Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 23rd, 2024. It’s the end of another week, and …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Thermonuclear’, ‘Magnus Trilogy’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and Sales"

The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election could reshape policies from health care at home to nuclear proliferation abroad

Dec 5, 2023

David W. Kearn argues that deployment of nuclear weapons cannot rectify a perceived imbalance in conventional forces in the western Pacific.

The Indian civil nuclear bureaucracy understands it is "essential" to advance cooperation with the U.S., but claims progress is stymied by the inability of U.S. firms to share sensitive technical information pending the authorizations required under U.S. licensing regulations.

Nov 26, 2020

• Elbe Group Discusses Strategic Stability, Hybrid Warfare and Terrorism.
• Mowatt-Larssen’s Book Details Lessons He Learned While Tracking Al-Qaida’s WMD Programs.
• Experts on New START Extension and Other Nuclear Priorities of Biden Presidency.
• Kazakhstan’s Last HEU Eliminated.
• William Potter Joins Russian Academy of Sciences.
• COVID, Nuclear Security On Agenda of IAEA’s 64th General Conference.
• Mayak Aims to Process Entire range of SNF.
• Atomguard Reports Foiling Unauthorized Access.
• Allison: US Vital Interest in Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism Will Continue to Guide Its North Korea Policy.
• Learning from COVID-19 to Prepare for Nuclear Attack.
• Hecker, Kassianova Encourage Young US and RF Professionals to Explore Lessons of Nuclear Accidents.
• Experts Weigh in on 75th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing.
• A New Look at IAEA’s Nuclear Security Recommendations.
• Azerbaijan Has Threatened to Strike Armenia’s NPP With Missiles.
• IAEA Notified of 189 Incidents Of Material Being Out Of Regulatory Control in 2019.
• Russia To Retrieve More Radioactive Debris from Bottom of Ocean.
• Researchers Propose Fast Way to Detect Weapons Grade Materials.
• Keeping Nuclear Power Plants Out of Reach of Terrorists During the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• Bunn, Tobey and Roth Testify on Prevention of Nuclear Theft, Call for Cooperation With Russia.
• Budapest Memorandum Parsed.
• IAEA Holds A Ministerial on Nuclear Security.
• Assessing Progress on Nuclear Security.
• 12^th GUMO Officer On Trial for Embezzlement.
• Lukashenko: Pompeo Alerted Me to Nuclear Materials at Border.
• US and Russia Reported HEU and Plutonium to IAEA.
• IAEA Bank Receives LEU.
• GICNT Hosted 8 Multilateral Activities in 2019.

Dec 10, 2021

• U.S.-Russia Elbe Group Maintains Focus on Threat of Nuclear Terrorism.
• Former Chernobyl Plant Manager Bryukhanov Dies.
• Matthew Bunn on Threat to Nuclear and Radiological Transports.
• On 9/11 Anniversary Russian Officials Call for Resumption of U.S.-Russian CT Cooperation.
• Experts Weigh in on 9/11 Anniversary.
• U.S. and Norway Agree to Eliminate All of Norway’s HEU.
• Two Soviet Nuclear Submarine Reactors Located.
• Russian Security Council: Terrorists Remain Interested in NBC.
• IAEA Adopts Resolutions on Nuclear Security, NS Center Planned.
• Allison on Risk of Mega-terrorist Attack After U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan.
• Arbatov Warns of Enduring Threat of Nuclear Terrorism to Russia in His New Volume.
• Russia’s New Security Strategy Drops References to CT Partnership With U.S.
• NNSA’s Non-Proliferation Budget to Decrease in ’22, Provides for US and Russian Visits.
• Should U.S.-Russian Interaction in Cyberspace Involve CT? 
• Russia’s NPP Operator Conducts Emergency Preparedness Exercise.
• Putin and Biden Discuss Terrorist Threat Emanating from Afghanistan, but No Deal.
• U.S. Experts on Ensuring Access to Neutrons While Reducing Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
• Beebe Weighs in on U.S.-Russian CT Interaction.
• Duo Detained for Alleged Attempt to Sell Americium-241.
• 12th GUMO Guard’s Sentence Upheld.
• NDAA-Mandated Group to Identify Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
• Belfer’s MTA Hosts Conference on Lessons of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
• Russia Withdraws from Uranium Hexafluoride Transportation Deal with U.S.
• Bell: U.S. Needs to Convince Russia on Contending With Nuclear Terrorism Threat.
• U.S. and Canada Complete Repatriation of HEU Material.
• Siegfried Hecker Outlines his Vision of Future for Nuclear Security Cooperation.
• Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Agency.
• Tobey on Assassinations of Nuclear Scientists and Terrorists.
• Rosatom Has Checked Nuclear Sites, Following a Tip on Terrorism from U.S.

Jun 21, 2022

Simon Saradzhyan was invited to publicly brief the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee addressing the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to nuclear terrorism, and identify technical, policy, and resource gaps. The consensus study is a congressionally mandated analysis included in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1299I) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy).  Nearly 60 stakeholders concerned about this topic from the Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, State Department, National Security Council, US Congress, the National Labs, and many non-governmental organizations were in attendance. The briefings are available at the NAS event website. Video of the presentation can be found here.

Mar 15, 2024

Europe after the Russo-Ukrainian War must develop a new security structure to defend against any Russian aggression. The safest option is a non-offensive, confidence-building defense. This option includes proposals such as the “spider in the web” strategy and the “porcupine” strategy to provide for European security in a region threatened by Russian expansion—without relying on the threat of nuclear war.

Mar 14, 2024

David Kearn argues that the idea that the first use of nuclear weapons since 1945 would be by the United States in the defense of Taiwan against a conventional Chinese invasion would have significant, negative, and long-lasting, diplomatic ramifications. It is difficult to fathom the myriad potential consequences, but U.S. nuclear weapon use would almost certainly shatter the non-proliferation regime as a functioning entity, incentivize states (including China) to acquire or improve their existing nuclear arsenal, and damage America's standing globally.

Mar 15, 2024

On March 13, President Vladimir Putin granted an interview, in which he again delved into the conditions under which he says he would initiate the use of nuclear weapons. His remarks were so ambiguous that it caused mainstream Western media organizations—which tend to agree on what to emphasize in news out of the Kremlin—to put divergent headlines on the news stories that they ran about this particular interview. “Putin, in Pre-Election Messaging, Is Less Strident on Nuclear War. The Russian leader struck a softer tone about nuclear weapons in an interview with state television,” was the NYT’s headline. In contrast, the FT’s headline was “Russia ‘prepared’ for nuclear war, warns Vladimir Putin. President resumes bullish rhetoric over use of atomic arsenal if west threatens Moscow’s sovereignty,” while CBS News ran with “Putin again threatens to use nuclear weapons, claims Russia's arsenal ‘much more’ advanced than America's” and WSJ led with “Putin Rattles Nuclear Saber Ahead of Presidential Elections; Raising specter of nuclear confrontation.” So, which is it? Has Putin just struck a softer tone about nuclear weapons or has he rattled his nuclear saber yet again? The answer is both.

Apr 1, 2024

Report by Trevor Findlay about recent politics surrounding the Iranian Nuclear Program.

Apr 17, 2024

Mariana Budjeryn presents "Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and Its Impact on the Global Nuclear Order" at the DOE/NNSA Administrator's Strategy Forum

Apr 18, 2024

Assaf Zoran argues that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran’s nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel.

Jun 4, 2024

Would the world be safer if the United States pledged to never use nuclear weapons first? Supporters say a credible pledge would strengthen crisis stability, decrease hostility, and bolster nonproliferation and arms control. But reactions to no-first-use pledges by the Soviet Union, China, and India suggest that adversaries perceive pledges as credible only when the political relationship between a state and its adversary is already relatively benign, or when the state’s military has no ability to engage in nuclear first use against the adversary. 

Jun 20, 2024

Matthew Bunn argues that governments need help from scientists and engineers both in understanding the dangers that nuclear weapons continue to pose and in finding paths to reduce them.

Mar 5, 2024

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

Mar 12, 2024

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine illuminated the long profound shadow of nuclear weapons over international security. Russia's nuclear threats have rightfully garnered significant attention because of the unfathomable lethality of nuclear weapons. However, the use of such weapons in Ukraine is only one way—albeit the gravest— that Russia could challenge the global nuclear order. Russia's influence extends deep into the very fabric of this order—a system to which it is inextricably bound by Moscow's position in cornerstone institutions such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). From withdrawing from key treaties to stymieing resolutions critical of misconduct, Moscow has demonstrated its ability to challenge the legitimacy, relevance, and interpretations of numerous standards and principles espoused by the West.

Adding blade-like sails to tankers could reduce their annual fuel consumption by up to 30 per cent, slashing the climate impact of the shipping industry

NEED POWER PLANT? A PRAGMATIC APPROACH IS NEED OF THE HOUR

Electric power is a growing need in a developing...

Average U.S. nuclear capacity outages during the summer of 2024 (June 1 through August 31) decreased to about 2.6 gigawatts (GW) per day from 3.1 GW in 2023, similar to average summer daily outages in 2022. Outages this past summer were highest in mid-July and early August, averaging 3.1 GW per day and peaking at 5.7 GW on the last day of August. More recently, nuclear outages have exceeded the five-year average because of weather-related disruptions and refueling outages.

NASA is on alert. The U.S. space agency is closely tracking two asteroids that would be making a close encounter with our planet. There is no need to be alarmed as the first asteroid is 130 feet in diameter and at

Meta's ambitious plans for an AI data center encountered an unexpected obstacle: a rare bee species. The Financial Times reported that this discovery disrupted Meta's discussions with a nuclear power plant operator in the US. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned during

Breakthrough could lead to new type of energy source

London : Pan Books Ltd : William Heinemann Ltd, 1986.

Inside these walls, scientists have been trying for decades to create an unlimited source of energy, nuclear fusion. Welcome to JET, the world's biggest nuclear fusion experiment. Scientists argue that fusion could replace coal gas and nuclear fission in the energy mix alongside renewable energy, which can prove to be unreliable. If we can learn to control it, nuclear fusion could change life as we know it. But that's a big if. This video was produced as part of Digital Society, a publishing partnership between WIRED and Vontobel where all content is editorially independent. Visit Vontobel Impact for more stories on how technology is shaping the future of society: https://www.vontobel.com/en-int/about-vontobel/impact/ With thanks to the CCFE: https://ccfe.ukaea.uk #WIRED #NuclearFusion #NuclearReactor

Alan Ahn, senior resident fellow of the Climate and Energy program at Third Way, an organization that advocates for sustainable nuclear power, will take the stage to discuss the future of nuclear power in the United States and how recent events in Ukraine and Japan have changed people’s perceptions of nuclear energy as a clean solution.

Alan Ahn, senior resident fellow of the Climate and Energy program at Third Way, an organization that advocates for sustainable nuclear power, will take the stage to discuss the future of nuclear power in the United States and how recent events in Ukraine and Japan have changed people’s perceptions of nuclear energy as a clean solution.

Nuclear fusion underpins some of the most basic processes in our universe and holds the promise of virtually limitless, clean, carbon-free energy. Dr. Anne White, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been challenged to explain the nature of nuclear fusion to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert.

The nuclear physics hub needs to finance the construction of the Future Circular Collider as its existing particle accelerator — famed for discovering the Higgs Boson — edges toward the end of its useful life

India has pledged to achieve net-zero by 2070 and has a target to generate 500 GW of renewable energy a year by 2030

With the government proposing such a partnership, the existing framework governing the nuclear energy sector needs to be assessed

Located around 50 km from Kota, the facility is key for meeting fuel needs of upcoming nuclear reactors

Any threat of use of nuclear weapons must be viewed seriously 

It is increasingly being realised that achieving net-zero is not possible without nuclear energy

Experts suggest exploring alternative energy sources, such as solar power