This article was originally published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on October 8, 2024 (paywall)
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Project Pele: DoD nuclear project besmirches Pele
Friday, September 8, 2023
Elon Musk Has a License to Crash Land & Sink SpaceX Starships off the Coast of Hawaii
Island Voices: Hawaii needs input on SpaceX ocean-landing plans
by Lynda Williams
Take away points:
- On April 14, 2023, Elon Musk's private spaceship company, SpaceX, was granted an experimental launch permit by the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to crash land the world's largest spacecraft, Starship, into the ocean 62 miles north of Kauai and a few hundred miles east of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
- For the environmental review for the permit, the FAA did not require the more rigorous Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) but only a nominal Environmental Assessment (EA) that did not require consultation with stakeholders or input from Hawaiian residents or agencies like OHA.
- The EA concluded that "less than one" of the more than 30 marine mammals protected by the Endangered Species Act would be harmed when the 100 ton steel ship explodes from 14 tons of rocket fuel onboard with a ton of TNT force or from the debris and shrapnel sinking or drifting in the ocean.
- It is recommended that Hawaii demand the FAA suspend the SpaceX license, conduct a full EIS and include the residents of Hawaii in the review process.
- Starship is a spacecraft under development by Elon Musk's space company SpaceX, At 120 meters and a liftoff mass of 5000 metric tons, it is the largest & most powerful spacecraft ever built. It is intended to carry crew and cargo to Earth's orbit, the Moon and Mars. SpaceX has multi-billion dollar contracts with both NASA and the Pentagon for civilian and military projects.
The world watched aghast as SpaceX blew up it’s own spaceship on April 20, four minutes after launch due engine failure. Even though the mission was not completed, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, claimed it was a success because the real goal was for the rocket to clear the launch pad at the spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.
What most folks don’t know realize is that Starship was always going to blow up when it crash landed in the Pacific Ocean, just 62 nautical miles north of Kauai and a few hundred miles east of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
In the next test launch, which Musk boasted will happen in the next few months, the world’s largest spaceship will descend towards the Earth in free fall and blow up upon impact with a force of a ton of TNT as fuel ignites in a great explosion. On a second and third launch test, Starship will breakup in the atmosphere and tumble down and crash land in a debris field several hundred miles long Southwest of the island chain as shown in the red swath on the map.
SpaceX obtained a Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) commercial space launch license rubber stamped by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) without any consultation of the Hawaiian people because according to an email I received from the FAA, “No in-person public outreach was conducted in Hawaii as the Starship vehicle was planned to land outside of range for impacts to the residents of Hawaii.”
First of all, that is assuming everything goes exactly according to the plan, which we have all just witnessed doesn’t always happen. If the Starship goes off course by even a few degrees the consequences could be catastrophic to Hawaii.
Secondly, I think most folks in Hawaii would agree that 62 miles north of Kauai is considered Hawaii culturally if not legally and that is way too close for what is essentially a rocket bomb to crash land.
SpaceX was not required to do a full EIS or Environmental Impact Study, only a much weaker Environmental Assessment (EA) that only requires the analysis of ‘nominal operations’ or best case scenarios. Why was that allowed when the worst case scenarios are so catastrophic?
For example, rather than doing a detailed analysis of the potential impact to Marine Mammals protected by the Endangered Species Act, NOAA wrote a “Biological Opinion” for the EA that argued “less than one” animal would be harmed by a 100 metric ton steel rocket with the energy of a small nuclear bomb.
It came to that conclusion because they only one “nominal” scenario that the Starship would hit the water exactly horizontal to the surface with the fuel tanks orientated on the top, which is impossible to control or predict. If the explosion is above water, NOAA argues, only a fraction of the energy will be transmitted into the ocean travel
deep enough to harm to any of the 30 endangered species of whale, shark, turtle, monk seal, dolphin and rays protected in Hawaii.
The EA has many unsubstantiated claims, such as no animals would be near the surface of the water during the crash - even though most are mammals that surface to breather air.
It ignored the fact that Humpback whales migrate through the “action area.” It assumed that most of the debris will be large enough to sink to the bottom of the ocean without encountering and injuring animals - but if it any does drift into the PapahanauMokuakea Marine National Monument, then the Coast Guard would be sent to clean it up.
This alone is reason to contest the EA and demand an EIS since NOAA and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs co -manage Papahanaumokuakea and OHA should have been consulted, but was not.
The FAA and NOAA analyses are flawed, and both are failing in the their duty to protect the people of Hawaii extreme corporate and federal abuse.
Hawaii must not become collateral damage and a colonized sacrifice zone for the government’s privatization of teh space program and a billionaire’s personal ambition and corporate profits.
At minimum, the FAA must suspend the license, conduct a full EIS and include the residents of Hawaiian in the review process. The best plan is to ban SpaceX from trashing people and planet in Musk’s ego trip to Mars.
References: Every document cited can be found on this FAA website:
https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship
Lynda Williams is an environmental activist and investigative science journalist living in Hilo.
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Online Resume
Selected Performance & Media Works:
I produce and perform custom science cabaret shows for scientists at conferences and events. Past clients include: American Geophysical Union, Academy of Forensic Sciences, The National Association of Science Writers, Stephen Hawking Birthday Bash, Kip Thorne 60th Birthday “KipFest” at CalTech, American Physical Society Centennial Celebration, US Science Festival, Swedish Science Festival, CERN, IEEE, AAAS, AAS, INSAP, PBS. Featured in the NY Times, LA Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Physics Today, People Magazine and on NPR, and featured guest on To Tell the Truth.
Science Media Content Producer, Science Entertainment,1986- current. Produce and perform science multimedia content and performances for s stage, the internet, planetaria, CDs, and DVDs: Maxwell's Equations, Parody Violation and Cosmic Cabaret. Theater Projects include The Birth of Venus, UniLang, Cyberstein, The Physics Chanteuse and Cosmic Cabaret.
Starship Earth: The Search for Life,
Star Compass: Polynesian Wayfinding:
More posters, shows, images, etc:
Original Art for first Cosmic Cabaret Show |
Unilang with Pamela Consulo |
The Cyberset: with Joel Kohn |
The Birth of Venus with Marco Fuoco |
Thursday, February 9, 2023
SAY NO TO NUCLEAR POWER IN HAWAII!
HB927: Don’t
Buy the Hype: Fusion is a Dangerous Delusion
By Lynda
Williams
A bipartisan group of Hawaii legislators have submitted bill
HB927 to create a task force to ‘determine the feasibility of amending the
Hawaii State Constitution to include provisions to allow for fusion-powered
reactors.” Everything in this Bill is wrong or a lie and it must be stopped in
committee. Let me break it down line by line.
A nuclear fusion power plant is a giant facility that consumes tremendous amounts of energy and water and produces radioactive waste in the breeding of tritium fuel and in the reactor building. |
The legislature finds that in December 2022, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that it had achieved fusion ignition, producing more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to initiate the ignition.
There was a lot of media hoopla about this ‘breakthrough’
but it is misleading propaganda. The nuclear fusion reaction lasted less than a
billionth of a second and it took much more energy to make the laser beam and
the tritium fuel source than was released. The term ‘ignition’ doesn’t mean
efficient or self-sustaining – it’s a milestone word invented by the Fusion
industry who have been in a failed business for over 70 years and have sucked
nearly 50 billion dollars from US taxpayers to try to reproduce on Earth fusion
that makes the Sun and stars shine. “Achieving ignition” is pure engineering
hype and the Hawaii State Legislature should not be perpetuating such
pseudoscience & misinformation.
The legislature recognizes that once fully realized as
a source of power, fusion could allow the State to more efficiently meet the
State's net-zero emission goals.
Being decades if not centuries away from being practical,
efficient, and affordable, Nuclear Fusion Power cannot address the urgent clean
energy needs of the world in time to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of
Climate Change. Although fusion reactions do not release CO2, every aspect of
the fuel cycle, from breeding tritium fuel with fission reactors at $30,000 per
gram, to building the $30 billion football field sized reactor buildings, to
decommissioning what will end up to be a highly radioactive building, produces
tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power, be it fission or fusion,
is not a zero-emission power source. The Hawaii Legislature should not
‘recognize’ what are in fact, absolute lies.
The fusion reaction fuses deuterium and tritium into helium and releases radioactive neutrons that decay by beta emission and when absorbed by uranium produce Plutonium used in nuclear weapons.
This is the biggest lie in the bill. As stated above, the fuel source for fusion reactions is the rare and short-lived radioactive isotope of hydrogen, tritium, which must be created or ‘bred’ in a fission reactor. You cannot have fusion on Earth without fission to breed tritium. Tritium behaves chemically like atomic hydrogen and bonds with oxygen to form radioactive “tritiated water” and then decays to regular hydrogen by very dangerous beta emission so if it is ingested it is carcinogenic. Released or leaked into the environment, tritiated water is very dangerous because biologically it behaves like regular water.
Power generated from fusion reactors still boil water to turn a turbine. Since it is hot power plant, the generator needs a lot of water to boil and to cool the plant. Hot water is released back into the environment. Tritiated water leaks and releases are common at fusion reactor sites. Hawaii is already facing severe droughts and water contamination from the military, does it really want to invest in and risk more contamination to the water and ecosystem?
Short lived radioactive atoms are MORE dangerous because they are more
active and decay more often! The fusion reaction also releases neutrons which
make everything they come into contact highly radioactive. If you put uranium
inside the reactor building it will create plutonium, the main ingredient in
nuclear bombs and the deadliest substance ever created by humans. Fusion
reactors therefore have a very high risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and
must be guarded by the US military. Because of this security risk, fusion power
will never be distributed and democratized and must be operated by militarized
corporate state control. There is nothing safe and clean about nuclear fusion
or fission. Again, the Hawaii Legislature should not ‘note’ such dangerous
lies.
(1) Determine
the feasibility of amending the Hawaii State Constitution to include provisions
to allow for fusion-powered reactors;
Why amend the Hawaii State Constitution? Because during the
1978 Constitutional Convention a provision prohibiting fission power or
radioactive waste disposal in Hawaii was added to the constitution. The reactor
and housing will become radioactive and would most likely have to remain &
stored on site effectively forever. Fusion power produces radioactive waste and
is therefore illegal in the state of Hawaii.
(2) Evaluate
potential sites that may be reserved for fusion reactors; and
(3) Identify
ways for the State to accelerate the progress of fusion development.
We should not waste a penny or an ounce of human energy
establishing a ‘future fusion task force’ to evaluate potential sites or
accelerate the progress of fusion technology when Nuclear Fusion Power is a
dirty dangerous militarized expensive and unviable power source that cannot
solve our energy needs or mitigate the climate crisis and is currently illegal
in the state of Hawaii.
The Hawaii Legislature Energy & Environmental Protection
(EPP) committee will hear testimony on February 14th at 9:10
am. Testimony can be submitted here by :
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=927
More info on Fusion Delusion:
https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be
Lynda Williams is a physicist and peace activist living in
Hilo Hawaii.
Saturday, April 23, 2022
Earth Day 2022 Stop The Homeland Defense Radar in Hawaii
Here is a speech I wrote for the Earth Day LA HONUA 2022 in Kahuku. It was read by Lynell DaMate of the Koʻolau Waialua Alliance. 💓
Aloha Kahuku! Happy Earth Day! My name is Lynda Williams and I am a lifelong
activist for peace, social justice and the demilitarization of Planet Earth. I am sorry I cannot be with you today in person but I am with you in spirit and in the fight to protect Hawaii from US militant imperialism. By profession I am a physics professor but my passion is to empower people with scientific knowledge to save Planet Earth from the ravages of capitalism, imperialism and militarism. I have been working as a science advisor with the GLOBAL NETWORK for over 25 years and one of my areas of expertise is Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense and Space Weapon systems. From my years of experience, I can assure you that it is a scientific fact the Missile Defense systems will not and cannot protect Hawaii or anyone, anywhere, from nuclear attack. That is why I VEHEMENTLY OPPOSE THE HOMELAND DEFENSE RADAR in Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Alaska – or anywhere on Earth or in Heaven – because the technology of WAR cannot protect us from WAR. The reasons are simple:First of all, the HDRH works with a ground-based interceptor system – that means that if an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM is launched from an ‘enemy” towards Hawaii, the HDRH would detect it and then interceptor missiles would be launched from California and Alaska to intercept and destroy the missiles before they hit their target. Sounds reasonable but it is insanely DIFFICULT – like hitting a bullet with a bullet moving at supersonic speeds! THE SYSTEM HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN TO WORK OR ACTUALLY TESTED IN REAL WORD SCENARIOS! This is why scientific organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists oppose wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on missile defense systems – they will never work. It only provides a false hope of safety that prevents humans from resolving conflicts through peaceful means and bleeds money away from desperately needed social programs and restoring the Aina.
But what REALLY blows my mind is that the very GOAL of Missile Defense is to intercept and BLOW UP the nuclear missiles in SPACE while on their way to the target. Even if they were successful, which is highly unlikely, such an intercept would create so much radioactive space debris it would have a catastrophic snowball effect to ALL the satellites in space! HOW STUPID IS THAT? And that is the BEST PLAN they came up with?
If the interceptors don’t work, then they will launch interceptors from ships while the bombs are on the way down to the target – and if that were successful, which is highly unlikely, that would also have catastrophic effects to the region. How is that going to protect Hawaii? Furthermore, if HDRH is built in Hawaii then you can be sure interceptor systems like Aegis Ashore will be deployed in Kauai and Hawaii will then become an even greater target than it already is, if that is even possible!!
There is no scenario in which HDRH or Missile Defense makes Hawaii or the world a safer place! HDRH will intensify an already out of control global arms race! Next its hypersonic missiles and space-based interceptors! And now the US is going to spend another hundred billion on NEXT GENERATION INTERCEPTORS that will also never work to protect us! This cycle of technological weapon war profiteering that is bleeding us and Mother Earth dry will never end unless we stop it!
HDRH will never work to protect or defend Hawaii because the Missile Defense system it is a part of is fundamentally flawed and will never work – except for the one goal it is really intended to serve – and that is to perpetuate endless weapon and war profiteering of the military industrial complex and the continued oppression of the people by the imperial capitalist patriarchy raping and pillaging Mother Earth!!!
Brilliant Videos on HDRH: