RADIATION. Euratom Treaty requires continuous monitoring radioactive discharges from nuclear facilities
Study on monitoring of radioactive discharges from nuclear facilities in
the EU. Chapter three of Title II of the Euratom Treaty, Article 35 states:
‘Each Member State shall establish the facilities necessary to carry out
continuous monitoring of the level of radioactivity in the air, water and
soil and to ensure compliance with the basic standards’.
This study focuses on the facilities that have the authorisation to discharge a
significant amount of radioactivity in the environment. With this
authorisation, the nuclear facilities are required to have technical
systems in place to carry out continuous or batch-wise monitoring of these
discharges.
During this study, 11 nuclear facilities in nine Member States
(covering nuclear power plants with different technologies, a spent fuel
reprocessing plant, medical isotope production facilities, and a nuclear
plant under dismantling) were visited for a detailed assessment of the
monitoring of liquid and gaseous radioactive discharge systems.
EU (accessed) 15th May 2024
Australian war crimes whistleblower David McBride jailed for six years
Eight years after Australia began investigating alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, a whistleblower is the first to be punished.
By Al Jazeera Staff, 14 May 2024
Former Australian Army lawyer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months for revealing information about alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
Supporters of McBride have long expressed his concern that the Australian government was more interested in punishing him for revealing information about war crimes rather than the alleged perpetrators.
“It is a travesty that the first person imprisoned in relation to Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan is not a war criminal but a whistleblower,” said Rawan Arraf, the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, in a statement released after the sentencing.
“This is a dark day for Australian democracy,” Kieran Pender, the acting legal director of the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre, said in the same statement, noting McBride’s imprisonment would have “a grave chilling effect on potential truth-tellers”.
McBride, who arrived at the Supreme Court in Canberra, Australia this morning with his pet dog and surrounded by supporters, will remain behind bars until at least August 13, 2026, before he is eligible for parole.
In an interview with Al Jazeera before his trial began last year, McBride said he had never made a secret of sharing the files.
“What I want to be discussed is whether or not I was justified in doing so,” McBride stressed.
The former Australian Army lawyer’s sentencing comes almost seven years after Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, published a series of seven articles known as the Afghan Files based on information McBride provided.
The series led to an unprecedented Australian Federal Police raid on ABC headquarters in June 2019 but details published in the series were also later confirmed in an Australian government inquiry, which found there was credible evidence to support allegations war crimes had been committed.
A Spokesperson for the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) told Al Jazeera that a former Australian Special Forces soldier who was charged with one count of the war crime of murder on March 20, 2023, is on bail with a mention scheduled for July 2, 2024.
“This is the first war crime arrest resulting from [joint investigations between the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) and the Australian Federal Police]”, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said the investigations were “very complex” and “expected to take a significant amount of time” but that they were conducting them as “thoroughly and expeditiously as possible”.
In a separate case last year, an Australian judge found Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was “complicit in and responsible for the murder” of three Afghan men while on deployment. The finding was made in defamation proceedings brought by Roberts-Smith against three Australian newspapers who had reported on the allegations against him.
Roberts-Smith has appealed against the defamation ruling.
‘Greyer, murkier, messier’
McBride’s sentencing comes four months after Dan Oakes, one of two ABC journalists who wrote the Afghan Files, was awarded an Order of Australia Medal, with the citation simply saying he was recognised “for service to journalism”.
Oakes was quoted by the ABC at the time as saying, “I’m very proud of the work we did with the Afghan Files and I know that it did have a positive effect in that it helps bring some of this conduct to light………………………………………………………………….
In a joint statement from several Australians issued after the hearing, Peter Greste, the executive director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said that “press freedom relies on protections for journalists and their sources”. He also noted that Australia had recently dropped to 39th in the global press freedom rankings.
Greste is a former Al Jazeera reporter who was jailed with two colleagues in Egypt from 2013 to 2015 on national security charges brought by the Egyptian government.
“As someone who was wrongly imprisoned for my journalism in Egypt, I am outraged about David McBride’s sentence on this sad day for Australia,” said Greste.
McBride is one of several Australians facing punishment for revealing information, while high-profile Australian Julian Assange will face hearings on his potential extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States later this month.
New report to Congress shows US determined to militarize space
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst, 8 May 24, https://infobrics.org/post/39611
Back in mid-February, the mainstream propaganda machine bombarded us with a slew of reports about “big bad Russian space nukes“, claiming that Moscow is using its technological prowess to build strategic space-based weapons. And while it’s true the Eurasian giant is a cosmic superpower and that it certainly has the know-how to accomplish such a feat, the mainstream propaganda machine conveniently “forgot” to explain why the Kremlin would make the decision to expand its space capabilities. Namely, Russia is indeed planning to deploy a nuclear-powered anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), but there’s a massive difference between having thermonuclear warheads pointed at Earth from space and having a nuclear-powered spacecraft. The Russian military is already in possession of the former, as it was the world’s first operator of the FOBS back in the early 1960s.
FOBS, an acronym for the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (СЧОБ in Russian), is a thermonuclear weapon system found on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), designed to make their range effectively limitless. China tested its own version of the technology only in 2021, while the United States has been unable to create anything similar. Thus, Moscow has had this capability for well over half a century, so why is there such hype over a supposed nuclear-powered ASAT all of a sudden? It’s exceedingly difficult to ignore the fact that this is being used as yet another excuse to push several warmongering agendas at once. First, it furthers the idea that there “cannot be peace” with the Kremlin, and second, it gives Washington DC the perfect excuse to continue militarizing space, started years (or, in reality, even decades) before the special military operation (SMO).
Apart from making sure that its economic issues spill over to the rest of the world, where impoverished and heavily exploited countries pay the price of US imperialism, the belligerent thalassocracy keeps militarizing and creating enemies in order to feed the monstrosity called the American Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Back in late March, as the debt ceiling crisis was unfolding, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that the Pentagon would be doubling its military budget. At the time, Milley kept parroting about “a looming global conflict”, but clearly “forgot” to explain that if there were to ever be one, its sole cause would be the US itself, as it’s the only country on the planet with an openly stated strategy of “full spectrum dominance”. However, the only way to accomplish this is to keep spending funds that Washington DC simply doesn’t have.
Global military spending for 2022 was around $2.1 trillion, meaning that the US is already at over 40% of the world’s total with its current budget. Doubling it, even over the next several years (also taking into account that other superpowers would certainly respond to it), could push that figure close to 60%. In terms of the US federal budget, it would also require further cuts to investment in healthcare, infrastructure, education, etc. As the military currently spends approximately 15% of the entire US federal budget, obviously, doubling it would mean the percentage would go up to (or even over) 30%. Such figures are quite close to what the former Soviet Union was spending, which was one of the major factors that contributed to its unfortunate dismantlement and the later crisis in all post-Soviet countries that needed approximately a decade to recover.
As previously mentioned, such a move would also force others to drastically increase their own military spending in response to US belligerence. If China were to follow suit, its military budget would then rise to approximately $500 billion, while Russia’s military budget would be close to $200 billion. In fact, Moscow is already in the process of doing this, as it recently increased its defense spending by 70% in 2024 alone in order to tackle NATO aggression in Europe. As we can see, this is causing a military spending “death spiral” that’s extremely difficult to control and is leading the world into an unprecedented arms race. However, it seems that’s exactly what Washington DC wants. On October 12, the US Congress Strategic Posture Commission issued its final report and called for further expansion of America’s already massive arsenal of thermonuclear weapons.
It should be noted that the reasoning (although there’s hardly anything reasonable in it) behind such a decision is a simultaneous confrontation with both Russia and China. This includes massive investment into new weapons systems such as the B-21 “Raider” strategic bomber/missile carrier and Columbia-class SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine), as well as the replacement of the heavily outdated “Minuteman 3” ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) with new LGM-35 “Sentinel” missiles. All three types are in different stages of development and are expected to be fully operational by the early 2030s. However, with the US debt projected to reach over $50 trillion in less than ten years (the best-case scenario), the viability of such a massive expansion in American military spending is highly questionable (if possible at all).
By 2027, interest payments alone are expected to surpass the Pentagon’s entire budget. What’s more, America’s ability to keep up with the technological advances of its geopolitical adversaries is also falling short, particularly in the development of hypersonic weapons, a field in which Russia has an absolute advantage, despite spending approximately 20-25 times less on its armed forces. The only way for the US to avoid bankrupting itself is to finally leave the world alone and focus on the mountain of domestic issues that keep piling up.
Source: InfoBrics
TODAY. Dominic Cummings the “evil gnome” who makes us think.
I am NOT a fan of Dominic Cummings, (described as the evil gnome on the shoulder of former British prime minister Boris Johnson)
He’s the one who scandalised Britain with bizarre ideas on Covid vaccination. He has harsh anti-immigration views, has promoted small nuclear reactors, and was largely responsible for Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.
And now, Dominic Cummings is starting a new political party – with a mixture of what seem to me to be some good ideas and some terrible ideas.
AND YET, AND YET ……. Cummings has something to give us.
He is an independent thinker. At a time when we desperately need independent thinking. We are stuck with world leaders rigidly sticking to their doctrines, no matter what. With political party leaders who have no aim except to fight the other side, no matter what. The media love this conflict-obsessed culture, the military-industrial-nuclear-complex is orgiastic about it.
Cummings has a great interest and knowledge of ancient and modern history, has lived in Russia, and speaks Russian, -he does bring to politics a different view from that of the usual business-oriented politicians . He certainly has had a chequered career, (to put it kindly!) in British politics, and has made lots of enemies on both the Right and the Left.
Who knows whether Dominic Cummings’ new “start-up” political party will become a reality?
I’m certainly not advocating for that party. But many of Cumming’s ideas and policies are developed from a deep understanding of European history. And that is refreshing. In the current Ukraine mess, very few leaders and journalists show any grasp of history.
Even if you hate Dominic Cummings, you would have to concede that he has brought a highly individual and independent view on politics and world affairs.
And that is a valuable gift and example for us – as against slavishly following political parties, and dogmas like the “rules based international order”.
The 13 leading sites for a nuclear reactor in Australia – including a dam that supplies drinking water for a major city.
- Nuclear for Climate has Liberal Party endorsements
- It favours turning coal stations into nuclear reactors
- Also suggested Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam as site
By STEPHEN JOHNSON, ECONOMICS REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA,12 May 2024
A dam that supplies drinking water near a major city could be used to cool a reactor should Australia embrace nuclear power.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is expected to use his upcoming Budget in Reply speech to provide more detail on potential sites for nuclear reactors, with the Coalition arguing Australia cannot solely rely on renewable energy to meet its climate change targets.
Nuclear for Climate Australia has been endorsed by Coalition MPs and its founder, a disillusioned former Labor candidate, is now advising the Opposition on nuclear energy policy.
Nuclear plants use the process of fission – splitting atoms – to heat water from the dam to create steam, which powers a turbine that creates electricity.
The dam’s water would also be used to cool down the nuclear system, with the water then recirculated back into the reactor.
‘While recirculating systems don’t add heat to the river or lake, they do consume water through evaporation,’ Nuclear for Climate Australia said……………………………
Robert Parker said Wivenhoe Dam offered cooling qualities during a drought.
‘You need to ensure that you got sufficient water in the highest demand, hot periods when everyone’s got their air conditioners going, you do not want your plant losing cooling ability,’ Mr Parker told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Smaller nuclear power plants would need to be able to get an allocation of water, particularly in the hot-weather periods out of those dams to cool themselves.
‘If the water allocation can be given to the power station, it would be a phenomenally good resource for cooling a nuclear power plant.’
This site was one of 10 ‘probable’ sites in Queensland along with another three ‘possible’ sites in the home state of Mr Dutton and the Coalition’s energy spokesman Ted O’Brien.
Opponents of nuclear power argue it is too risky to put a plant near any population centre because of the risk of meltdown, even though nuclear medical isotopes for cancer treatment are produced at Lucas Heights in suburban Sydney.
The meltdown at the Soviet-era Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986 resulted in a mass leakage of radiation that devastated surrounding areas for decades, while the effects of the 2011 earthquake on the Fukushima plant in Japan also caused a major radiation event.
Other possible nuclear power plant sites
Nuclear for Climate’s 13 recommended potential reactor sites include seven existing coal-fired power stations: Callide, Stanwell, Tarong, Gladstone, Millmeran, Kogan Creek and Collinsville, along with gas-fired Swanbank in suburban Ipswich.
‘In Queensland coal fired plants were constructed adjacent to available coal mines and other infrastructure,’ it said.
‘New nuclear plants will where possible take advantage of the resource used for cooling at these plants.’
Mr Dutton has flagged the idea of potentially converting five disused coal-fired power stations into nuclear energy reactors, arguing Australia could not entirely rely on wind and solar energy to meet its target of net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
The Coalition argues the existence of electricity transmission lines from these sites meant nuclear power could be delivered affordably – unlike Labor’s $20billion Rewiring the Nation plan……………………………………….
Nuclear for Climate has also suggested Ross River in north Queensland, the existing site of a solar farm near Townsville that is also close to the sea.
The three ‘possible’ sites included Stockleigh in suburban Logan south of Brisbane, Samsonvale west of Brisbane, and the Burdekin regional in north Queensland.
Mr Parker compiled that list in 2022 but since then he has revised it to drop two sites too far inland, citing droughts……………………………………………….
Nuclear advocacy group
Nuclear for Climate was influential within Coalition circles even before Mr Dutton in March revealed a government led by him would push for a nuclear power industry.
Mr Parker, who ran as a New South Wales state Labor candidate in 2007, said he was now providing advice to the federal Coalition……………………………
In 2022, he addressed the Parliamentary Friends of Nuclear Industries, chaired by Nationals backbencher David Gillespie.
Coalition senators in 2022 also cited Mr Parker in their dissenting report on the government’s plan for Australia to source 82 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.
Hollie Hughes, Ross Cadell and Bridget McKenzie wrote their report as members of a Senate environment and communications committee who opposed the Climate Change Bill 2022, which Labor and the Greens backed.
Mr Parker’s Nuclear for Climate group had made a submission to this bill arguing Australia could not rely on renewable energy for power generation……………………………….
Mr Parker has also been endorsed in Parliament by Liberal MP Rick Wilson.
In November 2022, the assistant shadow minister from Western Australia hailed his expertise on small modular reactors that can produce 300 megawatts, or 300million watts of power.
‘Speakers like Robert Parker, founder of Nuclear for Climate Australia, described the journey of Canada’s expanding nuclear power using SMR technology,’ he said.
SITES EARMARKED FOR NUCLEAR POWER
’10 PROBABLE SITES’
COLLINSVILLE: coal-fired plant in Whitsunday region of north Queensland
MILLMERRAN: coal-fired plant in Darling Downs region of south Queensland (dropped)
CALLIDE: coal-fired plant at Biloela in central Queensland
GLADSTONE: coal-fired plant in central Queensland
TARONG: coal-fired plant in South Burnett region of south Queensland (scaled back)
STANWELL: coal-fired plant near Rockhampton in central Queensland
KOGAN CREEK: coal-fired plant north-west of Toowoomba in south Queensland (dropped)
SWANBANK: gas-fired plant in Ipswich in south-east Queensland
WIVENHOE: hydro plant north-west of Brisbane in south-east Queensland
ROSS RIVER: solar farm near Townsville in north Queensland
‘3 POSSIBLE SITES’
STOCKLEIGH: rural area west of Logan
BURDEKIN: pumped hydro in north Queensland
SAMSONVALE: rural area west of Moreton Bay in south-east Queensland
Source: Nuclear for Climate Australia’s 2022 list which founder Robert Parker has reconsidered in 2024 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/money/article-13394175/13-sites-nuclear-reactor-Australia.html
Nuclear waste from AUKUS nations could be on cards
Greens senator David Shoebridge, who sits on the committee, said the laws would allow the defence minister to designate any area as a nuclear waste facility.
“This runs roughshod not just over local communities but also First Nations peoples who have a long history of protecting their land from nuclear waste, from Muckaty to Kimba,” he said
“This just shows the lengths the Albanese government will go to try and keep the failing AUKUS nuclear submarine deal sputtering along.”
Andrew Brown, May 13, 2024, https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/2024/05/13/nuclear-waste-from-aukus-nations-could-be-on-cards
Nuclear safety laws should allow for Australia to accept low-level waste from the UK and US as part of the AUKUS submarine deal, a Senate committee has found.
An inquiry looking at how nuclear safety would be carried out as part of the $368 billion submarine deal found that while Australia should not accept high-level nuclear waste, low-level waste from the submarine programs of AUKUS nations would be accepted.
The Senate committee on Monday recommended the safety laws pass Parliament and extra oversights should be set up for nuclear regulators.
However, opponents say the laws would allow Australia to become a dumping ground for nuclear waste.
Greens senator David Shoebridge, who sits on the committee, said the laws would allow the defence minister to designate any area as a nuclear waste facility.
“This runs roughshod not just over local communities but also First Nations peoples who have a long history of protecting their land from nuclear waste, from Muckaty to Kimba,” he said
“This just shows the lengths the Albanese government will go to try and keep the failing AUKUS nuclear submarine deal sputtering along.”
However, while the committee in its report acknowledged the concern of what would happen to the nuclear waste as part of AUKUS, proper processes would be in place.
“Terms like ‘dumping ground’ are not helpful in discussing the very serious question of national responsibility for nuclear waste of any kind,” the report said.
“There is an important distinction between the categories of nuclear waste which spans from waste with lower levels of radioactivity generated by day-to-day submarine operations … to waste with higher levels of radioactivity, such as spent fuel produced when submarines are decommissioned.”
As part of the AUKUS deal, the US will sell Australia three second-hand Virginia-class submarines in the next decade before a new class of vessels will be used that are co-designed by all three nations in the pact.
In a dissenting report to the inquiry, the Greens also took aim at the oversight of the proposed Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator.
Senator Shoebridge said the regulator reporting to the defence minister was out of step with similar bodies set up in other countries.
He said the body should instead report to the federal health minister to ensure its independence.
The report’s findings are set to be considered by the government before being brought back for debate in Parliament.
Sam Altman-backed nuclear start-up crashes after Wall Street debut
NEW YORK, https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2024/05/11/sam-altman-backed-nuclear-start-up-crashes-after-wall-street-debut/133694 ― The share price of nuclear energy start-up Oklo, chaired by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, fell sharply yesterday on its first day of trading on Wall Street.
At around 3.40pm (1940GMT), the stock was down 53.9 per cent to US$8.40 (RM39.80).
Founded in 2013 by graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oklo went public by merging with AltC Acquisition Corp, a listed company.
The latter is a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), a company whose sole purpose is to enable another firm to enter Wall Street through a merger.
Since the deal with Oklo was announced in July last year, AltC’s share price has soared, gaining over 72 per cent.
But transactions involving a SPAC are often highly volatile, partly because they are more exposed to speculation than traditional IPOs.
Altman is involved in several cutting-edge sectors and invested in Oklo in 2015, also becoming its chairman.
According to company documents, Altman directly controls around three per cent of the capital.
Oklo plans to build small modular reactors (SMRs), which are theoretically quicker to build than conventional power plants and less complicated to construct in remote areas. Oklo also wants to offer nuclear fuel recycling.
Conventional nuclear reactors are hugely expensive and take a long time to construct, with major projects having become notorious for their budget and schedule overruns.
The startup does not yet have a site of its own, and in January 2022 was refused a licence to build an SMR in Idaho by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC).
The NRC rejected the application on the grounds that there was a lack of information on the risks of accidents and the responses planned in such cases.
With the merger with AltC, Oklo raised US$306 million, which will be used to build the company’s first fission reactor, Aurora, in Ohio. ― AFP
Constellation Energy looks to small nuclear reactors for the gross, ever-increasing energy needs of great steel data containers.
Constellation Energy eyes new nuclear for unprecedented data center power
demand.
Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab is considering building
next-generation nuclear plants on its existing sites to meet soaring demand
from data centers, executives with the Baltimore-based power company said
on Thursday. The largest operator of U.S. nuclear energy said it is looking
at adding new small modular reactors and other energy technologies to
deliver electricity to large load customers like data centers.
Reuters 9th May 2024
“Nuclear comes last”
the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”
Banks reject nuclear funding, stocks nosedive and the industry says it should, believe it or not, slow down
By Linda Pentz Gunter https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/31/nuclear-comes-last/
NuScale, the company whose small modular reactor project collapsed so spectacularly last November, is “burning cash at the rate of $185 million per year”. On March 22, the company’s CEO, John Hopkins, sold 59,768 of his shares in the company. This is the same CEO who declared NuScale’s SMR project, aptly named VOYGR, “a dead horse.” It’s clearly on a journey to nowhere.
Wells Fargo, with an eye on prudent investments, has declared, “We think investor enthusiasm for SMR is misguided”. As The Motley Fool reported, “NuScale’s VOYGR nuclear power product has ‘no secure customers’ and is ‘not cost competitive’ says the analyst.”
The splashy cheerleading Nuclear Energy Summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Brussels on March 21 proved to be just that. The participants arrived floating on the hot air of their misplaced enthusiasm but “left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions”.
European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros, told Summit attendees to their face that “The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high”. Representatives from the European and Latin American banking worlds said that “their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids” and that “nuclear comes last”.
Even the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission couldn’t quite bring itself to slam down its rubber stamp on Oklo’s chalet-in-the-woods micro reactor, the Aurora, which remains about as real as its namesake fairy tale princess.
In January 2022, the NRC denied Oklo’s license application outright because it “continues to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components,” wrote the NRC.
Oklo reapplied nine months later but according to the NRC docket there is “no further action”.
Nevertheless, Oklo brags on its website that it “made history” simply by developing “the first advanced fission combined license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission”, which sums up the second nuclear “renaissance” perfectly: Make a drawing. Hit ‘send’.
Meanwhile, the US military canceled its contract for an Aurora reactor originally intended for the Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska.
And finally, an executive from the industry that has consistently delivered its latest new reactors decades late and billions over the original budget — in one case $20 billion over — suggested they should all just slow down. Said Ian Edwards, chief executive of Canadian reactor producer, Atkins Realis, “we all become too optimistic. We have this optimism bias towards being able to deliver faster. Really we should probably slow things down a little bit.”
But nuclear power is the answer to our current climate crisis! Ya think?
It’s tempting to ask whether things can get any worse for the nuclear power industry, but they almost certainly will. Unless we end up paying for it all. As the Bloomberg article that related the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”
At the moment, a majority in the US Congress seem intent on making sure that is exactly what will happen. Because after all, why should multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, be forced to pay for his own nuclear toys when he can milk (read ‘bilk’) US taxpayers instead?
The US government has already pledged $2 billion of our money to Gates for his proliferation-friendly liquid sodium-cooled molten salt fast reactor produced by his company, TerraPower (more properly, TerrorPower). Gates can’t wait to export it the United Arab Emirates. Nuclear weapons anyone?
The strokey-white-beard-named ADVANCE Act, has been passed by the US House with 365 voting in favor and only 36 Democrats-with-a-conscience voting against it. By its own description, the ADVANCE ACT aims to “advance the benefits of nuclear energy by enabling efficient, timely, and predictable licensing, regulation, and deployment of nuclear energy technologies.” In other words, do away with burdensome — and expensive — safety regulations.
Indeed, New Mexico Democrat, Senator Martin Heinrich, told E&E News in January that “These regulatory timelines do not lend themselves to fighting the climate crisis.” Oh those wascally wegulations!
Meanwhile, Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia doesn’t want to seat any new NRC commissioners who might be “too focused on safety.”
The NRC’s motto is “protecting people and the environment,” a mandate it demonstrably endeavors to avoid already, but even some vestige of interest in safety is probably better than none. Not that safety oversight will be needed of course because, hey, SMRs are “walkaway safe” and “meltdown proof” and any new light water reactors are too “advanced” to be a safety risk.
This makes the insistence by SMR manufacturers that they must be covered by the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) all the more curious. Price-Anderson, due to expire in 2025, was culled out of the ADVANCE ACT, now moving out of Senate committee and working its way through the reconciliation process, and handled separately. The Senate adopted the House version of the PAA, giving it a 40-year extension to 2026, and expanded limited liability for a major accident to just over $16 billion per reactor.
President Biden duly signed it into law, marking another misstep on what is becoming an increasingly problematic presidency.
Ed Lyman, Nuclear Power Safety Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Nuclear Intelligence Weekly that “The nuclear industry’s push for a 40-year Price-Anderson Act extension is a sure sign that it doesn’t believe its own messaging about how safe the next generation of nuclear reactors is going to be.”
But in a joint statement, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) declared that “The extension of the Price-Anderson Act in the minibus sends a clear message that we are committed to the advancement of this safe and reliable power source.”
The “clear message” this actually sends is that, in the event of a major nuclear accident, US taxpayers will be thrown under that minibus. The $16 billion coverage will be chicken feed and we will all be stuck with the bill. Let’s remember that the Chornobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters are each racking up costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars and counting. We have been warned.
But a bi-partisan group of Representatives and Senators think it’s perfectly fine for all of us to pay for such an eventuality. Meanwhile, if you own a home and are forced to abandon it in the path of a nuclear accident, you cannot claim a dime off your homeowner’s insurance. It will just be a total loss. Think about that for a moment.
Are we outraged yet?
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear
Dominic Cummings: Zelensky’s no Churchill and Ukraine’s corrupt
Former Brexit campaign chief says the West is ‘getting f**ked’ by supporting Ukraine.
BY NOAH KEATE, MAY 9, 2024 https://www.politico.eu/article/dominic-cummings-volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-corruption/
LONDON — Boris Johnson’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings launched a sweary attack on Western support for Ukraine Thursday.
In an interview with the i newspaper, Cummings — who led Britain’s Vote Leave Brexit campaign and spectacularly fell out with Johnson in 2020 — declared that the West “should have never got into the whole stupid situation” and claimed sanctions against Russia have had a greater impact on European politics than in Moscow.
The former adviser was scathing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and comparisons with World War II.
“This is not a replay of 1940 with Zelenskyy as the Churchillian underdog,” he said.
“This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f**ked as a consequence. We are getting f**ked now right?”
In a follow-up tweet, Cummings later branded Zelenskyy a “potemkin” leader — but denied he’d called him a “pumpkin” as originally quoted in the interview.
He argued that war would only strengthen the relationship between Russia and China, saying Western nations “pushed [Russia] into an alliance with the world’s biggest manufacturing power.”
Cummings has long been critical of support for Ukraine, a stance that puts him sharply at odds with his old boss Johnson, a vocal supporter of Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s war effort.
He told the paper the West had failed to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a worthwhile signal which would deter him from invading another country.
“What lesson have we taught him? The lesson we’ve taught Putin is that we’re a bunch of total f**king jokers,” Cummings asserted, saying the war had “broadcast it to the entire world what a bunch of clowns we are.”
It comes as the former Vote Leave Brexit campaign chief tests the water for a new political party to replace the Tories.
POLITICO reported on Thursday that Cummings has organized a series of focus groups to get the public’s views about a new anti-establishment outfit.
Cummings told the i his “Start Up Party” would be “ruthlessly focused on the voters not on Westminster and the old media.”
‘Hugely expensive’ nuclear a ‘Trojan horse’ for coal, NSW Liberal says as energy policy rift exposed
Q & A By Jason Whittaker,14 May 24
- In short: NSW shadow minister Matt Kean told Q+A his assessment of nuclear energy didn’t “meet the threshold” on supply and affordability.
- He joins his leader, Mark Speakman, who says nuclear won’t deliver lower power prices in the short term.
- What’s next? The federal opposition is expected to unveil a new energy policy soon putting nuclear on the table.
A senior NSW Liberal Party figure says nuclear power generation is too expensive and a “Trojan horse” for the coal industry in his state, prompting the former state government to reject it.
Matt Kean, a former NSW treasurer and energy minister, told the ABC’s Q+A on Monday that nuclear failed his assessment on cost and supply, comments which put him at odds with federal colleagues pushing the technology.
On the program, he asked: “Is it going to drive down electricity bills? Is it going to ensure the system remains reliable? Is it going to set us up for a more prosperous future?
“On all of those three questions, nuclear did not meet the threshold for us in New South Wales.”
The comments expose a rift in the party on the issue, with federal leader Peter Dutton signalling nuclear will be a central plank in the opposition’s energy policy.
On Sunday, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor told the ABC’s Insiders that nuclear energy production was capable of delivering a return on government investment.
But multiple state Liberal figures have argued against removing bans on nuclear mining and nuclear enrichment facilities.
A fortnight ago, NSW opposition leader Mark Speakman told Q+A that investing in nuclear energy was not a path to lowering costs or securing electricity supply in the short term.
“We can’t wait for nuclear,” he said.
“We should be going ahead with our electricity road map, which will have heavy reliance on renewables.”
‘Trojan horse for coal’
On Monday, Mr Kean described nuclear as “hugely costly” and a front for those against renewable energy.
“As we looked more into it, we found nuclear was a Trojan horse for the coal industry, wanting to keep coal going, and it denied transition to an industry that allowed lower bills,” he said.
Mr Kean, now serving as a shadow minister for health, says federal Liberal policy “is a matter for them”, but “I think they need to explain” the viability of nuclear power.
“In New South Wales, there were three tests we applied for our energy policy and nuclear did not meet those tests,” he said.
Mr Kean has long been a champion of renewable alternatives like solar and wind power, often putting him at odds with some in the party.
Last month, he quit Coalition for Conservation, a group he launched with other conservatives to promote action on climate change, when he says it became “singularly focused on nuclear energy”.
Labor divisions over gas
The Labor Party also exposed divisions last week over energy after the federal government launched a new gas policy backing domestic production until at least 2050………………………………………………………………………..
Australia risks being ‘world’s nuclear waste dump’ unless Aukus laws changed, critics say
Labor-chaired inquiry calls for legislation to rule out accepting high-level nuclear waste from US and UK submarines among other recommendations
Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent, https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/13/australia-aukus-deal-submarines-critics-nuclear-waste
Australia risks becoming the “world’s nuclear waste dump” unless the Albanese government moves to rewrite its proposed Aukus laws, critics say.
A Labor-chaired inquiry has called for the legislative safeguard to specifically rule out accepting high-level nuclear waste from the US and the UK. One of the members of a Senate committee that reviewed the draft laws, independent senator Lidia Thorpe, said the legislation “should be setting off alarm bells” because “it could mean that Australia becomes the world’s nuclear waste dump”.
The government’s bill for regulating nuclear safety talks about “managing, storing or disposing of radioactive waste from an Aukus submarine”, which it defines broadly as Australia, UK or US submarines.
In a report published on Monday, the Senate’s foreign affairs, defence and trade legislation committee said this wording did not reflect the government’s promise not to accept high-level nuclear waste.
It recommended that the government consider “amending the bill so that a distinction is made between Australia’s acceptance of low-level nuclear waste from Aukus partners, but non-acceptance of high-level nuclear waste”.
The government has left the door open to accepting low-level waste from US and UK nuclear-powered submarines when they conduct rotational visits to Western Australia in the first phase of the Aukus plan. Low-level waste contains small amounts of radioactivity and include items such as personal protective equipment, gloves and wipes.
“According to the Australian Submarine Agency, nuclear-powered submarines only generate around a ‘small skip bin’ of low-level naval nuclear waste per submarine per year and that intermediate- and high-level waste will not become a concern until the first naval nuclear reactor requires disposal in the mid-2050s,” the Senate committee report said.
The government has yet to decide on the location for the disposal of radioactive waste from the submarines.
But infrastructure works proposed for HMAS Stirling – the naval base in Western Australia – to support the increased rotational visits are expected to include an operational waste storage facility for low-level radioactive waste.
The Department of Defence has argued any changes to the definitions should not prevent “regulatory control of the management of low-level radioactive waste from UK or US submarines” as part of those rotational visits.
Thorpe, an independent senator, said the call to prohibit high-level nuclear waste from being stored in Australia was “backed by experts in the field and was one of the major concerns raised during the inquiry into the bill”.
“The government claims it has no intention to take Aukus nuclear waste beyond that of Australian submarines, so they should have no reason not to close this loophole,” Thorpe said.
“They also need to stop future governments from deciding otherwise. We can’t risk our future generations with this.”
The government’s proposed legislation would set up an Australian naval nuclear power safety regulator to oversee the safety of the nuclear-powered submarines.
The committee made eight recommendations, including setting “a suitable minimum period of separation” to prevent a revolving door from the Australian Defence Force or Department of Defence to the new regulator.
The main committee report acknowledged concerns in the community that Australia might become a “dumping ground” for the Aukus countries, but it said the term was “not helpful in discussing the very serious question of national responsibility for nuclear waste”.
It also said the bill should be amended to ensure the regulator was transparent about “any accidents or incidents” with the soon-to-be-established parliamentary oversight committee on defence.
The Labor chair of the committee, Raff Ciccone, said the recommendations would “further strengthen the bill” and help “ensure Australia maintains the highest standards of nuclear safety”.
In a dissenting report, the Greens senator David Shoebridge said the legislation was “deeply flawed”, including because the regulator would report to the defence minister.
“The proposed regulator lacks genuine independence, the process for dealing with nuclear waste is recklessly indifferent to community or First Nations interests and the level of secrecy is a threat to both the environment and the public interest,” Shoebridge said.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, was contacted for comment.
Nuclear power and nuclear weapons – two sides of the same coin
In March 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak explicitly linked nuclear weapons production capability with civil nuclear power generation development. This is because nuclear reactors are used to create tritium – the radioactive isotope of hydrogen – necessary for nuclear weapons.
The government has admitted its push for nuclear energy expansion is linked to its strategic military interests
by Peter Wilkinson, 12 May 2024, o https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/nuclear-power-and-nuclear-weapons-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/
The government’s apparent answer to climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is to triple the amount of nuclear generated electricity in the belief that it generates ‘low carbon’ electricity. But a recent admission by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggests there is a strong military component to what looks on the surface to be a civil matter.
The UK review of the energy sector, prompted by the invasion of Ukraine, offered a golden opportunity to address the need to drive down demand for electricity and energy more generally. This could be achieved by retrofitting insulation to the housing stock and buildings, mandating solar panel use for all new homes, investing heavily in renewables, in emerging battery technology and in decentralisation. Instead, the government has focused on a massive expansion of nuclear-generated electricity.
The dual nuclear agenda
Now the reason has finally been openly admitted. Maintaining and improving the supply chain and the knowledge and skills base in the workforce for the UK’s £100bn Trident nuclear weapons renewal programme relies on the civil nuclear sector.
While this claim has been regularly made by anti-nuclear campaigners – and just as regularly denied by minister after minister – it is now openly acknowledged. The Roadmap states quite clearly that it is important to align civil and military nuclear ambitions across government, to strengthen the interconnections between civil and military industries’ research and development, and thereby reduce costs for both the weapons and power sectors.
In March 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak explicitly linked nuclear weapons production capability with civil nuclear power generation development. This is because nuclear reactors are used to create tritium – the radioactive isotope of hydrogen – necessary for nuclear weapons.
The cat which was so carefully and fraudulently hidden for decades is finally out of the bag: ministers now have to acknowledge that the civil nuclear programme owes more to maintaining weapons of mass destruction – weapons that were outlawed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which entered into force in January 2021 – than it has to do with salvation from the existential crisis that is climate change.
Debunking myths: the truth behind nuclear ambitions
Its brave new world aims for a nuclear sector generating upto 24 Gigawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s comparable to seven new 3.2 Gw capacity Hinkley Point Cs or Sizewell Cs or forty-eight Sizewell A-size reactors at around half a Megawatt output.
The locations for a proposed ‘mix’ of ‘gigawatt-sized reactors’ such as the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) planned for Sizewell C, and ‘small modular’ and ‘advanced modular’ reactors (SMRs and AMRs respectively) is the subject of the government’s ‘Nuclear Road Map’.
It is, necessarily, largely a work of fiction laced with eulogies to nuclear power and liberally interspersed with admissions of hope over expectations. The truth is that Hinkley Point C is now expected to cost an eye-watering £40+bn from its original £20bn, and Sizewell C has already cost the taxpayer £2.4bn in sweeteners to the private sector.
Commercial SMRs don’t yet exist, and they are not small, unless you consider that Sizewell A falls into that category. AMRs have remained a fantasy for decades and are likely to remain so. Mention them to a nuclear regulator, and you’ll probably get a raised eyebrow in response.
Nuclear revival: promises vs reality
The Sizewell project has yet to be granted multiple construction and operating permits and licences and no final investment decision has been made. Other issues which make Sizewell C a terrible idea include:
- A multi-billion hole existing in its finances
- There is no reliable and guaranteed supply of potable water – of which an average of 2.2 million litres a day are required in the country’s most water-scarce area
- It is situated in a flood zone
- It is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
- It sits on the fastest-eroding coastline in northern Europe
- An estimated 46 hectares of woodland have already been flattened
- The Environment Agency (EA) has authorised the dumping of 1,590 tonnes of dead and dying fish back into the North Sea each year as a consequence of the Sizewell C cooling water intake (not to mention the 100s of millions of fish, fish larvae and other marine biota)
- In addition, there will be an estimated 171 million sacrificial sand goby, none of which are acknowledged by the EA.
- Radiological discharges from Sizewell C to the sea and air have contested health impacts
EDF ploughs on
The Supreme Court is still considering the merits of a judicial review appeal against the original planning approval. None of these uncertainties and deficiencies have stopped EDF devastating the areas around the development with the sanction of the local planning authority.
The tragedy is that nuclear is now a redundant technology which takes too long to come to our climate-change rescue and is not fit to be in the front-line of defence against climate change. It does not represent a plan of great urgency to meet the accelerating existential threats of climate change.
It has a rapidly narrowing window in which to contribute its electricity to the job of reducing climate change risks. When compared to renewables and conservation measures, nuclear is slow, costly and unreliable in terms of the new technology embodied in the EPR design. The Flamanville project in France, using a Sizewell EPR-type reactor, is still offline, is twelve years late and will cost four times the original budget.
The government has been in thrall to nuclear power for a long time. Perhaps with the admission of its connection to its strategic miliary goals, we can now better understand why that is. But the knowledge only deepens and entrenches the divide between the hawks and the doves.
Amidst genocide and war, anti-Zionism protesters are demonised as ‘extremists’
Independent Australia, By Martin Hirst | 13 May 2024
As human rights experts warn of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, any opposition to Zionism is being egregiously labelled as extremism, Dr Martin Hirst writes.
STUDENT PROTESTERS around the world are being demonised by politicians, bureaucrats and the news media for taking a stand against genocide.
This is just an updated version of the moral panic playbook that conservatives use to demonise young people who don’t toe the establishment line.
In the last six weeks, student protests have exploded around the world on a scale not seen since the Vietnam Moratorium almost 60 years ago. These students are protesting against what human rights experts are not hesitating to call a genocide in Gaza.
This reporter knows some of the Australian leaders of these protests quite well, organising politically with them as a long-term member of Left-wing group Socialist Alternative and a writer for its newspaper, Red Flag.
We know that none of these outstanding young activists are antisemitic. We know they are better educated about Palestine from a contemporary and historical perspective than our Prime Minister and most politicians…………………………………………………
We know that these young people are on the right side of history.
We also know that attempts by political leaders, intelligence agencies, Zionist hacks, the police and some university administrators to brand these brave students as violent, dangerous and antisemitic is a bald lie.
It is the lie itself that is dangerous because it actually emboldens Zionist thugs to launch ever-more violent attacks on student encampments, causing injury and mayhem.
It is also dangerous because it is a serious attempt – carried out with planning and intent – to criminalise anti-genocide activists and to criminalise their right to political speech.
What is happening in Australia, across Europe and in the United States is the creation of a state of emergency based on these dangerous lies. Right in front of our eyes, pro-Israel elements of the ruling class are establishing the conditions for a new wave of moral panic.
Students are being demonised as the 21st-Century version of the “folk devil“. The protests are being compared to 1930s Germany – which most people who make this comparison know absolutely fuck-all about – and they are being used to launch a McCarthyite witch hunt against students and academics who stand up for Palestine.
There’s nothing new about moral panics — the phrase was coined by British sociologist Stanley Cohen in the 1970s to describe the clamour for the state to take action against “Mods” and “Rockers” — two rival youth subcultures that enjoyed different types of music.
Interestingly, the Pogroms against Jews that swept Europe in the 1920s were a form of moral panic…………………………………………………………………………………………………
A moral panic only works when those in power – who feel threatened by resistance from below – can enlist loyal handmaidens in the media to prosecute their case and amplify their fear-mongering. Now, these tactics of intimidation are aimed at silencing dissent and any vocal opposition to the Israeli slaughter in Gaza.
Make no mistake, it is happening. Take it seriously because the Zionists and the political establishment are taking it seriously……………………………………………………
Failed Liberal Minister Josh Frydenberg helped to produce a “documentary” helpfully explaining to Sky News audiences how Australia is sliding into Nazi-era pogroms because of the threat to civil order posed by the student encampments and the wider anti-genocide movement.
In the last week alone, there has been a slew of opinion columns and news pieces in The Australian slandering student encampments while ignoring the attacks mounted on them by Zionist thugs.
Andrew Bolt and the usual list of suspects are apoplectic with rage that university administrators haven’t (yet) moved to shut down the protests.
However, the universities are beginning to move. The administration at Monash University in Melbourne is demanding students remove ‘Zionists not welcome’ signs from around their encampment because of some spurious “legal advice” that it is vilification.
Police have been allowed to install surveillance cameras overlooking the Monash encampment. Vice Chancellors from the Group of Eight — Australia’s richest universities — have asked Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to advise them if the slogans used in the encampments are “hate speech”.
This is particularly egregious because Dreyfus himself is a Zionist. Dreyfus declined to provide legal advice but urged people who feel offended to lodge complaints under Section 18a of the Racial Discrimination Act. …………………………………………………..
It is too early to tell where all of this will end, but we can confidently predict that the Labor Party will support Sarah Henderson’s call for a Senate inquiry.
Anthony Albanese is fuelling the moral panic with apparent joy. He is reported to have told a room full of senior Zionist elders and student leaders that he believes the campus protests are led by outside agitators.
Helpfully, he was able to name them too. It’s all “the Trots‘ fault”.
This is deeply ironic for two reasons:
Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky was a Jew and when he fell foul of the Stalinist regime, his Jewish heritage was used against him to launch a moral panic that even spread to Australia and poisoned the minds of many good Communist Party members, including the artist Noel Counihan who famously called Trotsky a “fascist gangster”.
Albanese has also been demonised as a Trotskyist by Murdoch hacks and (former Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop) “Kerosene Bronny“…………….. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/amidst-genocide-and-war-anti-zionism-protesters-are-demonised-as-extremists,18594
This week’s Climate Military-Industrial-nuclear-media -complex news
Some bits of good news. Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us1r9Wsvjts Hake Fisheries’ Remarkable Recovery Is a Sign of Hope for Our Oceans.
TOP STORIES. `
We’ve barely scratched the surface of how energy efficiency can help the energy transition.
The End of the World as We Know It. United States nuclear weapons, 2024 – (long) extracts at- https://nuclear-news.net/2024/05/10/2-a-united-states-nuclear-weapons-2024/ Don’t Believe the Washington War Machine: Putin Is Not Going to Invade Another NATO Ally.
China and the U.S. Are Numb to the Real Risk of War – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/05/12/1a-china-and-the-u-s-are-numb-to-the-real-risk-of-war/ Fusion reactor could create ingredients for a nuclear weapon in weeks.
Climate. ‘The stakes could not be higher’: world is on edge of climate abyss, UN warns. Floods in Brazil, Kenya, and Texas USA. Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice field. World’s oceans suffer from record-breaking year of heat. Afghanistan flash floods kill more than 300 as torrents of water and mud crash through villages.
Ghent students occupy university building in climate and Gaza protest.
Noel’s notes. Time to rise above the tit-for-tat mentality – “Turning Point: the Bomb and the Cold War” (and this is not an ad) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHuuLo-CSRo&t=4s. What is special about “Turning Point -The Bomb and Cold War”?. “The empire” – an exaggerated, emotive, term?
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AUSTRALIA.
- Federal election 2025: Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans worry voters in Nationals-held seat of Gippsland. Australia doesn’t need nukes: International Energy Agency boss. Coalition MPs dismiss International Energy Agency advice to ditch nuclear plans.
- Radiation Protection Agency to Decide on Nuclear Waste Facility Licence Soon.
- Were Australian weapons used in mass killings by Saudi Arabia?
- Australia votes ‘yes’ at United Nations as Palestinian push for full membership gathers momentum.
- Bungled design blamed for cracks in the lining of ANSTO’s new nuclear waste plant – ALSO AT https://antinuclear.net/2024/05/12/bungled-design-blamed-for-cracks-in-the-lining-of-anstos-new-nuclear-waste-plant/
- Koonibba looks to the future as a rocket launch site, but one elder is concerned about impact on sacred sites.
NUCLEAR ISSUES.
CLIMATE. Fixation on UK nuclear power may not help to solve climate crisis.
ECONOMICS
How long does it take to build a nuclear reactor? We ask France. NuScale, maker of small nuclear reactors, reported revenue of $1.4 million and net loss of $48.1 million for the three-month period ended March 31, 2024. Sizewell C nuclear station ‘absolutely not inevitable‘ says campaigner – Can investors be found?
Sam Altman’s nuclear energy company Oklo plunges 54% in New York Stock Exchange debut. Sam Altman-backed nuclear start-up crashes after Wall Street debut. NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) Reports Q1 Loss, Misses Revenue Estimates.
| EDUCATION. Nuclear lobby infiltrates West Lakes Academy and the Energy Coast University Technical College . | ENERGY. Energy Revolutions – time for a change. Constellation Energy looks to small nuclear reactors for the gross, ever-increasing, energy needs of great steel data containers. | ENVIRONMENT. Hinkley Point C: New public inquiry planned over environmental impact. UK Environment Agency ponders on its concerns over Hinkley Point C nuclear effects on fish and the marine habitat.Inside abandoned ghost town at Fukushima after nuclear power plant meltdown. |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Let Israel’s Leaders Get Arrested for War Crimes. | LEGAL. The mad waste of public money by UK’s leading nuclear giants to pursue costs against a whistleblower at your expense. Forces of Impunity: The US Threatens the International Criminal Court. | MEDIA. Biden’s war on Gaza is now a war on truth and the right to protest. Israel Bans Al Jazeera Journalists, Network, Joining Syria and Iran as Repressive Regime.New Lines: How Washington is Weaponizing Media. |
| POLITICS.USA politicians threaten to invade International Criminal Court if Israel faces war crimes charges. The Summer of Student Activist Protests.UK’s Nuclear roadmap is a massive detour. UK Taxpayers to fund fast-tracked nuclear fusion reactors.Kremlin says nuclear weapon drills are Russia’s response to West’s statements.Polish industry minister announces massive delay in nuclear power plant project. Canada: Nuclear Waste Petition Tabled in Parliament. | POLITICS INTERNATIONAL AND DIPLOMACYIran warns it will change nuclear doctrine if ‘existence threatened’.France’s mini nuclear reactor plan – Nuward, gets another financial handout from the European Commission.Nuclear Energy: The New Geopolitical Battleground.South Korean state energy monopoly in talks to build new UK nuclear plant– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/05/12/1-b1-south-korean-state-energy-monopoly-in-talks-to-build-new-uk-nuclear-plant/Biden’s Shifting ‘Red Line’ Lets Israel Get Away With Murder. |
| RADIATION. Canada’s federal budget -calls nuclear energy “clean” – the height of absurdity! | SAFETY. Sizewell C in Suffolk granted nuclear site licence. |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. The detonation of even a single nuclear weapon in space could destroy a significant proportion of satellites in orbit around Earth: UK statement at the UN General Assembly.Astronomers in court against Federal Communications Commission and SpaceX. Russia, China plan nuclear power plant on Moon. | TECHNOLOGY. Warren Buffett compares AI to nuclear weapons in stark warning. The UK makes licensing for nuclear fusion easier: developers can lead site selection. Nano Nuclear wants to reinvent the nuclear power business—but it could take a while. Microsoft reportedly planning “Stargate”, a $100billion supercomputer to be powered by several nuclear plants |
| URANIUM. US Congress Restricts Russian Uranium Imports, Unlocks $2.7 Billion for Domestic Fuel.US nuclear industry clamors for waiver process details as Russian uranium ban looms. | WASTES. Nuclear waste at center of testy Nevada Senate race. Japan’s government asks Genkai mayor to accept site survey to host nuclear waste. |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Israeli Invasion of Rafah Appears Imminent After Evacuation Order. Ending the Logic of War. Rafah residents call on the world to act. NATO escalation in Ukraine threatens nuclear war with Russia. Moscow threatens to strike British military facilities following Cameron’s remarks. Medvedev says aim of nuclear exercises is to work out response to attacks on Russian soil. Exactly what happens in the seconds after a nuclear bomb is launched – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–dDjjOkY9A | WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.France wants to extend its nuclear umbrella to Europe.US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles and Iranian Drones – Explosive Defence Department Testimony.Military interests are pushing new nuclear power.Students Demanding Divestment: You’re on the Right Side of History.Token gesture: Biden puts hold on approved shipments of ammo to Israel. Hamas will not be defeated for another two to three years: Israeli military sources.Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills. Pentagon sees no change in Russia’s strategic nuclear force posture.The Great Ukraine Robbery Is Not Over Yet. The United States Is Expected to Announce a New $400 Million Package of Weapons for Ukraine. |
1 This month
7 April – WEBINAR – Australia and the Doomsday Clock – Preventing nuclear war through NoFirstUse and other policies
Online | Tuesday April 7, 4:00-5:30pm, Australian Eastern Time / 8:00-9:30am Central Europe Time
– Access the registration link
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 