.”

This is the third time this year that the Ener­gy Depart­ment has drawn out­rage for mis­han­dling nuclear waste. In June, the depart­ment decid­ed to reclas­si­fy high-lev­el nuclear weapons waste to a low­er cat­e­go­ry. Paul Dab­bar, the under­sec­re­tary for sci­ence, said the deci­sion was made to allow for faster cleanup of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed areas and to cut back costs.

Accord­ing to the Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil (NRDC), the reclas­si­fi­ca­tion would allow the Ener­gy Depart­ment to aban­don stor­age tanks of more than 100 mil­lion gal­lons of some of the “most tox­ic and radioac­tive waste in the world” across three states at low ground lev­els. The byprod­uct of the pro­duc­tion of nuclear weapons is a dan­ger­ous cock­tail of IAEA Cat­e­go­ry 1 radi­o­log­i­cal mate­ri­als, includ­ing stron­tium-90, ameri­ci­um-241, and plu­to­ni­um-238. “The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is attempt­ing to alter five decades of nation­al con­sen­sus on han­dling the most tox­ic waste in the world,” said Geof­frey Fet­tus, a senior attor­ney for the NRDC.

“This change by the DOE is very con­cern­ing to me,” said Fer­enc Dal­no­ki-Ver­ess, a sci­en­tist-in-res­i­dence and adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Mid­dle­bury Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies. “It miss­es the point about how dan­ger­ous these mate­ri­als are. It is not just because of radioac­tiv­i­ty that these mate­ri­als are dan­ger­ous but also because they are chem­i­cal­ly tox­ic them­selves. … There has been a strong inter­est in water­ing down some of the reg­u­la­tions [at the depart­ment], which is a seri­ous con­cern.” . . . .

. . . . Mean­while, on Aug. 9, the U.S. State Depart­ment con­firmed that Matthew Gebert, a for­eign affairs offi­cer assigned to the Bureau of Ener­gy Resources, was linked to a white nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tion. One of the main goals of the Bureau of Ener­gy Resources is pro­mot­ing ener­gy secu­ri­ty. In 2018, Gebert alleged­ly told a pod­cast, “[Whites] need a coun­try of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lick­ety split.”  . . . .

. . . . “It is very dif­fi­cult for any secu­ri­ty sys­tem to pro­tect against knowl­edge­able insid­ers,” said Miles Pom­per, a senior fel­low at the James Mar­tin Cen­ter for Non­pro­lif­er­a­tion Stud­ies and co-author of the paper “Pro­mot­ing Alter­na­tives to High-Risk Radi­o­log­i­cal Sources.” “Think about the pilots who inten­tion­al­ly choose to crash their planes with pas­sen­gers aboard. Giv­en that radi­o­log­i­cal sources are employed in places such as uni­ver­si­ties and hos­pi­tals, whose top pri­or­i­ties aren’t secu­ri­ty but acces­si­bil­i­ty, this is a par­tic­u­lar risk for these mate­ri­als.”

Wash­ing­ton, D.C., is cen­tral­ized with­in 68 square miles. The finan­cial dis­trict of low­er Man­hat­tan is with­in half a mile. A small vial of a radi­o­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al like cesium-137 could take out the New York Stock Exchange. . . .

Discussion

2 comments for “A Nice, Healthy Glow”

  1. This is the hor­ren­dous lev­el of low intel­li­gence, self-aware­ness of lead­ers this nation has allowed to gov­ern for many years. In a democ­ra­cy you do get the gov­ern­ment you deserved and with the wolves as well.

    Rick Per­ry, The Man In Charge Of Amer­i­can Nuclear Weapons, Fell For An Insta­gram Hoax
    “I’d like to intro­duce you to a Niger­ian prince,” read one com­ment from an Insta­gram user mock­ing the ener­gy sec­re­tary for being gullible.

    David Mack
    Buz­zFeed News Reporter
    Updat­ed on August 21, 2019, at 11:32 a.m. ET
    Post­ed on August 21, 2019, at 8:09 a.m. ET

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/davidmack/rick-perry-instagram-hoax-meme

    Posted by Roberto Maldonado | August 21, 2019, 9:24 am
  2. This arti­cle reveals that Nuclear Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion, the fed­er­al agency respon­si­ble for ensur­ing the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the nation’s fleet of com­mer­cial nuclear reac­tors, has respond­ed to finan­cial inter­ests from the cor­po­ra­tions it is sup­posed to reg­u­late and after Octo­ber 2018, cut in half the num­ber of force-on-force exer­cis­es con­duct­ed at each plant to pre­pare for a ter­ror­ist assault style attack and in ear­ly 2019 it announced it would over­haul how the exer­cis­es are eval­u­at­ed to ensure that no plant would ever receive more than the mildest rebuke from reg­u­la­tors – even when the sim­u­lat­ed com­man­do raid pro­duced results that would make a large por­tion of the U.S. unin­hab­it­able.

    http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20190930-a-meltdown-in-nuclear-security

    A Melt­down in Nuclear Secu­ri­ty
    Pub­lished 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019

    A com­man­do raid on a nuclear pow­er plant seems the stuff of Hol­ly­wood. So why are nuclear secu­ri­ty experts so wor­ried? It ranks among the worst-case sce­nar­ios for a nuclear pow­er plant: an all-out assault or stealth infil­tra­tion by well-trained, heav­i­ly armed attack­ers bent on trig­ger­ing a nuclear blast, spark­ing a nuclear melt­down or steal­ing radioac­tive mate­r­i­al. Under pres­sure from a cash-strapped nuclear ener­gy indus­try increas­ing­ly eager to slash costs, the com­mis­sion in a lit­tle-noticed vote in Octo­ber 2018 halved the num­ber of force-on-force exer­cis­es con­duct­ed at each plant every cycle. Four months lat­er, it announced it would over­haul how the exer­cis­es are eval­u­at­ed to ensure that no plant would ever receive more than the mildest rebuke from reg­u­la­tors – even when the com­man­dos set off a sim­u­lat­ed nuclear dis­as­ter that, if real, would ren­der vast swaths of the U.S. unin­hab­it­able. Nuclear secu­ri­ty experts, con­sul­tants, law enforce­ment vet­er­ans and for­mer NRC­com­mis­sion­ers are noth­ing short of alarmed. “You can’t afford to be wrong once,” says one expert.’

    It ranks among the worst-case sce­nar­ios for a nuclear pow­er plant: an all-out assault or stealth infil­tra­tion by well-trained, heav­i­ly armed attack­ers bent on trig­ger­ing a nuclear blast, spark­ing a nuclear melt­down or steal­ing radioac­tive mate­r­i­al.

    Alan Neuhauser writes in U.S. News that for near­ly two decades, the nation’s nuclear pow­er plants have been required by fed­er­al law to pre­pare for such a night­mare: At every com­mer­cial nuclear plant, every three years, secu­ri­ty guards take on a sim­u­lat­ed attack by hired com­man­dos in so-called “force-on-force” drills. And every year, at least one U.S. nuclear plant flunks the sim­u­la­tion, the “attack­ers” dam­ag­ing a reac­tor core and poten­tial­ly trig­ger­ing a fake Cher­nobyl – a fail­ure rate of 5 per­cent.

    “In spite of that track record, pub­lic doc­u­ments and tes­ti­mo­ny show that the Nuclear Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion, the fed­er­al agency respon­si­ble for ensur­ing the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the nation’s fleet of com­mer­cial nuclear reac­tors, is now steadi­ly rolling back the stan­dards meant to pre­vent the dooms­day sce­nario the drills are designed to sim­u­late,” Neuhauser writes, adding:

    Under pres­sure from a cash-strapped nuclear ener­gy indus­try increas­ing­ly eager to slash costs, the com­mis­sion in a lit­tle-noticed vote in Octo­ber 2018 halved the num­ber of force-on-force exer­cis­es con­duct­ed at each plant every cycle. Four months lat­er, it announced it would over­haul how the exer­cis­es are eval­u­at­ed to ensure that no plant would ever receive more than the mildest rebuke from reg­u­la­tors – even when the com­man­dos set off a sim­u­lat­ed nuclear dis­as­ter that, if real, would ren­der vast swaths of the U.S. unin­hab­it­able.

    Lat­er this year, the NRC is expect­ed to green­light a pro­pos­al that will allow nuclear plants – which cur­rent­ly must be able to fend off an attack alone – to instead begin depend­ing on local and state law enforce­ment, whose train­ing, equip­ment and response times may leave them ill-pre­pared to respond to a mil­i­tary-grade assault.

    Neuhauser writes:
    The moves have inflamed open dis­sent with­in the com­mis­sion, which has been riv­en in recent years by internecine con­flict between Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mis­sion­ers.
    Nuclear secu­ri­ty experts, con­sul­tants, law enforce­ment vet­er­ans and for­mer NRC com­mis­sion­ers – sev­er­al of whom spoke with U.S. News on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty in order to address the issue can­did­ly – are noth­ing short of alarmed. They open­ly ques­tion whether top reg­u­la­tors at the NRC, cease­less­ly lob­bied by an indus­try strapped for cash, have fall­en prey to valu­ing quar­ter­ly earn­ings, lucra­tive con­tracts and poten­tial plum job oppor­tu­ni­ties over day-to-day secu­ri­ty.

    A long­time nuclear secu­ri­ty expert minced no words about the poten­tial con­se­quences:
    “I know how easy it is to cause a Fukushi­ma-scale melt­down, radi­a­tion release or worse. And the time­lines are very short. You don’t have much room to maneu­ver if you mis­judge what the threat is,” says Ed Lyman, senior sci­en­tist in the glob­al secu­ri­ty pro­gram and act­ing direc­tor of the nuclear safe­ty project at the Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists. “You can’t afford to be wrong once.”

    Posted by Mary Benton | October 2, 2019, 5:14 pm

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