OUTLAWING ATTACKS ON NUCLEAR WILL MAKE NUCLEAR ATTACKS LESS LIKELY… From A Mass Psychology Effect…
Nuclear power is crucial as base power for a carbon free future. I explained that keeping fossil fuels as base energy is a trick to keep fossil fuels at 84% of total energy.
Nuclearizing electric power production would have required having four thousand (4,000) nuclear reactors, worldwide… instead of 400.
Disappointingly, the percentage of electricity that comes from low-carbon sources today is almost unchanged from the mid-1980s. Throughout the early-2000s this low carbon share actually regressed, greatly because of the shutdown of nuclear reactors..
Yes, electric consumption is only 20% of total energy consumption… So going nuclear on electric would not have solved all. (We need more such as hydrogen for transportation!)
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Nuclear can be made very safe, and non-polluting. The only deadly civil nuclear power accident was in Ukraine at Chernobyl, a type of reactor (graphite-gas), power (way too much) and construction without containment, which are all de facto illegal in the West. Yes, Chernobyl should never have been built. (Ukraine has the world’s highest production of electricity from nuclear reactors, a distant second behind France.)
By comparison, fossil fuels kill around ten million people a year, and probably much more.
The Orcs of Putin have attacked nuclear installations in Ukraine, and transformed them into battlefield. That should be unlawful. It is also a way to inure us to Putin’s military use of nuclear energy… Something he already did by threatening to destroy humanity with nukes if we don’t let him destroy Ukraine.
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Dams were attacked in World War Two, causing great damage and loss of life. Now a worldwide convention outlaws attacks on dams, and it has been, so far, respected in Ukraine, which has several giant dams. Mr. Putin has not suggested that he would destroy dams to get his way.
Trying to outlaw attacks on nuclear installations right away would indirectly heighten a worldwide healthy alarm against Mr. Putin’s nuclear ways. Mr. Putin has weaponized the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, by stationing heavy weapons there. Mr. Putin also implicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons to make his invasion of Ukraine work.
Thus calling for a worldwide conference to outlaw attacks on nuclear installations would make it less likely, from general indignation, and the possible loss of allies that it would entail, that Mr. Putin would dare to use nuclear weapons (as using nukes is generally worse than attacking nuclear installations).
Hence there is an excellent reason to rush an outlawing of nuclear attacks, as Mr. Putin’s effective defeat in Ukraine makes it ever more likely that he will use nukes on the battlefield.
Whereas the three nuclear armed democracies (US, UK, France) have refused to declare they would never ever use nuclear weapons first, they would certainly agree to not attack nuclear installations directly, so they would support such an approach. Nuclear power is an important way to mitigate the CO2 crisis…
Under Putin, the Russian military decided to adopt a doctrine of “escalate to de-escalate”, which includes using battlefield nuclear weapons… First usage of nuclear weapons, or attacks against nuclear installations is not explicitly unlawful. However attacks against dams are.
The Russian military may detonate a few nukes against concentrations of Ukrainian troops (a good reason to avoid those)… Hoping that the democracies, terrified by nuclear war, would then just submit. Thus NATO should create an appropriate answer, not just hope that Putin will not go crazy (as it is clear Putin is not analyzing the situation clearly, this hope is inappropriate).
Patrice Ayme

…Says Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration Head Oleksandr Staruk…