Newsletter XXVII 2023

For the failed car toll, the federal government has to pay damages of 243 million euros to the intended operating companies. This has revived the debate about whether politicians should be held personally responsible for their decisions. Yes, with certain restrictions, says Tim Szent-Ivanyi.

Berlin. The federal government has to pay 243 million euros in damages to the operating companies actually intended for the car toll. A quarter billion euros! If the federal government did not have to transfer this money to companies, the debate about cuts in parental benefits, for example, would be superfluous. And what does the person who caused the debacle say, Scheuer Andi? He takes the criticism to heart, said the ex-transport minister. Well at least that.

But that shouldn't be the end of the story. The question arises as to whether politicians can at least be held liable for gross negligence. And that is very obvious in the case of the "foreigners' toll". Finally, it later emerged that even the potential operating companies had offered to wait for the judgment of the European Court of Justice before the contract was signed in 2018, which ultimately overturned the toll ...

Unexploded ordnance will cause many civilian casualties in Ukraine

According to the US announcement

Much criticism of delivery of cluster munitions

The US government's plan to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine has sparked concern and criticism. Internationally, the use of more than 100 countries is outlawed - including Germany. But the federal government is only reacting cautiously.

The United States' planned delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine has drawn widespread international criticism. António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, commented on the announcement by the US government that night. He rejects "that cluster munitions continue to be used on the battlefield".

The International Committee of the Red Cross had also stated that wherever such munitions were used on a large scale, a high number of avoidable civilian deaths would have resulted. This is mainly due to the high rate of duds. The probability that some of the submunitions contained in the cluster bombs will not explode is sometimes up to 40 percent with these projectiles...

July 8, 2008 (INES 1 Class.?) Eurodif, Pierrelatte, FRA

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Tricastin (France)

2008 uranium accident

On July 8, 2008, an alarm was raised in the Tricastin area. In a plant for the treatment of uranium solutions on the nuclear power plant site, 30 cubic meters (= 30.000 liters) uranium-containing liquid leaked out of a leaking retention basin during cleaning ...

Water extraction and fishing were prohibited. The environmental protection movement Sortir du Nucléaire dismissed the regulator's claim that there was little risk as downplaying it. "Anyone who drinks contaminated water has the particles in their body. Even with low levels of radiation, there is a considerable risk of cancer."

On July 11, three days later, the nuclear supervisory authority prohibited further operation of the plant because the safety measures were insufficient. It was suddenly said 224 kilograms of uranium leaked and 74 kilograms of it got into the waters.

The classification of the accident as an INES level 1 incident was doubted by Sortir du Nucléaire because radioactivity was released. "If you take the information from the authorities as a basis, the incident should at least be classified as a "serious incident" at level 3, if not as an "accident" at level 4" ...

Wikipedia

Eurodif#accident

About the amount of the leaked pollutants, the information varies between 6,25 cubic meters of solution with about 75 kilograms of non-enriched uranium (operator information) and 30 cubic meters of solution with about 360 kilograms of uranium (ASN).

According to an independent investigation by the organization CRIIRAD, the incident exceeded the legal limits for annual radiation emissions into the environment by more than 100 times ...

7 July

United States supplies the Ukraine with cluster munitions

Cluster munitions: Traffic light coalition shows understanding for delivery of banned weapons to Ukraine

Government spokesman accounts for use by Russian troops. Only: in both cases, duds endanger Ukrainian civilians. UN human rights office has a clear opinion.

Cluster munitions leave behind large quantities of duds and sometimes endanger the civilian population in what was then the combat zone long after a war. This type of ammunition has therefore been banned under international law since 2010 – at least in the more than 110 countries that signed and ratified the 2008 Oslo Convention. The USA, Russia and Ukraine are not among them.

After reports in the New York Times and other media about a possible delivery of cluster munitions from the USA to Ukraine, the federal government has now pointed out that Germany has joined the international agreement to ban this munition - but at the same time government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit signaled understanding on Friday for shipment across the United States...

CSU | Bavaria | Kini Jödler | Scheuer-Andi | billion grave

State Parliament - Munich:

CSU has invaded Bavaria with a "billion grave" route

Before the end of the investigative committee on the main S-Bahn route in Munich, the Greens again raise serious criticism of the state government and Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). "The state government has long concealed, concealed and covered up the disaster. It was only after the lost federal election that Söder found a good time to publish it," said Markus Büchler, parliamentary group spokesman for mobility, on Friday in Munich. For years, the state government had the "billion grave" built in order to create a fait accompli.

From the point of view of the Greens, the months of file research and the hearings of witnesses in the committee have shown that the state government and the former CSU Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer have not adequately controlled the gigantic infrastructure project in the Bavarian state capital. As a result, the state government is directly responsible for the explosion in costs and the delay in completion. They also criticized the fact that despite the unclear prospects for the project, possible alternatives, such as those without tunnel construction, were not even being examined...

solar cell efficiency | silicon perovskite

Silicon Perovskite:

A third of the incident solar radiation becomes electricity

New records are being set for the efficiency of silicon perovskite solar cells worldwide. The current value is 33,7 percent.

Solar energy is considered one of the pillars of green energy generation. But their effectiveness is limited. Research teams around the world are working on optimizing solar cells. It is a real competition in which new records are constantly being set. The current maximum value for perovskite silicon tandem cells is an efficiency of 33,7 percent ...

Climate change | Daily new temperature records | man made

The hottest days since 1880

The Earth's climate has just broken a questionable record. Why do the responsible politicians not want to admit that? Those would be the necessary conclusions. A comment.

A heat record: July 3, 2023 was the hottest day worldwide since weather records began in 1880, according to the National Center for Environment Prediction (NCEP) in the USA.

But the record only lasted one day, on July 4th it was even hotter. "This is not a milestone that we should celebrate," says British climate researcher Friederike Otto. "It's a death sentence for people and ecosystems."

The United States has experienced an intense heat wave in recent weeks. In California, temperatures rose to 49 degrees. Likewise in Mexico, Canada and North Africa. Scientists blame climate change, but also El Niño ...

China | Tritium | Japan

Because of plans for nuclear power plant wastewater

China wants to ban food imports from Japan

Japan is allowed to discharge radioactive cooling water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. For security reasons, China now wants to ban food imports from parts of the country. South Korea sees things much more calmly.

China wants to ban food imports from parts of Japan as a result of the planned discharge of treated cooling water from the damaged Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima into the sea. According to the Chinese customs authority, the import of food from ten Japanese prefectures is to be banned for security reasons, including Fukushima. Strict radiation tests are planned for food from the rest of Japan...

Methane | Glacier | Permafrost

Arctic: Glacier retreat exposes methane sources

On Svalbard alone, sources in the foreland of the glacier emit 2.300 tons of methane per year

Fatal feedback: The shrinking glaciers of the Arctic could become a hitherto underestimated source of the potent greenhouse gas methane. Because the retreat of the glacier exposes groundwater sources from which methane dissolved in water bubbles to the surface - with a concentration up to 600.000 times higher than in the atmosphere, as measurements on Spitsbergen show. Through these methane emissions, glacier retreat could further fuel climate change – a classic vicious circle.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and is released, among other things, during anaerobic decomposition of organic material in soil, marine sediments or bodies of water. The gas can also escape from underground natural gas and gas hydrate deposits. But some of these potential sources of methane are still blocked: the permafrost and the ice sheets of the polar regions cover the deposits and prevent the gas from escaping.

But this is changing with climate change. The melting sea ice, the thawing permafrost on land and in the sea and even the melt water from glaciers are now releasing more methane, as studies have shown ...

6 July

Our ex-transport minister, Scheuer-Andi from the CSU and his toll debacle:

Scheuer-Andi regrets nothing

The idea of a “foreigner toll” costs taxpayers 243 million euros. Now Andreas Scheuer will probably say goodbye to politics.

What is Andreas Scheuer really up to? In May, the only MP from Passau visited the homophobic Republican far-right and climate change denier Ron DeSantis in Florida. A few weeks ago, after Claudia Pechstein's yesterday's appearance in a federal police outfit at the CDU convention, he praised one of his "great successes": free train travel in uniform. "As Federal Minister of Transport, I was able to ensure that our #soldiers receive such a sign of recognition and appreciation," Scheuer tweeted.

Scheuer-Andi, as they call him in the south, doesn't seem to have much to do at the moment. The Lower Bavarian kept the ball totally flat on Thursday on the occasion of his 243 million euro legacy to all German taxpayers: no comment on the damages that the federal government has to pay to the operators of the car toll ...

geoengineering | darken sun | Solar power station in space

Controversial geoengineering: US releases report on darkening the sun to combat global warming

Can you block the sun to prevent climate change? Methods of geoengineering sound tempting, but have hardly been researched so far.

WASHINGTON DC – The goal of preventing global warming to exceed 1,5 degrees above pre-industrial levels is becoming increasingly elusive. A method seems to be gaining in appeal that some researchers warn against but that others would like to explore further: solar geoengineering. It is about using methods and technologies to change the climate in order to mitigate the consequences of climate change.

[...]

However, the USA apparently does not plan to use geoengineering methods in the near future. "Importantly, this report does not represent a change in policy or activities of the Biden-Harris administration, which remains focused on reducing emissions, increasing resilience, promoting environmental justice and achieving true energy security," it said A White House statement accompanying the report stressed that there were no plans for a comprehensive research program focused on changing solar radiation. With the publication one fulfills only a mandate of the congress.

Photovoltaics | Tender Solar

Tender for PV systems on buildings and noise barriers as of June 1, 2023 oversubscribed

Bonn - The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has published the results of the latest tender for solar systems on buildings and noise protection walls (solar systems of the second segment). After the last three tenders for PV systems in the second segment were signed, the bidding round on June 1, 2023 was significantly oversubscribed.

The tender volume in this round was 191 megawatts (MW), but 155 bids with a volume of 342 MW were submitted. Of these, the BNetzA was able to accept 79 bids with a volume of 193 MW ...

Renewables | Power Supply | Battery storage

Future power system

sun in the basement

A more decentralized power supply with storage makes up to 30 percent more renewable energy possible in the grid. According to a study, network overloads, which means that green electricity has to be "thrown away", can then be avoided much better.

The sun is powerful: In June, for example, solar energy took over a large part of the power supply in Germany on many days. Last Sunday, at 12 noon, for example, it delivered around 39,8 gigawatts, while the total consumption was 54,9 gigawatts. So that was more than two thirds.

Photovoltaics is to be further expanded, and so in the foreseeable future there will be phases in which, at least regionally, there will be more electricity supply than demand. There is then a risk of network overload.

But more decentralized supply concepts - including battery storage in buildings and electric cars as buffers - can help to avoid this, a new study shows ...

heating law

The FDP alone is responsible for stopping the heating law

In the farce of a debate about the heating law, I feel like the little child who is the only one to point out that the emperor is actually naked. So much is systematically lied here and almost no one dares to address it. Everyone acts like it's normal. Here you can read the facts and background that very few media address and how the FDP, together with the Axel Springer press, hijacked the entire public with lies in order to completely cash in on the GEG.

They wanted to bring the draft law before the summer break, since the law is supposed to apply from 2024 and many people want planning security. You don't know what exactly will apply in half a year. Nothing will come of it now. Even if many want to put the blame on the Greens - including those from the FDP - this is almost exclusively the fault of the FDP ...

5 July

storage from Hydrogen

Solution for storing hydrogen safely and efficiently receives European Inventor Award 2023

Multidisciplinary team from France has developed a whole new way to store hydrogen in the form of solid state panels

The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced that French inventors Patricia de Rango, Daniel Fruchart, Albin Chaise, Michel Jehan and Nataliya Skryabina have won the European Inventor Award 2023 in the Research category. The team was selected from more than 600 nominations for their method of storing hydrogen efficiently and safely in the form of solid plates that are easier to store and transport...

electrolysis | green hydrogen | hydrogen import

How expensive will green hydrogen be?

Domestic H2 production would be cheaper than importing it by ship

It also makes economic sense: according to new analyses, green hydrogen from Germany could be cheaper than importing H2 by ship. According to this, the supply costs for hydrogen produced in Germany will be seven to 2030 cents per kilowatt hour by 13,5, and only 2050 to 6,7 cents per kilowatt hour by 8,5. This would make domestic electrolysis more economical than shipping from North Africa. In order to meet the demand, however, renewable energies would have to be expanded further.

[...] According to current forecasts, German hydrogen demand will almost double from the current 55 terawatt hours per year by 2030. By 2050, estimates assume a total annual H2 requirement of around 200 to 700 TWh, of which industry will need between 75 and 360 TWh and the energy industry will need between 15 and 375 TWh, depending on the scenario. The wide range is mainly due to the fact that some scenarios envisage the use of hydrogen in transport and for heating buildings, while others do not.

This shows that the demand for green hydrogen could significantly exceed the supply - especially if transport and buildings are included. "Both domestic H2 production and H2 imports will not be able to keep up with the rapidly increasing H2 demand in the short to medium term," say the researchers ...

Climate change | extreme temperatures | El Niño

El Niño started: why it doesn't bode well for the world

Energy and climate – compact: Important wind and sea currents are changing. The meteorologists warn of extreme temperatures, but also storms. Why is that?

This promises to be a particularly hot year. Now the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the umbrella organization of national weather services, has officially announced the start of a long-awaited so-called El Niño. This is a natural fluctuation in the atmospheric circulation of the tropics and subtropics and changed ocean currents occurring every two to seven years, especially off the coast of Peru, i.e. in the eastern tropical Pacific.

The problem: climate change is making these fluctuations more pronounced from time to time, and the El Niño years are particularly warm years on a global scale...

Climate policy | Climate movement | Fridays for Future

Controversy over the goal of the climate movement

Boris Palmer takes on Luisa Neubauer

Boris Palmer is back in Tübingen City Hall - and in the media. In the "Welt" he publishes a letter to Luisa Neubauer. He accuses the Fridays for Future activist of taking the wrong approach to climate policy by not focusing on energy companies as opponents.

[...] The former Green Party politician accuses Neubauer that her criticism of a "fossil" lifestyle is "nothing other than a frontal attack on the Western model of prosperity." He points out that human progress in crucial areas of life would not have been possible without the use of "easily and cheaply available fossil energy sources". Neubauer is pursuing a wrong approach to climate policy and is thus creating a "new opposition"...

July 5, 2000 (INES Class.?) Grafenrheinfeld, DEU

Wikipedia

Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant

At the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant, there was a fire in the motor of the main coolant pump, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the reactor pressure vessel...

AtomkraftwerkePlag

Grafenrheinfeld (Bavaria)

4 July

Climate change | Temperature | centigrade

US researchers Monday was the hottest day in history

It is not a milestone to celebrate, but "a death sentence": According to US researchers, July 3rd was the hottest day in the world since records began. Climate change and El Niño are to blame.

According to US scientists, Monday, July 3, was the world's hottest day on record. The average global temperature has reached 17,01 degrees Celsius, the US National Centers for Environmental Forecasting (NCEP) said. This surpassed the previous record of August 2016 with 16,92 degrees Celsius

"This is not a milestone we should be celebrating," said researcher Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, which specializes in climate change and the environment. "It's a death sentence for people and ecosystems." ...

Nuclear waste | anti-nuclear movement | exit

Future of the anti-nuclear movement

It's not over yet

The anti-nuclear movement is still necessary after the reactors have been shut down: the waste problem remains, nuclear research and fuel rod production continue.

April 15 was the end. One minute before midnight, the Neckarwestheim II reactor, the last of what were once 36 nuclear power plants in Germany, went offline. Since then, the production of nuclear power and nuclear waste has been history - a major social conflict lasting decades seems to have ended with the great success of the anti-nuclear movement.

[...]

Nevertheless, the joy about the end of the nuclear power plant was rather muted among many in the movement. Because the conflict over nuclear power and the energy transition is not over with the shutdown of the reactor. Not only the ongoing operation of nuclear power plants, but also the demolition, which has been dragging on for decades, harbors dangers. Tens of thousands of tons of scrap, some of which is heavily contaminated, have to be removed and transported away. The Radiation Protection Ordinance allows radioactive material such as contaminated building rubble or metal parts to be disposed of as "normal" waste - as long as a certain limit is not exceeded. Just a few days ago, the report caused concern that the operator of the Gorleben interim storage facility had hoods from castor containers disposed of at a local scrap dealer.

The nuclear phase-out is not complete either: The fuel element factory in Lingen and the uranium enrichment plant in Gronau, which supply nuclear power plants in half of Europe with fresh "fuel", have unlimited operating licenses ...

Climate Crisis | Climate movement | social justice

climate justice movement

Orientation in times of crisis

The climate movement is in crisis. Just as she criticizes the eternal "Keep it up" in society, she also has to open herself up to new strategies, such as "community organizing". It is worth looking at other movements worldwide.

When the climate movement called for "system change instead of climate change" in 2018, it felt like there was no stopping them. From the dusty fields in the face of the Hambach Forest grew the feeling that "we can do it" and that we really are "unstoppable".

The first climate strikes in 2019 carried and nourished this feeling. Pupils: Inside demonstrated resolutely and struck the processes of normality instead of going to school. The impossible appeared on the horizon: the conviction that we really could do something about climate change...

Federal Environment Agency | achieve climate targets | transport sector

UBA: Climate targets achievable with new vehicle tax and new heaters

The Federal Environment Agency has calculated how the 2030 climate targets can still be achieved and is proposing instruments such as a penalty system in motor vehicle tax.

The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) assumes that the German climate targets for 2030 can be achieved. However, according to the UBA's current climate protection instrument scenario (KIS-2030), significantly greater efforts are needed, especially in the transport and building sectors, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, the Öko-Institut and the Institute for Resource Efficiency and Energy Strategies contributed to this.

For the transport sector, the UBA recommends a system of purchase premiums and penalties in vehicle tax for high-emission new vehicles. The UBA also suggests that the diesel tax privilege should be abolished and company car taxation should be redesigned. There should be a CO₂ price surcharge for the truck toll, it is also necessary to expand the truck energy infrastructure and public transport ...

3 July

Electricity price | Wind energy | grid fee

Quaschning explains: electricity price zones

The wind power blockade in southern Germany makes our electricity expensive. Others pay the bill. That's why we should divide Germany into two electricity price zones: cheap electricity for the north, expensive electricity for the south. Maybe it will work with the energy transition

Photovoltaics and wind power are the cheapest ways of generating electricity. But southern Germany has a problem with wind power. She was sabotaged there for a long time.

So grids are needed to bring in cheap wind power from northern Germany. And that's exactly why people in northern Germany pay particularly high network fees.

Bavaria and Co are slowing down the energy transition, making it expensive and making others pay for it too? Those who sabotage the energy transition and climate protection should at least bear the costs...

heat transition | heating law | heat plan | Building Energy Act

The heated turnaround

Even if the revised "Heating Act" passes the Bundestag this week, it can only have an effect on climate protection in a few years, and not even everywhere. How could it come to this?

If the so-called heating law is actually passed by the Bundestag before the summer break this week, some in the traffic light coalition will probably wipe the sweat from their brows. After the cabinet decision in April, the opposition and, crazily, parts of the government ran so hot that the waste heat produced could have got political Berlin comfortably through the winter.

All's well that ends well, then? Unfortunately not. Because with the guard rails of the coalition leaders, which are now being filled out with details, the amendment to the Building Energy Act (GEG) - as it is actually called - is being sensitively reduced in its short-term effect.

This is mainly due to the link with the Municipal Heat Planning Act. In principle, this is absolutely correct, but it now means that the provisions of the GEG are suspended on site until the respective municipalities have completed their heat planning ...

Skilled workers | Immigration

Skills shortage

Economy Schnitzer: net immigration of 400.000 people per year

According to the Schnitzer economy, Germany needs 1,5 million immigrants every year to adequately counter the shortage of skilled workers. This number is necessary if, minus the considerable emigration, you have 400.000 new citizens every year and thus want to maintain the number of workers, said the economist of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". Schnitzer heads the German government's council of experts.

A culture of welcome is also necessary, it said. The government's new Skilled Labor Act is a step in the right direction. But more is needed: Germany needs immigration offices that don't deter immigrants, but offer service. One shouldn't demand for every job that the foreign skilled workers could speak German, but instead ensure that the employees of the foreigners' registration office speak English, stressed the economy ...

2 July

PFAS

First US state to ban PFAS

PFAS were invented at 3M's Minnesota headquarters. Now the US state is the first to completely ban the toxic chemicals.

The discussion about the so-called "forever chemicals" PFAS has been going on for decades. Individual PFAS (pronounced "Peh-fass") are already banned in many countries. The US state of Minnesota is now taking a bold step further and banning the entire class of chemicals, which consists of around 5000 individual substances. There are few exceptions.

According to the HF 2310 law, which was approved by Governor Tim Walz at the end of May, PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated alkyl compounds) will no longer be permitted in 13 product categories from 2025. The ban affects, for example, cookware, cosmetics, cleaning agents, monthly hygiene products and dental floss. From 2026, all products containing PFAS will have to be reported. From 2032 all PFAS will be banned...

Drinking water | water supply | water strategy

National water strategy

How the federal government wants to secure the water supply

In the spring, the Federal Government adopted the National Water Strategy. In view of climate change and droughts, she wants to ensure the drinking water supply in the long term - and avoid conflicts in advance if possible.

The most important sentence in the national water strategy is right at the beginning: "Water is the basis of all life," says the 120-page edition from March 2023. It also says that water is not a common commodity, but a public good that needs to be protected and must be treated with care. With the national water strategy, water-related measures from all important areas should be bundled for the first time - agriculture and nature conservation, administration and transport, urban development and industry.

[...] Who uses the most water in Germany?

In Germany, the most water is withdrawn by the energy supply (44,2 percent), the manufacturing sector including mining and industry (26,8 percent), the public water supply (26,8 percent) and agriculture (2,2 percent). . The public water supply uses around 70 percent groundwater and spring water, while the energy supply mainly uses river water.


Current news+	Background knowledge

Current news+

Renaissance | military-industrial complex | Nuclear lobby

Is nuclear power experiencing a renaissance? There are also military interests behind it

A revival of nuclear energy would not only block the energy transition, but also bring new military dangers with it.

1. In the beginning there was the bomb. In December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin succeeded in the first uranium fission, which was then interpreted by Lise Meitner and Robert Frisch in terms of nuclear physics. Nuclear power enabled the large-scale production of secondary energy. Since then, as we know today, mankind has held the key to self-destruction. As early as August 1939, Albert Einstein warned American President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter about a Nazi Germany with a "bomb of new destructive power". After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States began building the atomic bomb. That was the Manhattan Project.

On July 16, 1945, two months after the liberation of Europe from fascism, the Trinity test started. The first nuclear weapon was detonated over the Los Alamos desert. Two more bombs were supposed to hit Berlin and Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, but after the end of the war against Hitler's Germany the targets were redefined. "Little Boy" was dropped on the Japanese port city of Hiroshima on August 6, and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki three days later. This opened the door to nuclear hell. The USSR followed with the atomic bomb in 1949, Great Britain in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1971. The "club of five" nuclear powers came together and became a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Arms race up to the Tsar bomb

During the Cold War, a nuclear arms race broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union. America detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, with a destructive power 800 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. In 1961, the USSR detonated the "Tsar Bomb", the largest nuclear weapon ever built, over the island of Novaya Zemlya. In the 1980s, the nuclear arsenal of the two military superpowers contained more than 800.000 Hiroshima bombs. This "balance of terror" kept the world from a hot war. When the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, Moscow and Washington agreed to withdraw their medium-range missiles from the enemy's immediate area of influence and to establish a hotline for communication in the event of a conflict. These were the first principles of the Pax Atomica, in which the USA accepted the dominance and interests of the enemy in his sphere of influence and, conversely, the USSR accepted those of the Americans. The nuclear umbrella of the superpowers made global security possible and prevented the use of nuclear weapons. Conventional wars in the respective spheres of influence were accepted.

Russia and the US have 11.133 nuclear warheads in their arsenals today. China, France, Great Britain, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea together have 1.379 nuclear weapons. As of January 2023, 9.576 nuclear bombs were operational. The USA, Russia and China in particular are currently modernizing their nuclear weapon systems, the carrier systems are becoming faster and faster, and the warning times are correspondingly shorter. After the American Senate cleared the way in 2003, work was also done on mini-nukes. These are nuclear bombs under five kilotons. According to surveys by the Swedish peace research institute SIPRI, the United States pumped $2022 billion into its nuclear weapons systems in 43,7, more than all other nuclear-weapon countries combined.

The civilian use of nuclear power was only the second step in the nuclear age. On December 20, 1951, the American experimental reactor Arco (Idaho) generated electricity for the first time. Two years later, on December 8, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace program at the United Nations. He spoke of a new "planetary vision for peace and prosperity", probably also to distract from the enormous destructive power of the bomb. Back then, even Ernst Bloch raved about the inexhaustible energy of the atom, which overcomes hunger and poverty and transforms deserts into “blossoming landscapes”. Promises that sound grotesque today.

Knowledge of nuclear physics from the Nazi era was preserved

In West Germany, the "Uranium Association" around Werner Heisenberg tried to preserve the nuclear physics knowledge of the Nazi era. He received support from Siemens, AEG, Hoechst, Bayer and Metallgesellschaft, among others. After the Federal Republic of Germany gained more national sovereignty with the Paris Treaty of 1955, the Federal Ministry for Atomic Affairs (today the Federal Ministry for Education and Research) was founded on October 20, 1955. The first minister was Franz-Josef Strauss (CSU), who - like Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer - considered building an atomic bomb to arm the Bundeswehr. Both distrusted the American security guarantee for Germany. When Adenauer downplayed the atomic bomb as a "further development of artillery", the resistance of the "Göttinger 18" formed, which included the Nobel Prize winners Otto Hahn, Max Born and Werner Heisenberg. They strictly rejected the development of a German nuclear weapon and advocated exclusively civilian use of nuclear power.

Warnings about the dangers and consequences of atomic energy, which came from Professor Karl Bechert, who represented the SPD in the German Bundestag, were completely incomprehensible at the time. The turning point in the assessment was the arguments about the planned nuclear power plant (nuclear power plant) Wyhl am Kaiserstuhl and the construction of the nuclear power plant Brokdorf near Hamburg. After the serious accident in Harrisburg, USA (1979) and the implosion in the Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Chernobyl (1986), acceptance ended: nuclear power, no thanks!

[...] France leads nuclear proponents in the EU

2. Nuclear Energy Renaissance? The Fukushima chain reaction also reached distant Berlin. Within just five days, the black and yellow nuclear friends became a coalition of dropouts. The end of nuclear energy was definitively laid down by law. On April 15, 2023, the last three nuclear power plants in Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 went offline. The short but expensive episode was over. But does it really end? There are forces that want to open a new chapter. In Germany, votes are not only coming from the AfD, but also from the Union and the FDP. Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) even wants to transfer responsibility for nuclear energy to the federal states. And on France's initiative, the pro-nuclear camp in the EU is also regrouping. They claim that nuclear energy supply has a future, after all there is better technology. Three claims are central; a closer look is in order: ...


Current news+	Background knowledge

***

Background knowledge

The map of the nuclear world

The military are pushing...

The internal search for

military-industrial complex | Nuclear lobby

brought the following results, among others:

February 11, 2023 - The Tales of the Blackout

October 16, 2022 - The "Friends of MIK" in AFD, CDU/CSU and FDP are ready to fight for the nuclear industry until democracy is over.

April 25, 2021 - MiK gears up for important battles to come

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Keyword search: military-industrial complex

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Videos:

AFP on Jul 28, 2022 - 1:16

Nuclear power renaissance is "not a good solution"

arte documentary - 00:01:54 - Excerpt from "Wy We Fight - America's Wars"

US President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Warning about the military-industrial complex

arte documentary - 01:38:43

Documentary: Why We Fight - America's Wars - The Military-Industrial Complex

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The search engine Ecosia is planting trees!

Keyword search: military-industrial complex

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Wikipedia

Military-industrial complex

The term military-industrial complex (MIK) is used in socio-critical analyzes to describe the close cooperation and mutual relationships between politicians, representatives of the military and representatives of the defense industry ...

Permanent armaments economy

The theory of the permanent armaments economy tries to explain the upswing of the capitalist states after the Second World War within the framework of Marxism. Marxists need to explain this because most of them assumed during World War II that history would repeat itself. As after the First World War, crises and stagnation tendencies along the lines of the global economic crisis of 1929 would soon appear after perhaps short-lived dizzy spells. In fact, capitalism experienced a sustained upswing after World War II. The permanent armaments economics theory takes a certain difference between the post-war periods of the two world wars as its starting point. After the First World War, the states quickly reduced their armaments to a peaceful level, but after the Second World War, the increase in armaments continued in the course of the Cold War. This ongoing armament is responsible for the long upswing after the Second World War. The various varieties of the theory of permanent armaments economy differ in the assessment of how armaments had a positive effect on economic development in detail ...

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Newsletter XXVI 2023 - June 25th to July 1st

Newspaper article 2023

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