It comes as no surprise that even whilst the West is navel-gazing over the twentieth anniversary of its interventionist war on the Iraqi people the true nature of the conflict and how it was bankrolled by the use of the by-products of nuclear weapons’ production is again being denied. Putin is surely no fool and is well aware of the effect that the continuing proliferation of the use of such munitions by NATO will have on international opinion (esp. that of countries such as Xi Jinping’s China). Surely only the sock-puppets who make up the administration for the member-states of NATO and their parasitic geppettos have the hubris to declare (and be in sufficient denial to believe), that, quote; "Depleted uranium “is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons”, the MoD said.
“The British Army has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades,” the statement added.
“Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to disinform. Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”
Former British Army tank commander - and chemical weapons expert - Col Hamish de Breton-Gordon, said Mr Putin’s comments were “classic disinformation”.
He said depleted uranium rounds used by Challenger 2 tanks contained only trace elements of depleted uranium.
He added it was “laughable” to suggest depleted uranium rounds were in any way linked to nuclear weapons, which uses enriched uranium.
Depleted uranium is what is left over after natural uranium has been enriched, either for weapons-making or for reactor fuel.": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65032671
Far from being simply disingenuous these are falsehoods of the highest order. Firstly lets examine the current neoliberal attitude towards nuclear power generally. Does it not strike anyone as odd that most countries (apart from France who employ their nuclear industry to prop up their mouldering imperial ambitions), have no intention of maintaining a nuclear component to their energy supply of anything more than around 15%? Why is this? At a time when alternatives to fossil fuels are desperately being sort...
(leaving aside the continually promoted notion that nuclear power represents a CO2 “friendly” technology, quote; "When the nuclear industry claims that nuclear power is “carbon -free”, it is basically taking advantage of the fact that many people don’t know the difference between a “carbon footprint” and “direct carbon emissions”. Our individual direct CO2 emissions are basically limited to whatever CO2 we exhale when we breathe- but our carbon footprint is much larger than those limited emissions. Our individual carbon footprint depends on how much gasoline we use, how much electricity we use, and, in general, how much of anything and everything we consume or use. Studies that show nuclear is carbon-neutral are considering only the direct emissions, not the carbon footprint..
That limited and simplistic approach is scientifically and mathematically incorrect. If we take a good hard look at the carbon-footprint of nuclear power, we discover that it has the largest carbon footprint of any energy source other than the fossil fuels. Very large carbon emissions are generated by various different stages in the production of nuclear energy, thereby increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Tons of carbon emissions are generated by the following activities which are all necessary in the production of nuclear energy:
-
MINING - Uranium (or thorium).
-
MILLING – transportation to millworks, taking the raw ore and converting it to “yellowcake” uranium ore.
-
CONVERSION - Construction of the uranium conversion facility, transportation of the uranium “yellowcake” to a conversion facility, dissolving it to form UF6, conversion of “yellowcake” to UF6.
-
ENRICHMENT - Construction of the uranium enrichment facility, construction of the cylinders used to transport the UF6, transportation of the UF6 to the enrichment facility, enrichment of the uranium.
-
FUEL PELLETS - Formation of uranium fuel pellets, transportation of the uranium fuel pellets.
-
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION - Construction of the nuclear power plant, with its massive amounts of concrete and steel, which will take several years of using heavy construction equipment to complete. Keep in mind that both steel and concrete production are carbon-intensive.
-
SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS - Construction of the necessary infrastructure to support the nuclear power plant (roads, transmission lines, barge canals, etc.)
-
GENERATORS - Use of heavy-duty diesel generators to run the cooling system during routine maintenance, refueling, shut downs resulting from increased summertime water temperatures, any SCRAM, and power outage emergencies.
-
WASTE STORAGE - Building RadWaste storage facilities, building radwaste storage containers and transporting the waste to the storage facilities. Transfering RadWaste from one geographic location to another, across the country, or the ocean.
-
WASTE PROCESSING - Building reprocessing facilities, transporting the radwaste to the reprocessing facility, reprocessing the radwaste, building storage for the radwaste generated by reprocessing.
-
WASTE INCINERATION - Building radwaste incineration facilities, transporting the waste to the incineration facility, incinerating the RadWaste.
-
WASTE VITRIFICATION - Building vitrification plants, transporting waste to vitrification plants, vitrifying the RadWaste involving heating the materials to very high temperatures.
-
MONITORING OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE - carbon pollution generated by monitoring and guarding the radwaste for eternity.
-
DECOMISSIONING AND DECONTAMINATION -decontaminating and demolishing the nuclear plants, reactors, enrichment facilities, and other support infrastructure.
-
ACCIDENTS - mitigation and clean-up efforts on nuclear accidents-huge carbon contribution.
-
DAMAGED REACTORS AND ACCIDENTS - Building sarcophagus structures around failed nuclear power facilities. Monitoring, securing and periodically re-entombing failed nuclear power facilities for all eternity.
There are more nuclear carbon-footprint considerations than the ones stated here, but this list is a good general start.No one source has actually calculated the carbon footprint for nuclear energy taking into consideration all of the above sources of carbon emissions." Go to: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2015/11/flush-greenwash-nuclear-powers-true-co2.html?spref=tw),
..and if, as is claimed by the industry, modern nuclear power stations
represent a technology as safe as any other, why is it that more nuclear
power stations are not being proposed?
The answer is that nuclear power has never been primarily about energy
production. Remember the famous “energy output dial” at Calderhall? It
was a fake!
In this regard I heartily recommend a documentary by PBS called, “The Atom and US”, quote; “Action-packed tour through the history of one of the most controversial subjects of the 20th century – nuclear power – as told by those who experienced it first-hand. Focusing on events in the US, UK, France and Germany, it charts its social and political development from the early days of post-war atomic euphoria, through to the struggling ‘nuclear renaissance’ of the present day.”
View vid: https://binge.com.au/shows/show-the-atom-and-us!9304
Nuclear power generation has always been about enriching uranium and, thus, also producing plutonium for the production of nuclear weapons. The defence/nuclear industry (yes these are the same thing), has also always been aware just how dangerous their, so-called, science is and has tried to limit (in their megalomaniac way), the public’s exposure to the terrible risk of nuclear accident, with, as we know, only limited success; “First you contract Windscale and end up on a Three Mile Island where Chernobyl falls off and you're Fukushima-ed!”… and these are the one’s we get to hear about, quote; “Ask yourselves how it has come to be acceptable for, for instance; The Russian and American presidents (ostensibly -and in reality- gnashing their teeth over Poland), to cabal themselves during the recent summit in Tokyo, get their heads together on how to repair the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor ( http://www.stwr.org/land-energy-water/nuclear-power-no-panacea-critics-say.html Mihama Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia Archive-It Wayback Machine -Edited 11/12/10-), and keep the whole affair from the public?”: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2016/07/hinkleypoint-did-you-hear-one-about.html?spref=tw
“Mr. Miyagi how come you Fukushima?!" "Ah…no-body prefecture!”
 |
| Japan, America's public nuclear convenience. |
So please, to claim that; “depleted uranium is a standard component" and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons”” Is blatantly untrue! That fact is that depleted uranium would not exist without nuclear weapons production. Of-course when it was discovered that D.U could replace tungsten in sabo-discarding weapons (and heavy calibre munitions of other kinds), the slavering beasts of the “Dollar/Pound” Deep State (and NWO), in the West leapt at the opportunity of prosecuting armed conflict that would ensure for them maximum control over the planet’s dwindling fossil fuel reserves whilst not costing them the entirety of their own reserves to do so (regardless, of-course, of the true cost to both the population of the countries -and others-, in which they so philanthropically “intervened” -, and the global environment, of their actions).
The MoD also claim that, quote; “The vapour settles as dust, which is poisonous and also weakly radioactive.”
This is a highly controversial claim that is contested by many of the world’s leading researchers and experts in the field, quote; "GUARDIAN, UK - Depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing ammunition, causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer, according to a study of the metal’s effects on human lung cells. The study adds to growing evidence that DU causes health problems on battlefields long after hostilities have ceased.0508 05 1DU is a byproduct of uranium refinement for nuclear power. It is much less radioactive than other uranium isotopes, and its high density - twice that of lead - makes it useful for armor and armor piercing shells. It has been used in conflicts including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq and there have been increasing concerns about the health effects of DU dust left on the battlefield. In November, the Ministry of Defense was forced to counteract claims that apparent increases in cancers and birth defects among Iraqis in southern Iraq were due to DU in weapons.
Now researchers at the University of Southern Maine have shown that
DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise,
exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different
concentrations. The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within
cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. “These data
suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA
damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,” the team wrote
in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. . . Prof Wise said it is
too early to say whether DU causes lung cancer in people exposed on the
battlefield because the disease takes several decades to develop.
“Our data suggest that it should be monitored as the potential risk is there,” he said": http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/08/1059/
"Health and environmental effects of depleted uranium are at the heart of scientific studies, a lawsuit in the New York courts and legislative bills in more than a dozen states (although not in Florida). . .
Despite a 1996 U.N. resolution opposing its use because of discovery of health problems after the first Gulf War, the military studies have concluded there was no evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses. . .
To the military, the effectiveness of weapons and armor made with depleted uranium outweighs any residual effects. Their bottom line: Depleted uranium saves soldiers’ lives in combat. . .
But Brim and others think there will not be enough known until soldiers are tested for exposure. They compare the debate over depleted uranium to the controversy surrounding Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam. Speculation over its effects continued for more than two decades before the Defense Department agreed to compensate veterans who suffered from ailments linked to its use."...
"MNA - Canadian research centers have reported that during the war against Iraq the U.S. military used depleted uranium weapons which caused the radiation level to rise at least 300 times above normal, and the weapons caused similar effects in Afghanistan.U.S. troops have recently begun removing contaminated topsoil in Iraq, taking it to an unknown location. Scientists believe the next generation of children of citizens of both countries exposed to DU will suffer from higher rates of birth defects and cancer.
The Uranium Medical Research Center issued a report based on a 13-day survey throughout the primary conflict zones in urban and rural areas of central and southern Iraq on October 2003, according to Risq News. . .
The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in southwestern Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the international airport and hosts one of the largest coalition bases around Baghdad, occupying the operational headquarters of the Iraqi Special Republican Guard. . . Departing the coalition-occupied base was a long, a steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base. As the team passed the base’s main entrance, the gates were opened to reveal bulldozers spreading soil while front-end loaders were filling the trucks that had just emptied their loads of soil (silt and sand). The arriving trucks were delivering loads of sand into the base while the departing trucks were hauling away the base’s topsoil.
DEPLETED URANIUM FOUND IN TROOPS
JUAN GONZALEZ, NY DAILY NEWS - Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found. They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. . . A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers."
"ROB EDWARDS, SUNDAY HERALD, UK - An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium weapons has been kept secret. The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation, which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.
Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards. Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Program have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.
U.S. LEFT 75 TONS OF DEPLETED URANIUM TO POLLUTE IRAQ
U.S. FORCES UNLEASHED at least 75 tons of toxic depleted uranium on Iraq during the war, reports the Christian Science Monitor. An unnamed U.S. Central Command spokesman disclosed to the Monitor last week that coalition forces fired 300,000 bullets coated with armored-piercing depleted uranium during the war. “The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 – a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq,” wrote correspondent Scott Peterson. Peterson measured four sites around Baghdad struck with depleted uranium munitions and found high levels of radioactive contamination, but few warnings to this effect issued among the populace at large. While the Pentagon maintains that spent weapons coated with the low-level, radioactive nuclear-waste are relatively harmless, Peterson notes that U.S. soldiers have taken it among themselves to print leaflets or post signs warning of DU contamination. “After we shoot something with DU, we’re not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer,” said one sergeant requesting anonymity."
For more please go to: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2012/06/depleted-uranium-progressive-review.html
Quote; "More than a decade and a half after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a new study found that babies are being born today with gruesome birth defects connected to the ongoing American military presence there. The report, issued by a team of independent medical researchers and published in the journal Environmental Pollution, examined congenital anomalies recorded in Iraqi babies born near Tallil Air Base, a base operated by the U.S.-led foreign military coalition. According to the study, babies showing severe birth defects — including neurological problems, congenital heart disease, and paralyzed or missing limbs — also had corresponding elevated levels of a radioactive compound known as thorium in their bodies.
“Doctors are regularly encountering anomalies in babies that are so gruesome they cannot even find precedents for them.”
“We collected hair samples, deciduous (baby) teeth, and bone marrow from subjects living in proximity to the base,” said Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the study’s lead researchers. “In all three tissues we see the same trend: higher levels of thorium.” Savabieasfahani, who has authored studies on the radioactive footprint of the U.S. military presence in Iraq for years, says that the new findings contribute to a growing body of evidence about the serious long-term health impact of U.S. military operations on Iraqi civilians. “The closer that you live to a U.S. military base in Iraq,” she said, “the higher the thorium in your body and the more likely you are to suffer serious congenital deformities and birth defects.”
The new study piles onto a growing wealth of knowledge about severe ill effects of the U.S. military on the environments in which it operates. All industrialized military activity is bad for ecological systems, but the U.S., with its enormous military engaged in activities spanning the globe has a particular large environmental footprint. Not only does the U.S. military lead the world in carbon output, but its prodigious presence around the globe leaves a toxic trail of chemicals that local communities have to deal with, from so-called burn pits on bases releasing poisonous smoke to the radiation of depleted uranium rounds mutating the DNA of nearby populations.":..
"The suffering of Iraqis has been particularly acute. The results of the new study added to a laundry list of negative impacts of the U.S.’s long war there to the long-term health of the country’s population. Previous studies, including some contributed by a team led by Savabieasfahani, have pointed to elevated rates of cancer, miscarriages, and radiological poisoning in places like Fallujah, where the U.S. military carried out major assaults during its occupation of the country.
The study published in Environmental Pollution was conducted by a team of independent Iraqi and American researchers in Iraq during the summer and fall of 2016. They analyzed 19 babies born with serious birth defects at a maternity hospital in the vicinity of Tallil Air Base, compared with a control group of 10 healthy newborns.
“Doctors are regularly encountering anomalies in babies that are so gruesome they cannot even find precedents for them,” said Savabieasfahani. “The war has spread so much radiation here that, unless it is cleaned up, generations of Iraqis will continue to be affected.”
A selection of images from a study by a team of independent medical researchers show deformities suffered by young children living near an active U.S. military base in Iraq.
Images: Study titled “Living near an active U.S. military base in Iraq is associated with significantly higher hair thorium and increased likelihood of congenital anomalies in infants and children,” 2019.
Some of these negative health effects of the American war in Iraq can be put down to U.S. forces’ frequent use of munitions containing depleted uranium. Depleted uranium, a byproduct of the enriched uranium used to power nuclear reactors, makes bullets and shells more effective in destroying armored vehicles, owing to its extreme density. But it has been acknowledged to be hazardous to the environment and the long-term health of people living in places where the munitions are used.
“Uranium and thorium were the main focus of this study,” the authors note. “Epidemiological evidence is consistent with an increased risk of congenital anomalies in the offspring of persons exposed to uranium and its depleted forms.” In other words: The researchers found that the more you were around these American weapons, the more likely you were to bear children with deformities and other health problems.
In response to an outcry over its effects, the U.S. military pledged to not use depleted uranium rounds in its bombing campaigns against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but, despite this pledge, a 2017 investigation by the independent research group AirWars and Foreign Policy magazine found that the military had continued to regularly use rounds containing the toxic compound.
These depleted-uranium munitions are among the causes of hazards not only to the civilians in the foreign lands where the U.S. fights its wars, but also to American service members who took part in these conflicts. The chronic illnesses suffered by U.S. soldiers during the 1991 war in Iraq — often from exposure to uranium munitions and other toxic chemicals — have already been categorized as a condition known as “Gulf War syndrome.” The U.S. government has been less interested into the effects of the American military’s chemical footprint on Iraqis. The use of “burn pits” — toxic open-air fires used to dispose military waste — along with other contaminants has had a lasting impact on the health of current and future Iraqi generations.
Researchers conducting the latest study said that a broader study is needed to get definitive results about these health impacts. The images of babies born with defects at the hospital where the study was conducted, Bint Al-Huda Maternity Hospital, about 10 kilometers from Tallil Air Base, are gruesome and harrowing. Savabieasfahani, the lead researcher, said that without an effort by the U.S. military to clean up its radioactive footprint, babies will continue to be born with deformities that her study and others have documented.
“The radioactive footprint of the military could be cleaned up if we had officials who wanted to do so,” said Savabieasfahani. “Unfortunately, even research into the problem of Iraqi birth defects has to be done by independent toxicologists, because the U.S. military and other institutions are not even interested in this issue.”": https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/iraq-children-birth-defects-military/
Quite apart from the oft reported birth deformities of children born
to mother’s exposed to D.U, there may be other “unwanted consequences”
of its use, quote; “imagine many tons* of a very heavy highly
radioactive metal being discharged and dispersed into a local
environment in which it can particulate in the most efficient manner
possible.
Then imagine this particulate dust being thrust into the Northern or
Northern Sub-Tropical Jet-streams by desert storms (I’m told such things
occur).
Then as all this plutonium (“for it is I great Plutocrat!”),
is circling the Earth and as it does so squeezing, contracting and
distorting both the Earth’s magnetosphere (-Edit 15/03/11-
“Astrotometric” correlation -see ref: to “Astrotometry” below- the
magnetosphere is described as an “interactive” boundary Magnetosphere - Wikipedia ), and it’s geology.
Squeezing and contracting until…“Pop! Crunch!”…the pressure is released and WHAM a huge tsunamic event occurs in Sumatra"
*Regardless of the precise figures involved it is my belief that particulate D.U, behaving in the manner I have described, was responsible for the deaths of 250,000 people.
“At NATO headquarters in Brussels, Britain and the US joined forces
to kill off an Italian proposal, backed by Germany, for the alliance’s
19 member countries to stop using depleted uranium ammunition until
further notice . . . Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal
chemistry at Sunderland University, described the Ministry of Defence
move as a “cynical betrayal” and “vicious injustice.” The MoD, he said,
was testing for high-level exposure to soluble material, rather than
long-term, low-level, exposure to radiation inside the body. It was
indulging in “Mickey Mouse science”. GUARDIAN” From “Depleted Uranium;
Stories From The Archives of The Progressive Review” (go to: http://www.prorev.com/du.htm).
When I met David (a British corporal), then recently returned from
Iraq ( who had been working in bomb disposal in Basra immediately
following the taking of the city), he told me that apart from having to
dispose of both bombs and body parts on a daily basis he had seen
vehicles (against which D.U munitions had been used), which had been
politely cordoned off with yellow “crime-scene” tape. We looked at each
other and laughed…
…("…and if we knew why the bowl of petunias -did- that we would know a lot more about the Universe than we do at the moment.").
He told me, “I’ll go anywhere else but I won’t go back to Iraq, it’s a mad- house!”
I am also aware that earlier readers (ie. prior to this edit), may
have wondered whether I believe that depleted uranium alone was
responsible for the Sumatran tsunami. The answer is no I don’t, I see it
more as the straw the broke the back of the poor camel that had little
chance of passing through “The Eye of The Needle” in the first instance!
By which I mean that as a final component of the “unholy synergism”
which also includes; nuclear testing, nuclear power, particle beam
research, fusion power research (and if Steven.J.Smith is to be believed
possibly also “Seismic Weapons” testing), d.u dispersal in the way I
have described can be seen as providing the trigger event which caused
the Sumatran disaster." Go to: "Arafel": "What's that Coming Over The Hill?"
Nb. See UK Column News article (Arafel update), below!
Quote; "On March 19, 2003, the United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiates war on Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” President Bush and his advisors built much of their case for war on the specious claim that Iraq, under dictator Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building weapons of mass destruction.
Hostilities began about 90 minutes after the U.S.-imposed deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war passed. The first targets, which Bush said were “of military importance,” were hit with Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. fighter-bombers and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf. In response to the attacks, Republic of Iraq radio in Baghdad announced, “the evil ones, the enemies of God, the homeland and humanity, have committed the stupidity of aggression against our homeland and people.”
Though Saddam Hussein had declared in early March 2003 that, “it is without doubt that the faithful will be victorious against aggression,” he went into hiding soon after the American invasion, speaking to his people only through an occasional audiotape. Coalition forces were able to topple his regime and capture Iraq’s major cities in just three weeks, sustaining few casualties. President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003*. Despite the defeat of conventional military forces in Iraq, an insurgency has continued an intense guerrilla war in the nation in the years since military victory was announced, resulting in thousands of coalition military, insurgent and civilian deaths.
After an intense manhunt, U.S. soldiers found Saddam Hussein hiding in a six-to-eight-foot deep hole, nine miles outside his hometown of Tikrit. He did not resist and was uninjured during the arrest. A soldier at the scene described him as “a man resigned to his fate.” Hussein was arrested and began trial for crimes against his people, including mass killings, in October 2005.
In June 2004, the provisional government in place since soon after Saddam’s ouster transferred power to the Iraqi Interim Government. In January 2005, the Iraqi people elected a 275-member Iraqi National Assembly. A new constitution for the country was ratified that October. On November 6, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. After an unsuccessful appeal, he was executed on December 30, 2006.
No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. The U.S. declared an end to the war in Iraq on December 15, 2011, nearly ten years after the fighting began." https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/war-in-iraq-begins
*Italics mine.
Quote; "It was 2004, the day after Christmas, and thousands of European and American tourists had flocked to the beaches of Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia to escape the winter chill in a tropical paradise.
At 7:59 AM, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake—one of the largest ever recorded—ripped through an undersea fault in the Indian Ocean, propelling a massive column of water toward unsuspecting shores. The Boxing Day tsunami would be the deadliest in recorded history, taking a staggering 230,000 lives in a matter of hours." https://www.history.com/news/deadliest-tsunami-2004-indian-ocean
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to the frontline near the devastated city of Bakhmut Wednesday, promising to “respond to every blow” following a string of Russian attacks on civilian sites across Ukraine that killed at least eight people and injured dozens on Wednesday.
In Moscow, Russian officials have warned the United Kingdom not to send ammunition to Ukraine containing depleted uranium. The metal is a byproduct of the enrichment process used to make nuclear warheads and fuel for power plants. It’s both toxic and radioactive and has been linked to congenital birth defects, cancer and kidney damage. This is Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaking Wednesday.*
Sergey Lavrov: “While there is no convention to ban depleted uranium shells, the United Nations General Assembly regularly considers resolutions calling on nations not to produce or use depleted uranium. Every time, the United Kingdom, the United States and France vote it down.”
Since the 1990s, the U.S. has fired munitions containing hundreds of tons of depleted uranium in Iraq, Serbia, Kosovo and Syria, as well as the former U.S. Naval Training Range in Vieques, Puerto Rico.": https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/23/headlines/kremlin_warns_uk_and_its_allies_against_supplying_ukraine_with_depleted_uranium
*Italics mine.
Putin is not blameless in this regard though, quote; "Russia is arming its tanks with controversial depleted uranium shells.
While depleted uranium, or DU, is extremely dense and can punch through thick tank armor, many believe that these shells release small doses of radiation, like miniature neutron bombs. The U.S. has used DU shells in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
A Russian Defense Ministry bulletin said Russian T-80BV tanks would be armed with these powerful munitions, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. The bulletin noted that “the T-80BVM (the letter M stands for ‘modernized’) features ‘the improved weapons stabilizer and the loading mechanism for the 3BM59 Svinets-1 and 3BM60 Svinets-2 munitions.’”
The Svinets-1 has a tungsten carbide core, while the Svinets-2 uses depleted uranium. according to the Below the Ring armor site, published by a pair of Dutch defense experts. A 2016 post speculated that Russia might have been producing these special rounds for several years as replacements for existing tank ammunition.
The shells “utilize an aluminum sabot with three points of contact - this is rather unique, as most other types of APFSDS sabot use only two points of contacts,” Below the Ring said. “If and how this affects accuracy and barrel wear is currently not known.”
The Svinets-2 is not the first Russian shell to use depleted uranium. The 3BM-32 Vant, designed for Soviet 125-millimeter tank cannon, also contained a DU core. But the new rounds are longer.
“Compared to the 3BM-32 Vant APFSDS with a 380-mm-long [14.7-inch] DU penetrator, the two types of new ammunition have an approximately 79 to 84 percent longer projectile, which should lead to a significant increase in penetration power,” Below the Ring estimated.
The problem is that older Russian tank ammunition has difficult piercing advanced tank armor such as that found on the U.S. M-1 Abrams or Israeli Merkava. “The 3BM-42 Mango relies on an outdated pentrator design, using two relatively short tungsten rods inside a steel body,” according to Below the Ring. “…Steel penetrates armor less efficiently than a high-density heavy metal alloy.”
Thus, the appeal of DU shells as tank killers (you can find a concise scientific explanation of depleted uranium ammunition here). There are 120-millimeter DU shells for the M-1 Abrams and 30-millimeter shell for the A-10 Warthog. Ironically, the Abrams tank uses depleted uranium in its armor plating to stop anti-tank shells.
The U.S. military says depleted uranium ammunition is safe, for the most part. “When fired, or after ‘cooking off’ in fires or explosions, the exposed depleted uranium rod poses an extremely low radiological threat as long as it remains outside the body,” says a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. “Taken into the body via metal fragments or dust-like particles, depleted uranium may pose a long-term health hazard to personnel if the amount is large. However, the amount which remains in the body depends on a number of factors, including the amount inhaled or ingested, the particle size and the ability of the particles to dissolve in body fluids.”
However, even the Veterans Administration acknowledges that depleted uranium poses health risks to soldiers, such as those who fought in Operation Desert Storm, where DU rounds were used to destroy Iraqi tanks. There are also complaints that depleted uranium contaminates the environment, such as in Iraq. The Pentagon promised that it wouldn’t use DU ammunition in Syria, though it later admitted that it fired thousands of rounds in 2015.": https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/america-russian-tanks-are-now-shooting-depleted-uranium-bullets-175219
Quote; “Now here’s a Cinderella issue…The lack of care and attention paid to the issue of depleted uranium use by the West in its recent imperialist wars of aggression and intervention (esp. in the Middle East), by the so-called radical-left exemplifies my point…or are my tastes too “catholic”? Certainly protestant-ism in Britain (some might well still say “Puritanism”), does not like to deal with the rights of infants or the unborn…Are they truly “property” then?..It is sickening to think just how useful the publicization of this terrible crime could have been (and still could be), to an alternative narrative of our recent “crusade” (GWR Bush’s own word), and just how lazy, negligent and incompetent has been the handling of the issue by the oh-so-enlightened social reformers who populate our so called “alternative media” and campaigning organisations. The Depleted Uranium issue has remained the territory of senior academics and physicians and it has not made its way into public consciousness…this is a serious indictment of the blinkered attitude of those who want to have-their-cake-and-eat-it in our “liberal” societies…Such ignorance also has a deleterious effect on the resolution of the conflict between radical Islam and the rest of us, for without the realisation that the perpetration of such terrible crimes might well help explain (if not excuse), the murderous rage of ISIS, Boko Haram and other such organisations (who if not directly affected are certainly influenced by the knowledge of just how far the West is prepared to go in order to secure more blood-fuel for its near hysterical market driven society), any dialogue between the otherwise seemingly diametrically opposed philosophies of Christianity and Islam is effectively made impossible!”: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2018/09/free-of-consequences-liberal-conceit.html
It’s the same issue as that of conducting any kind of armed conflict in the vicinity of nuclear power stations (even a large conventional weapon striking a nuclear core would -to all intents and purposes-, be the equivalent of a nuclear strike). So if such were to happen would we blame Putin? Or would history rather conclude that any and all of those involved in promoting rather than preventing any armed conflict that resulted in such a disaster were equally to blame and that it was selfishness and hubris on both sides that led to the catastrophe? Perhaps if one could imagine that the consequences of such a nuclear disaster might be confined to effects only to the combatants’ nations one might squirm one’s way out of taking responsibility, however, as one remembers from Chernobyl any radioactive cloud created might find its way to many nations who, far from being involved in the conflict that caused such, were actively campaigning for moderation and peace at the time!
What; toadying, obsequious, enabling (et.al), and hugely partial neoliberal shills our mainstream journalists now are! Can they not work all this out for themselves or are their rectums now so well greased they are no longer sensate of the hands being thrust up them to work their disgusting mouths?
Our opposition is no use either, Keir Starmer (a man who claims to be an expert in the field of human rights), supports the NATO agenda and as such represents another cowardly shill (and let’s face it “shrill”), with about as much integrity as a used condom.
Some journalists in the "alt-media" have covered the depleted uranium issue with considerable application, David Swanson is one of these, quote; "A new study shows an association between depleted uranium, used by the US during the Iraq war, and the risk of birth defects in Iraqi children.
In the years following 2003, the U.S. military dotted Iraq with over 500 military bases, many of them close to Iraqi cities. These cities suffered the impacts of bombs, bullets, chemical and other weapons, but also the environmental damage of open burn pits on U.S. bases, abandoned tanks and trucks, and the storage of weapons on U.S. bases, including depleted uranium weapons. Here’s a map of some of the U.S. bases:
This map and the other illustrations below have been provided by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the authors of a forthcoming article in the journal Environmental Pollution. The article documents the results of a study undertaken in Nasiriyah near Tallil Air Base. Nasiriyah was bombed by the U.S. military in 2003 and in the early 1990s. Open-air burn pits were used at Tallil Air Base beginning in 2003. See a second map:
Now take a look (do not turn away) at these images of infants who were born between August and September of 2016 to parents who had continuously lived in Nasiriyah. The visible birth defects include: anencephaly (A1 and A2 , B), lower limb anomalies (C), hydrocephalus (D), spina bifida (E), and multiple anomalies (F, G, H). Imagine if these tragic birth defects had been caused by a natural disaster or the misdeeds of the next government targeted by the United States for “regime change” — would not the outrage be widespread and thunderous? But these horrors have a different cause.
“Depleted Uranium (DU) is a toxic, radioactive heavy metal that is the waste byproduct of the uranium enrichment process when producing nuclear weapons and uranium for nuclear reactors. Because this radioactive waste is plentiful and 1.7 times more dense than lead, the United States government uses DU in munitions/ammunition which are extremely effective at piercing armored vehicles. However, every round of DU ammunition leaves a residue of DU dust on everything it hits, contaminating the surrounding area with toxic waste that has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the age of our solar system, and turns every battlefield and firing range into a toxic waste site that poisons everyone in such areas. DU dust can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through scratches in the skin. DU is linked to DNA damage, cancer, birth defects, and multiple other health problems. The United Nations classifies Depleted Uranium ammunitions as illegal Weapons of Mass Destruction because of their long-term impact on the land over which they are used and the long-term health problems they cause when people are exposed to them.”
Not only did bringing DU weapons to Iraq amount to putting “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq in the name of eliminating “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” but using and storing DU in Iraq arguably violated the Convention on the Prohibition of the Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. The use of DU was also one part of an illegal war, which in its entirety violated both the UN Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Each element of such a war is illegal. In addition, the use of such weapons violates the Geneva Conventions’ ban on collective punishment, as well as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The use of these weapons was a small part of the damage done to Iraq, its people, its society, and its natural environment by the war. We ought not to require any legal case before offering aid and making reparations. Basic human decency ought to suffice.": https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/09/21/new-study-documents-depleted-uranium-impacts-on-children-in-iraq/
Things continue to improve (at least in the "alt-media"), but it's about time guys (we are talkng well over a quarter of a century here!), quote; "In a scientific report currently under peer review, Professor Chris Busby presents findings indicating that depleted uranium may already be in use on the battlefields of Ukraine and has been so since the very start of the war—and that this poses a significant risk to public health in the UK and Europe:
Data covering the period November 2017 to November 2022 was obtained from the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston to find if there was an increase in uranium associated with the Ukraine war. Results from 9 High Volume Air Samplers deployed onsite and offsite by AWE showed that there were significantly increased levels of uranium in all 9 HVAS samplers[,] beginning in February 2022 when the war began. The result has significant public health implications for the UK and Europe.
The chart below, with outliers removed as per best practice, presents how atmospheric radiation levels have soared in the UK since the war began.
Source: "Uranium weapons being employed in Ukraine have significantly increased Uranium levels in the air in the UK", Chris Busby, 2023
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The military policy claim in the West is that since depleted uranium is heavy, radioactive dust resulting from its use settles on the ground at a maximum radius of just ten metres (thirty feet) from the point of impact.
Civilian researchers have pointed to a different possibility: that the heat and burning created by the impact of depleted uranium ammunition gives rise to clouds of minuscule radioactive particles, suspended in air and capable of travelling long distances and injuring and killing people far removed from the battlefield.*
This is how the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology explains the dual risk posed by depleted uranium:
DU can affect human health in two main ways: through its chemical toxicity, and through its radiological effects (uranium emits ionising radiation that can cause cancer).
The conflict of narratives, whether depleted uranium is harmless or poses a serious health risk, was highlighted by the BBC in 2006 when it reported that a senior UN scientist had claimed that research confirming that depleted uranium causes cancer was suppressed.
Lawfulness
In 2003, the British Army seemed to have taken notice of the warnings when it announced a phasing-out of the then-current type of uranium-laced tank ammunition. The announcement came on the heels of reports of leukaemia, kidney damage and lung cancer among soldiers from France, Spain and Italy after the United States' liberal use of depleted uranium in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the late 1990s.
This looming reality, also evidenced by birth defects of epidemic proportions and soaring cancer cases in Iraq in 1991 and 2003–2011, raises the question of the legality of depleted uranium as a weapon. Busby's above-referenced paper observes (with emphasis added):
The question of the dispersion of uranium aerosols from battlefields is of significant legal interest, since if a radioactive weapon resulted in the general contamination of the public in the country of deployment or elsewhere, the weapon would be classifiable as one of indiscriminate effect.
Professor Busby has stated:
If the public really understand what is going on in the environment, as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, the war would stop today.
Culpability
Which side in the conflict in Ukraine might be responsible for using radioactive munitions, such as depleted uranium?
In a recent interview, former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter explains that since 2000, only the West has been using depleted uranium and other radioactive material in munitions:
Around 2000, the Russians looked around and said, "You see what happens when NATO use thirty thousand rounds of depleted uranium rounds in Kosovo? High levels of leukaemia. People are starting to get cancer because they have been exposed to depleted uranium. You see what happened in Iraq where kids are deformed; thousands of kids are deformed?"
The Russians banned depleted uranium ...
Birth defects caused by depleted uranium in the war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 have been documented in highly distressing photographs, including in investigative journalism articles, documentaries and research papers. The radiation damages caused by NATO's bombing of 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 were decried in 2022 by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesmen Zhao Lijian (misattributed in this video as the Foreign Minister) and Wang Wenbin.
In a scientific report currently under peer review, Professor Chris Busby presents findings indicating that depleted uranium may already be in use on the battlefields of Ukraine and has been so since the very start of the war—and that this poses a significant risk to public health in the UK and Europe:
Data covering the period November 2017 to November 2022 was obtained from the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston to find if there was an increase in uranium associated with the Ukraine war. Results from 9 High Volume Air Samplers deployed onsite and offsite by AWE showed that there were significantly increased levels of uranium in all 9 HVAS samplers[,] beginning in February 2022 when the war began. The result has significant public health implications for the UK and Europe.": https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/nuclear-expert-depleted-uranium-may-already-be-in-use-in-ukraine
*Italics mine!
The footage is contained in a documentary the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) released yesterday as Ukrainian tank crews completed their training.
Britain is gifting 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine together with depleted uranium shells, which Declassified revealed last week.
An MoD spokesperson told the media that the “impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low”.
But the decision to supply the ammunition sparked a furious reaction from the Kremlin, with Vladimir Putin pledging on Saturday to retaliate by moving ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons into Belarus.
The depleted uranium (DU) ammunition seen in the MoD documentary is marked “inert”, suggesting it could be a replica. A blue and silver training shell is visible next to it, an expert told Declassified.
Doug Weir from the Conflict and Environment Observatory said: “The orange and black munition in the video appears to be an inert display version of the UK’s 120mm CHARM3 DU ammunition.”
CHARM3 is a technical term for Britain’s stockpile of depleted uranium shells.
Weir added: “When DU munitions hit hard targets such as tanks or armoured vehicles, they fragment and burn, generating chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate [microscopic particles] that poses an inhalational risk to people.
“Managing DU contamination appropriately will be a further burden for Ukraine, in a conflict that has already generated serious pollution problems.”
The shells are shown spread out on a table with other types of ammunition, as Ukrainian tank crews listen to a lecture from US and British soldiers.
The presence of an American soldier at the training session could escalate tensions further, after the White House denied sending any of its own DU stocks to Ukraine last week.
The text on the UK military video states: “Instructors begin to familiarise Gunners, Loaders and Commanders with Challenger 2 ammunition types”.
Health impacts
Depleted uranium is standard ammunition for the tanks Britain is giving to Ukraine, despite long running concerns about its health and environmental impacts.
It has been blamed for causing cancer and birth defects in Iraq.
Jack Watling, a researcher at the MoD-funded RUSI think tank, wrote in the Spectator yesterday: “I wouldn’t recommend Russian soldiers go to sleep cradling a depleted uranium round, or lick the tip of the ammunition – depleted uranium is still toxic.”
He added: “But when Russian troops do come into contact with one of these projectiles, the fact that the uranium will be travelling at around 1,800 metres per second and burning up as it flies will be more concerning to any target than its radioactivity.”
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said today: “It is truly inspiring to witness the determination of Ukrainian soldiers having completed their training on British Challenger 2 tanks on British soil.
“They return to their homeland better equipped, but to no less danger. We will continue to stand by them and do all we can to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.": https://declassifieduk.org/exclusive-ukrainian-soldiers-seen-with-depleted-uranium-ammo-in-uk/, "Scientist cited by British military to justify sending depleted uranium shells to Ukraine had previously criticised use of such ammunition in Iraq": https://declassifieduk.org/exclusive-army-putting-outrageous-spin-on-depleted-uranium-science/ & https://declassifieduk.org/depleted-uranium-courts-accept-cancer-risk-denied-by-army/
Updates 07/05/2023
Quote; "Russia has sparked a "mad panic" as it evacuates a town near the contested Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a Ukrainian official says.
 |
Russia has told people to leave 18 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region, including Enerhodar near the plant, ahead of Kyiv's anticipated offensive.
The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said there were five-hour waits as thousands of cars left.
The UN's nuclear watchdog warned a "severe nuclear accident" could occur.
Rafael Grossi - the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - said the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant was "becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous".
The IAEA statement said that "while operating staff remain at the site" there was "deep concern about the increasingly tense, stressful, and challenging conditions for personnel and their families".
It said IAEA experts at the plant had "received information that the announced evacuation of residents from the nearby town of Enerhodar - where most plant staff live - has started".
On Friday, the Russian-installed regional head Yevgeny Balitsky said that "in the past few days, the enemy has stepped up shelling of settlements close to the front line".
"I have therefore made a decision to evacuate first of all children and parents, elderly people, disabled people and hospital patients," he wrote on social media. .
The IAEA has issued warnings previously about safety at the plant - which Russia captured in the opening days of its invasion last year - after shelling caused temporary power cuts.
In March the IAEA warned the plant was running on diesel generators to keep vital cooling systems going, after damage to power lines.
Since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022 the number of staff at the plant has declined, the IAEA says, "but site management has stated that it has remained sufficient for the safe operation of the plant".
Russian forces occupy much of the Zaporizhzhia region but not the regional capital Zaporizhzhia, which lies just north-east of Enerhodar across the Dnipro reservoir.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff said civilians were being evacuated to the cities of Berdyansk and Prymorsk, further inside Russian-held territory.
The exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram that shops in the evacuated areas had run out of goods and medicine.
He also said hospitals were discharging patients into the street amid fears that electricity and water supplies could be suspended if Ukraine attacks the region.
And he claimed that two-thirds of evacuation convoys - allegedly made up of civilians - consisted of retreating Russian troops. The BBC cannot verify this claim.
"The partial evacuation they announced is going too fast, and there is a possibility that they may be preparing for provocations and (for that reason) focusing on civilians," Mr Fedorov added: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65515443
Quote; "Using Poison in Ukraine’s Depleted Hope of Victory
Depleted uranium shells have been sent to Ukraine, as confirmed by U.K. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey last week. Britain announced last month that it would send the munitions for use with Challenger 2 tanks, a move that immediately escalated nuclear tensions with Russia, with President Vladimir Putin threatening to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus just days later.
The U.K. move comes amid indications that Kiev is increasingly desperate, to the point of being willing to risk scorching the earth it is fighting for.
Over the last few months documents emerging as part of the so-called Pentagon leak allegedly posted online by U.S. National Guardsman Jack Teixera have shown Ukrainian forces are faring far worsethan previously reported by corporate media. As reported by Consortium News, the leaked documents “show the long-planned Ukrainian offensive will fail miserably.”
That the conflict is not going well for Ukraine came as little surprise to those who had been following the story outside of the legacy press echo chamber. However, Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine represents more than a dangerous escalation in the West’s proxy war with a nuclear-armed power.
It is an example of Ukraine’s willingness to target the ethnic Russian population in eastern Ukraine and poison the land it is attempting to retain. Depleted uranium will have effects not only on Russian fighters but also on the civilian population for years to come.
Radio host Randy Credico, who visited Donbass, recently told Consortium News that residents of that region already live in daily fear of U.S.-made missiles used by Ukraine to target civilians and the emergency services that come to help them: now they are to face the additional prospect of depleted uranium shells, which would not simply kill civilians now, but has the potential to poison future generations.
Russia intervened in Ukraine after eight years of war by Kiev against the ethnic Russians in the east who declared independence from Ukraine after the U.S.-backed 2014 coup.
The U.S. and British corporate media appear to dismiss concerns of Russian nuclear escalation in response to the use of depleted uranium rounds, and the official line in the West is that such weapons represent a low environmental risk." Go to: https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/02/using-poison-in-ukraines-depleted-hope-of-victory/ for full article.
It's great to see that consciousness of these issues (re: nuclear power), is increasing, it's not before time, the next generation (esp. the Thunbergs et.al), need to be informed if they are going to endorse real responses to the climate change issue, quote;
The British government now openly admits that the taxpayer subsidises nuclear used for military purposes in our energy bills2. This is the motivation behind the ‘Regulated Asset Base’ (RAB) funding model proposed by the Government to finance new nuclear power. We will all pay for the construction of new nuclear power plants through higher energy bills.
Nuclear power is expensive, toxic and there is no solution for its long term storage. It is powerfully destructive, not only for its use in weaponry, but also leads to an increase in levels of radioactive materials in the air, as has been measured at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston3.
As cancer rates in the UK rise to unprecedented heights, access to health care declines, and more people and businesses cannot afford to pay their energy bills, one must question the wisdom of UK energy policy and how it is manipulated to our detriment.
Hinkley Point C will produce 25TWh of electricity per year. As the electricity is produced whether there is demand for it or not, because a nuclear power plant cannot be switched off spontaneously, the present system of financing means that the taxpayer will fund the wastage that occurs on the grid when nuclear powered electricity generated is not used.
Historically, approximately 64% of energy produced by the centralised energy generation and transmission system has been wasted4. This happens in the production of electricity – the efficiency of the plants themselves, the heat generated that is wasted and the transmission and distribution of electricity across the country. Therefore, the projected carbon emissions savings are overstated because most of the electricity produced is not used, or worse, clean renewable power is switched off to manage oversupply of electricity on the grid.
Construction on the 3.26GW Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset began in 2016. Unprecedented feats of engineering have been achieved during the process, of which engineers are rightly proud.
In total, 74,600 tonnes of concrete has been poured to construct its base, the four intake heads and two outfall heads. 3km of cement tunnels have been constructed to expel the cooling water for the plant into the Bristol Channel.
These carbon emissions have already been
absorbed in the atmosphere, long before the plant starts producing
electricity. Renewable sources of energy (like the three windfarms in Kent powering 400,000 homes) are
cheaper, come with much less associated environmental destruction, and
have a carbon footprint a fraction of the carbon emissions produced by
the concrete footprint of nuclear power." Go to: https://bhesco.co.uk/blog/hinkley-point-c-why-nuclear-power-accelerates-carbon-emissions for full article.