https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/local/2023/05/26/cost-overruns-delays-and-more-have-plagued-plant-vogtle-waynesboro-georgia/70258626007/ The average cost of electricity produced by the existing 22 reactors in the country is around ₹2.80 a kWhr, but the new plants, which cost ₹15-20 crore per MW to set up, will produce energy that cannot be sold commercially below at least ₹7 a unit. Nuclear power is pricing itself out of the market. Gujarat State Power Corporation had a tie-up with Atlantic Resources for a 50 MW tidal project in the Gulf of Kutch, but the project was given up after they discovered they could sell the electricity only at ₹13 a kWhr. Wind and solar power plants produce energy much cheaper, but their power supply is irregular. Russia has connected to the electricity grid its first Novovoronezh Unit 6. This unit is a VVER 1200/392M pressurised water reactor (PWR) unit with a design net capacity of 1114 MWe. Construction of Novovoronezh II units 1 and 2 – or Novovoronezh units 6 and 7 – began in June 2008 and July 2009, respectively. Generation 3.5 reactor design will next be modified for a supercritical water VVER-SCP gen 4 design. The dome, which was installed in November 2014, forms part of the unit’s double-walled containment structure – a major component for protecting the reactor and preventing the release of radioactive materials into the environment in the event of a serious accident. It is a key feature of the AES-2006 design. The new Novovoronezh units will have a passive heat removal system that, in the event of loss of on-site power supply, will provide long-term heat removal from the reactor core to the atmosphere using natural circulation.
Operation Alsos was a U.S. top secret effort to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was on the German nuclear energy project, but it also investigated both chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver them. It was established as part of the Manhattan Project's mission to coordinate foreign intelligence related to enemy nuclear activity. It was a competition to deny German technical skills to the Soviet Union. In India, there are currently 22 reactors with an installed capacity of 6,780 MWe (mega watt electrical), of which, eight reactors with aggregate capacity of 2,400 MWe are fuelled by indigenous uranium while the remaining 14 with a capacity of 4,380 MWe are under IAEA Safeguards and qualify to use imported uranium. This comes amid reports that two Australian companies BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, and Heathgate Resources, an affiliate of US company General Atomics, engaging with with the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) for exporting uranium to India. India plans to build 21 more reactors by 2030. China has kept India out of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the export of nuclear materials. China begin selling surplus nuclear materials since late 1979 till early 1990s "mainly to earn hard currency". China provided assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and engaged in nuclear cooperation with Iran. China also curtailed its nuclear- and missile-related transfers after China's 1996 pledge and 1997 changes to Chinese nuclear export policy. India's LEU-thorium design-based nuclear energy In October’s Physics World - having toured through India’s nuclear labs with a British High Commission team -- science writer Matthew Chalmers details India’s vision of a secure nuclear-energy future based on thorium technology. Unlike uranium, thorium-fuelled reactors do not result in a proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium. With 40% of its population not yet connected to the electricity grid and an economy growing by about 8% each year, India’s need for a bold energy strategy is apparent. While India already has 19 operational pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs), the government is planning to increase its nuclear contribution from its current 5GW to 28GW in the next 10 years and to a huge 270GW by 2050. India's three-stage vision was first set out in the 1950s by the father of the country’s nuclear programme, physicist Homi Bhabha. On returning from his studies at Cambridge University in the UK, Bhabha conceived a nuclear strategy that would work around India’s rather meagre resources of uranium, the fuel powering current commercial reactors. Instead, he sought to exploit the country's vast reserves of thorium, which - if bathed in an external supply of neutrons - can be used a nuclear fuel. The first stage of India's grand plan is based around the country's fleet of PHWRs and state-of-the-art research facilities, which have proceeded steadily despite the country being isolated for more than 30 years from the international uranium community after it detonated a nuclear device in 1974. Thus, India displayed its nuclear capability in 1974 but India never its nuclear capability was not for military purpose, but that forced Pakistan to step up its nuclear program in order to counter the Indian threat. Pakistan worked on its nuclear program very secretly and quickly. But following a landmark agreement with the US in October 2008 on civil nuclear cooperation, India can now, in principle, import fuel and reactors, while building more of its own, indigenous PHWRs. These reactors burn uranium while irradiating thorium oxide to produce uranium-233. Stage two, which seeks to plug India's energy deficit by 2050, involves using reprocessed plutonium to fuel "fast reactors" that breed further uranium-233 and plutonium from thorium and uranium. In stage three, advanced heavy-water reactors will burn uranium-233 while converting India’s thorium reserves into further uranium in a sustainable "closed" cycle. All three stages are running parallel and each has been demonstrated on a laboratory scale. The UK is also getting on India's thorium plans, with five nuclear-research proposals worth more than £2m being jointly funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and by India's Department of Atomic Energy. One of the grant holders is Mike Fitzpatrick from the Open University, who has already visited India's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai and claims to be "amazed at the ambition and resource behind India's nuclear programme, and how much UK researchers could benefit from being associated with it". India’s energy future doesn’t however end with thorium. As Chalmers writes, “In a modern context, Bhabha’s nuclear vision is part of a wider goal for clean, affordable energy also in form of solar, wind and hydroelectricity - all of which India is investing in heavily. “India’s nuclear programme could even one day encompass nuclear fusion, with the country already a partner in the ITER project currently being built in France“ DAE is having trouble with having enough trained human resources required for maintaining the two existing Russia-supplied VVER-1000 PWRs at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. India has put a total of 26 nuclear facilities under IAEA International Nuclear Energy Wachdog. India plans to build 21 more reactors by 2030. Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam 155mm M-28 / M-29 "Davy Crockett" battlefield nuclear weapon for firing the M-388 nuclear shells (used on Mk-54 shell) that was deployed by the US during the Cold War for use against Soviet & North Korean armor and troops in case war broke out in Europe or the Korean peninsula. The W54 warhead used on the Davy Crockett weighed just 23 kgs and was the smallest & lightest (variable explosive yield) sub-kiloton fission nuclear weapon ever built by the US. India has only ten 3,500km Agni-III nuclear missile launchers capable of hitting the entire Chinese stratagic areas of its mainland and 8 to 10 medium-range Agni-II nuclear missile launchers capable of reaching central China. India also has less than 12 Agni-V nuclear missiles. India’s retaliation doctrine dictates the dispersal of the arsenal, the secrecy of its locations and strong second-strike capabilities. China has approx. 350 nuclear warheads, at least 90 to 240 ICBMs, out of which 66 to 78 are land-based and 24 to 48 are submarine-based (12 JL-2 missiles per boat). In 1987, China had started increasing its presence along the border with 20,000 soldiers. 8 more divisions were stationed in eastern Tibet. It was clear that China wanted to scare India by projecting power as part of its strategy. This military movement of China provoked the Indian government to give statehood to Arunachal Pradesh, despite China’s resistance. In early 1987 Beijing’s tone became similar to that of 1962, and with the Indian Army denying to stand down, with Western diplomats predicted war. In many places, Chinese and Indian soldiers stood practically face-to-face at a distance of a few meters.
The UN nominated Bhabha as the president of the first Geneva Conference on the peaceful uses of atomic energy in 1955. KINGDOM of SAUDI ARABIA The founding Director of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Operations Center has confirmed that Saudi Arabia have up to seven nuclear bombs ready to use and suggests that they can deliver these nuclear missiles via Saudi F-15 fighter jets and DongFeng Missiles. Arabian Peninsula countries included Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who ratified or acceded to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty in 1988, Qatar and Kuwait in 1989, UAE in 1995, and Oman in 1997. With several new delivery systems in development, 4 plutonium production reactors, and an expanding uranium enrichment infrastructure, however, Pakistan’s stockpile has the potential to increase further. It's not exaggerated to say Pakistan may become the world’s third-largest nuclear weapon state, not least because that would require a build-up two to three times faster than the growth rate over the past two decades.
PAKISTAN The Cold Start war doctrine (evolved after Operation Parakram in response to the 13 December 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament) was an off-the-cuff remark by a former Chief of Army Staff of India. Pakistan has used it to justify its development of tactical nuclear weapons. The Nasr Hatf-9 shoot-and-scoot TNW would carry a small-yield sub-kiloton nuclear bomb. This is why whatever the India wants to do, it should be done without announcing to the world. Pakistan was built up as a spoiler state both by US (early 50s, 60s, 70s) and by China immediately after 1962 border debacle in NEFA and Ladakh with India. Pakistan’s strategic importance was very much enhanced in early 50s when US looking for a base to fly the U-2 over USSR found the perfect base in Pehawar to sneak into the USSR from south and fly over vitally important USSR’s space station and strategic missile bases which were far away from the USSR’s European borders. This relationship ended with the shooting down of the U-2 spy plane by USSR. Peshawar, Sarghodha, Rawalpindi ceased to be important military bases to US as these were before the U-2 shooting down. As the US was losing a bit of interest in Pakistan with the end of Eisenhower Administration, China stepped in with political and moral support to whatever the Pakistanis wished. After the 1962 victory of Chinese forces over India, China found it very useful to be friends with Pakistan. All this was done to keep India off balance and prevent it from focusing on its northern border. With the onset of the Vietnam War, the US had very little interest in Pakistan except supply of spares for previously supplied military hardware continued. China’s influence increased. Several high ranking visits by Chou En Lai and Liu Shao Shi took place to Pakistan. In return, Pakistani dictators and Prime Ministers paid visits to China. China begin selling surplus nuclear materials since late 1979 till early 1990s "mainly to earn hard currency". China provided assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping convinced President Jimmy Carter's administration to turn a blind eye towards Pakistan's nuclear program. There is also no evidence to indicate that nuclear-warhead designed for integration into ballistic missiles is taking place within Pakistan. Deng described India as an unreliable factor and India under Indira Gandhi will be pro-Soviet. He asserted that India initiated a nuclear race in the region forcing Pakistan to start its own nuclear program, hence Pakistan's possession of nuclear capabilities is vital for stability in Asia. He also convinced the US not to base the proportion of its aid to India and Pakistan based on the population, since under this comparison Pakistan would be in an inferior position. “Let’s not talk about Indira Gandhi. The present government is thinking of recognizing the Heng Samrin Regime. Perhaps after Pakistan has been strengthened, India will become a more stabilizing factor. What one should try to achieve is to make Pakistan a genuine stabilizing factor in South Asia”
U.S and other Countries had warned Pakistan repeatedly that they will not be able to restrict India’s retaliation if another 26/11 Mumbai happens. Pakistan has made low-yield nuclear weapons to bridge the gap for war that India had created through its cold-start doctrine, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said in a rare confession. Compliance with nuclear command and control procedures may not always be adequately ensured for all the battlefield missile units deployed across a theater. Iran After the Iran-Iraq war, Pakistan provided designs and technology, including 4,000 used centrifuges for enriching uranium along with documents on shaping enriched uranium for use in a bomb. Iran had offered $10 billion for three atomic bombs. This happened following the breakdown of German technical cooperation with Iran’s nuclear programme. China begin selling surplus nuclear materials since late 1979 till early 1990s "mainly to earn hard currency". China engaged in nuclear cooperation with Iran. China helped by drilling very deep wells to reached uranium in Saghand and partially built the Isfahan UCF (uranium conversion facility). “Iran’s nuclear capability will neutralise Israel’s power” Dr A Q Khan. Pakistan insists that all nuclear transfers to Iran were the work of Khan’s clandestine network. Three Iranian officials are thought to have met members of Khan’s network in 1987, including Sri Lankan businessmen Mohamed Farouq and Buhary Syed Ali Tahir, and German engineer Heinz Mebus. General Mirza Aslam Beg, who succeeded General Zia as army chief, appears to have pushed Prime Minister Bhutto and threatened US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Henry Rowen, that “if Pakistan was cut off [from military assistance] it might be forced to share nuclear technology with Iran”. Perhaps Israel's Operation Orchard in Syria had made an impression on the Iranians. Many of the centrifuges they use for uranium enrichment are now operating in underground tunnels. Not even the American bunker-busting super-bombs are capable of fully destroying facilities like the one in Natanz. Iran had surprised the world when it confessed that it had built a previously unreported uranium enrichment plant near Qom. Syrian President Bashar Assad had rebuffed Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani “father of the atom bomb,” when Khan tried to sell him centrifuges for uranium enrichment on the black market in the early 1990s. Pyongyang had already helped Damascus in the past in the development of medium-range ballistic missiles and chemical weapons like sarin and mustard gas. North Korea The history of North Korea's nuclear program can be traced back to the Cold War, when the Korean War convinced leader Kim Il Sung — who ruled the nation from 1948 to 1994 — that the country needed to protect itself from the U.S. In 1963, North Korea was one of the only countries that had announced that they would not sign the nuclear test-ban treaty that was President John F. Kennedy's attempt to "get the genie back in the bottle". After approval from the (Pakistan) Prime Minister and the COAS, a contract was signed with the North Koreans for a Km 1500 surface-to-surface guided missile. At that time, Pakistan did not have a missile to match Prithvi’s striking capabilities so they had approached North Korea for Nodong missiles. In exchange, Pakistan had transferred nearly two dozen centrifuge machines, a flow meter and some special oils to North Korea. The Korean team was officially allowed to stay at Kahuta once the products started coming. This was some time in 1993-4. They had to work in the shops and instruct our engineers and technicians in the making of the components. Most of their work was in the two machine shops that were also producing and assembling centrifuges and centrifuge sub-assemblies. They became interested in the technology and some engineers spent a lot of time with Khokhar in his shop where rotor tubes, bellows, etc. were being made and there was a test-bed of P-2. Khokhar was making the liquid fuel rocket engine and needed the Koreans the whole day on a daily basis. During the course of their stay it is quite possible that he explained some details of centrifuge machines to them. I talked to Gen. Kang and he gave me the $ 0.5 million in cash, which I personally delivered to Gen. J. Karamat. In the meantime Gen. Karamat became COAS and said to me that he needed more money for the same secret funds and that I should talk to Gen. Kang. Gen. Kang came back to me after a few days and said that his boss was willing to give a further $ 2.5 million, provided we helped them with the enrichment technology. They already had a production reactor and were producing plutonium. They had also manufactured a few weapons as, according to Gen. Kang’s boss, they had received Kg 200 plutonium and weapon designs from the Russians in the mid-fifties after the Korean War. They had shown Dr. Mirza and me the perfect nuclear weapon, technologically more advanced than ours. They wanted this technology only for fuel for the power reactors as it cost only 1/10 of that of the diffusion process and required only low capital investment. They were not interested in weapon-grade production of material and did not ask any questions or for drawings for specially designed cascades for weapon-grade material. I informed Gen. J. Karamat; he agreed and gave me a go-ahead. I asked my people to prepare 20 outdated P-1 machines and gave them. Since they were working in the plant and were familiar with the P-2 machines, they asked for 4 of these too. I discussed the matter with the COAS and obtained his approval. After that I personally gave the remaining $ 2.5 million to Gen. Karamat in cash at the Army House to make up the whole amount. The senior engineers at Kahuta were responsible for the Korean’s movements and work. I used to go to Kahuta for 3 or 4 hours to do administrative work and mostly spent the time in my office or with Brig. Behram who was making a launcher, which was our priority at the time. The Koreans took the machines in their own plane with which they were bringing missile parts for us. Security Staff was always present to check incoming and outgoing cargo. Even Dr. Mirza and Nasim Khan made some control panels and software packages and gave them. The Koreans had brought some UF6 gas for analysis, which we tested and found that it was not pure enough. They requested a few Kg of depleted gas for comparison purposes, which we gave them. Technically and monetarily it had no value. One could buy such a sample from abroad. One flowmeter was given to them as a sample. A flowmeter is an ordinary instrument in a UF6 plant. It is banned for Pakistan but available in the open market in Europe. They, in return, taught us how to make Krytrons (fast switches), which were banned items and are needed in nuclear weapons detonation. This was very valuable to us. After having been here for years, the COAS (Gen. Pervez Musharraf) desired that we should send the Koreans back immediately. They left within 3 days. In early 1989 Gen. Aslam Beg asked me if I could help the Iranians in enrichment technology so that they could also achieve nuclear capability. He was convinced that, if Iran had this capability, it would work as a shield between Pakistan on the one side and the U.S.A. and other Western countries on the other side and that these countries would then not be able to undertake any mischievous or adventurous action against Pakistan. I agreed in principle, but told him I could only do so with a go-ahead from the Government. When Gen. Imtiaz told me to do the needful, I did so as I knew he must have obtained clearance from the Prime Minister. So also was the case with Libya. Dr. Zafar Niazi told me that it had been cleared by the Prime Minister, upon which I took the necessary action. If the government plays any mischief with me take (to his wife) a tough stand:
China had covertly provided missile assistance in the past to North Korea with the KN-08 long-range missile, specifically the transfer of Chinese-made transporter-erector launchers. Russian officials, in talks with U.S. officials, denying any SS-N-6 missiles were sold to North Korea, claiming all were destroyed as part of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty. On October 15, 1992, the Russian, Security Ministry's officers stopped 64 Russian missile specialists from Miass with their family members at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 airport where they were preparing to leave on a flight to North Korea. Again on November 5, 1992 the Russian, Security Ministry personnel stopped 60 Russian missile specialists 40 of which were missile specialist from Miass while the remaining 10-20 were nuclear specialists at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 airport where they were preparing to leave on a flight to North Korea. Yet again on December 8, 1992, 36 nuclear specialists were stopped by the Russian Security Ministry personnel. Ultimately at least 17-20 missile specialist and 9 nuclear specialists made it to North Korea via China and are believed to have remained there. It turned out that these technical personnel were from the Miass, V.P. Makayev OKB, the submarine-launched ballistic missile design bureau. It’s no secret that Nazi scientists and engineers were working at the very forefront of the technology of their day. In World War II, Germany deployed the world’s first operational cruise missiles in the V-1, and the first operational ballistic missile in the V-2. They also fielded the world’s first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262, though they were fielded too late. It’s also no secret that nations like the U.S. smuggled many of these scientists and engineers out of Germany during and after the war, putting them to work on advanced programs. As the war came to a close, more than 1,600 of these specialists working under the Nazi banner were recruited to work for the United States under Operation Paperclip, and more than 2,500 others were brought in by the Soviet Union in their own Operation Osoaviakhim. Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and an anti-Nazi communist who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviets. He was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons and, later, "unworkable" models of the hydrogen bomb. In January 1950, he confessed that he was a spy. A tutorial he gave to Qian Sanqiang and other Chinese physicists helped them to develop the first Chinese atomic bomb, the 596, which was tested five years later. David Greenglass was a spy who worked on the Manhattan Project and arrested by the FBI. He provided testimony as part of an immunity agreement, that helped convict his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. David Greenglass later said he had lied under oath about the extent of his sister's involvement in the spying plot in order to protect his wife. The role of Ethel Rosenberg in her husband's espionage ring remains a matter of dispute. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, were Soviet immigrants and communists (Soviet KGB handler was Aleksandr Semyonovich Feklisov working from the consulate office in New York), convicted in 1951 and executed in 1953 for couriering (with Swiss-immigrant Heinrich Golodnitsky or Harry Gold) top-secret information about defensive radar and sonar electronics, jet engines, early nuclear weapon designs (at that time, the US was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons) and a whole proximity fuze. https://allthatsinteresting.com/reinhard-gehlen https://www.historynet.com/reinhard-gehlen-the-nazi-spy-chief-turned-cia-agent/ Edward Teller Enrico Fermi, who built the first nuclear reactor, was Italian. Wernher von Braun was a communist sympathizer and a member of the feared SS paramilitary group. But there is no doubt that without von Braun the U.S. would not have won the space race. By 1950, von Braun was moved to Huntsville where he would continue to develop rockets for military application. Within the decade he moved to the newly created NASA and was helping lift satellites into space, and plan for the historic moon landings. Braun hired black people, something that the very active Klu Klux Klan of the time threatened him over. "I think it is shameful that a man who created powerful bombs for the Nazis which were used to kill innocent civilians is idolized in our small Alabama town" Werner Dahm Konrad Dannenberg Eberhard Rees Kurt Lehovec explained the first light-emitting diodes making him one of the pioneers of the integrated circuit. Heinz Schlicke Arthur Rudolph was deported in 1984, but not prosecuted Adolf Busemann Ernst Stuhlinger Ernst Geissler Otto Ambros Germany had the first technologically successful synthetic gasoline (diesel) production from coal and tar hydrogenation from the Fischer−Tropsch synthesis. The German synthetic fuel industry succeeded technologically because in the 1920s, Pier at IG Farben developed suitable sulfur-resistant catalysts for the hydrogenation of coal and tar and divided the process into separate liquid and vapor phase hydrogenations, improving both economics and yield. A short time later Fischer and his co-workers at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research (KWI) prepared the cobalt catalysts and established the reaction conditions that made the F-T synthesis a success. Neither coal-to-oil conversion process could produce a synthetic liquid fuel at a cost competitive with natural petroleum. Brazil
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