Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Australian news this week.

Australian news this week

August 7, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Small Reactor That Isn’t So Small: Why the SMR Dream Deserves Much Greater Scrutiny

National Herald, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02vhW9RCrQdNjmM9VLxerw1cHa3awLJ9KFFyQDnpDjYzakRJW577vxCQcf6iJd97hAl&id=100063537605071&rdid=i8qv8opWWLIfSevN#

For years, the nuclear industry has promoted Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) as the technology that will finally overcome the traditional objections to nuclear power. They are marketed as smaller, cheaper, faster to build and safer than conventional nuclear power stations. The implication is that they represent a revolutionary new generation of nuclear energy.

As Noel Wauchope argues in the Australian Independent Media Network (AIMN), reality appears far more complicated.

The first point worth making is almost semantic, yet enormously important. While SMRs are indeed modular—constructed from factory-built components that are transported and assembled on site—they often cease to be genuinely small once deployed commercially.

Individual reactor modules may produce between 50 and 300 megawatts of electricity, but commercial operators are rarely proposing to build just one module. Instead, they intend to cluster multiple reactors together to create generating stations approaching the size of today’s conventional nuclear plants.

The “small” reactor quickly becomes a very large power station.

The American lesson: NuScale

NuScale has long been presented as the flagship of Western SMR development. It became the first SMR design to receive certification from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and attracted more than US$1 billion in federal support.

The original Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems project planned to build twelve reactor modules producing around 924 megawatts—comparable to a conventional nuclear station.

As costs escalated, the project was scaled back to six modules generating approximately 462 megawatts. Yet even after halving its size, estimated costs continued rising dramatically.

Eventually, in late 2023, the project was cancelled altogether.

For many observers, this was a significant setback. The project intended to prove that SMRs could be commercially competitive instead demonstrated how difficult it remains to deliver nuclear projects within acceptable cost limits.

NuScale continues promoting its VOYGR design internationally, but it still has no operating commercial reactor producing electricity for customers.

Britain now hopes to succeed where America stumbled

The United Kingdom is pursuing a different technological pathway through X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor.

Rather than using conventional light-water technology, the Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor employing TRISO fuel particles contained within pebble-bed fuel assemblies.

Supporters argue this design offers inherent safety advantages because the reactor cannot experience the type of catastrophic core meltdown associated with accidents such as Fukushima or Chernobyl.

However, as Noel Wauchope points out, this is also effectively a first-of-its-kind commercial deployment.

The proposed Hartlepool development would consist of twelve reactor modules producing around 960 megawatts—again, hardly what most Australians would consider a “small” power station.

Like the NuScale project before it, success depends upon proving not only that the technology works but that it can attract sustained private investment while remaining commercially competitive.

Safety is only one part of the equation

Modern reactor designs undoubtedly incorporate significant safety improvements over earlier generations.

That does not mean legitimate questions disappear.

Large multi-module sites would still contain substantial quantities of radioactive material requiring long-term management and security. Operators must also protect facilities against cyber threats, physical sabotage and the consequences of natural disasters.

TRISO fuel itself remains the subject of ongoing technical debate. While advocates emphasise its resilience under extreme temperatures, critics note that manufacturing is complex, expensive and creates different waste management challenges compared with conventional reactor fuel.

These are not arguments against research.

They are arguments for careful examination rather than marketing slogans.

Economics remains the unanswered question

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing SMRs is not engineering but economics.

Almost every Western SMR project currently depends upon significant government assistance through grants, loan guarantees or direct public investment.

That reality raises an obvious question.

If the technology is destined to become a low-cost commercial revolution, why has private investment remained so cautious?

The NuScale experience suggests that once detailed engineering, financing and construction costs are fully accounted for, the economic advantages often promoted during the conceptual stage become far less certain.

Britain’s Hartlepool proposal now carries the burden of demonstrating that commercial SMRs can succeed where previous projects have struggled.

Australia’s debate should remain grounded in evidence

Australia’s discussion about nuclear energy deserves to be conducted on evidence rather than optimism or ideology.

Supporters argue SMRs could provide reliable low-emissions electricity and complement renewable generation.

Critics—including Noel Wauchope and many contributors to the Australian Independent Media Network—counter that the industry has yet to demonstrate it can consistently deliver affordable, commercially viable projects without extensive public subsidy.

That is not an anti-science position.

It is a request for proof.

Before Australians commit tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to an industry that has yet to establish a successful commercial SMR fleet anywhere in the Western world, it is reasonable to ask whether the promises match the evidence.

The central message emerging from Noel Wauchope’s analysis is simple.

Small Modular Reactors may indeed be modular.

Whether they are genuinely small, economically competitive or capable of transforming the world’s energy systems remains very much an open question.

For Australia, where abundant renewable resources already exist alongside rapidly improving energy storage technologies, those questions deserve rigorous examination before SMRs are embraced as the next great energy solution.

National Herald

My COMMENT The nuclear lobby is desperate to keep and gain technical and expert workers. It’s had a bit of a problem with aging and retiring experts. To make the industry appeal to the young, it really needs to maintain that (completely artificial) separation of “peaceful nuclear” from nuclear weapons. Not to mention that general need for community acceptance of nuclear energy as climate solution etc. So the SMRs are just really a front, a foot in the door for the nuclear weapons industry. So I think they don’t care how much it costs. So much easier in totalitarian states, democracy is such a bloody nuisance.

August 13, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Why Renewables Win

 Australia has one of the world’s fastest-moving electricity systems. It
leads the world in rooftop solar, has deployed grid-scale batteries at
extraordinary speed, and is now starting to replace its ageing coal fleet
with cleaner sources of energy. But as renewable costs rise and electricity
demand grows, can the transition remain affordable while maintaining a
reliable power system? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich is
joined by Paul Simshauser, CEO of Iberdrola Australia, and one of
Australia’s leading energy economists. Drawing on decades of experience
across electricity markets, networks and policy, Paul explains what makes
Australia’s power system unique, and what the rest of the world can learn
from it.

 Cleaning Up 10th Aug 2026 https://cleaninguppod.substack.com/p/why-renewables-win

August 13, 2026 Posted by | energy | Leave a comment

Nuclear-related news for the past week

TOP STORIES. 

This Hiroshima Day, we are closer than ever to nuclear war. 

Climate Change Is Rewriting Europe’s Nuclear Cooling Assumptions.

Ukraine for Hire: How Kyiv Became the West’s Imperial Enforcer. 

Gaza’s “Peace Plan” Is Written in Blood.

AUSTRALIA. AUKUS: Its single point of obsolescence. 

Pat Conroy,Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry in denial about U.S. military bases (?targets) in Australia. 

FROM THE ARCHIVES – Lucas Heights nuclear reactor was always intended as a step towards nuclear weapons, AND IT STILL IS 

More at https://antinuclear.net/2026/08/07/australian-news-this-week/

ATROCITIES. 
Israel’s Ghoulish Settlers Eye Up Gaza, As Netanyahu Kills Trump’s Board of Peace.

CLIMATE. 

ECONOMICS. A stormy future? Financial impact of climate change-related disruptions on nuclear power plant owners.


EDUCATION. How Lockheed Martin, Raytheon & BAE Systems Are Propagandizing Children To Support War Through STEM.

EMPLOYMENT. Burnham is wrong – increased nuke spending will lose more jobs than create.

 ENVIRONMENT Activities related to nuclear weapons and nuclear power have created a vast archipelago of contamination.  

AI Wants Your Land, Water, Power

HISTORY. Walt Zlotow – Many top military leaders opposed atomic bombings.

LEGAL. Nuclear Watchdog Sues for Plutonium Pit Production “Special Study”.

MEDIA. Press Opinion Treats US Devastation of Cuba as Reason for More Devastation. The powerful impact of six haunting minutes.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Stop Hinkley campaigners highlight storage of nuclear waste in West Somerset, Where has all the disarmament gone?

POLITICS.
Time to build a Scotland without nuclear weapons.        Labour urged to end ‘dangerous’ nuclear weapons policy on Hiroshima Day. Brian Leishman MP blasts party’s own nuclear policy. 

𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗜𝗦 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗚𝗘: 𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗢𝗥 𝗜𝗦𝗥𝗔𝗘𝗟?   After 157 days of Iran war failure, Trump must quit war or quit presidency. 

How can Ireland build a nuclear reactor when it can’t even manage a
children’s hospital?  What links Palestine Action arrests with Burnham’s nuclear weapons splurge?

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 

RADIATION. DR Congo’s cobalt boom carries an unwanted cargo: uranium– ALSO AT  https://nuclear-news.net/?s=DR+Congo%E2%80%99s+cobalt+boom

SECRETS and LIES. Why no Hollywood movie on Nagasaki A bombing? 

Nuclear test veterans’ medical records were gathered by secret government lab. 

Israeli spyware firms are fueling the global surveillance state. 

Is It Just About AIPAC’s Money, or Does the US-Israel Rot Run Far Deeper?

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Secret ‘Project Mars’ roils Torrance County residents. 

A Ton of Space Junk Is Reentering Earth’s Atmosphere More Often, and It’s Hard to Predict. 

Alert: SpaceX rocket stage will slam into the Moon August 4-5. Can Earth’s people stop it?

TECHNOLOGY. Pentagon Plans AI Data Centers at Military Bases Across Multiple Branches. Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying.

WASTES. Japan begins 22nd release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into ocean.

WAR and CONFLICT. 

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. NATO is being installed into Ukraine’s military– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYawuRVSxdU 

Nuclear disarmament has never been more urgent.  

Hiroshima marks 81st atomic bomb anniversary as mayor deplores the pursuit of nuclear weapons. 

The Next Weapons Frontier: New Mexico’s Expanding Military Industrial Ecosystem. Common Sense & the Pentagon Budget.

August 12, 2026 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

AUKUS: The Opportunity Costs

A Comprehensive Examination of Australia’s Nuclear Submarine Gamble

A Research Paper dedicated to: The Australian people – who were never asked, never consulted, and who will bear the cost of a decision made in the shadows. And to my wife, S. Klein, who sees the patterns others miss.

Abstract

This paper examines the AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement through the lens of opportunity cost, strategic realism, and the quality of advice shaping Australian defence policy. It argues that the premise upon which AUKUS is built – that China poses an existential military threat requiring nuclear-powered submarines – is seriously flawed. The paper documents the $368 billion price tag, the documented capacity constraints of the US industrial base, the lack of comprehensive costing, and the alternative capabilities foregone. It identifies the political and financial beneficiaries of the current path, the nature of the advice being received by the government, and the strategic alternatives that have been dismissed without due consideration. The paper concludes that Australia is being led down a path of strategic dependency that serves American interests first, while the Australian public pays the bill.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction: The Unasked Question
  2. What Is AUKUS? A Brief Overview
  3. The Cost: What Australia Is Spending
  4. The Opportunity Cost: What Australia Is Forgoing
  5. The Strategic Premise: Is China a Threat?
  6. The Industrial Reality: Can the US Deliver?
  7. The Quality of Advice: Who Is Advising the Government?
  8. Who Benefits? Political and Financial Interests
  9. Alternative Approaches: What Could Have Been Done
  10. Conclusion: A Path Not Taken

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 10. Conclusion: A Path Not Taken

AUKUS represents a fundamental decision about Australia’s future. It commits the nation to:

  • A $368 billion expenditure
  • Strategic dependency on the United States
  • A nuclear industry that Australia has never had
  • Decades of spending that will crowd out other priorities

The decision was made without:

  • Public consultation
  • Parliamentary debate
  • Comprehensive costing
  • Adequate consideration of alternatives

The result is a program that:


  • Serves US interests first
  • May not deliver as promised
  • Will crowd out other capabilities
  • May not even be completed as planned

The question Australians must ask is: Who benefits?

The answer is clear: the United States, its defence contractors, and the political class that approved the deal without public scrutiny.

The Australian people will bear the cost – not just the financial cost, but the cost of lost opportunity, lost sovereignty, and lost alternatives.

References…………………….. https://theaimn.net/aukus-the-opportunity-costs/

August 12, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The trouble with Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) – THEY’RE NOT SMALL

7 August 2026 Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/the-trouble-with-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-smrs-theyre-not-small/

The big boasts for small nuclear reactors are that they are modular and they are small.

Modular – yes. They’re a sort of LEGO or IKEA thing – parts made in one place, then shipped to another place and assembled. (That process has its problems, too – but today I’m just focussing on the small aspect.

A small modular reactor (SMR) is an emergent class of nuclear fission reactors with a rated electrical power of less than 300 megawatts (MWe) (Wikipedia) MWE (Megawatts electric) refers specifically to the amount of electrical power a system can produce. Large reactors generate over 700 MW(e). Microreactors range in capacity from 1 to 20 MWe.

So – now we have SMRs being touted as the great new source of electricity – a sort of vision of little nuclear reactors dotted in their many thousands all over the world.

But that’s not really a practical plan. So – how about bundling a bunch of them together – so they can produce a large amount of electricity, and we can still call them a Small Modular Nuclear Power Plant?

Case study 1 – NuScale – the American experiment

The NuScale SMR is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) – a type of light-water nuclear reactor. In a PWR, water is used both as a neutron moderator and as coolant fluid for the reactor core. So it’s pretty much a small version of the “tried and tested” large nuclear reactors. This was the first SMR design to get Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing. The Department of Energy approved $1.35 billion to the project, over 10 years subject to appropriations.

In 2015 NuScale Power and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) planned a single plant, containing 12 “modules” – i.e. 12 SMRs, which would provide 924 MWe – same as a large nuclear reactor. so – no longer small. The estimated costs kept rising, reaching $9.3 Billion by 2023. So the plan, now named VOYGR, was changed from 12 modules to six. Even at 6 modules with 462 MWe- still a large project.

In November 2023 UAMPS officially terminated the CFPP agreement. The Idaho project would have been NuScale’s first commercial deployment. The project that was supposed to demonstrate SMR viability in the US was dead. NuScale took a $100M+ write-down. The cancellation sent shockwaves through the SMR industry. Investor interest, always poor, collapsed. In a class-action lawsuit filed Nov. 15, investors say NuScale “made materially false and/or misleading statements and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects.”

NuScale continues to push its VOYGR plan – to Romania, Poland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the Philippines. The company continues to burn cash with no revenue from reactor operations. The VOYGR design remains the only NRC-certified SMR.

Case study 2 – X-Energy ‘s MWe Xe-100 plant – the British experiment.

In September 2025, X-energy and Centrica signed a Joint Development Agreement for the UK’s first advanced nuclear fleet, targeting 6 GW nationwide with Hartlepool identified as the preferred first site for a 12-unit/960 MWe Xe-100 plant.

The Xe-100 is a 200MWt (75MWe) reactor. The Xe-100 SMR is a high temperature gas-cooled (HTGR) pebble bed modular reactor. “It uses tennis ball-sized pebbles made of thousands of TRISO micro-fuel particles which consist of fissile U-235 surrounded by pyrolytic graphite, which acts as the moderator – slowing down fast neutrons so they more efficiently split the U-235 nucleus.”

So this UK plan is different from the American pioneer project, Nuscale. It is using different fuel, – a Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor. This has been tried in the past as a large reactor, and was a failure. The Xe-100 has a new variant – TRISO (Tri-structural Isotropic particle fuel). Thousands of poppy seed-sized particles are combined into compact fuel forms. These tiny uranium kernels are encased in three layers of ceramic coating that’s needed to absorb the nasty byproducts that form during the atom-splitting process.

So, like the American NuScale project, this will be a world first.

Both projects were hugely touted as safe. And it’s true – they can’t melt down like a Chernobyl or Fukushima event. But at 462 MWe (the Utah project) and 960MWe (Hartlepool) they are both big plants, with the potential for accidents or terrorist attacks, including cyber-disruption, to release a large amount of ionising radiation to the surrounding area. Even within the nuclear hierarchy, there are anxieties about the safety of TRISO fuel. And TRISO discharges the largest volume of spent nuclear fuels waste in the industry.

The UTAH Nuscale project sank because it was becoming more and more expensive. Assisted by the government, it was still a private enterprise project, and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems balked at the cost.

The Hartlepool X Energy project is intended to become a successful private enterprise project, but it is strongly backed by the UK government’s Great British Energy – Nuclear with funding provided by its Future Nuclear Enabling Fund. However TRISO fuel is highly expensive to make, and with still uncertainties about its safety, it is not likely that this pioneer initiative for Hartlepool will really bring the wave of private investment that the UK government has been hoping for.

In both cases, these have been attempts to show the Western world that small modular nuclear reactors are a really big profitable thing – they will power the mighty data farms etc.

Community acceptance is the big bonus that the nuclear industry desperately needs

This is much less of a problem in totalitarian nations like Russia and China. Both countries have only one small nuclear reactor in operation, and in each case, it hasn’t been very successful. Both China and Russia are ramping up their nuclear weapons, and they don’t need to worry so much about public acceptance of the “peaceful” nuclear industry, and of community agreement on matters nuclear.

August 11, 2026 Posted by | Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Royal Commission into Antisemitism a “$131 Million Whinge”

by Andrew Brown | Aug 5, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/royal-commission-into-antisemitism-a-131-million-whinge/

“Australians are not being investigated for hating Jews. They are being investigated for objecting to a genocide.” Andrew Brown on the Royal Commission into Antisemitism.

Apparently antisemitism simply fell from the sky. Fully formed. Immaculately conceived. Entirely unrelated to anything happening in Gaza. That is the finding Australia has pre-purchased for $131.1 million, confirmed at Senate Estimates in February, with $91 million alone for staffing, property, lawyers and security.

“Every single dollar buys theatre.“

Measure the obscenity. The banking royal commission, which gutted an entire industry’s misconduct, cost $75 million. Aboriginal Deaths in Custody cost $50.2 million.

This inquiry outspends both combined. Meanwhile there is no royal commission into the domestic violence killing a woman most weeks, none into Islamophobia, now soaring. Australia found $131 million for the one inquiry designed never to ask an obvious question.

Blame where it belongs. Anthony Albanese wrote the answer into the question. His Letters Patent instruct the Commission to find the drivers of antisemitism in extremism and radicalisation, the war deleted from the terms of reference before Virginia Bell was even sworn in.

The Albanese government wrote the verdict into the terms of reference, then spent more than the banking royal commission to have a judge read it back. Here is what the money is buying.

Commissioning an alibi

Albanese promised the inquiry would deliver, in his own words, the right outcome. A Prime Minister announcing the right outcome in advance is commissioning an alibi.

This is the government that will gesture at recognising Palestine while refusing to utter the word genocide, that ships F35 components into the supply chain of the slaughter, that sanctions two Israeli ministers and calls it courage. It needed a grand national explanation for collapsing social cohesion that never once mentions its own complicity.

“For $131 million, it has bought one.“

The process delivered. In the first three days of hearings, 23 of 36 witnesses characterised criticism of Israel, opposition to Zionism or Palestine advocacy as antisemitic. Jewish organisations opposed to Zionism were refused leave to appear. Palestinian voices were excluded for lacking a direct and substantial interest.

The accused were barred from the courtroom so the prosecution could run unopposed at public expense.

The grievance parade

And the substance? A grievance parade.

The ABC and SBS hauled in to answer for Jillian Segal’s strong perception, her phrase, that their Gaza coverage lacks balance, then interrogated for declining the contested IHRA definition Bell waved through as uncontroversial.

Keffiyehs, flags, watermelon art, chants of Free Palestine, student encampments and fundraisers for maimed children tendered as exhibits of hate. Protest. Tents. Journalism. Every place an ordinary Australian expressed solidarity with a people being exterminated, recast at public expense as a crime scene. Australians are not being investigated for hating Jews.

“They are being investigated for objecting to a genocide.“

The complainants were welcomed like royalty. Alex Ryvchin of the ECAJ, who called the anti-Israel movement indistinguishable from neo-Nazism, testified at length while his silk objected to opposing counsel merely uttering the word genocide, a finding the International Court of Justice considered plausible back in January 2024.

Robert Gregory of the self-appointed Australian Jewish Association, which the ECAJ itself calls unrepresentative, told the Commission the government egged on antisemitism, fresh from blaming Bondi on visas for Palestinians fleeing the bombs.

Sky’s the limit

Sky News completes the circuit, wheeling Gregory out to demonise protesters, then feeding its own segments back into the panic as evidence.

The outcomes are as predetermined as the terms.

Come 14 December, expect IHRA stamped across the public service and pushed onto civil society, work Segal has begun. Expect ABC oversight its own ombudsman rejected. Expect protest reframed as policing, and regulators monitoring speech the way AHPRA already does, having admitted under oath it watches nurses and doctors for criticism of Israel after Segal’s pressure.

“Expect everything blamed but the war.“

And expect antisemitism not to fall, because you cannot cure what you refuse to diagnose. Every recommendation will manufacture the resentment it claims to fight, and Labor will call the wreckage cohesion.

For almost three years the world has watched a genocide live-streamed by a state claiming to act in the name of the Jewish people, while its Australian cheer squad defended, excused or denied every atrocity.

Now they ask why anger grows.

None of this excuses antisemitism. Not one word of it. The Bondi gunmen murdered Jews for being Jews, and the law should fall hard on every bigot who follows them. Fifteen dead Australians deserved a fearless inquiry. They got a pantomime, their graves deployed as a shield for a foreign state and the government that armed it.


The elephant is blocking the doorway and eating $131 million of paperwork, yet everyone keeps peering around it, declaring there is nothing to see.

This Commission will not defeat antisemitism. It will deliver the most expensive whinge in Australian history, commissioned by a government purchasing its own absolution with public money.

August 10, 2026 Posted by | legal | Leave a comment

The Advertiser (Adelaide) tries to be fair about AUKUS nuclear waste, but can’t quite make it.

Waste Storage Issue

Robyn Wood, 3 August 26

The Advertiser published my letter on AUKUS today, though they edited it to remove the cost of “tens of billions of dollars” and removed my sentence asking just what the government was trying to hide from us.

To answer David Harris’ suggestion on the eventual storage of high level waste at the end of AUKUS nuclear submarine life – (Stiring the waste – letters 30/7/26), Australia is definitely responsible for it, even nuclear waste generated by the U.S. in the second-hand subs we will supposedly get from them.

Eventually a deep geological nuclear waste facility would have to be built in Australia at a vast cost which has not been budgeted for.

The government is keeping its plans secret.

Former Senator Rex Patrick recently won a legal case to bring about release of government documents detailing potential AUKUS nuclear waste storage and disposal sites, which the government is currently appealing, in their wish to keep the plans from public view.

August 8, 2026 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

Jonathan Huston MLA: “HMAS Stirling pens will become a perfect open-air target”

August 8, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ivy Lee Patrick: “I was not only grieving AUKUS itself”

August 8, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Giant space radars in Pembrokeshire branded ‘instrument of evil’ as campaigners hail small victory in fight against Ministry of Defence plans

“If we put such an installation like that it makes Wales suddenly a supporter of the most provocative regime in the world at the moment. That makes enemies.”

those against it fear the US would have primary control of the dishes, helping a US-led escalation in space warfare and to turn Wales into a military target for its enemies.

The radars, which would be built by American defence company Northrop Grumman are earmarked for Cawdor Barracks, near St Davids, and are part of the AUKUS security partnership between the UK, US and Australia.

“And the argument for it bringing jobs is just ridiculous,” he added. “Because the local people won’t be involved in the operation. Jobs will be lost.”

“If we put such an installation like that it makes Wales suddenly a supporter of the most provocative regime in the world at the moment. That makes enemies.”

those against it fear the US would have primary control of the dishes, helping a US-led escalation in space warfare and to turn Wales into a military target for its enemies.

By Bronwen Weatherby, 6 Aug 2026, https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/radars-pembrokeshire-wales-campaign-5HjdfgP_2/?fbclid=IwY2xjawThW2BwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4xadMM94NX9NwkoA9egZO764QyF026XrpxAGhLphH2dG6lSMLNQaypWZUNuQ_aem_AryMN-WJ0muRN-wPxngdOA

Campaigners have branded the proposed installation of twenty-seven giant space radars in Pembrokeshire “an instrument of evil”, claiming it would seriously impact the health, environment and safety of the local community.

A planning decision on the DARC – Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability – project was due to take place last week, but the Welsh Government called in the decision days before the vote – in a move that could trigger a row with Westminster over the UK’s national security.

Opponents of the radar have hailed it as a small victory in the battle against the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) plans, as the newly elected Plaid Cymru government has been openly resistant to it.

However, the area’s Labour MP Henry Tufnell was scathing of Plaid ministers saying “their priorities are all in the wrong place”.

The radars, which would be built by American defence company Northrop Grumman are earmarked for Cawdor Barracks, near St Davids, and are part of the AUKUS security partnership between the UK, US and Australia.

Each 20-metre-high by 15-metre-wide radar dish is designed to find, track, and identify objects up to 22,000 miles out in space and once in place, the three sites – one in each nation – would connect to give a complete 360-degree, 24 hours a day view of space.

‘Desecration of the land’

Among those leading the campaign against it is Game of Thrones star Jerome Flynn who spoke to LBC, saying: “I see it as a desecration of the land.

“It’s not our airspace, it’s our beautiful coastal birds and their migratory space. And there is much evidence to show that they’re one of the biggest emitters of harmful EMFs [high-frequency ionizing radiation]

“So we need to think about human beings, including the ones that come and visit here and what it might do to the tourist industry.

“And the argument for it bringing jobs is just ridiculous,” he added. “Because the local people won’t be involved in the operation. Jobs will be lost.”

“I don’t think anybody feels like that installation is going to make us safer.

“If we put such an installation like that it makes Wales suddenly a supporter of the most provocative regime in the world at the moment. That makes enemies.”

Mr Flynn argued the radars were “antithetical” to what the St David’s peninsula represents, particularly as an important pilgrimage site.

The MOD states ‘the radio waves used by DARC are non-ionising radiation. They are not hazardous to health because they do not have enough energy to cause harmful ionisation.

‘Levels of non-ionising radiation in the area surrounding the DARC site would be less than or equal to that received from using a mobile phone, presenting no danger to members of the public in the area.’

It also argues the radar would protect satellites essential to GPS navigation, emergency communications, banking systems, weather forecasting and military operations from hostile military actions including missiles, hostile spacecrafts and blinding lasers as well as accidental hazards such as fast-moving space junk and orbital debris.

But those against it fear the US would have primary control of the dishes, helping a US-led escalation in space warfare and to turn Wales into a military target for its enemies.

Northrop Grumman’s director of space surveillance, Kevin Giammo, has previously stated that he sees DARC as a key asset in the US’s ‘Golden Dome’ initiative – a plan to create an air and missile defense shield over America.

Several of those LBC spoke with at a PARC Against DARC (Pembrokeshire Against the Radar Campaign) rally referenced Iran’s destruction of radar infrastructure in the Gulf in response to the US-Israel attacks and their fear Pembrokeshire would become a similar target.

Roy Jones, one of the group who successfully fought a similar proposal in the 1990s told LBC: “We often get accused of being NIMBY’s. Yes I feel passionate about my local landscape and my local community, but I wouldn’t want to see this thing put anywhere in Britain or anywhere in the world because it’s an instrument of evil.”

Such is the strength of feeling among some in the community that local Labour MP, Henry Tufnell, has come under personal attacks with protesters referring to him as ‘Toff-nell’, holding cut outs of his face at rallies while chanting “Where’s Toff-nell?”

In response to Plaid’s move to seize control of the planning decision, he told LBC: “How do we make sure there are good well-paid jobs, how do we make sure they go beyond the construction phase, how do we make sure we reap the benefits as a local community? Those are the right questions to be asking.

Outside his office in Haverfordwest, Mr Tufnell who has publicly advocated for the plans insisted he had been engaging with the MOD and Northrop Grumman to minimise the impact on the landscape and on health and ensure it benefits the local economy.

“Not shall we put into question our national security and hand ourselves to China and Russia on a plate and forget about our international partners. I think they’re priorities are all in the wrong place.”

Welsh Ministers are no longer able to comment on the application while the call-in process is active but a statement provided by some Plaid backbenchers said: “We do not support the construction of the DARC radar array and have been consistent in expressing our serious concerns about the impact of this project on Pembrokeshire’s landscape, tourism economy, and public health – none of which have been adequately assessed.

“The scale of opposition also makes it clear that many residents reject this proposal and the lack of transparency surrounding it.”

An MoD spokesman said: “The programme has worked with Pembrokeshire County Council to develop the planning application in accordance with applicable regulations in addition to Welsh national requirements. This will continue to be the case as the application is now considered by Welsh Ministers.”

Northrop Grumman and Montagu Evans, the planning agent for the project, were contacted for comment.

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