The Main Cause of the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

andrewtheprophetUncategorized February 5, 202320 Minutes

Indian Point Energy Center

Nuclear power plant in Buchanan, New York

Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) is a three-unit nuclear power plant station located in Buchanan, New York, just south of Peekskill. It sits on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 36 miles (58 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. The plant generates over 2,000 megawatts (MWe) of electrical power. For reference, the record peak energy consumption of New York City and Westchester County (the ConEdison Service Territory) was set during a seven-day heat wave on July 19, 2013, at 13,322 megawatts.[3] Electrical energy consumption varies greatly with time of day and season.[4]

Quick Facts: Country, Location …

The plant is owned and operated by Entergy Nuclear Northeast, a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation, and includes two operating Westinghouse pressurized water reactors—designated “Indian Point 2” and “Indian Point 3″—which Entergy bought from Consolidated Edison and the New York Power Authority respectively. The facility also contains the permanently shut-down Indian Point Unit 1 reactor. As of 2015, the number of permanent jobs at the Buchanan plant is approximately 1,000.

The original 40-year operating licenses for units 2 and 3 expired in September 2013 and December 2015, respectively. Entergy had applied for license extensions and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was moving toward granting a twenty-year extension for each reactor. However, after pressure from local environmental groups and New York governor Andrew Cuomo, it was announced that the plant is scheduled to be shut down by 2021.[5] Local groups had cited increasingly frequent issues with the aging units, ongoing environmental releases, and the proximity of the plant to New York City.[6]

Reactors

History and design

The reactors are built on land that originally housed the Indian Point Amusement Park, but was acquired by Consolidated Edison (ConEdison) on October 14, 1954.[7] Indian Point 1, built by ConEdison, was a 275-megawatt Babcock & Wilcox supplied [8] pressurized water reactor that was issued an operating license on March 26, 1962 and began operations on September 16, 1962.[9] The first core used a thorium-based fuel with stainless steel cladding, but this fuel did not live up to expectations for core life.[10] The plant was operated with uranium dioxide fuel for the remainder of its life. The reactor was shut down on October 31, 1974, because the emergency core cooling system did not meet regulatory requirements. All spent fuel was removed from the reactor vessel by January 1976, but the reactor still stands.[11] The licensee, Entergy, plans to decommission Unit 1 when Unit 2 is decommissioned.[12]

The two additional reactors, Indian Point 2 and 3, are four-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactors both of similar design. Units 2 and 3 were completed in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Unit 2 has a generating capacity of 1,032 MW, and Unit 3 has a generating capacity of 1,051 MW. Both reactors use uranium dioxide fuel of no more than 4.8% U-235 enrichment. The reactors at Indian Point are protected by containment domes made of steel-reinforced concrete that is 40 inches thick, with a carbon steel liner.[13]

Nuclear capacity in New York state

Units 2 and 3 are two of six operating nuclear energy sources in New York State. New York is one of the five largest states in terms of nuclear capacity and generation, accounting for approximately 5% of the national totals. Indian Point provides 39% of the state’s nuclear capacity. Nuclear power produces 34.2% of the state’s electricity, higher than the U.S. average of 20.6%. In 2017, Indian Point generated approximately 10% of the state’s electricity needs, and 25% of the electricity used in New York City and Westchester County.[14] Its contract with Consolidated Edison is for just 560 megawatts. The New York Power Authority, which built Unit 3, stopped buying electricity from Indian Point in 2012. NYPA supplies the subways, airports, and public schools and housing in NYC and Westchester County. Entergy sells the rest of Indian Point’s output into the NYISO administered electric wholesale markets and elsewhere in New England.[15][16][17][18] In 2013, New York had the fourth highest average electricity prices in the United States. Half of New York’s power demand is in the New York City region; about two-fifths of generation originates there.[19][20]

Refueling

The currently operating Units 2 and 3 are each refueled on a two-year cycle. At the end of each fuel cycle, one unit is brought offline for refueling and maintenance activities. On March 2, 2015, Indian Point 3 was taken offline for 23 days to perform its refueling operations. Entergy invested $50 million in the refueling and other related projects for Unit 3, of which $30 million went to employee salaries. The unit was brought back online on March 25, 2015.[21]

Effects

Economic impact

A June 2015 report by a lobby group called Nuclear Energy Institute found that the operation of Indian Point generates $1.3 billion of annual economic output in local counties, $1.6 billion statewide, and $2.5 billion across the United States. In 2014, Entergy paid $30 million in state and local property taxes. The total tax revenue (direct and secondary) was nearly $340 million to local, state, and federal governments.[15] According to the Village of Buchanan budget for 2016–2017, a payment in lieu of taxes in the amount of $2.62 million was received in 2015-2016, and was projected to be $2.62 million in 2016–2017 – the majority of which can be assumed to come from the Indian Point Energy Center.[22]

Over the last decade, the station has maintained a capacity factor of greater than 93 percent. This is consistently higher than the nuclear industry average and than other forms of generation. The reliability helps offset the severe price volatility of other energy sources (e.g., natural gas) and the indeterminacy of renewable electricity sources (e.g., solar, wind).[15]

Indian Point directly employs about 1,000 full-time workers. This employment creates another 2,800 jobs in the five-county region, and 1,600 in other industries in New York, for a total of 5,400 in-state jobs. Additionally, another 5,300 indirect jobs are created out of state, creating a sum total of 10,700 jobs throughout the United States.[15]

Environmental concerns

Environmentalists have expressed concern about increased carbon emissions with the impending shutdown of Indian Point (generating electricity with nuclear energy creates no carbon emissions). A study undertaken by Environmental Progress found that closure of the plant would cause power emissions to jump 29% in New York, equivalent to the emissions from 1.4 million additional cars on New York roads.[23]

Some environmental groups have expressed concerns about the operation of Indian Point, including radiation pollution and endangerment of wildlife, but whether Indian Point has ever posed a significant danger to wildlife or the public remains controversial. Though anti-nuclear group Riverkeeper notes “Radioactive leakage from the plant containing several radioactive isotopes, such as strontium-90, cesium-137, cobalt-60, nickel-63 and tritium, a rarely-occurring isotope of hydrogen, has flowed into groundwater that eventually enters the Hudson River in the past[24], there is no evidence radiation from the plant has ever posed a significant hazard to local residents or wildlife. In the last year[when?], nine tritium leaks have occurred, however, even at their highest levels the leaks have never exceeded one-tenth of one percent of US Nuclear Regulatory Commission limits.

In February 2016, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo called for a full investigation by state environment[25] and health officials and is partnering with organizations like Sierra Club, Riverkeepers, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, Scenic Hudson and Physicians for Social Responsibility in seeking the permanent closure of the plant.[citation needed] However, Cuomo’s motivation for closing the plant was called into question after it was revealed two top former aides, under federal prosecution for influence-peddling, had lobbied on behalf of natural gas company Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) to kill Indian Point. In his indictment, US attorney Preet Bharara wrote “the importance of the plant [CPV’s proposed Valley Energy Center, a plant powered by natural gas] to the State depended at least in part, on whether [Indian Point] was going to be shut down.”[26]

In April 2016 climate scientist James Hansen took issue with calls to shut the plant down, including those from presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “The last few weeks have seen an orchestrated campaign to mislead the people of New York about the essential safety and importance of Indian Point nuclear plant to address climate change,” wrote Hansen, adding “Sanders has offered no evidence that NRC [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has failed to do its job, and he has no expertise in over-riding NRC’s judgement. For the sake of future generations who could be harmed by irreversible climate change, I urge New Yorkers to reject this fear mongering and uphold science against ideology.”[27]

Indian Point removes water from the nearby Hudson River. Despite the use of fish screens, the cooling system kills over a billion fish eggs and larvae annually.[28] According to one NRC report from 2010, as few as 38% of alewives survive the screens.[29] On September 14, 2015, a state hearing began in regards to the deaths of fish in the river, and possibly implementing a shutdown period from May to August. An Indian Point spokesman stated that such a period would be unnecessary, as Indian Point “is fully protective of life in the Hudson River and $75 million has been spent over the last 30 years on scientific studies demonstrating that the plant has no harmful impact to adult fish.” The hearings lasted three weeks.[30] Concerns were also raised over the planned building of new cooling towers, which would cut down forest land that is suspected to be used as breeding ground by muskrat and mink. At the time of the report, no minks or muskrats were spotted there.[29]

Safety

Indian Point Energy Center has been given an incredible amount of scrutiny from the media and politicians and is regulated more heavily than various other power plants in the state of New York (i.e., by the NRC in addition to FERC, the NYSPSC, the NYISO, the NYSDEC, and the EPA). On a forced outage basis – incidents related to electrical equipment failure that force a plant stoppage – it provides a much more reliable operating history than most other power plants in New York.[31][32] Beginning at the end of 2015, Governor Cuomo began to ramp up political action against the Indian Point facility, opening an investigation with the state public utility commission, the department of health, and the department of environmental conservation.[33][34][35][30][36][37] To put the public service commission investigation in perspective: most electric outage investigations conducted by the commission are in response to outages with a known number of affected retail electric customers.[38] By November 17, 2017, the NYISO accepted Indian Point’s retirement notice.[39]

In 1997, Indian Point Unit 3 was removed from the NRC’s list of plants that receive increased attention from the regulator. An engineer for the NRC noted that the plant had been experiencing increasingly fewer problems during inspections.[40] On March 10, 2009 the Indian Point Power Plant was awarded the fifth consecutive top safety rating for annual operations by the Federal regulators. According to the Hudson Valley Journal News, the plant had shown substantial improvement in its safety culture in the previous two years.[41] A 2003 report commissioned by then-Governor George Pataki concluded that the “current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to…protect the people from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release from Indian Point”.[42] More recently, in December 2012 Entergy commissioned a 400-page report on the estimates of evacuation times. This report, performed by emergency planning company KLD Engineering, concluded that the existing traffic management plans provided by Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester Counties are adequate and require no changes.[43] According to one list that ranks U.S. nuclear power plants by their likelihood of having a major natural disaster related incident, Indian Point is the most likely to be hit by a natural disaster, mainly an earthquake.[44][45][46][47] Despite this, the owners of the plant still say that safety is a selling point for the nuclear power plant.[48]Incidents

 In 1973, five months after Indian Point 2 opened, the plant was shut down when engineers discovered buckling in the steel liner of the concrete dome in which the nuclear reactor is housed.[49]

 On October 17, 1980,[50] 100,000 gallons of Hudson River water leaked into the Indian Point 2 containment building from the fan cooling unit, undetected by a safety device designed to detect hot water. The flooding, covering the first nine feet of the reactor vessel, was discovered when technicians entered the building. Two pumps that should have removed the water were found to be inoperative. NRC proposed a $2,100,000 fine for the incident.

 In February 2000, Unit 2 experienced a Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR), which allowed primary water to leak into the secondary system through one of the steam generators.[51] All four steam generators were subsequently replaced.[citation needed]

 In 2005, Entergy workers while digging discovered a small leak in a spent fuel pool. Water containing tritium and strontium-90 was leaking through a crack in the pool building and then finding its way into the nearby Hudson River. Workers were able to keep the spent fuel rods safely covered despite the leak.[52] On March 22, 2006 The New York Times also reported finding radioactive nickel-63 and strontium in groundwater on site.[53]

 In 2007, a transformer at Unit 3 caught fire, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raised its level of inspections, because the plant had experienced many unplanned shutdowns. According to The New York Times, Indian Point “has a history of transformer problems”.[54]

 On April 23, 2007, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined the owner of the Indian Point nuclear plant $130,000 for failing to meet a deadline for a new emergency siren plan. The 150 sirens at the plant are meant to alert residents within 10 miles to a plant emergency.[55]

 On January 7, 2010, NRC inspectors reported that an estimated 600,000 gallons of mildly radioactive steam was intentionally vented to the atmosphere after an automatic shutdown of Unit 2. After the vent, one of the vent valves unintentionally remained slightly open for two days. The levels of tritium in the steam were within the allowable safety limits defined in NRC standards.[56]

 On November 7, 2010, an explosion occurred in a main transformer for Indian Point 2, spilling oil into the Hudson River.[57] Entergy later agreed to pay a $1.2 million penalty for the transformer explosion.[54]

 July 2013, a former supervisor, who worked at the Indian Point nuclear power plant for twenty-nine years, was arrested for falsifying the amount of particulate in the diesel fuel for the plant’s backup generators.[58]

On May 9, 2015, a transformer failed at Indian Point 3, causing the automated shutdown of reactor 3. A fire that resulted from the failure was extinguished, and the reactor was placed in a safe and stable condition.[59] The failed transformer contained about 24,000 gallons of dielectric fluid, which is used as an insulator and coolant when the transformer is energized. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that about 3,000 gallons of dielectric fluid entered the river following the failure.[60]

 In June 2015, a mylar balloon floated into a switchyard, causing an electrical problem resulting in the shutdown of Reactor 3.[61]

 In July 2015, Reactor 3 was shut down after a water pump failure.[citation needed]

 On December 5, 2015, Indian Point 2 was shut down after several control rods lost power.[62]

 On February 6, 2016, Governor Andrew Cuomo informed the public that radioactive tritium-contaminated water leaked into the groundwater at the Indian Point Nuclear facility.[25]

Spent fuel

Indian Point stores used fuel rods in two spent fuel pools at the facility.[52] The spent fuel pools at Indian Point are not stored under a containment dome like the reactor, but rather they are contained within an indoor 40-foot-deep pool and submerged under 27 feet of water. Water is a natural and effective barrier to radiation. The spent fuel pools at Indian Point are set in bedrock and are constructed of concrete walls that are four to six feet wide, with a quarter-inch thick stainless steel inner liner. The pools each have multiple redundant backup cooling systems.[52][63]

Indian Point began dry cask storage of spent fuel rods in 2008, which is a safe and environmentally sound option according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[64] Some rods have already been moved to casks from the spent fuel pools. The pools will be kept nearly full of spent fuel, leaving enough space to allow emptying the reactor completely.[65] Dry cask storage systems are designed to resist floods, tornadoes, projectiles, temperature extremes, and other unusual scenarios. The NRC requires the spent fuel to be cooled and stored in the spent fuel pool for at least five years before being transferred to dry casks.[66]

Earthquake risk

In 2008, researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory located a previously unknown active seismic zone running from Stamford, Connecticut, to the Hudson Valley town of Peekskill, New York—the intersection of the Stamford-Peekskill line with the well-known Ramapo Fault—which passes less than a mile north of the Indian Point nuclear power plant.[67] The Ramapo Fault is the longest fault in the Northeast, but scientists dispute how active this roughly 200-million-year-old fault really is. Many earthquakes in the state’s surprisingly varied seismic history are believed to have occurred on or near it. Visible at ground level, the fault line likely extends as deep as nine miles below the surface.[68]

In July 2013, Entergy engineers reassessed the risk of seismic damage to Unit 3 and submitted their findings in a report to the NRC. It was found that risk leading to reactor core damage is 1 in 106,000 reactor years using U.S. Geological Survey data; and 1 in 141,000 reactor years using Electric Power Research Institute data. Unit 3’s previous owner, the New York Power Authority, had conducted a more limited analysis in the 1990s than Unit 2’s previous owner, Con Edison, leading to the impression that Unit 3 had fewer seismic protections than Unit 2. Neither submission of data from the previous owners was incorrect.[69]

According to a company spokesman, Indian Point was built to withstand an earthquake of 6.1 on the Richter scale.[70] Entergy executives have also noted “that Indian Point had been designed to withstand an earthquake much stronger than any on record in the region, though not one as powerful as the quake that rocked Japan.”[71]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Indian Point was Reactor 2: 1 in 30,303; Reactor 3: 1 in 10,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010. Msnbc.com reported based on the NRC data that “Indian Point nuclear reactor No. 3 has the highest risk of earthquake damage in the country, according to new NRC risk estimates provided to msnbc.com.” According to the report, the reason is that plants in known earthquake zones like California were designed to be more quake-resistant than those in less affected areas like New York.[72][73] The NRC did not dispute the numbers but responded in a release that “The NRC results to date should not be interpreted as definitive estimates of seismic risk,” because the NRC does not rank plants by seismic risk.[74]

IPEC Units 2 and 3 both operated at 100% full power before, during, and after the Virginia earthquake on August 23, 2011. A thorough inspection of both units by plant personnel immediately following this event verified no significant damage occurred at either unit.

Emergency planning

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[75]

According to an analysis of U.S. Census data for MSNBC, the 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Indian Point was 272,539, an increase of 17.6 percent during the previous ten years. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 17,220,895, an increase of 5.1 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include New York (41 miles to city center); Bridgeport, Conn. (40 miles); Newark, N.J. (39 miles); and Stamford, Conn. (24 miles).[76]

In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan, the State Department recommended that any Americans in Japan stay beyond fifty miles from the area.[citation needed] Columnist Peter Applebome, writing in The New York Times, noted that such an area around Indian Point would include “almost all of New York City except for Staten Island; almost all of Nassau County and much of Suffolk County; all of Bergen County, N.J.; all of Fairfield, Conn.” He quotes Purdue University professor Daniel Aldrich as saying “Many scholars have already argued that any evacuation plans shouldn’t be called plans, but rather “fantasy documents””.[42]

The current 10-mile plume-exposure pathway Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) is one of two EPZs intended to facilitate a strategy for protective action during an emergency and comply with NRC regulations. “The exact size and shape of each EPZ is a result of detailed planning which includes consideration of the specific conditions at each site, unique geographical features of the area, and demographic information. This preplanned strategy for an EPZ provides a substantial basis to support activity beyond the planning zone in the extremely unlikely event it would be needed.”[77]

In an interview, Entergy executives said they doubt that the evacuation zone would be expanded to reach as far as New York City.[71]

Indian Point is protected by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including a National Guard base within a mile of the facility, as well as by private off-site security forces.[78]

During the September 11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 11 flew near the Indian Point Energy Center en route to the World Trade Center. Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers/plotters, had considered nuclear facilities for targeting in a terrorist attack.[79] Entergy says it is prepared for a terrorist attack, and asserts that a large airliner crash into the containment building would not cause reactor damage.[80] Following 9/11 the NRC required operators of nuclear facilities in the U.S. to examine the effects of terrorist events and provide planned responses.[81] In September 2006, the Indian Point Security Department successfully completed mock assault exercises required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[citation needed] However, according to environmental group Riverkeeper, these NRC exercises are inadequate because they do not envision a sufficiently large group of attackers.[citation needed]

According to The New York Times, fuel stored in dry casks is less vulnerable to terrorist attack than fuel in the storage pools.[65]

Recertification

Units 2 and 3 were both originally licensed by the NRC for 40 years of operation. The NRC limits commercial power reactor licenses to an initial 40 years, but also permits such licenses to be renewed. This original 40-year term for reactor licenses was based on economic and antitrust considerations, not on limitations of nuclear technology. Due to this selected period, however, some structures and components may have been engineered on the basis of an expected 40-year service life.[82] The original federal license for Unit Two expired on September 28, 2013,[83][84] and the license for Unit Three was due to expire in December 2015.[85] On April 30, 2007, Entergy submitted an application for a 20-year renewal of the licenses for both units. On May 2, 2007, the NRC announced that this application is available for public review.[86] Because the owner submitted license renewal applications at least five years prior to the original expiration date, the units are allowed to continue operation past this date while the NRC considers the renewal application.

On September 23, 2007, the antinuclear group Friends United for Sustainable Energy (FUSE) filed legal papers with the NRC opposing the relicensing of the Indian Point 2 reactor. The group contended that the NRC improperly held Indian Point to less stringent design requirements. The NRC responded that the newer requirements were put in place after the plant was complete.[87]

On December 1, 2007, Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer called a press conference with the participation of environmental advocacy groups Clearwater and Riverkeeper to announce their united opposition to the re-licensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plants. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Office of the Attorney General requested a hearing as part of the process put forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[citation needed] In September 2007 The New York Times reported on the rigorous legal opposition Entergy faces in its request for a 20-year licensing extension for Indian Point Nuclear Reactor 2.[87]

A water quality certificate is a prerequisite for a twenty-year renewal by the NRC.[citation needed] On April 3, 2010, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ruled that Indian Point violates the federal Clean Water Act,[88] because “the power plant’s water-intake system kills nearly a billion aquatic organisms a year, including the shortnose sturgeon, an endangered species.”[citation needed] The state is demanding that Entergy constructs new closed-cycle cooling towers at a cost of over $1 billion, a decision that will effectively close the plant for nearly a year. Regulators denied Entergy’s request to install fish screens that they said would improve fish mortality more than new cooling towers. Anti-nuclear groups and environmentalists have in the past tried to close the plant,[citation needed] which is in a more densely populated area than any of the 66 other nuclear plant sites in the US.[citation needed] Opposition to the plant[from whom?] increased after the September 2001 terror attacks,[citation needed] when one of the hijacked jets flew close to the plant on its way to the World Trade Center.[citation needed] Public worries also increased after the 2011 Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and after a report highlighting the Indian Point plant’s proximity to the Ramapo Fault.[citation needed]

Advocates of recertifying Indian Point include former New York City mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph W. Giuliani. Bloomberg says that “Indian Point is critical to the city’s economic viability”.[89] The New York Independent System Operator maintains that in the absence of Indian Point, grid voltages would degrade, which would limit the ability to transfer power from upstate New York resources through the Hudson Valley to New York City.[90]

As the current governor, Andrew Cuomo continues to call for closure of Indian Point.[91] In late June 2011, a Cuomo advisor in a meeting with Entergy executives informed them for the first time directly of the Governor’s intention to close the plant, while the legislature approved a bill to streamline the process of siting replacement plants.[92]

Nuclear energy industry figures and analysts responded to Cuomo’s initiative by questioning whether replacement electrical plants could be certified and built rapidly enough to replace Indian Point, given New York state’s “cumbersome regulation process”, and also noted that replacement power from out of state sources will be hard to obtain because New York has weak ties to generation capacity in other states.[citation needed] They said that possible consequences of closure will be a sharp increase in the cost of electricity for downstate users and even “rotating black-outs”.[93]

Several members of the House of Representatives representing districts near the plant have also opposed recertification, including Democrats Nita Lowey, Maurice Hinchey, and Eliot Engel and then Republican member Sue Kelly.[94]

In November 2016 the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the application to renew the NRC operating licences must be reviewed against the state’s coastal management program, which The New York State Department of State had already decided was inconsistent with coastal management requirements. Entergy has filed a lawsuit regarding the validity of Department of State’s decision.[95]

Closure

Beginning at the end of 2015, Governor Cuomo began to ramp up political action against the Indian Point facility, opening investigations with the state public utility commission, the department of health and the department of environmental conservation.[33][34][35][30][36][37] To put the public service commission investigation in perspective, most electric outage investigations conducted by the commission are in response to outages with a known number of affected retail electric customers.[38] By November 17, 2017, the NYISO accepted Indian Point’s retirement notice.[39]

In January 2017, the governor’s office announced closure by 2020-21.[96] The closure, along with pollution control, challenges New York’s ability to be supplied.[citation needed] Among the solution proposals are storage, renewables (solar and wind), a new transmission cables from Canada [97][98] and a 650MW natural gas plant located in Wawayanda, New York.[99] There was also a 1,000 MW merchant HVDC transmission line proposed in 2013 to the public service commission that would have interconnected at Athens, New York and Buchanan, New York, however this project was indefinitely stalled when its proposed southern converter station site was bought by the Town of Cortlandt in a land auction administered by Con Edison.[100][101][102] As of October 1, 2018, the 650 MW plant built in Wawayanda, New York, by CPV Valley, is operating commercially.[103] The CPV Valley plant has been associated with Governor Cuomo’s close aid, Joe Percoco, and the associated corruption trial.[104] Another plant being built, Cricket Valley Energy Center, rated at 1,100 MW, is on schedule to provide energy by 2020 in Dover, New York.[105] An Indian Point contingency plan, initiated in 2012 by the NYSPSC under the administration of Cuomo, solicited energy solutions from which a Transmission Owner Transmission Solutions (TOTS) plan was selected. The TOTS projects provide 450 MW[106] of additional transfer capability across a NYISO defined electric transmission corridor in the form of three projects: series compensation at a station in Marcy, New York, reconductoring a transmission line, adding an additional transmission line, and “unbottling” Staten Island capacity. These projects, with the exception of part of the Staten Island “unbottling” were in service by mid-2016. The cost of the TOTS projects are distributed among various utilities in their rate cases before the public service commission and the cost allocation amongst themselves was approved by FERC. NYPA and LIPA are also receiving a portion. The cost of the TOTS projects has been estimated in the range of $27 million to $228 million.[107][108][109][110][111] An energy highway initiative was also prompted by this order (generally speaking, additional lines on the Edic-Pleasant Valley and the Oakdale-Fraser transmission corridors) which is still going through the regulatory process in both the NYISO and NYSPSC.

Under the current plan, one reactor is scheduled to be shut down in April 2020 and the second by April 2021.[112] A report by the New York Building Congress, a construction industry association, has said that NYC will need additional natural gas pipelines to accommodate the city’s increasing demand for energy. Environmentalists have argued that the power provided by Indian point can be replaced by renewable energy, combined with conservation measures and improvements to the efficiency of the electrical grid.[113] 

Top U.S. spies warn Russian Horn is Growing: Daniel 7

Top U.S. spies warn Russia is boosting nuclear capabilities; Moscow unleashes barrage of missiles

Amanda Macias

Holly Ellyatt

This was CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine on March 8, 2023. See here for the latest updates. 

The battle of Bakhmut continues to dominate news out of Ukraine this week, with all eyes on the fate of the city in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

The leader of Russia’s mercenary forces fighting in Bakhmut said Wednesday that his private military company, the Wagner Group, had taken full control of the eastern part of the city. CNBC was unable to verify the claims.

Ukrainian servicemen load an artillery cannon as they target Russian positions in the front line nearby Bakhmut in Donbas, Ukraine, on March 5, 2023.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukraine gave a military update Wednesday in which it noted that Ukraine had repelled over 100 attacks on the Donetsk region over the past day, including on Bakhmut. But it said Russian forces were “continuing their unsuccessful offensive operations” in the area.

WED, MAR 8 202311:06 PM EST

Russia unleashes wave of missile strikes on Ukraine, officials say

Kyiv and other major cities in Ukraine, including Lviv, Kharkiv and Odesa, have been hit by a wave of Russian missile strikes overnight, Ukrainian officials said, with air raid alerts activated across much of the country in the early hours of Thursday.

The Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko said the capital had been hit by a number of explosions that had damaged energy infrastructure and injured several civilians.

In his most recent post on Telegram this morning, Klitschko said that due to emergency power outages after the missile attack, 40% of the capital’s residents were without heating. 

The air alert lasted almost seven hours in the capital, Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said on Telegram as he accused Russia of unleashing “almost all types of their air weapons” from Iranian-made drones to “almost all types of cruise missiles.”

Popko said preliminary information indicated that a Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles (a nuclear-capable, Russian air-launched ballistic missile) had hit an infrastructure object. CNBC wasn’t able to verify the claims.

Officials in the southern port of Odesa, Lviv in western Ukraine and Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine all reported missile strikes overnight while in the Dnipro area, a regional official said there was “serious destruction” as a result of the shelling with “energy infrastructure and industrial enterprises” damaged. A number of fatalities have been reported in Lviv and Dnipro.

The governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv had seen around 15 strikes on the city and region. “Objects of critical infrastructure are again under the sights of the occupiers,” he said, adding that “information about the victims and the scale of the destruction is being clarified.” Residents in the area have been told to stay in shelters.

— Holly Ellyatt

WED, MAR 8 202310:44 PM EST

Zelenskyy honors women working to defend Ukraine on International Women’s Day

Ukrainian female soldiers stand with flowers and state awards awarded by the Ukrainian President during the International Women’s Day celebration in Kyiv on March 08, 2023.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

On International Women’s Day, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented high state awards to women who “distinguished themselves with selfless work and bravery in the defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“Today we thank our women who are fighting, caring, working for peace for Ukraine, for the protection of our lives, our freedom, our people,” Zelenskyy said during the ceremony at the Mariyinsky Palace in Kyiv, according to the president’s official website.

Orders and medals were awarded to women in the service and representatives of civilian professions.

— Audrey Wan

WED, MAR 8 20237:22 PM EST

Natalia Popova continues to run war-injured animal shelter in Ukraine

Natalia Popova has helped rescue hundreds of animals from the war in Ukraine at the war-injured animal shelter which she manages in Chubynske, Ukraine.

Many of them were wild animals kept as pets in private homes before their owners left due to Russian shelling and rockets. 

Natalia Popova poses for a photo at the war-injured animal shelter which she manages in Chubynske, Ukraine on March 8, 2023. Natalia Popova, in collaboration with other volunteers, has already rescued hundreds of animals from the war. Many of them were wild animals kept as pets in private homes before their owners left due to Russian shelling and rockets. (Photo by Oleksii Chumachenko/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Images

Natalia Popova pets a lion in the shelter for animals injured by the war, which she manages in Chubynske, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023. 

Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Images

Lion cubs are seen in the enclosure at Natalia Popova’s shelter for war injured animals in Chubynske, Ukraine on March 8, 2023. 

Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Images

Natalia Popova pets a tiger in the shelter for animals injured by the war, which she manages in Chubynske, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023. Natalia Popova, in collaboration with other volunteers, has already rescued hundreds of animals from the war. 

Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Images

Natalia Popova stands near the enclosure with a young tiger in the shelter for animals injured during the war, which she manages in Chubynske, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023. 

Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Images

– Oleksii Chumachenko | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

WED, MAR 8 20236:21 PM EST

U.S. gets warrant to seize $25 million Boeing airplane owned by Rosneft

An illuminated logo sits on display above the Rosneft Oil Co. pavilion on June 5, 2019. Russia’s Rosneft is holding back on signing new crude oil deals with two Indian state refiners, three sources with knowledge of the matter said, as it has committed sales to other customers.

Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. obtained a warrant to seize a Boeing 737 airplane owned by Russian oil giant Rosneft over alleged sanctions violations stemming from the invasion of Ukraine, the Department of Justice said.

The investigation into the aircraft, believed to be valued at over $25 million, was coordinated by the Justice Department’s “KleptoCapture” team, which was launched last year to enforce sanctions on Russian oligarchs. Rosneft is headed by Igor Sechin, reportedly a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A federal court in Brooklyn, New York, authorized the seizure based on violations of the Export Control Reform Act and sanctions that the U.S. slapped on Russia last year in response to the invasion, the DOJ said in a press release.

The plane allegedly left and re-entered Russia at least seven times since those sanctions were imposed in February 2022. “In this case, these sanctions bar a plane that was built or manufactured in the United States from entering Russia without a valid license,” according to the press release.

— Kevin Breuninger

WED, MAR 8 20235:05 PM EST

Ukrainian soldiers hold their positions near Bakhmut

The small village of Chasiv Yar, only 5 kilometers from Bakhmut, is one of the last towns around the city still under control by the Ukranian cities. As so, it has become a hub for resupply and the movement of troops. It has suffered several attacks by Russian artillery in the last days.

Ukrainian soldiers are seen in the BTR military vehicles on the road in near the Bakhmut frontline as military mobility continues within the Russian-Ukrainian war in Chasiv Yar, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on March 07, 2023. 

Marek M. Berezowski | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukrainian servicemen load an armoured vehicle before deployed to the frontline of Bakhmut, in Chasiv Yar, Donetsk, Ukraine, March 8 2023. 

Ignacio Marin | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukrainian servicemen prepare to move to the front line near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Aris Messinis | Afp | Getty Images

A Ukrainian serviceman takes cover in a trench during shelling next to a 105mm howitzer near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Aris Messinis | Afp | Getty Images

Ukrainian combat medics evacuate a wounded Ukrainian servicem?n from the front line near Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sergey Shestak | AFP | Getty Images

Ukrainian servicemen fire with a 105mm howitzer towards Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Aris Messinis | Afp | Getty Images

EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / Ukrainian servicemen sit inside a field ambulance next to their fallen comrade as they come back from the front line near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Aris Messinis | Afp | Getty Images

Ukrainian servicemen move towards the front line near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Aris Messinis | Afp | Getty Images

– Getty Images

WED, MAR 8 20233:18 PM EST

UN and Russia to talk about grain deal renewal next week in Geneva

A team inspects the produce in the ship carrying wheat from Ukraine to Afghanistan after inspection in the open sea around Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, Turkiye on January 24, 2023.

TUR Ministry of National Defence | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Top U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan will meet senior Russian officials in Geneva next week to discuss extending a deal that allows the Black Sea export of Ukraine grains amid Russia’s war in the country, a U.N. spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“That’s the next step, and we’ll see whether anything further is needed than that,” deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.

“The Secretary-General will continue to do all he can to remove obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers.” 

The deal is set to expire later this month.

— Reuters

WED, MAR 8 20232:28 PM EST

Ukraine carries out a series of missile strikes on Russian positions, Ukraine’s military says

Ukranian soldiers of the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade aim the mortar before a strike at an undisclosed location along the frontline near Toretsk, Donetsk, March 4 2023.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukraine’s military said in the past 24 hours it carried out a series of missile strikes on separate areas where there was a high contingency of Russian troops.

Ukraine also said that it shot down one unmanned aerial vehicle, destroyed a Buk-M1-2 anti-aircraft missile system as well as three Russian warehouses storing fuel and military supplies.

The Ukrainian armed forces said that Russian troops carried out “22 airstrikes and 29 attacks from rocket salvo systems.”

“In particular, they used one unmanned aerial vehicle of the Shahed-136 type, which has been eliminated,” Ukraine’s military said, referencing an Iranian drone supplied to Russia.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 20231:16 PM EST

Blacksmith turned artist makes ‘flowers of war’ from abandoned weapons in Donetsk

Viktor Mikhalev shows roses transformed from weapons and ammunition into flowers of war standing in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, March 4, 2023. Mikhalev, trained as a welder, lives and works in a house whose fence and door are decorated with forged flowers and grapes.

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

Viktor Mikhalev, a blacksmith living in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, is creating art out of weapons and ammunition, the Associated Press reports.

Mikhalev uses half-burnt machine guns, artillery shells and other abandoned weapons from the frontlines to produce what he calls “flowers of war.”

“Real flowers will not last long, and my roses will become a reminder for a long memory,” Mikhalev told the AP.

Viktor Mikhalev shows roses transformed from weapons and ammunition into flowers of war standing in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, March 4, 2023. Mikhalev, trained as a welder, lives and works in a house whose fence and door are decorated with forged flowers and grapes.

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

A rose transformed from weapons and ammunition into flowers of war by hands of Viktor Mikhalev is on display in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, March 4, 2023. 

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

Roses transformed from weapons and ammunition into flowers of war by hands of Viktor Mikhalev are on display in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, March 4, 2023. 

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

Viktor Mikhalev works in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023.

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

A customer holds a rose made by Viktor Mikhalev in a workshop in his house in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, March 4, 2023.

Alexei Alexandrov | AP

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 202312:28 PM EST

Russia is expanding and modernizing its nuclear weapons capabilities, U.S. spy chiefs warn

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testifies during the Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing on “Worldwide Threats” on Thursday, March 10, 2022.

Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

America’s top spymasters warn in a 35-page annual report that Russia is continuing to develop long-range nuclear-capable missiles and underwater delivery systems meant to penetrate or bypass U.S. defenses.

“Throughout its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has continued to show that it views its nuclear capabilities as necessary for maintaining deterrence and achieving its goals in a potential conflict against the United States and NATO, and it sees its nuclear weapons arsenal as the ultimate guarantor of the Russian Federation,” the intelligence community wrote in the unclassified assessment.

“After Russian military losses during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in late summer 2022, Putin publicly warned the West that he was ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia,” the report added.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would suspend participation in the New START treaty, a crucial nuclear arms reduction agreement. Moscow holds the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpile.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 202311:39 AM EST

Zelenskyy to speak to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in wide-ranging, prime-time interview

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled Kyiv is preparing its soldiers for counteroffensives and praised soldiers for defending the country despite the “insane pressure” Russian forces have been putting on them.

Julien De Rosa | Pool | Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer for a wide-ranging interview, the network announced.

The two are expected to discuss China’s relationship with Russia, President Joe Biden’s recent trip to Kyiv and the ongoing battle for Bakhmut.

The interview is set for 9 p.m. E.T.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 202311:06 AM EST

Wagner Group leader says that the best of its fighters are still ‘waiting in the wings’

A mural depicting the Wagner Group’s logo in Belgrade, Serbia.

Srdjan Stevanovic | Getty Images

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Donetsk, said that the best of its fighters are “waiting in the wings.”

Prigozhin said on his official Telegram that some of Wagner’s units with “all possible modern weapons and intelligence means” have not yet joined the fight in Ukraine.

He also said, according to an NBC News translation, that the Wagner forces fighting in Bakhmut had taken full control of the eastern part of the city.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 202310:04 AM EST

UN secretary-general and Zelenskyy discuss renewing Black Sea grain deal in Kyiv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (L) give a joint statement following their meeting in Kyiv on March 8, 2023.

Sergei Supinsky | Afp | Getty Images

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv to discuss the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered in July among Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, eased Russia’s naval blockade and saw three key Ukrainian ports reopen. The deal is set to expire later this month.

More than 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports so far under the agreement.
The deal has “contributed to lowering the global cost of food and has offered critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world,” Guterres said.

He added that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year. Guterres stressed that exports of “Ukrainian as well as Russian food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices.”

“I want to underscore the critical importance of the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 18 March and of working to create the conditions to enable the greatest possible use of export infrastructures through the Black Sea, in line with the objectives of the initiative,” Guterres said alongside Zelenskyy.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 20239:21 AM EST

Three ships leave Ukrainian ports under Black Sea Grain Initiative

A crew member prepares a grain analysis for members of the Joint Coordination Center onboard the Barbados-flagged ship “Nord Vind,” which was coming from Ukraine loaded with grain and anchored in Istanbul, on Oct. 11, 2022.

Yasin Akgul | Afp | Getty Images

Three ships carrying 62,700 metric tons of grain and other food products have left Ukrainian ports, the organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from the country said.

The vessels are destined for Spain and are carrying corn and wheat.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered in July among Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, eased Russia’s naval blockade and saw three key Ukrainian ports reopen. The deal is set to expire on March 20.

So far, more than 780 ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports.

— Amanda Macias

WED, MAR 8 20238:41 AM EST

Bakhmut may fall but it’s unlikely to be a turning point in the war, NATO chief says

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a news conference following a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium June 16, 2022. 

Yves Herman | Reuters

The beseiged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine could soon be fully captured by Russian forces, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday, but it’s unlikely to represent a turning point in the war.

Russian forces, he said, had “suffered big losses but at the same time we cannot rule out that Bakhmut may eventually fall in the coming days and therefore it is also important to highlight that this does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war and it just highlights that we should not underestimate Russia. We must continue to provide support to Ukraine,” he said as he attended a meeting of EU defence ministers in Stockholm.

“Russia’s war of aggression grinds on against Ukraine and over the last weeks and months we have seen fierce fighting in and around Bakhmut and what we see is that Russia is throwing in more troops, more forces and what Russia lacks in quality, they try to make up in quantity,” he added.

— Holly Ellyatt

WED, MAR 8 20238:03 AM EST

Police response to protests in Georgia causes concern

Protesters clash with riot police near the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi on March 7, 2023.

– | Afp | Getty Images

Police in Georgia have reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades to respond to protests outside the Georgian Parliament on Wednesday.

Demonstrations in the capital erupted after after legislators gave initial backing to a draft law on “foreign agents” that would require any organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents” or face fines.

Reuters witnesses in the capital, Tbilisi, saw police with riot shields making arrests along Rustaveli Avenue, the main thoroughfare running through the center of the city. Some demonstrators were seen throwing petrol bombs and stones, the news agency reported.

Protesters wave Georgian, Ukrainian and NATO flags during clashes in Tbilisi on March 7, 2023.

– | Afp | Getty Images

Critics see the draft law as authoritarian and akin to a Russian-style directive designed to restrict civil society and repress media freedom.

Georgia has a strained and tense relationship with Russia which invaded the country in 2008 in support of two pro-Russian separatist areas, similarly to its support of two pro-Russian self-declared “republics” in Ukraine.

Like Ukraine, Georgia applied to join the EU and NATO, fearing Russia’s potential attempts to spread, or impose, its influence. The protests this week have attracted pro-EU demonstrators who waved EU flags and chanted anti-Russian slogans.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said on Twitter that he was “strongly concerned about developments in Georgia,” adding that the “right to peaceful protest is at the core of any democracy.”

He said the “adoption of this ‘foreign influence’ law is not compatible with the EU path” which the majority in Georgia wants, he said, adding that “commitment to rule of law and human values is key to EU project.”

— Holly Ellyatt

WED, MAR 8 20235:55 AM EST

EU looks at increasing ammunition production to support Ukraine

A Helicopter crew member of the 18th Separate Army Aviation Brigade carries boxes of ammunition, in eastern Ukraine on February 9, 2023 amid Russia’s military invasion on Ukraine.

Ihor Tkachov | Afp | Getty Images

The European Union needs to step up production of ammunition across the bloc to support Ukraine’s war efforts, officials said Wednesday as they gathered for a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.

“The Ukrainians direly need ammunition in order to continue this war…We have to ramp up production in Europe. There’s various ways to go about this,” Sweden’s Defense Minister Pål Jonson said Wednesday.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Europe’s internal market chief Thierry Breton also said Europe needs to do more to support Kyiv. “The priority is to make sure we will be able to provide what is necessary to Ukraine,” he said.

He added that support to Ukraine needs to happen in three ways: member states need to give more of their ammunition stocks, they need to ramp up production and to allocate more EU funding to defense.

One of the ideas under discussion is the joint purchase of ammunition. This is similar to what the EU did during the pandemic when buying Covid vaccines together. In practice, this approach should allow the block to buy more stocks at lower prices.

— Silvia Amaro

WED, MAR 8 20235:36 AM EST

Kremlin says Nord Stream attack reports are ‘coordinated’, demands open investigation

Western media reports on the blowing-up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines are a coordinated bid to divert attention and Russia is perplexed that U.S. officials can assume anything about the attacks without an investigation, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

The New York Times, citing intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials, reported on Tuesday that a pro-Ukraine group — likely made up of Ukrainians or Russians — was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines that run under the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany last September.

In this Handout Photo provided by Swedish Coast Guard, the release of gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea on September 27, 2022 in At Sea.

Swedish Coast Guard | Getty Images

Germany’s ARD broadcaster and Die Zeit newspaper said the attack was carried out by five men and one woman who rented a yacht and used false passports.

“Obviously, the authors of the attack want to divert attention,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA news agency, adding that the information had been planted.

“How can American officials assume anything without an investigation?”

“The very least that the Nord Stream shareholder countries and the United Nations must demand is an urgent, transparent investigation with the participation of everyone who can shed light,” Peskov said.

The Nord Stream 1 shareholders are Russia’s state energy firm Gazprom, Germany’s Wintershall and E.ON, Dutch company NV Nederlandse Gasunie and France’s Engie.

Gazprom is the sole shareholder in the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was constructed with financing from Wintershall, Engie, Austria’s OMV, Shell and Germany’s Uniper.

Russia has repeatedly complained about being excluded from European probes into the explosions.

“We are still not allowed in the investigation. Only a few days ago we received notes about this from the Danes and Swedes,” Peskov said. “This is not just strange. It smells like a monstrous crime.”

The undersea explosions, seven months into the Russia-Ukraine conflict, occurred in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark in the Baltic Sea. Both countries have concluded the blasts were deliberate, but have not said who might be responsible.

Russia, without providing evidence, has at various times accused Britain and the United States of blowing up the pipelines, which they deny. The ruptured pipelines are set to be sealed up and mothballed as there are no immediate plans to repair or reactivate them, sources familiar with the plans have told Reuters.

— Reuters

WED, MAR 8 20235:21 AM EST

Russia faces a strategic dilemma along the front line, UK says

A Ukrainian serviceman stands at a fortified position at an undisclosed location next to the Vuhledar front line in Ukraine on March 7, 2023.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Russian forces likely face a dilemma over where they should focus their offensive efforts along the front line toward Vuhledar, a town to the south of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Wednesday.

“Until recently, the Russian command likely saw a breakthrough at Vuhledar as a key way to achieve an operationally significant breakthrough in Ukraine’s lines,” the ministry said on Twitter.

“Russian planners are likely facing the dilemma of attempting another Vuhledar assault or supporting intense fighting further north near Bakhmut and Kremina,” it noted.

The ministry also commented on the public rift between the Russian Ministry of Defense and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Donetsk.

It noted that, by releasing a video of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visiting troops in eastern Ukraine earlier this week, there is “a realistic possibility that this was partially in response to recent footage of the owner of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, visiting his fighters on the front line.”

“Wagner is in a high-profile dispute with the Russian Ministry of Defence and Shoigu is likely sensitive to being compared to Prigozhin. The only deployed Russian field commander shown in the video was Colonel General Rustam Muradov. It is notable that Muradov is responsible for the Vuhledar sector of Donetsk Oblast, where several assaults have failed in the last three months.”

— Holly Ellyatt

WED, MAR 8 20234:59 AM EST

Three reasons why Ukraine is fighting on in Bakhmut

Ukrainian servicemen fire a 105mm Howitzer towards Russian positions, near the city of Bakhmut, on March 4, 2023.

Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images

After seven months of fighting over the industrial city of Bakhmut in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, it’s not surprising that neither Ukraine nor Russia want to capitulate over its defense — or capture.

But now it looks increasingly likely that Russia could be gaining the upper hand. On Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s mercenary forces fighting in Bakhmut, said that Wagner had taken full control of the eastern part of the city.

Despite its forces appearing vulnerable to encirclement, Ukraine vowed on Monday to continue defending the city and to send in reinforcements.

Both Russia and Ukraine have thrown masses of personnel into their bids to capture, and defend, Bakhmut, respectively, with both claiming to have inflicted hundreds of losses on each others’ forces on a daily basis.

Aside from atoning for these sacrifices with some kind of victory in Bakhmut, there are several other reasons why both sides have a reason to continue fighting until the bitter end, ranging from the symbolic to the militarily expedient.

WED, MAR 8 20233:55 AM EST

Russian mercenaries claim they control eastern Bakhmut

The leader of Russia’s mercenary forces fighting in Bakhmut said Wednesday that his private military company, the Wagner Group, had taken full control of the eastern part of the city, according to comments published by Russian state news outlet Tass.

“Wagner PMC units have occupied the entire eastern part of Bakhmut. Everything east of the Bakhmutka River is completely under the control of the Wagner PMC,” Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was quoted as saying by Tass, citing comments made on Prigozhin’s Telegram channel. CNBC was unable to verify the claims.

Ukraine gave a military update Wednesday in which it noted that Ukraine had repelled over 100 attacks on the Donetsk region over the past day, including on Bakhmut, but said Russian forces were “continuing their unsuccessful offensive operations” in the area.

A repainted mural depicting the logo of Russia’s Wagner Group on a wall in Belgrade, Serbia, on Jan. 19, 2023.

Darko Vojinovic | AP

Russia sees the capture of Bakhmut, a city it refers to as “Artemovsk” or “Artyomovsk,” as a key strategic goal, as it looks to cut off Ukrainian supply routes in eastern Ukraine, but the battle for Bakhmut is a also symbolic one for the Wagner Group as it seeks to prove its credibility to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

Prigozhin has had a long-running spat with defense officials in Moscow, criticizing its strategy in the war and, most recently, suggesting that the ministry had not responded to his request for urgent ammunition deliveries for his troops. Prigozhin suggested this could be because of “bureaucracy or betrayal.”

— Holly Ellyatt

TUE, MAR 7 20233:29 PM EST

State Department says Russia will not be able to alter perceptions of war in Ukraine by holding UN Security Council presidency

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price holds a press briefing on Afghanistan at the State Department in Washington, U.S., August 16, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that Russia’s upcoming presidency of the U.N. Security Council will not impact global standing on the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

Price said there will be no amount of “propaganda, misinformation or disinformation” that Russia peddles from the helm of the U.N. Security Council that will alter perceptions.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, urged the international forum earlier in the week to prohibit Russia from holding its scheduled one-month presidency on April 1 over the Security Council.

Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, which is based in New York City and serves as the U.N. arm tasked with maintaining peace and security. Russia also holds veto power in the Security Council, which can hamper any decision-making in regard to supporting Ukraine.

— Amanda Macias

TUE, MAR 7 20232:59 PM EST

130 Ukrainian service members returned in latest prisoner release

116 Ukrainian servicemen pose for a photo after being released in new round of war prisoners exchange with Russia on February 04, 2023. Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said on March 7, 2023 that 130 additional Ukrainians were returned following Russian detention.

Ukrainian Presidency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said that 130 Ukrainians were returned following Russian detention.

Yermak said that 126 men and four women were released.

“These are soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, National Guardsmen, and border guards. Among them are 87 Mariupol defenders, 71 of whom are from Azovstal,” Yermak wrote on his official Telegram channel, according to an NBC News translation.

“Most of the people we bring back today have serious injuries,” he said, adding that all Ukrainians should work to take care of those returning from Russian imprisonment.

“I am proud of the entire team that worked long and hard on this exchange. Incredible feelings when our people are at home,” he added.

— Amanda Macias

TUE, MAR 7 20231:55 PM EST

Zelenskyy warns that Russian troops will push deeper into Ukraine if Bakhmut falls

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gestures as he speaks to media during their joint press conference with Prime Minister of Sweden following the talks in Kyiv on February 15, 2023.

Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Russian forces will push deeper into Ukraine if they seize control of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.

“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in the interview, which is set to air on March 8 at 9 p.m. ET.

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“That’s why our guys are standing there,” he added when asked about potentially retreating from the area.

“Russia needs some victory, a small victory, even by ruining everything in Bakhmut by killing every civilian there,” Zelenskyy said, referencing minimal gains by Russian troops against Ukrainian forces.

Zelenskyy said that if Russia is able to “put their little flag” in Bakhmut it would help “mobilize their society in order to create this idea they’re such a powerful army.”

— Amanda Macias

TUE, MAR 7 202312:44 PM EST

China has not yet provided Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine, White House says

John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 25, 2023. 

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

The White House said it has not yet seen China supply Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine and declined to elaborate on potential U.S. retaliatory actions if Beijing decides to do so.

“China has a choice to make here,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said when asked by reporters about any potential weapons transfers.

Kirby said that additional sanctions measures would be a discussion on the table between U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission Ursula von der Leyen during her visit to Washington this week but declined to speculate about China.

He said that the U.S. and its Western allies hope that China does “not make it any easier for Mr. Putin to kill innocent Ukrainians.”

— Amanda Macias

TUE, MAR 7 20235:10 AM EST

Russia’s Shoigu: Capture of Bakhmut will allow further offensives in Ukraine

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attends an annual meeting of the Defence Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia, December 21, 2022. 

Mikhail Klimentyev | Sputnik | Reuters

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that the seizure of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine would allow Russian forces to mount further offensive operations, Russian news agencies reported.

Shoigu also said the West was increasing its arms deliveries to Ukraine, but vowed they would not change the course of events on the battlefield.

— Reuters

TUE, MAR 7 20232:57 AM EST

Kyiv vows to fight on in Bakhmut, defying expectations of a withdrawal

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he had spoken to his army commanders about the situation in Bakhmut and said they’d insisted the city should be defended rather than abandoned.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that he had asked Ukraine’s ground forces commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, and the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, about their view on continuing to defend Bakhmut, saying the options were either “withdrawal or continuation of defense and reinforcement of the city.”

The president said “both generals replied: do not withdraw and reinforce. And this opinion was unanimously backed by the Staff. There were no other opinions. I told the Commander-in-Chief to find the appropriate forces to help the guys in Bakhmut.”

“There is no part of Ukraine about which one can say that it can be abandoned,” Zelenskyy noted.

Ukrainian servicemen load a 152 mm shell into a Msta-B howitzer to fire toward Russian positions, near the front-line town of Bakhmut on March 2, 2023.

Dimitar Dilkoff | AFP | Getty Images

Ukraine is keen to show its allies that it can fight on in Ukraine, although some analysis and reports from Bakhmut suggest some kind of withdrawal is taking place. And there are signs that its international partners would not view a tactical withdrawal from the city in a bad light in any case. On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Bakhmut had more symbolic importance than strategic and operational value.

Defense analysts have noted, however, that Ukraine continuing to fight in Bakhmut has another added advantage, saying a significant number of Russian fighters have been brought into what has been described (by the head of Russia’s mercenary forces) as a “meat grinder.”

Zelenskyy said Monday that defending Bakhmut meant destroying more of Russia’s invading forces.

“We are destroying the occupier everywhere – wherever it yields results for Ukraine. Bakhmut has yielded and is yielding one of the greatest results during this war, during the entire battle for Donbas.”

— Holly Ellyatt

WED, MAR 8 20232:48 AM EST

Russia is Nuking Up the Chinese Nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

Putin supplying China with uranium for nuclear weapons, US intelligence warns

Story by Alessandra Scotto di Santolo • 10h ago

The US government has voiced concern that the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom is providing enriched uranium to China. US assistant secretary of defence for space policy, John Plumb, warned the intelligence gathered in Washington is “very troubling”.

Speaking to a congressional committee, he said: “It’s very troubling to see Russia and China co-operating on this.

“They may have talking points around it but there’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons, and it matches our concerns about China’s increased expansion of its nuclear forces, because you need plutonium for more weapons.”

Rosatom is a Russian state corporation that specialises in nuclear energy.

Mr Plumb said China and Russia have placed nuclear weapons, space warfare and long-range strike at the centre of their strategies to counter the United States and its allies and partners.

He continued: “China is engaged in a significant and fast-paced expansion and diversification of its nuclear forces. Also, Russia and China view space as a warfighting domain.”

Mr Plumb claimed China also has an ever-growing inventory of sophisticated long-range strike systems putting US forces at risk at greater and greater distances.

He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling” has further underscored the importance of the US nuclear deterrent, which is the bedrock of national security.

The warning came two days before US President Joe Biden and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met in Washington to discuss concerns over fears China is considering providing weaponry to Russia for use in the war.

European nations have had a less adversarial relationship with China than the US has, but the dynamic has been evolving since the start of the war.

This week the Dutch government announced it would join the US in imposing export restrictions aimed at limiting China’s access to materials used to make advanced processor chips.

In a speech before the German parliament last week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on China to “use your influence in Moscow to press for the withdrawal of Russian troops, and do not supply weapons to the aggressor Russia”.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as the nation’s president Friday.

The endorsement of Xi’s appointment by the ceremonial National People’s Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.

The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.

Xi, 69, had himself named to a third five-year term as party general secretary in October, breaking with a tradition under which Chinese leaders handed over power once a decade.

A two-term limit on the figurehead presidency was deleted from the Chinese Constitution earlier, prompting suggestions he might stay in power for life.

The legacy of the Iraq War for Babylon the Great: Revelation 13

The legacy of the Iraq War for the US

9 March 2023

The Iraq war remains a quintessential example of the adage that in international affairs, history is a great teacher only if it has willing students.

March 2023 marks 20-years since the United States (US) launched its war against then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, under the pretext of Baghdad developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), as Washington deviated and expanded its mandate under the ‘War on Terror’ era spurred by the 9/11 terror attacks. For 20 years, the war itself has been seen as a watershed moment on multiple fronts, the biggest mistake of the Bush-Cheney administration, a conflict that undercut the War on Terror itself, and one that immensely diluted an already fragile American presence in the Middle East (West Asia). Even as the US tries to normalisethe events of the time, and as Washington’s strategic interests in Iraq evolve, the legacy of the war continues to weigh heavy on the US foreign policy.

The aftershocks of the Iraq invasion

Almost no good came out of the American invasion of Iraq, despite some who continue to argue that while the war was launched on false intel and pretext, it still did more good than harm. The question, “for whom?”, continues to be avoided by those making this argument to this day. “When seemingly good wars go bad, Americans often conclude those wars were pointless or corrupt from the get go,” scholar Hal Brands recently opined. Colin Powell, the then US Secretary of State who passed away in 2021, was perhaps one of the very few senior Bush administration leaders that openly criticised both the veracity of the intelligence provided and the decision making that followed, leading to the Iraq war and along with it, compromising American operations in Afghanistan as well. While the Iraq invasion’s flaws are well recognised, its known-on effect in Afghanistan is still being highlighted as one of the biggest strategic follies by America in modern times.

Even as the US tries to normalise the events of the time, and as Washington’s strategic interests in Iraq evolve, the legacy of the war continues to weigh heavy on the US foreign policy.

“In May 2002, the US began training the ANA, with US Special Forces leading the effort. Recognizing that training a national army was beyond the core competency of the Special Forces, the US deployed the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division to expand the training program from small infantry units to larger military formations, and to develop defence institutions such as logistics networks. However, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 removed a key resource from the Afghanistan mission: active-duty military units to train the Afghan military. Instead, training the Afghan military transitioned to a steady rotation of various Army National Guard units,” read the second page of a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, where the US government body looked into what led to the failures of the Afghan Army in August 2021, where it collapsed within hours as the Taliban re-took Kabul. At least part of the question as to why the Afghan Army came out to be so fragile was traced to an institutional and political distraction that the Iraq war caused to operations in the country, where critical military talent and equipment was diverted even as the Taliban threat was recovering and not necessarily subsiding.

Saddam Hussein’s toppling was not the pivotal moment of the war. While it did make for good images for ‘Pax Americana’ view of the world back home for a population witnessing it on cable television and pining for avenging 9/11, there became much clearer evidence of groups such as Al Qaeda being more prominent in Iraq after the war began, than before it. The war itself, to this day, continues to galvanise support for Islamist movements across the world, and continues to be one of the most effective props to both radicalise and recruit. Add this to the US exiting Afghanistan after signing a deal with the Taliban, for the likes of Al Qaeda and others, the portrayal would be that the two-decade long wars have led to their victory, at least outrightly, in Afghanistan. The coming of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh in Arabic) in Iraq and Syria, seeds of which can be traced to Al Qaeda in Iraq, is also now being seen by some as a ‘forever’ operation for the US in the region as scholars such as Haroro J Ingram and Craig Whiteside highlight that battlefield victories against jihadist groups tends to underestimate their capacities to survive and reorganise. This is only aided by the fractured legacy of the Iraq war pushing every subsequent US president to try and minimise or withdraw from the theatre, with warrying degrees of success.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 removed a key resource from the Afghanistan mission: active-duty military units to train the Afghan military.

However, the eventual illegitimacy of the war and the lack of culpability around those who made the decisions to start it remains a large stumbling block for others trusting the US. From Russia’s pitch of blaming ISIS in Afghanistan on “Anglo-Saxon” policies to the Iraq conflict— often cited by many in places such as New Delhi as to why trust towards the US should never be absolute—the legacy of the war lives in multidimensional narratives across the West, East, and the Global South.

Iraq war through the eyes of New Delhi

Despite the commotion around the war in 2003, New Delhi also saw an opportunity to get closer to the US at a time when relations with Washington were a far cry from what we see today in an era of the Indo-Pacific, the Quad, and so on. India’s then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was under pressure around a request by the US for India to join its ‘coalition of the willing’ and send troops to aid the US-led grouping in Iraq. This was taking place simultaneously as the Indian parliament unanimously passed a resolution against the invasion. The proverbial fork-on-the-road for Indian strategic thinkers of the time was to decide whether this was an opportunity to get in Washington’s good books or continue with its traditional position of the United Nations being the most apt institute to convene if WMDs in Iraq had indeed become an issue of global concern.

Thankfully, Vajpayee decided against direct support despite pressure from within his government and some in the commentariat outside. An agreement with the US would have meant Indian troops being deployed on Iraqi soil. While many (including this author) are in favour of India taking bolder kinetic decisions (which for example it failed to do in Afghanistan through much of the war), 2003 was neither the time, nor was Iraq the theatre for New Delhi to initiate this in-demand strategic shift. In 2023, knowing how the Iraq war turned out, Vajpayee’s decision stands vindicated.

The eventual illegitimacy of the war and the lack of culpability around those who made the decisions to start it remains a large stumbling block for others trusting the US.

The above political decisions also had pressure on another front, the fact that Hussein was seen favourably by India’s political elite, coming from a history of Indian MiG pilots training Iraqi counterparts, energy security, his help for India against Pakistan and so on. The then leader of the Rashtrya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological brain of Vajpayee’s party the Bharatiya Janata Party, had already criticised the war against Iraq. B Raman, a former senior counterterrorism official in India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing, wrote in a piece titled ‘Weep for Saddam’: “I weep for Saddam. He was a good friend of India and its people. He always stood by us in the best of times and in the worst of times. I remember the days after the Mumbai blasts of March 1993, in which nearly 300 innocent Indian civilians were killed by terrorists trained by the (Pakistani) ISI. We went from one intelligence agency to another asking for help in investigating the role of Pakistan. The Americans rebuffed us. Protecting Pakistan and its ISI was more important for them than grieving for the Indians killed and helping India to bring to book those responsible. Saddam rushed to our assistance and helped us in whatever little way he can.”

India’s relations with Hussein at a time when the country felt its voice found no takers in the West, a carry-over from the Cold War era were not just rhetorical. One of the first buildings over which the so-called Islamic State flew its flag in Mosul in 2015 in northern Iraq was the five-star Ninewah Oberoi Hotel. The hotel had opened in 1986; Oberoi, of course, being the international famed Indian hospitality brand, that also managed the Babylon-Oberoi in Baghdad, is today just another memory of India’s relations with the Iraq of that time, particularly as part of the Non-Aligned Movement construct.

Protecting Pakistan and its ISI was more important for them than grieving for the Indians killed and helping India to bring to book those responsible.

Since Iraq, India has often held similar views on Western interventions in the region, criticising the Libyan war amongst other geopolitical flash points. The diversion over Iraq in India’s polity in 2003 was a missed opportunity for some strategic thinkers but was in all probability just a little ahead of its time as a policy decision.

Conclusion

The Iraq war was possibly the worst political decision making in the West in the recent past. There was no denying that Hussein was a dictator and had committed atrocities against his own people and Iraq’s neighbours as well. However, tying his name to 9/11 not only caused a big setback to the ‘War on Terror’, but also added a new layer of apprehension amongst many countries over cooperating with or following behind the US geopolitical decision making. Some of these apprehensions are visible today on how the Global South positions itself around the Ukraine war, and a lot of these apprehensions come from experiencing centuries of colonialism, and lack of genuine and equitable partnership by global powers in contemporary history. India’s positioning as a voice for the Global South has the probability of fixing this anomaly, but a lot of it may come down how the likes of the US, Europe, China, and even Russia approach a fast-rupturing global order in the coming decade. The Iraq war remains a quintessential example of the adage that in international affairs, history is a great teacher only if it has willing students.The views expressed above belong to the author(s).

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Twenty years ago in Iraq, ignoring the expert weapons inspectors was prophecy: Revelation 13

Robert Kelley with scientists from the French Atomic Energy Commission’s military applications division (CEA-DAM), during inspections in Iraq, December 2002. Photo: Petr Pavlicek / IAEA

9 March 2023

Robert E. Kelley

‘Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.’—David Kay, Head of the Iraq Survey Group, during testimony to the US Senate, 29 January 2004

The case for invading Iraq in March 2003 was built on three basic premises: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD); that it was developing more of them; and that it was failing to comply with its disarmament obligations under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions. All of these premises were based on scraps of unreliable information. None of them was true.

David Kay was one of the loudest voices outside the United States government advocating a new invasion of Iraq in the years and months leading to the second Gulf War. As a former nuclear inspector who had worked in Iraq in 1991, after the first Gulf War, he became a popular TV pundit and was even called to testify before Congress, talking up dubious claims about new Iraqi WMD programmes.

It was not surprising, then, that Kay should be chosen to head the Iraq Survey Group (ISG)—the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) mission to find and disable those putative WMD programmes—once the US-led multinational coalition had toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime and turned Iraq into an occupied state.

The ISG found no WMD in Iraq, and returning to Congress to testify on 28 January 2004, Kay admitted ‘we were almost all wrong’. He blamed a lack of human agents inside Iraq in the months before the war, and analysts being under pressure to draw conclusions based on inadequate intelligence. True, the intelligence Kay and many others in Washington, DC, London and other capitals had chosen to listen to was inadequate and flawed. But there was plenty more information that they ignored, much of it coming from many weapons inspectors working inside Iraq—including US nuclear experts—under UN mandate for four months in 2002–2003.

Experts on the ground: the UN inspectors

I was in Iraq in those final months before the 2003 invasion as Deputy for Analysis of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Action Team tasked with the nuclear side of the weapons inspections, while the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) worked in parallel, looking for biological and chemical weapons, as well as illicit missile programmes. We studied a few outstanding questions regarding the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme that had been discovered and dismantled in the early 1990s; we looked for new evidence and investigated leads and suspicions passed on to us by national governments; we inspected many sites and interviewed Iraqi scientists and officials in person; and we analysed the data. By early 2003 we knew at a very high level of confidence that there was no nuclear weapons effort of any kind in Iraq, and we were regularly passing this information back to the UN Security Council. We were not wrong.

I had been an IAEA inspector in Iraq in 1992–93. The UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) and the IAEA Action Team carried out hundreds of person-days of inspections in Iraq. We discovered nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes and methodically destroyed them—even to the extent of blowing up entire factories and laboratories and bringing special nuclear materials out of the country. In the 1990s, the US, British, French, German and other governments freely provided excellent intelligence on where to look and what to look for. By 1998, even though Iraq had stopped cooperating with the inspections, there was general agreement that the Iraqi WMD programmes were completely dead, with only a few questions unanswered.

A major turning point in the US approach to Iraq was the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Al Qaeda, operating from Afghanistan, was identified as the source of the attacks, and the invasion of Afghanistan launched weeks later. The administration of new US President George W. Bush then tried, with very little credible evidence, to link Iraq to the attacks. After intense campaigning led by the USA, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1441, ordering Iraq to immediately allow UNMOVIC and IAEA weapons inspectors back into the country in November of 2002. Aware that the war drums were beating, Iraq complied.

However, the Bush administration included many senior policy makers who had no use for the United Nations and made their distaste clear. As the months went by, we watched them repeat stories about Iraqi WMDs and covert WMD programmes that we knew to be false—and that we had even specifically debunked—in order to build public and diplomatic support for an invasion.

Two tales about centrifuges

One of the most best-known false narratives used to build the case for invasion concerned consignments of and tenders for aluminum tubes. In around 2001, CIA analyst ‘Joe’ noticed an attempt by Iraq to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes that he suspected could be used in building centrifuges to enrich uranium for weapons. The claims were soon investigated and dismissed within the US Intelligence Community and the subject died. UNSCOM and the IAEA had investigated earlier evidence in the 1990s of identical tubes that were already in Iraq in the thousands. Although they had a vague circumstantial similarity to tubes on export control lists, they were for conventional military use and experts had ruled out that they could be useful for centrifuges.

But suddenly, in September 2002, the same story leaked to the media and the old allegations were back. Experts from the IAEA, the US National Laboratories and the EU pointed out that the tubes were identical to those used in Italian NATO-standard Medusa air-to-ground rockets that Iraq had started trying to reverse engineer in the 1980s for ground-to-ground use.

At around this time a friendly source leaked internal CIA correspondence to the IAEA showing that the CIA was completely aware that the tubes matched those used in Medusa rockets. Nevertheless, ‘Joe’ and his colleagues stuck to the centrifuge story. It was even repeated by President Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union address and by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous February 2003 briefing to the UN Security Council aimed at demonstrating that Iraq was not complying with Resolution 1441—one of the most decisive moments in the build-up to war.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell briefs the UN Security Council on claims about Iraqi WMD, 5 February 2003. He claimed: ‘What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence’ Photo: US Government/Wikimedia

One of several mistakes the CIA made was to only ask the US National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) to comment on whether the tubes could be for an Iraqi rocket. NGIC replied that ground-to-ground rockets did not need such high-specification tubes. They were apparently unaware of Iraq’s attempts to copy and repurpose the Medusa design. Had the Air Force Research Laboratory been brought in, it could have identified the tubes as suitable for Medusa rockets.

In Iraq, the weapons inspectors investigated the story in the field. The IAEA nuclear inspectors educated themselves thoroughly about small rockets. We also gained access from the Iraqis to every aspect of their rocket programme: procurement records, manufacturing, testing and military stockpiles. We thus easily identified the likely true purpose of the tubes—which was later confirmed by the Iraq Survey Group.

Centrifuges also featured in another piece of misinformation communicated by President Bush during this period. In an address to the nation in October 2002, President Bush showed satellite imagery of a repurposed facility at Al Furat, a former centrifuge manufacturing site from the Iraqi nuclear programme that was dismantled in 1991. He implied that this was evidence that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear programme, apparently unaware that UNMOVIC had free access to the site and had known for many years that it had been converted to a surface-to-air missile system repair facility. Satellite images could not determine this, but UNMOVIC could. By relying on old information and satellite images, and ignoring the reports of highly qualified eyewitnesses in the field, desk-bound analysts had once again come to an incorrect, but politically useful, conclusion.

The preferred sources

Kay’s lament that there were no human agents recruited in Iraq during the months leading up the war overlooked the fact that the USA and the IAEA put some of the most qualified analysts into the inspection teams. While ignoring the inspectors, the CIA and others in Washington were not only relying on obsolete data but also a few highly unreliable clandestine sources. These included an Iraqi defector, Rafid al-Janabi, known as Curveball. Curveball had been granted asylum by Germany in 2000 and made claims about Iraq having mounted facilities for manufacturing biological weapons in trucks that were moving around the country to escape detection. Germany’s federal intelligence service doubted his veracity. Nevertheless, when Germany passed on the source notes, US analysts took Curveballs’s stories at face value, without vetting them.

Curveball’s distortions were leaked to the public, in some cases by an ‘intelligence cell’ in the Pentagon staffed by people with no intelligence experience. This cell worked by cherry-picking items from raw intelligence that supported political positions—particularly Iraq’s supposed links to the 11 September attacks and the existence of WMD programmes. Curveball’s highly dubious claims were also repeated in Powell’s February 2003 Security Council briefing as established fact.

Another favoured defector source, whose stories leaked to the New York Times in 2001, was Adnan al Haideri. He claimed to have worked on a number of facilities that he believed were to be used for WMD development, in particular painting them with hard epoxy that would be easy to decontaminate. In fact, some of thesandrewtheprophet.com

e locations were already known in the early 1990s and had been inspected. Nevertheless, the UN inspectors revisited the sites in 2002 and found them to be harmless.

It is also worth noting that much of the ‘intelligence’ favoured by the upper echelons in Washington came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was a dissident group headed by Ahmed Chalabi who was a fierce opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime, was favoured by Iran and was determined to be the post-war leader of Iraq. His intelligence was largely unverifiable political stories and intrigues, supposedly from inside sources in Iraq.

Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors

Often overlooked is the highly cooperative attitude of the Iraqis during the inspections in 2002–2003. They saw clearly that they were being blamed for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that there was likely to be a war and saw full cooperation as a last chance to prevent it. They negotiated reasonable terms for inspections by UNMOVIC and the IAEA in 2002 and 2003 and provided full access to people, places and information linked to nuclear activities.

An example of this cooperation concerned one of the highest-profile pieces of misinformation to emerge from Washington in the run-up to war. Claims started circulating in around 2000 that Iraq was seeking to import semi-processed uranium ore, called yellowcake, from Niger, and that this was for developing nuclear weapons. In fact, Iraq already had sufficient uranium stockpiled for peaceful uses had it wished to divert some for a weapons programme. Nevertheless, the claim was leaked to the media and cited in public statements by senior government figures, including President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address.

The source documents that the yellowcake story was based on were held back from the IAEA for several months, until someone in the US State Department passed them on unofficially in an attempt to undermine the CIA’s claims. It took the IAEA Iraq team leader only hours to demonstrate that the documents were crude forgeries. Iraq gave the IAEA inspectors full access to interviewees and records to confirm the story.

The inspectors’ unwelcome evidence

We soon came to realize that none of the findings of our inspections were making it back to the most important audience in the United States: US policy makers. I discussed this with a contact I had at the US mission in Vienna. He advised me to give up because ‘they don’t want to hear what you have to say’. ‘They’ were presumably all the people in the chain between us and the ultimate decision makers in Washington. As the weeks of inspections went by, the people in this chain, from the bottom to the top, evidently learned what kind of news would be welcomed by their superiors and what would not.

US organizations like the CIA, the National Photographic Interpretation Center and the Department of Energy (DOE) that had supplied the UN inspectors with solid intelligence in 1991 were now muzzled. We were receiving far more information and engagement from other governments. When we passed back our findings to US government sources through the UN, they were generally ignored.

The UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors were derided by the CIA and others as international flunkies unable to understand what Washington knew. In his State of the Union address, President Bush claimed that the Iraqi scientists we were interviewing were intelligence officers who had been coached in what to say—despite the fact that we knew some of their bona fides from inspections in the 1990s. On the day we were told to pack up and leave Baghdad, as the bombing was about to start, I was preparing for a meeting with Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, the head of the Iraqi nuclear programme dismantled in 1991.

Analysts in the CIA and the ‘intelligence cell’ at the Pentagon no longer interacted with the inspectors and their findings. This was all the more remarkable that the UN inspectors were ignored given that a very large fraction of the new inspectors in 2002 came from the US military and the national nuclear weapons laboratories of the DOE. Most had been involved in earlier inspections. They had a broad grasp of the issues raised and solved in previous years. They had access to classified US intelligence and had many days’ experience in the field, first in the early 1990s, and then in 2002 and early 2003.

The CIA and Pentagon analysts also disregarded information from other branches of government, such as opinions on nuclear issues from experts in the DOE. Instead they were making faulty judgements based on data that was often decades old, trying to solve problems that had been resolved in the early 1990s, along with claims from unreliable defectors. Anything that did not align with their conclusions was ignored. Politics, compliance and groupthink prevailed. It is sobering to think that one junior CIA analyst prevailed in the falsehood that aluminium tubes were for a nuclear weapons programme. His credentials to make the claims were virtually non-existent, yet he convinced colleagues and superiors that his interpretation was right and the DOE nuclear experts were wrong.

Who were ‘we’?

The claim by David Kay—’we were almost all wrong’—reflects how most people still think of the events of 2002–2003: as a story of faulty and inadequate intelligence, rather than robust and reliable intelligence information ignored.

The weapons inspectors had credibility that dwarfed that of Curveball and other defectors, who clearly had much to gain by fabricating intelligence about the Iraqi regime, as well as that of desk-bound analysts poring over out-of-date information and satellite photos.

The result of all this was a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and fueled years of instability in Iraq and around the region. The CIA spent a billion dollars looking for Iraq’s non-existent WMD programmes in 2003–2004 only to find that UNMOVIC and the IAEA had got it almost perfectly right. A succession of later inquiries and commissions into the intelligence failings in Washington and London rarely asked why the UN weapons inspectors were ignored. So far the lesson seems to have been lost on the policy community. This should not happen again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Robert E. Kelley is a Distinguished Associate Fellow at SIPRI.

Iran is nearly Nuclear: Daniel 8

Iran enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels, nuclear watchdog warns

Tehran “continues its unprecedented and grave nuclear escalation,” according to Britain, France and Germany.

Iranian technicians remove a container of radioactive uranium, known as “yellowcake,” to be used at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility in 2005.Behrouz Mehri / AFP via Getty Images

March 8, 2023, 12:55 PM MST

By Phil McCausland and Dan De Luce

Iran has begun enriching uranium close to weapons-grade levels, according to a report released by the United Nations nuclear watchdog Wednesday, sending Tehran closer to becoming a nuclear power.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said in its report that Iran had produced uranium particles that were enriched up to 83.7% purity at its Fordo fuel enrichment plant south of Tehran.

In a separate statement, U.S. allies France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a stark warning over Iran’s nuclear activities.

“The full range of findings outlined by the Director General’s report are alarming: Iran continues its unprecedented and grave nuclear escalation,” Corinne Kitsell and Götz Schmidt-Bremme, the British and German ambassadors to the nuclear watchdog respectively, said in the statement.

They cited the report prepared by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. NBC News reviewed a copy of the report Wednesday.

Reuters and other outlets previously reported the IAEA’s finding, citing Grossi’s report. The Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment, but Tehran told the agency that the high levels of enrichment were “unintended fluctuations,” according to the report.

Iran has maintained it is not interested in obtaining nuclear weapons.

Laura Holgate, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, noted in a statement that “no other country in the world today utilizes uranium enriched to 60 percent for the purpose Iran claims,” and yet Tehran insists it is “unfairly targeted by others.”

“The reality remains that Iran continues to single itself out through its own actions,” she said. “Iran should cease its nuclear provocations and its continued pursuit of steps that pose grave proliferation risks.”

A National Security Council spokesperson said the White House had seen the IAEA’s report and was in contact with American allies and partners in the region.

Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to about 90%, according to the World Nuclear Association, a group that lobbies for the nuclear industry. Nuclear reactors that produce energy, which Iran has maintained is its essential interest in enriching uranium, typically require fuel that is enriched to only 3-5%.

Beyond enrichment, Iran had also expanded its stockpile of 5%, 20% and 60% enriched uranium “to new extremes,” the joint statement said, pointing to findings in the report. The country appeared to have also installed new centrifuges that would “substantially increase Iran’s enrichment capacity” and continued further work on the production of uranium metal.

Iran seemed to follow the terms of the nuclear deal the U.S. and its allies brokered until the Trump administration pulled out of the agreement. Within the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Iran agreed to enrich uranium to only 3.67% for 15 years, get rid of its medium-enriched uranium stockpile, reduce its low-enriched uranium by 98% and cut the number of its gas centrifuges by two-thirds for 13 years.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a military parade in Tehran on April 18, 2019. Iranian Presidency / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file

NBC News reported in November that Iran had expanded uranium enrichment to 60% purity at its Fordo facility, a major step toward obtaining weapons-grade nuclear material. The report was issued only days after foreign governments accused Tehran of failing to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into its past nuclear work.

Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the administration has tried to revive the nuclear deal, but talks were stymied last year.

“Iran, for a variety of reasons, has chosen to insert extraneous issues into the effort to revive the JCPOA,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a November trip to Qatar.

Trump administration officials were bullish about ending the agreement. Speaking about the decision in 2018, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. would “ensure Iran has no path to a nuclear weapon — not now, not ever.”

According to Jon Wolfsthal, who led nonproliferation policy on then-President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, based on the enrichment levels Tehran is now likely weeks away from having the capability to build a bomb, and it could learn quickly how to affix a warhead to a missile.

The U.S. pulling from the nuclear deal means Washington and its allies may not know if Iran produces a nuclear weapon, he said.

“I don’t think anyone would tell you now, ‘We have high confidence that we could determine if Iran made the mad dash for a nuclear weapon,’” Wolfsthal said.

According to a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday, Iran has not yet launched work required to manufacture a nuclear weapon, but it looks likely that it will work to enrich its uranium stockpile to weapons-grade level if U.S. economic sanctions are not lifted.

“Iran has emphasized improving the accuracy, lethality, and reliability of its missiles,” the report states.

It said Iran’s work on space launch vehicles shortens the timeline to an intercontinental ballistic missile if it decides to develop one because they both use similar technologies.

Last month, Iran showed off on national television its new long-range cruise missile that can travel over 1,000 miles. Tehran maintains that its missile program is only for defense and deterrence. 

What Nuclear War Means for the Ocean: WORMWOOD!

What Nuclear War Means for the Ocean

Nuclear winter is just the beginning.

• BY HALEY WEISS
• March 8, 2023

Imagine the South China Sea: not as balmy waters dotted by palm-fringed islands, but covered in a sheet of ice. The deeper waters have cooled, too—not like the surface, but enough to alter the currrents that flow between Earth’s equator and its southern pole. In the ensuing ecological cataclysm, humans depend on seaweed for their survival.

That’s not the usual picture of post-nuclear apocalypse. Most popular fictions of the subject have focused on terrestrial impacts, and scientific research has shared that tendency. But factor in the ocean, suggest researchers whose simulations did just that, and humanity is looking less at a nuclear winter than what they call “a Nuclear Little Ice Age.”

One of those researchers is Owen Toon, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado Boulder. In the 1980s, Toon worked alongside Carl Sagan as part of the first generation of environmental scientists to model the planetary effects of nuclear warfare. The early climate models they used showed that multiple large detonations could generate enough smoke to wrap Earth in a veil so thick it would block out the sun, a scenario they famously dubbed “nuclear winter.”¹

Outcomes such as unforeseen extinctions and shifts in migration patterns are almost a given.

Now, using more-advanced climate models to simulate the effects of United States-Russia and India-Pakistan nuclear conflicts, Toon and colleagues, led by the Louisiana State University oceanographer Cheryl S. Harrison, have provided the first detailed look at the impacts of nuclear war on the ocean. Their findings, published last year in the journal AGU Advances, describe a planet transformed even more profoundly than earlier simulations suggested.²

No matter who cracks open their arsenal first, the model begins with smoke. Even at the tame end of their scenarios,³ with the nations using about one-quarter of the 400 to 500 warheads they’re expected to accumulate within the next several years, an India-Pakistan nuclear war would generate nearly 20 times the amount of smoke produced by the catastrophic Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020. Those released a whopping 0.9 teragrams (Tg), or 900,000 tons, of carbon soot—the largest recorded amount to ever enter the atmosphere. At its worst, with charred cities pumping hot clouds into the sky, a conflict between the two countries could produce almost 47 Tg of smoke. And were the U.S. and Russia to engage, deploying roughly 100 bombs of equivalent power to the one dropped on Hiroshima, the estimated output would be a nearly incomprehensible 150 Tg of soot.⁴

In all cases, the smoke spreads fast. Within a week or two, a layer of smoke hovers above the entire planet. There’s less sunlight; everything starts to get just a tad colder. In the U.S.-Russia scenario, Earth cools an average of 7 degrees Celsius in just a few months. The global temperature decrease persists for at least a decade. Because water retains its heat longer than air, the ocean’s surface doesn’t reach its coolest until three to four years after detonations end, when ocean surface temperatures fall by an average of 6 degrees Celsius worldwide.

COLD WAR: In the aftermath of nuclear war, global sea surface temperatures would plummet. Colors in this image correspond to the degree of change expected after a large-scale conflict between the United States and Russia; the darkest blues correspond to a drop of 30 degrees Celsius. Illustration from: Harrison, C.S., et al. A new ocean state after nuclear war. AGU Advances 3, e2021AV000610 (2022).

The climate models paint a scenario that is roughly equivalent to a small asteroid hitting Earth. The one that eradicated the dinosaurs had many of the same effects, albeit to a larger degree. And, much like that infamous asteroid, a nuclear war causes ice to expand across much of Earth’s surface. Arctic sea ice doubles in thickness, and portions of the South China Sea and the Atlantic Ocean—predicted to cool by about 25 and 10 degrees Celsius respectively—could freeze as well.

Radical as those changes are, it’s what happens at depth that alters the ocean forever. With such dramatic cooling at the surface, the comparatively warmer waters of the deep begin to rise and mix with the layers above, disrupting the narrow temperature ranges and familiar current patterns that now sustain its life.

Tyler Rohr, a biogeochemist at the Australian Antarctic Partnership Program, was tasked with deducing what such extreme deep-sea churning and cooling means for marine life. He studies phytoplankton, the microscopic photosynthesizing organisms who are the foundation of oceanic food webs; as skies fill with soot, phytoplankton are immediately deprived of much of the sunlight they need to survive. Their populations fall by 50 percent in the months following the modeled U.S.-Russia conflict, and remain at least 20 percent lower for years. It’s difficult to predict exactly what that would do to marine ecosystems, but Rohr is confident that it would make parts of the ocean unrecognizable.

“Whenever you have a massive climate disturbance, the consequences are large in scale and time,” Rohr says. “There can be these really surprising mechanisms that can cause feedbacks that create unpredictable and unexpected outcomes even decades down the road from the initial disturbance.”

Outcomes such as unforeseen extinctions and shifts in migration patterns are almost a given. Among the predictions that Rohr and colleagues could make is that, 10 years after a worst-case-scenario nuclear war, the ocean would contain 20 percent fewer fish—and that’s without accounting for how declines in terrestrial food sources might lead to increased fishing, a shift they say is likely.

A nuclear war causes ice to expand across much of Earth’s surface.

Some of the researchers involved in the post-apocalyptic ocean study also modeled worldwide food output in the aftermath of a nuclear winter. According to their estimates, which were published last year in the journal Nature, the collapse in global calorie production following an India-Pakistan conflict could lead to 2 billion deaths; for a U.S.-Russia war, the toll swells to 5 billion.⁵ Facing that kind of nutritional scarcity, even a depauperate ocean would be a vital food source.

There is one food, however, that may be bolstered by nuclear cooling: seaweed. In certain tropical and subtropical areas, such as parts of the Sargasso Sea, the researchers found that seaweed could continue to flourish, even in these dire scenarios. Seaweed might even help sustain humanity while terrestrial food webs recovered and the ocean slowly came back to life.⁶

Ten years after the war a long period of semidarkness finally gives way to bright, sunlit days that more closely resemble a pre-detonation world. Meanwhile the cooling-induced upwelling of deep-sea waters has delivered a vast supply of the nutrients that phytoplankton consume. Add sunshine, and an explosion of life at the smallest level ensues.

By two decades after war, the ocean’s net primary productivity—the sum total of its biomass—settles into a new state, around 6 percent higher than pre-war levels. This bounty is not evenly distributed, though. Regional variation means that some areas won’t see much new life for thousands of years or more.

Toon and colleagues describe this as the ocean’s “recovery,” which is accurate in that the ocean’s productivity will, by some metrics, return to pre-war levels. But by the word’s other definition, the regaining of things lost, oceanic recovery after nuclear war is impossible.

Because of their place at the top of food chains, larger aquatic species are the most likely to be lost during a nuclear war’s immediate aquatic aftermath—and though a horde of phytoplankton may have the same biomass as a blue whale, it lacks just about everything else that makes the ocean’s biggest creature special.

A recovered ocean is still an unrecognizable ocean. And while evolution would yield new marine species, that would take exponentially more years than the simple recovery of biomass. There’s just no way to model something like that. 

Lead image: Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock

References

1. Turco, R.P., Toon, O.B., Ackerman, T.P., Pollack, J.B., & Sagan, C. Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions. Science 222, 1283-1292 (1983).

2. Harrison, C.S., et al. A new ocean state after nuclear war. AGU Advances 3, e2021AV000610 (2022).

3. Toon, O.B., et al. Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe. Science Advances 5 (2019).

4. Coupe, J., Bardeen, C.G., Robock, A., & Toon, O.B. Nuclear winter responses to nuclear war between the United States and Russia in the whole atmosphere community climate model version 4 and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies model. JGR Atmospheres 124, 8522-8543 (2019).

5. Xia, L., et al. Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food 3, 586-596 (2022).

6. Yong, W.T.L., Thien, V.Y., Rupert, R., & Rodrigues, K.F. Seaweed: A potential climate change solution. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 159, 112222 (2022).