Monthly Archives: February 2024

Sinophobia or Rational Paranoia: the Cranes

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The Biden administration plans to invest billions in 2024 in the domestic manufacturing of cargo cranes, seeking to counter fears that the prevalent use of China-built cranes with advanced software at many U.S. ports poses a potential national-security risk. The move is part of a set of actions taken by the administration that is intended to improve maritime cybersecurity….Administration officials said more than $20 billion would be invested in port security, including domestic cargo-crane production, over the next five years. The money, tapped from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021, would support a U.S. subsidiary of  Mitsui, a Japanese company, to produce the cranes, which officials said would be the first time in 30 years that they would be built domestically.

Cranes at some ports used by the U.S. military were flagged as surveillance threats. Officials also raised the concern that the software on the cranes could be manipulated by China to impede American shipping or, worse, temporarily disrupt the operation of the crane.  “By design these cranes may be controlled, serviced and programmed from remote locations,” said Rear Adm. John Vann, who leads the Coast Guard cyber command, during a press briefing….

The U.S. military has been concerned about the cranes for years and has made efforts to skirt ports with the China-made cranes as best as possible, according to the senior U.S. military commander who oversees the military’s logistics operations.The Chinese can track the origin, destination and other data of the U.S. military’s containerized materiel to determine exactly where the military is shipping it, Cranes made by China-based ZPMC contain sensors that can register and track the origin and destination of containers…

China’s military doctrine gives priority to targeting “systems that move enemy troops,” including harbors and airports, Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said during congressional testimony in February 2023…“Increasingly, the Chinese are not merely seeking access to our networks; they are pre-emptively positioning to compromise and control them,” Singleton said in his testimony. “As a result, China is poised to impede the mobilization of American military forces, foment a state of disarray, and redirect national attention and resources in both war and short-of-war scenarios.”

Excerpts from Dustin Volz, U.S. to Invest Billions to Replace China-Made Cranes at Nation’s Ports, WSJ, Feb. 21, 2024

Can We Save the Giant Kelp?

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At a salmon farm in Tasmania Australia is an experiment that researchers hope can save an entire ecosystem from warming oceans. Beneath the waves, scientists are growing several types of giant kelp—which in the wild can grow up to 175 feet tall—on rope to track which ones can thrive in hotter conditions. Rising water temperatures, more frequent marine heat waves and invasive sea urchins have already destroyed some 95% of the giant kelp forests in Tasmania, scientists say. The island south of Australia’s mainland is a global hot spot for ocean warming, with sea temperatures in the island’s east rising faster than the global average, a dynamic that has already wreaked havoc on some marine species in a place where fishing remains a key industry.

In Tasmania, scientists are conducting experiments to identify heat-tolerant giant kelp, plan to use artificial intelligence and genetic analysis to better understand why some types fare better than others, and will then have to figure out a way to plant them in the wild without it costing a fortune. Eventually, they could use the genetic information to breed kelp to be even more heat tolerant…But success is far from guaranteed. Running lab tests on kelp can be tricky, given the great size the plants can reach. Efforts to control the invasive long-spined sea urchins, including with government subsidies that encourage fishermen to catch them, could fail. Marine heat waves could increase beyond the ability of any kelp to cope. Scientists also still aren’t sure to what extent genetic factors allow giant kelp to survive in warmer water, or whether environmental factors—such as nutrient and light availability—are more important.

Excerpts from Mike Cherney, Inside the Quest for a Super Kelp That Can Survive Hotter, WSJ, Feb. 22, 2024

Guess Who Benefits from the Russo-Ukrainian War?

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In the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. defense industry has experienced a boom in orders for weapons and munitions. Business is coming from European allies trying to build out their military capabilities as well as from the Pentagon, which is both buying new equipment from defense manufacturers and replenishing military stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine. Industrial production in the U.S. defense and space sector has increased 17.5% since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, according to Federal Reserve data.  Biden administration officials say that of the $60.7 billion earmarked for Ukraine in a $95 billion supplemental defense bill, 64% will actually flow back to the U.S. defense industrial base.  Recent spending by European governments on U.S. jet fighters and other military hardware represents “a generational-type investment. The past few years are equal to the prior 20 years,” said Myles Walton, a military industry analyst at Wolfe Research….Poland has placed orders worth about $30 billion for Apache helicopters, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars, M1A1 Abrams tanks and other hardware, the department said. Germany spent $8.5 billion on Chinook helicopters and related equipment, while the Czech Republic bought $5.6 billion of F-35 jets and munitions.

The boost to the U.S. defense industry is just one way the fragmentation of the world economy along geopolitical lines is tightening U.S.-European relations, often to the benefit of the U.S. The U.S. became the world’s largest LNG exporter in 2023, and its LNG exports are expected to almost double by 2030 on already-approved projects. Around two-thirds of those exports go to Europe….

 The Ukraine war served as a warning for American defense strategists, said Cynthia Cook, a defense industry expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “What Russia’s war pointed out relatively quickly is the constraints in the U.S. defense industrial base especially in terms of surging production rapidly. The good news is that this lesson has been learned when the U.S. is not directly at war.”

Excerpts from Tom Fairless, How War in Europe Boosts the U.S. Economy, WSJ, Feb. 20, 2024

The Under-Our-Noses Nasty Wars

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Christopher Wray warned in February 2023 that Beijing’s efforts to covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks is now at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” an issue he has deemed a defining national security threat. Citing Volt Typhoon, the name given to the Chinese hacking network that was revealed in 2023 to be lying dormant inside U.S. critical infrastructure, Wray said Beijing-backed actors were pre-positioning malware that could be triggered at any moment to disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure. Officials have grown particularly alarmed at Beijing’s interest in infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure networks, planting malware inside U.S. computer systems responsible for everything from safe drinking water to aviation traffic so it could detonate, at a moment’s notice, damaging cyberattacks during a conflict.

The Netherlands’ spy agencies said in February 2024 that Chinese hackers had used malware to gain access to a Dutch military network in 2023. The agency, considered to have one of Europe’s top cyber capabilities, said it made the rare disclosure to show the scale of the threat and reduce the stigma of being targeted so allied governments can better pool knowledge.

A report released in February 2024 by agencies including the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the National Security Agency said Volt Typhoon hackers had maintained access in some U.S. networks for five or more years, and while it targeted only U.S. infrastructure directly, the infiltration was likely to have affected “Five Eyes” allies…

Excerpts from  Joe Parkinson, BI Director Says China Cyberattacks on U.S. Infrastructure Now at Unprecedented Scale, WSJ, Feb. 19, 2024

Fracking v. Nuclear Wastes: the Fate of New Mexico

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Holtec International, a Florida-based company, aims to rail thousands of canisters of spent nuclear fuel to Lea County, New Mexico, United States, and store the containers below ground. The site has a 40-year license and could ultimately hold around 170,000 metric tons of used radioactive fuel—about twice as much as the U.S. currently holds. It would be the largest such facility in the world, and Holtec says it would further the development of U.S. nuclear energy. [This plan is opposed by Fasken Oil and Ranch] a company that claims that  a nuclear incident in the Permian basin, which cranks out more oil than Iraq and Libya combined, would have devastating consequences for U.S. energy and the local economy. “I’m not antinuclear,” Fasken Assistant General Manager Tommy Taylor, said. “We just don’t feel like siting all the nuclear waste in the middle of our biggest oil and gas resource is a good idea.” 

Fasken said the nuclear-waste storage sites threaten its operations in the Permian. According to the court filing of Fasken:

“The proposed site sits on top of and adjacent to oil and gas minerals to be developed
by means of fracture stimulation techniques. Currently, drilling techniques used to
extract minerals in the Permian Basin involve drilling horizontally into deep
underground formations up to two miles beneath the earth’s surface. High pressure
fluids are pumped into the wells, in some cases exceeding twelve thousand pounds
per square inch. This pressure is power enough to fracture the surrounding rock
thus releasing the oil and gas. The pressure creates fissures and cracks
beneath the surface. And, at this time, there are oil and gas operators testing a new
technique of simultaneously drilling and fracturing up to 49 horizontal wellbores in
a single section of land. Either the traditional or new and unproven drilling
technique, involving more than 20,000,000 bbls of water and sand, could
conceivably be utilized to inject into and withdraw from the rock formation beneath
and surrounding the Holtec site. Hydraulic fracturing beneath and around Holtec
should give the NRC pause and is sufficient reason not to proceed.” (HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL’S ANSWER OPPOSING FASKEN’S, pdf)

The yearslong fight has entangled large oil companies, the country’s top nuclear regulator, the states of Texas and New Mexico, as well as local communities that want to host the nuclear waste. 

Supporters of the nuclear-waste projects say they could help break a decades-old nuclear waste logjam that has led to radioactive refuse piling up at reactors. President Biden and billionaire investors are endorsing new nuclear projects to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but the U.S. has yet to figure out where to permanently unload some of the most hazardous material in the world.  The Permian is home to two sites that handle some types of nuclear waste and to the only commercial uranium-enrichment facility in the country.  Holtec’s storage would be temporary, and some nuclear experts say interim facilities can be a stopgap until the federal government builds a permanent, deep geologic repository. A plan to house nuclear waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain fizzled under former President Barack Obama, and the search for an alternative site has stalled.

As a result, the US federal government is paying utilities billions of dollars to keep used fuel rods in steel-lined concrete pools and dry casks at dozens of sites.  Consolidating used nuclear fuel at one or two facilities would lessen that financial

Fasken has notched court victories. Last year, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans found that federal law didn’t authorize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license a private, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. It vacated the federal license for another storage project proposed by Interim Storage Partners, a joint-venture between Orano USA and Waste Control Specialists. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has asked the court to reconsider.

The Holtec project faces other hurdles. New Mexico last year passed legislation all but banning storage of high-level nuclear waste. Texas lawmakers have also opposed interim storage facilities. The Holtec spokesman said the company was evaluating the legislation’s impact on the project. Fasken expects the fight over interim storage will eventually reach the Supreme Court. 

Excerpts from Benoit Morenne, The War over Burying Nuclear Waste in America’s Busiest Oil Field, WSJ, Feb. 19, 2024

The Future of Political Assassination

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The Pentagon killed a Kataib Hezbollah leader in downtown Baghdad in February 2024 using a weapon that employs six long blades to shred its target and minimize civilian casualties, defense officials said. The modified Hellfire missile, which inside the military is referred to colloquially as “the flying Ginsu,” recalling the popular knives sold on TV infomercials in the 1970s, was used to target Abu Baqr al-Saadi, the leader of Kataib Hezbollah in Syria. The U.S. use of the Ginsu in the Baghdad strike hasn’t been previously disclosed. …The weapon, formally known as the R9X and sometimes referred to as the Ninja bomb, is an inert Hellfire missile designed by the Pentagon and the CIA to kill terrorist leaders. It was employed, in part, because of concerns that killing innocent bystanders could inflame an already tense political situation in Iraq, which hosts roughly 2,500 American troops, the officials said. 

Imagery of the strike on al-Saadi, showing the remnants of a burning but largely intact vehicle, was reminiscent of others involving the Ginsu. A weapon with an explosive warhead, like the traditional Hellfire missile, would have likely destroyed the vehicle.  The U.S. has developed a variant of the Hellfire missile that replaces an explosive warhead with a ring of blades.

Excerpts from Pentagon Used Six-Bladed ‘Ginsu’ Weapon to Kill Iraqi Militia Leader, WSJ, Feb. 14, 2024

Miners against Miners: the Underground Battles

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In South Africa, dissatisfied miners are taking their co-workers hostage and confining them in deep underground shafts to force concessions from corporate bosses. Mining companies and workers say the violent strikes emerged as part of a turf war between the country’s two biggest mining unions, whose competition for fee-paying members has heated up just months before national elections. At some mines, they were also employed to demand higher wages and other changes to compensation. The wildcat strikes began in October 2023 at Gold One, which has experienced two such underground protests, and have since spread to several other mines, including 

The disputes add to the physical risks of some of the world’s most dangerous jobs and further imperil South Africa’s embattled mining sector, where hundreds of thousands of workers still toil underground in some of the oldest and deepest shafts on earth. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of platinum and a major gold producer. The average salary of an underground employee at Modder East gold mine is 10,500 South African rand, equivalent to around $550, a month, according to Gold One. Miners typically work eight-hour shifts, six days a week.

At one such underground protest, the kidnappers sent a note to the mine’s managers at the surface that said they would start killing hostages [their co-workers] if no food was sent down. One miner was hospitalized with severe lacerations after being whipped on the lower half of his body…

Excerpts from Alexandra Wexler, Kidnapped by Co-Workers: South African Labor Disputes Take a Violent Turn, Feb. 14, 2024

When Lakes Become a Soup of Minerals: the Fate of Great Salt Lake

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In the summer 2024, a California startup plans to start construction on a project to suck up water from the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States to extract one of its many valuable minerals: lithium, a critical ingredient in the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles. The water will then be reinjected back into the lake, which Lilac Solutions says addresses concerns about the damaging effects of mineral extraction. At its peak, Lilac says it will use a series of pipes to suck up 80,000 gallons of water a minute to harvest the mineral. The company plans to eventually produce up to 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium a year.

The effort is one of dozens of projects across the U.S. racing to build up a domestic supply of lithium and other battery minerals as the Biden administration is dedicating billions of dollars to strengthening the U.S. battery supply chain and reducing reliance on China, which dominates the global production of battery minerals.

One common extraction method of lithium pumps briny underground water into vast man-made ponds, where evaporation separates lithium from other elements over 18 months or more. Mining companies in Chile and elsewhere have used the approach, which drains scarce water resources and can leave deposits of toxic residues.

Lilac says its technology is much faster, taking a matter of hours from the time of extraction, while preserving water levels. Its method deploys reusable ceramic “beads” that attach to lithium atoms to separate them from the brine.

At the Great Salt Lake, mineral extraction is nothing new. The lake has been shrinking for decades because of agricultural, industrial and other diversions of its feed waters. Extraction of minerals accounts for about 13% of its water diversion, according to a 2019 study. Meanwhile, the lake has become a concentrated soup of minerals, since it doesn’t have an outlet that lets it discharge the ones that flow into it.

Scott Patterson, The Great Salt Lake Is Full of Lithium. A Startup Wants to Harvest It, WSJ, Feb. 12, 2024

The Secret Fight over the Atlantic

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In August 2023, Ali Bongo, then-president of the Central African nation of Gabon, made a startling revelation to a top White House aide: During a meeting at his presidential palace, Bongo admitted he had secretly promised Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Beijing could station military forces on Gabon’s Atlantic Ocean coast. Alarmed, U.S. principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer urged Bongo to retract the offer, according to an American national security official. The U.S. considers the Atlantic its strategic front yard and sees a permanent Chinese military presence there—particularly a naval base, where Beijing could rearm and repair warships—as a serious threat to American security. “Any time the Chinese start nosing around a coastal African country, we get anxious,” a senior U.S. official said…

 China is conducting a backroom campaign to secure a naval base on the continent’s western shores, American officials say. And, for more than two years, the U.S. has been running a parallel effort to persuade African leaders to deny the People’s Liberation Army Navy a port in Atlantic waters. It’s a battle American officials say they are winning. So far, no African country with an Atlantic coastline has signed a deal with China, U.S. officials say. Authorities in Equatorial Guinea, a repressive, family-run oil state, have “consistently assured us that they will not have the P.R.C. construct a base,” the official said…

Only one African port, however, serves as a permanent base for Chinese ships and troops: The P.L.A.’s seven-year-old facility in Djibouti, which overlooks the strategic Red Sea where the U.S. and its allies are currently defending shipping routes against attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen. The Chinese base, capable of docking an aircraft carrier or nuclear submarines, sits a short drive from the largest American base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, a hub for the U.S. campaign against al-Shabaab, the virulent al Qaeda affiliate operating in Somalia.

Excerpt from Michael M. Phillips, U.S.-China Tensions Have a New Front: A Naval Base in Africa, WSJ, Feb. 10, 2024