nuclear-weapons – Learning, Science and Society

The news that a team of scientists at America’s prestigious Ohio State University have created a remarkable new battery that captures energy from nuclear waste might once have passed almost unremarked. Our link from Andrew Cuthbertson of the Independent[1] details how the remarkable Professor Cao and his team have taken spent nuclear fuel from reactors and converted the gamma rays into light, which can then power photovoltaic cells. We’ve put in a couple more links if you want to know more[2] [3] But for us, today, our interest lies in a slightly different direction. We suspect that astute readers my guess where.

For this kind of breakthrough used to be commonplace in the American Heartland. Starting after 1865 a vast ecology of Universities, Research Institutes and hopeful start-up companies grew. It gave the USA the economic power to surpass and then destroy the British Empire and to defeat Germany and the USSR in both armed and commercial conflicts. sitting at the centre of it was a belief in Science, at least among a sufficient mass of the population to count.

The current President of the United States looks hell bent to destroy all that. [4] as this link to a Nature main article shows. And look again at Anthony’s article. Which other country gets a mention? China, of course. Slowly ,steadily and with much less noise they steal a march on poor old Uncle Sam and its hapless, impulsive leader. Americans should ask themselves this question: is all this really worth it just to appease the prejudices of 20 million or so voters? Will any of you actually be voting in 2035, anyway?

_{with thanks to P Seymour}

[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-atomic-waste-electricity-b2704893.html

[2]https://news.osu.edu/scientists-design-novel-battery-that-runs-on-atomic-waste/

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

[4]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00562-w?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=bf0c0e5f06-nature-briefing-daily-20250226&utm_medium=email&utm_te

#nuclear energy #china #usa #economics #science #technology

Whatever has happened in your life, and whatever catastrophes 2024 may bring, gentle reader, you have no right not to be of Good Cheer. Because you have had forty years of life, which began on 26th September 1983, when the world avoided catastrophic nuclear war by the narrowest of margins.

After a brief detente in the1970s, the world in 1983 was moving towards the peak of of a second Cold War, as author Brian J Morra ably explains in The Near Nuclear War of 1983 [1] Mutual fear and suspicion between the USSR and the Western Alliance had been growing exponentially since 1979. By 1983, each sides’ defence forces were on hair trigger alert. The shooting down of the Korean Airliner 007 on 1st September had caused a total severing of communication. Then on 26th September*[2] the OKO Soviet Defence system reported that the US had launched a nuclear strike from its base at Grand Forks, ND. Fortunately for the world, the duty officer on the Soviet side was one Stanislav Petrov, of whom Brian Morra comments

Petrov possessed unique knowledge of the strengths and flaws in the Soviets’ new satellite warning system, and assessed that the launch reports—which came in several, harrowing waves—must be false alarms. Petrov advised his leadership against a retaliatory attack. Petrov—the accidental watch commander—was truly the right man in the right place at the right time.

In fact there had already been a near trigger incident on 3rd September, involving a stand-off between Russian and American fighters near the site of the KAL 007 crash site, and this time an American, General Charles Donnelly had finessed us away from war. But there is no doubting Petrov’s central role in this account, and he deservedly received a Dresden Peace Prize and film called The Man Who Saved the World in 2013 [3]

For save it he did. Anyone who was alive at that time, and their children, and grandchildren, owe everything they have, and all their experiences, to that man. By 30th September, the world could have been reduced to smoking, radioactive ruins, with the survivors facing an oncoming Nuclear Winter of unimaginable duration. Instead they went out for Friday night drinks; prepared their boats for the last sail of the autumn; or got ready for the weekends’ shopping and football matches. And ever since they have had life, not death. And there is your reason to be cheerful.

*Morro gives 27th; clearly things like datelines and midnights have probably muddied the waters here)

[1] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/the-near-nuclear-war-of-1983/

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saved_the_World

#nuclear war #USA #USSR #NATO #Warsaw Pact #Brian J Morro #stanislav petrov

Tag: nuclear-weapons

Energy from Nuclear Waste: A last Hurrah for American Science?

Why you should be happy in 2024. Whatever it brings