UK Conservatives propose £10bn ‘Britannia Shield’ inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome
Guardian Jessica Elgot and Dan Sabbagh, Tue 6 Oct 2026
Party to unveil plans for one of UK’s ‘most significant military programmes since the cold war’
The Conservatives will announce plans to build a £10bn British “Iron Dome” similar to Israel’s air and missile defence system, which the party will christen “Britannia Shield” in an announcement at conference on Tuesday.
The shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, will say Britain needs to be ready to defend itself from potential aerial attacks and that new investment was needed in advanced radar and interceptor missiles.
Claiming it was “one of Britain’s most significant military programmes since the cold war”, he will say it is one that was “totally necessary because of the threats we face”.
Britain’s military has traditionally believed it does not need to purchase Iron Dome-style air defence systems given other spending priorities and the fact that the UK has not faced drone and missile strikes as has Israel or Ukraine.
Military officials argue that the UK’s strategy is based around deterring any attack or a full-blown war with nuclear weapons and that any conflict that involved a direct threat to the British homeland would almost certainly involve Nato allies assisting.
The UK does not own any Patriot air defence systems, and in an acute crisis would have to rely on Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers to protect coastal areas, but the circumstances in which expensive air defence would be needed in the UK are very remote.
The Conservatives will say the new system would be funded out of the defence uplift from their commitment last month to increase defence spending by more than £10bn a year to reach 3% of GDP by 2030.
Cartlidge will say in his speech that the aim would be to deliver a minimum deployable capability within the first five years, with further improvements, expanded capability and missile stockpiles delivered over the following five years.
The party will argue that the UK is being left behind in Europe when it comes to investment in air defences, which was criticised in a report from the defence select committee last November. The government has currently committed about £790m for integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) in the Defence Investment Plan………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/05/conservatives-britannia-shield-israel-iron-dome
The US government’s dangerous rush to produce new plutonium pits
As the National Nuclear Security Administration pushes to dramatically accelerate plutonium pit production, it is cutting safety corners, bypassing fiscal oversight, and risking nuclear instability—all to fix a problem that elite scientists say doesn’t exist.
Bulletin, By Dylan Spaulding, Curtis T. Asplund, October 22, 2026
This summer, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reversed its initial decision to withhold an unclassified summary of a study on the aging of plutonium in US nuclear weapons by JASON, a group of elite scientists advising the Pentagon. Far from revelatory, the brief JASON study is more notable for its consistency with earlier assessments that found the US stockpile’s plutonium is aging slowly, but not at a level that calls into question present weapons performance.
This latest assessment stands in contrast to the NNSA’s ambitions for accelerating US efforts to revive plutonium pit production—the cores of thermonuclear weapons. Recent developments indicate that the NNSA is pursuing a variety of means to speed up the program and demonstrate ambitious production capabilities. These calls come amid a lack of transparent requirements, before the project has demonstrated mature performance, and without integrated cost and schedule estimates. At the same time, congressional and independent oversight show troubling signs of erosion.
Accelerating a program that was already facing steep challenges comes with immense risks that must be weighed against actual national security needs. Rushing toward production threatens worker and community safety and increases costs. It is also likely to prove strategically destabilizing. The United States doesn’t need to build new warheads to maintain its land-based nuclear force, unless it dangerously seeks to load more warheads into its ballistic missiles.
If plutonium aging is not an imminent threat to the present stockpile—and by extension to US nuclear deterrence—accelerated pit production therefore signals that the United States is dangerously hurtling toward renewed nuclear competition in contravention of its legal obligations as a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It doesn’t have to be that way: Viable alternatives exist that would reduce strain on the US nuclear complex and reduce the risks and costs of the program itself. These alternatives would be more conducive to future arms control and nonproliferation efforts. But they have only one potentially elusive requirement: Restraint.
When no news is good news. The most recent JASON study on plutonium aging is the group’s third such assessment. In their first 2006 study, they concluded that most pits “have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years.” Pits in the current stockpile are roughly 37 to 48 years old. An updated summary in 2019 found that “in general, studies on [plutonium] aging and its impacts on the performance of nuclear-weapon primaries have not been sufficiently prioritized over the past decade.” The group then recommended further experimentation to quantify the effect of aging on weapons performance, along with establishing pit production capabilities “as expeditiously as possible.” The latter comment undoubtedly cast a sense of urgency over the issue, especially on Capitol Hill. But it could also be interpreted as a rebuke of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s insufficient investment in the science of plutonium aging and in its lack of commitment to maintaining previously authorized capabilities following the forced closure of Rocky Flats after an FBI raid in 1989. More recently, in 2011, a nuclear near-miss—involving mishandled rods of plutonium for a photo shoot—also resulted in a multi-year shutdown of Los Alamos’s plutonium facility and the resignation of criticality safety officers, raising further concern.
The latest JASON study conducted in 2025—of which only a three-page executive summary was released in August—reaffirms that plutonium is aging slowly, posing no imminent risk to the viability of the existing stockpile. The study repeats the recommendation that pit production capacity be re-established, but it does so without the urgency of the 2019 report. Instead, it makes clear that new production “may be needed to provide options to mitigate any future age-related issues,” noting that the NNSA has faced delays in executing key experiments that will help inform aging effects……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
As the recent JASON report shows, the existing US nuclear arsenal is not presently at risk of age-related degradation. The study does not support a requirement to manufacture 80, much less 205 pits per year. Having the capability to produce plutonium pits also does not require that they be deployed in new designs—a move that will only invite international response, increased countermeasures, and encourage an arms race that no one can win. An oversized plan for pit production driven by geopolitical uncertainty rather than technical need may ultimately prove more dangerous and more costly than a restrained approach defined by sound planning. The consequences, like those of running before walking, could be dire.https://thebulletin.org/2026/10/the-us-governments-dangerous-rush-to-produce-new-plutonium-pits/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=US%20government%20s%20dangerous%20rush%20to%20produce%20new%20plutonium%20pits&utm_campaign=20261019%20Monday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29
New Documents Prove Israel Funded Hamas Prior to Oct 7th
Lee Camp Daily Dose of Sanity.October 22, 2026 https://scheerpost.com/2026/10/22/new-documents-prove-israel-funded-hamas-prior-to-oct-7th/
Letters published this week by TIME magazine and republished in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz show Israel facilitated the funding of Hamas to the tune of billions of dollars. It was done using Qatar as an intermediary in the years prior to October 7th, 2023.
“A letter from Qatar’s Foreign Ministry… says Qatar will transfer payments of $300 each to the accounts of 20,000 beneficiaries, as agreed between a senior Qatari official and the head of COGAT’s Civil Department [a department within the IDF].”
That is just one of many groups of payments facilitated by Israel. And Qatar has made it crystal clear that none of the money they sent was transferred without Israel’s approval and oversight.
“Doha said at the time that its assistance passed through ‘mechanisms coordinated with the Israeli authorities and international partners,’ adding that ‘nothing was delivered without Israeli involvement at every stage of the process.’”
This is not the first time Israeli media and intelligence has reported on Israel’s funding of Hamas prior to Oct 7. In 2025, Shin Bet—Israel’s top intelligence and counterterrorism service—reported that Qatari money, approved by Israel, was key to Hamas’s preparation for the Oct 7 attack.
Soooo, let me see if I have this right.
- The Israeli government funds Hamas.
- The Israeli government ignores warnings from IDF spotters up to 2 years in advance of Oct 7.
- The Israeli government ignores the entire Jericho Wall blueprint for the Al Aqsa Flood operation they acquired at least a year in advance.
- The Israeli government ignores Qatar’s warning of the impending attack by Hamas.
- The Israeli government ignores Egypt’s warning of the impending attack by Hamas.
- The Israeli government ignores the US intelligence warning of the impending attack by Hamas.
- The Israeli government ignores the public postings showing Hamas training for the attack.
- The Israeli government moves the IDF away from the Gaza wall in the days leading up to Oct 7.
- Once the attack begins, the Israeli government does not send the military in for several hours despite the IDF having military bases nearby and being “one of the most advanced militaries in the world.”
- Once they send the IDF in, the Israeli government orders the military to kill everyone including innocent Israelis (a mass Hannibal Directive). Of the roughly 1,200 Israelis killed, most were likely killed by Israel.
- When Hamas offers to free all civilian hostages on the first day following the attack with nothing in return, the Israeli government refuses to accept the hostages.
The more evidence that comes out, the more it becomes sparkling clear that the Israeli government wanted October 7th to happen and indeed facilitated it for years. The government then used it to attempt to justify their genocide of Gaza.
Luckily, they have failed. Their genocide is not justified, and Israel is now the most unpopular country in the world with two-thirds of all humans hating the mass murdering apartheid ethnostate.
If you want to learn more about what really happened on October 7th, read my full rundown here.
UK To Push The “Antisemitism” Psyop Even Harder In Schools
The more children Israel kills, the more unpopular it becomes. The more unpopular Israel becomes, the more violently we are throat-fucked with the narrative that “antisemitism” is a major problem in our society.
The UK’s Department for Education has released a 107-page review which asserts that much more needs to be done to protect Jewish students in England from discrimination. In and of itself this sounds perfectly reasonable, until you look at the actual document.
The review, led by Sir David Bell, mentions the word “political” or “geopolitical” no fewer than 125 times. It mentions the word “Israel” or “Israeli” 60 times and the word “Palestine” or “Palestinian” 35 times.
So, as always, it is clear that this isn’t actually about protecting a religious minority from persecution.
The Bell review lists 27 recommendations for dealing with “antisemitism” in English schools, which the government has reportedly accepted in their entirety. The first recommendation is adopting the hotly disputed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism which lists common criticisms of the state of Israel as hateful toward Jews.
Under the IHRA definition, you are guilty of antisemitism if you compare the modern state of Israel to Nazi Germany, or if you say that Israel exists as a racist endeavor. This framing effectively brands anyone a hateful bigot who agrees with the unanimous consensus of international human rights groups that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state.
“Anti-Israel attitudes have distinctly increased over time,” the review says. “In 2020, 23% agreed with the statement ‘Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews’, which increased to 45% in 2025. The prevalence of beliefs such as these, which could be regarded as antisemitic according to the IHRA definition, demonstrate the difficulty faced by schools and colleges in tackling antisemitism.”
Under the section titled “Political expression and pupil wellbeing in schools,” the review scorned the use of “political identifiers” in schools such as “badges, flags, or other political symbols and slogans such as ‘Free Palestine’, including staff displaying Palestinian flags in their classrooms without relevance to the lesson.”
“It is the view of this review that political identifiers do not have a place in our schools,” the report reads, while stopping short of saying such expression should be banned in all instances.
“Political expression by staff can create a learning environment in which some learners feel distressed, excluded, or unable to engage fully with their education,” the review asserts. “In such circumstances, colleges may be justified in placing proportionate restrictions on lawful political expression where this is necessary to ensure learners’ education and fulfil the college’s wider duties.”
“In practice, antisemitism is frequently intertwined with political views about a nation state or political ideology. This means that challenging antisemitism often requires teachers to address or correct political claims or misinformation, which can appear to conflict with impartiality duties,” the review says.
This uncritical assertion that “antisemitism is frequently intertwined with political views about a nation state or political ideology” tells you everything you need to know about what this review is really designed to accomplish. This is about stomping out political speech that is critical of Israel, and nothing else.
The review of course also attempts to conflate antizionism with antisemitism, saying, “Antizionists can express views that include a deep hatred for the existence of Israel and of those who believe in its right to exist as a Jewish homeland. Such views may be antisemitic, in certain contexts. There are also examples where Zionism is used as a synonym for ‘Jewish’ to hide antiJewish hatred within lawful political expression.”
I am so fucking sick of this shit. People who live in Israel’s western allied states are getting bludgeoned and bludgeoned and bludgeoned by these ham-fisted psychological operations by state and non-state actors with more and more aggression the more Israel’s popularity rating goes down the tubes, and it’s not even working. The way these freaks keep trying to stick their rapey fingers into our minds and manipulate the thoughts we think about a genocidal apartheid state is fucking disgusting. It’s only making everyone hate Israel more.
It’s the genocide, you assholes. It’s the fucking genocide. We’re seeing more and more revulsion toward Israel and its supporters because Israel is guilty of monstrous crimes against humanity, not because there’s been some random resurrection of weird medieval superstitions about Jews. This is obvious to everyone, and the only people pretending otherwise are bad-faith actors promoting the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
March against hyperscale data centres set for Edinburgh
A national march against hyperscale data centres will be held in Edinburgh
next month. People from across Scotland will march down the Royal Mile on
Saturday, November 14, culminating in a rally outside the Scottish
Parliament. The demonstration, organised by Friends of the Earth Scotland
(FoES), is set to coincide with COP31, which is being held in Türkiye
between November 9 and 20. “Developers want to build monster data centres
across Scotland and sell them on to big US tech companies,” FoES said.
The group claimed that the two dozen proposed data centres would “need
twice as much as much electricity as Scotland’s peak usage”.
Herald 16th Oct 2026,
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26642878.march-hyperscale-data-centres-set-edinburgh/
Scotland becoming launchpad for UK and US wars
Samuel Rafanell-Williams: Scottish CND: AS the SNP meet for their annual
conference, there can be little doubt the British government sees Scotland
as a key frontier in its plans to militarise the nation.
Scotland already
faces the world with an Anglo-American nuclear weapons system based on the
Clyde, so whose interests are served by going further in turning our
country into a bunker-state and launchpad for war?
That this is the
direction of travel is continually evidenced in headlines – £15 billion
(14 times Scotland’s annual housing budget) to upgrade Faslane in
preparation for a new generation of nuclear weapons; construction of bomb
shelters at the base and new docks so it can host more British, US and
French nuclear submarines. Plans to build a new munitions factory at
Mossmorran where a civilian industry will soon be closed; the return of the
US Air Force (USAF) to Lossiemouth for the first time since the Cold War.
The National 17th Oct 2026,
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/26645441.scotland-becoming-launchpad-uk-us-wars/
Amazon Funds 12 Small Nuclear Reactors at a Former Coal Plant
Jakob Steinschaden, co-produced by AI, , https://www.trendingtopics.eu/amazon-x-energy-indiana-small-nuclear-reactors/
Where coal once burned, data centers could soon run on nuclear power: Amazon is funding the development of a 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana. Twelve small modular reactors (SMRs) from the start-up X-energy are to be built there, and the utility American Electric Power (AEP) is set to operate the facility. The three companies announced the plan on Monday.
Twelve Helium-Cooled Reactors
The site is the grounds of the retired Breed coal plant in Sullivan County, south of the city of Terre Haute. AEP already owns the land. The plan calls for X-energy’s Xe-100, a gas-cooled high-temperature reactor with 80 megawatts of output each, which is cooled with helium and uses special spherical fuel elements. Twelve of them add up to almost one gigawatt. The power is to flow into the public grid, and Amazon, as the first buyer, also wants to use it for its data centers.
The partners are not saying how much money Amazon is putting into the project. The company is providing development capital that will be paid out in tranches as the project progresses, and, according to the announcement, it will cover its full project costs itself rather than passing them on to other electricity customers. For now, the plant is only a plan: The three partners have signed a joint development agreement to study its feasibility. They have not named a start date for construction or operation.
Amazon’s Big Nuclear Plan
For Amazon and X-energy, it is their second joint power plant project, and it is three times the size of the first. In October 2024, Amazon led a $700 million (about €625 million) funding round in X-energy and announced a project with the utility Energy Northwest in Washington State. Together, the companies want to bring more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity onto the U.S. grid by 2039. Just a few weeks ago, Amazon also signed a 20-year deal with Constellation for the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland, which is set to increase the plant’s output by about 190 megawatts.
Amazon is not alone in this strategy. Microsoft is having Constellation restart a reactor at the former Three Mile Island nuclear plant, Google is betting on small reactors from the start-up Kairos Power, and Meta has also secured nuclear power for its A.I. data centers. Behind the rush is the enormous demand for electricity driven by A.I. How quickly such projects can be approved was shown recently by the U.S. nuclear regulator, which cleared the first commercial small modular reactor in the U.S. in Tennessee.
The Skepticism Remains
The timeline is ambitious, though, as TechCrunch points out, because X-energy has not yet built a single reactor. Its first plant, with four Xe-100 units, is set to be built at a site owned by the chemical company Dow in Texas, but construction there has not yet started, and the construction permit is still in the final phase of review. In addition, the state of Texas has sued Dow over alleged violations of environmental rules at the site.
There are also more fundamental doubts: The nuclear plants most recently built in the U.S. ran far over budget and behind schedule. The SMR industry hopes that mass production will bring costs down, but experts say it often takes about a decade for such effects to show. On the stock market, the euphoria has already faded: X-energy went public on the Nasdaq in April at $23 (about €20.50) per share, and the stock has since lost almost two-thirds of its value. The Amazon news lifted shares by about 10 percent in premarket trading, but little of that gain held up once regular trading began.
Startup plans to rejuvenate the nuclear power industry with a new manufacturing approach
Founded by Jake Jurewicz ’14, SM ’15, Blue Energy manufactures giant pieces of nuclear reactors at shipyards and ships them on barges for final assembly, to lower costs.
NUCLEATION CAPITAL, Zach Winn|MIT News, October 22, 2026
Building a nuclear power plant is one of the world’s most complex construction projects. It requires thousands of trucks to ship parts, often to remote regions, where huge teams of skilled workers like electricians and welders come together to assemble everything over many years.
Financing such projects is difficult, in part because no one wants to risk loaning money to a project that might never generate power and revenue, whether that’s due to technical failures, the inability to recruit enough talent, or regulatory hurdles.
Stated this way, it’s no surprise the average nuclear plant costs twice as much as originally expected and faces delays of many years. Those cost overruns and delays have ground the nuclear industry to a near halt: When Georgia finally turned on its Vogtle Unit 3 reactor in 2023 (seven years late), it was the first new reactor constructed in the U.S. in over 30 years.
Blue Energy wants to make deploying nuclear power plants more like wind, solar, and gas projects. The company prefabricates huge blocks of its nuclear plants at shipyards, where workers and equipment already produce huge steel structures for the oil and gas industry every day, then ships the blocks on barges to the site of the plant for final assembly……….
Blue Energy’s prefabricated blocks weigh around 1,500 tons and are designed to be easily assembled at their destination to complete a nuclear power unit over the course of a single year. The company is further reducing barriers to financing and speeding up construction timelines by designing its early plants to run on gas initially before switching to nuclear reactors, which it hopes will generate revenue within three years from the start of construction.
The company has already gained approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its gas-to-nuclear approach and has also secured an agreement with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy for its first project, a 2.5 gigawatt hybrid nuclear power plant in Victoria, Texas, that is scheduled to begin producing power in 2030. This September, Blue Energy submitted the first part of its application to the NRC to begin construction on its Texas project, making it just one of five companies to do so in the current nuclear development era…………………………………………………………………….
Blue Energy’s nuclear reactor will be a small modular light water reactor that has already been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is made by GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
Blue Energy’s first power plant in Texas will provide 1 gigawatt of power using two GE Vernova gas turbines in 2030 and then add another 1.5 gigawatts of power from up to five small modular reactors beginning in 2032…………………………
Jurewicz believes Blue Energy’s lower prices could finally inject much-needed life into the U.S. nuclear industry.
“Despite all of the excitement around nuclear, you haven’t seen real power purchase agreements get signed because there’s a stalemate on who’s going to take the construction overrun risk,” Jurewicz says. “The government doesn’t want to take it. The construction companies don’t have the balance sheet to take it. The utilities can’t take it. Even the hyperscalers won’t take a two-or-three-times cost overrun risk. Blue Energy is introducing a fifth party to break the stalemate, which is the shipyards and fab yards, which are best positioned to take the risk because they can make things in a controlled fabrication environment, so they’ll take the risk on construction in their own yards.” https://news.mit.edu/2026/startup-rejuvenates-nuclear-power-industry-new-manufacturing-approach-1022
Monazite – From Brazil to Chicago, Utah, and Nevada / The Brazil–Chicago–Utah–Nevada Connection
20.10.26 – Rio de Janeiro – Pressenza New York, https://www.pressenza.com/2026/10/from-brazil-to-chicago-utah-and-nevada-the-brazil-chicago-utah-nevada-connection/
Monazite sand mining and processing for the production of rare-earth minerals is a risky business and can contaminate people and environment with radioactive thorium, uranium and their decay products. All that was not known in the 19th century when the first Monazite mining boom happened at the coast of Brazil. Now the region and its indigenous peoples are facing the third rush for its thorium and rare earth elements containing sands.
One of the mining companies responsible for that is Energy Fuels Inc. Already in 2023 the U.S.-based critical minerals company acquired about 15,000 hectares at the coast of Southern Bahia, encompassing the municipalities of Alcobaça, Caravelas, and Prado. „The Bahia Project is an initiative that transcends traditional mining, playing a vital role in advancing the global energy transition. Specializing in the extraction of strategic minerals essential for the manufacture of clean technologies, the project strategically positions itself at the forefront of efforts towards a globally less fossil fuel-dependent economy“, writes Energy Fuels.
The company intends to mine between 3,000 and 10,000 tons of monazite sand per year that will be shipped to the US and processed at its White Mesa Uranium Mill in Utah, approximately five miles north of the White Mesa Reservation, home to the Ute Mountain Ute people. The operation is planned to start in 2028, when the expansion of its White Mesa Mill is completed.
However, for decades the Ute demand the closure of the mill, citing significant threats to Indigenous health, sacred lands, water, cultural heritage, and public health…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The US Environmental protection Agency (EPA) first discovered thorium contamination at Lindsay Light’s Illinois Street location in 1993. Since then, further investigations found soil contamination at more than a dozen locations in the Streeterville neighborhood and additional locations on the south side of the Chicago River. Prolonged or high levels of radiation exposure can damage genetic material in cells and cause cancer and other diseases later on, especially for children, who are more sensitive to radiation. The EPA estimated that, before the waste was removed, radiation levels in some residential neighborhoods in West Chicago increased lifetime cancer risks up to 70 times.
To date, cleanups have been completed at more than a dozen properties. More than 55,000 cubic yards of thorium-contaminated materials have been removed and shipped to Utah. „Several properties known to have contamination remain to be cleaned up“, writes EPA on its website, last updated on March 10, 2026. „EPA’s cleanup at the Lindsay Light site is ongoing. „Because of the long-lived nature of thorium contamination, the need to know that these areas are safe for workers will continue far into the future.“
Norbert G. Suchanek — Journalist, author, photographer, and documentary filmmaker; co-founder of the International Uranium Film Festival, which since 2010 has organized more than 60 festivals across seven countries, bringing nuclear and uranium-related issues to public audiences worldwide.
Rafael Grossi enthusiastic about the future of the nuclear energy industry
The head of the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday that he expects the use of
nuclear power could more than triple by 2060. Rafael Grossi said in the
International Atomic Energy Agency´s annual report to the U.N. General
Assembly that this will be driven by electrification, data centers powered
by artificial intelligence and “technology companies´ appetite for
reliable, carbon-free power. “Nuclear energy is seen by a growing number of
countries as key to improving their energy security, he said, stressing
that it is on par with solar energy and “safer than every other option.”
Daily Mail 23rd Oct 2026,
https://www.dailymail.com/wires/ap/article-16234629/Nuclear-power-triple-2060-UN-agency-says.html
Walt Zlotow – Democrats, not Trump, betraying Ukraine by promoting endless war destroying Ukraine
| Walt Zlotow, Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 19 Oct 26 |
Democratic office holders and candidates are pounding the campaign trail and haunting mainstream media with their hair on fire over Trump’s easing of sanctions on Russia to scoop up Russian diesel to drop US diesel under $6 a gallon ahead of the election.
“Trump just gave Putin the best birthday gift he’ll get this year. By giving the Russian economy life support, Trump’s deal with the devil keeps getting dirtier.
“There’s nothing America First about Trump caving to Putin and exempting Russia from US sanctions.”
Democrats are unanimous in support of continuing the war in Ukraine in furtherance of retaking control of Congress November 3. Once back in power, Democrats will likely rejoin NATO in ramping up sanctions and weapons deliveries targeting of Russian assets none of which will save Ukraine from being utterly destroyed by overwhelming Russian military and economic might. But Democrats will not offer one drop of US blood to save Ukraine from impending defeat. For Democrats it’s all bluster and virtue signaling.
An unintended consequence is that it could make general war between Russia and the West break out that could easily go nuclear. European NATO nations are already at war with Russia by supplying missiles, logistics, targeting and intelligence inflicting significant tho non strategic damage to Russian resources. Even the US CIA continues to provide targeting assistance in spite of Trump’s directive to cease and desist. The US deep state simply cannot be controlled by Trump.
Russia ignores the West’s war on them to concentrate on completing Ukraine’s collapse. However, If Democrats follow thru on their deranged promise to reengage in the lost Ukraine war provoked by Demorcrat Biden in 2022, all out nuclear war becomes increasingly likely.
President Trump in is no friend of peace. He’s killed many thousands in criminal warfare in Somalia, Syria, Nigeria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, and most recently, his catastrophically lost war against Iran he cannot quit. He’s taken ghoulish delight like a kid in a shooting gallery blasting little unarmed boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to smithereens, killing hundreds. But he has little interest in further destroying Ukraine to satisfy the bloodlust of US and NATO Russophobes.
For some inexplicable, bizarre reason, Democrats have not learned that sensible lesson.
Floating nuclear power in northern New Brunswick: a reality check
The Minister did not explain how much any jobs created would cost taxpayers.
“not a single HTGR-termed ‘commercial’ has proven financially viable.”
The proposed SMR project at Belledune has many more unknowns. The most obvious is how the project will secure the billions of dollars required to develop and build a first-of-a-kind reactor on the site,
Susan O’Donnell, October 21, 2026, https://nbmediacoop.org/2026/10/21/floating-nuclear-power-in-northern-new-brunswick-a-reality-check/
Recently a proposal to build a floating nuclear power plant with two small reactors at the Port of Belledune made the news.
Is the proposed project more than just another nuclear establishment pitch for public funding? Will New Brunswick be sucked into a third SMR vortex demanding tens of millions in subsidies before spiralling into dust?
Last October, Energy Minister René Legacy told the CBC the government was no longer interested in supporting “first of a kind” small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). In 2018, the government invited two start-up companies into New Brunswick – ARC and Moltex – and spent the next seven years promoting and supporting their “advanced” SMR projects. In 2025, the government finally faced the cold reality: the SMR benefits assured by the nuclear establishment – jobs, export markets and revenue windfalls – would never materialize in New Brunswick.
By that point, the federal and provincial governments had already handed almost $130 million in subsidies to ARC and Moltex and other nuclear-adjacent organizations cashing-in on the SMR public funding spree in the province.
What a difference a year makes. This October, Minister Legacy told The Globe and Mail about a new project proposing to develop a marine vessel to support two first-of-a-kind small nuclear reactors at the Port of Belledune. He claimed the project was a good idea because the jobs created would capitalize on the province’s strengths: “lots of machinists, lots of welding, lots of industrial might.” The Minister did not explain how much any jobs created would cost taxpayers.
According to the Globe article, the New Brunswick government has expressed interest in purchasing the power produced by the two SMRs on the vessel. That power would likely be the most expensive ever produced in the province.
The federal public purse has already been cracked open for the proposed nuclear vessel giving a hint of the provincial funding which may need to follow. The federal government gave Montreal-based start-up Prodigy Clean Energy a $2,750,000 subsidy in 2024 to develop “floating transportable nuclear power plants as part of the SMR supply chain.”
In 2025, Prodigy said its proposed nuclear vessel would host the Westinghouse eVinci, a small reactor design under development in the U.S. Just a year later, Prodigy has flipped to a different American reactor for its Belledune project, a high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR) cooled by helium. Only one HTGR cooled by helium is in operation, in China.
Analysis of the operational history of HTGRs reveals a troubling past. Several small HTGRs cooled by helium were developed at considerable expense in countries including Germany, the U.S. and South Africa. The HTGRs were prone to many small failures resulting in frequent shutdowns, with final shutdowns “well before the operating periods envisioned for them.” In addition, HTGRs are uncompetitive compared to conventional reactors cooled by water and “not a single HTGR-termed ‘commercial’ has proven financially viable.”
For the New Brunswick project, it’s currently unclear if the proposal includes any reactor construction in Belledune. The two BANR reactors may be constructed entirely in the U.S. and shipped to the Port of Belledune. BWXT has operations in Canada with expertise making reactor components but has no reactor construction experience in this country.
The proposed SMR project at Belledune has many more unknowns. The most obvious is how the project will secure the billions of dollars required to develop and build a first-of-a-kind reactor on the site, if indeed the plan is to construct the two reactors in the province, plus the cost of building the marine vessel.
The cost of the only SMR under construction in Canada, at the Darlington nuclear site on Lake Ontario, is a minimum of $6.1 billion plus $1.6 billion for associated infrastructure. That project has been funded entirely by public subsidies because no private sector investors have been found despite considerable promotion efforts.
The Belledune project has buy-in from two Mi’gmaq communities in northern New Brunswick, Eel River Bar First Nation (Ugpi’ganjig) and Pabineau First Nation (Oinpegitjoig), and the project is being promoted as majority-owned by First Nations.
The Indigenous involvement provides a clue for how public funds could flow to the Belledune project. In June this year, the federal and Ontario governments gave seven First Nations in Ontario part ownership of the SMR at the Darlington site. The part ownership was structured as a “loan guarantee” of $715 million to the First Nations from a federal Indigenous loan program, public funds that were streamed through to the Darlington SMR under construction.
Of particular note, the intended market for the transportable nuclear power plant is remote mines and communities. The BANR reactor would produce power at a cost far higher than the diesel fuel generators currently in place. For this and many other reasons, research found that the market for SMRs in mining and remote communities is “too small to be viable.”
It’s also unclear how NB Power would be involved in the project. The utility was the proponent for the two earlier failed SMR projects – ARC and Moltex – which were intended to be constructed at NB Power’s Point Lepreau nuclear site.
Developing a second licenced nuclear site in the province, in Belledune, would be a costly and significant undertaking requiring compliance with numerous nuclear safety and security regulations. NB Power is already planning to convert its Belledune coal-fired plant to burn biomass fuel, and its Integrated Resource Plan released earlier this month made no mention of SMRs at Belledune, or any SMRs in the utility’s future 20-year scenarios.
The motivations behind the New Brunswick government’s support of the Belledune nuclear project are hard to fathom, considering how recently the province was burned by the Moltex and ARC SMR fiascos and the decades-long slow train wreck and money pit that is the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The motivations certainly may include hopium, an irrational, addictive belief that a new nuclear reactor will eventually work as promised in New Brunswick.
A commentary published earlier this month, RIP SMRs, ended: “Apparently, old SMR ideas never really die. They will just, eventually, fade away.” How long the proposed Belledune floating SMR idea will take to fade away and how much it will cost us before it does are open questions. New Brunswickers should remain vigilant to ensure that not too many more public millions (billions?) are squandered before the hopium runs out and reality kicks in again.
Correction: An earlier version of this commentary stated that helium gas-cooled reactors do not exist. The story has been corrected to state that only one high-temperature gas reactor cooled by helium is in operation, in China. Updated at 5:14 PM, Oct. 22, 2026.
Susan O’Donnell is lead investigator of the CEDAR project in the Sustainability and Environmental Studies Program at St. Thomas University and a member of the board of directors of the NB Media Co-op.
AI firms say UK has a year to head off datacentre protests before construction is threatened.
Opposition to datacentre construction is being fuelled by widening public concern about the safety of AI systems, after a summer in which some of the largest companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google appeared to lose control of some of their most cutting-edge AIs. Some protesters have begun resorting to direct action and the membership of anti-AI campaign groups has been growing rapidly.00
Robert Booth, 22 October26, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/22/ai-firms-say-uk-has-a-year-to-head-off-datacentre-protests-before-construction-is-threatened
Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco taskforce urges ministers to offer areas greater benefits from tech infrastructure amid fears of US-style opposition
AI companies have told ministers they have 12 months to head off public opposition to datacentres in the UK or risk US-style protests that could threaten their construction.
Successive dry summers and rising energy bills are increasing public scrutiny of plans for the huge computer warehouses that are used to train and run AI models, says a submission to the Labour government from a group including the AI infrastructure companies Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco.
Amid increasing anti-datacentre activism in the US and Europe, they are calling on ministers to create a “compact” that would show how communities can benefit from hosting datacentres, including allowing councils that host them to retain more tax revenues.
The move by the Sovereign AI Leadership (SAIL) taskforce reflects rising concern among tech companies that arguments that have blocked datacentre developments in parts of the US are taking hold in Britain. Microsoft has promised to invest $30bn (£22bn) in UK AI infrastructure.
Microsoft has built a datacentre in Acton, London and another is under construction in Newport, but wants to build several more facilities and is engaging with local and national leaders, including the prime minister, Andy Burnham, over the balance between the potential benefit of AI to the economy and public opposition to datacentres.
The SAIL group said: “In the United States, organised local opposition has stopped fully permitted datacentre projects, and moratoriums have been announced even in states that are otherwise pro-growth.
“Reporting from those places shows that AI itself is only a surface-level concern; distrust of corporate and government promises, fear of stranded assets and electricity costs run deeper. The same arguments have begun to appear here.”
It added: “Britain has a window – we think of roughly 12 months – to build a compact that earns public consent before that pattern takes hold.”
The taskforce is calling for the government to create a clear framework for councils and mayors to follow that will set out recommended terms for local benefit, including an indicative contribution – likely to be financial or in terms of facilities – scaled to a site’s size..
Opposition to datacentre construction is being fuelled by widening public concern about the safety of AI systems, after a summer in which some of the largest companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google appeared to lose control of some of their most cutting-edge AIs. Some protesters have begun resorting to direct action and the membership of anti-AI campaign groups has been growing rapidly.
The datacentre companies are determined to head off that opposition. The chair of the SAIL taskforce, Steve Rigby, said: “By establishing a clear prosperity compact between government, industry and local communities, we can build the infrastructure we need, equip our workforce with future-ready skills, and ensure Britain’s digital destiny. This taskforce’s goal isn’t another strategy document, but high-impact actions that materially accelerate the UK’s transition to an AI-enabled economy.”
It has not calculated the cost to central government finances if councils that grant permission to datacentres are allowed to keep all of their business rates.
Responding to the proposals, Joseph Miller, the director of PauseAI UK, which campaigns for a global pause to datacentre buildout, said: “People are going to feel it is undignified to be bought off by huge tech companies who do not share their interests.”
He said tech companies were “absolutely right to be worried” about US-style public opposition to datacentres growing in the UK. Kat Jones, the director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, which campaigns against datacentres, said tech companies had already “missed the boat on containing community opposition to hyperscale AI datacentres”.
“In Scotland, we have 15 community campaigns already working incredibly hard opposing these environmentally destructive developments locally, and a growing national campaign,” she said. “Even the titanic lobbying efforts of US big tech are going to find it a real challenge to change the winds of public opinion, which have already shifted solidly against hyperscale AI datacentres.”
Donald Campbell, the director of advocacy at the tech equity campaign Foxglove, said: “Big tech firms have spent years trying to force vast, highly polluting datacentres through the planning system under a blanket of secrecy and misleading information. Now, with the public waking up to the fact that these facilities plunder resources and wreck the climate, the US tech giants have decided that there’s a problem.”
He warned that incentivising councils to back datacentres by allowing them to keep more of their business rate revenue would mean “these wealthy tech giants would not pay a penny more” while boosts to council funding would “come from the pocket of central government services like the NHS”.
A government spokesperson said datacentres “should create British jobs and supply chains, and provide investment to the communities in which they are built, as well as prioritising clean power, using water responsibly”.
“For most proposed datacentre developments, community benefits are considered through the relevant local planning processes,” they said. “We have already announced measures which will enable local authorities hosting datacentres in AI growth zones in England to keep all the additional business rates they generate.”
Fall, fuel rod mishap and failed exams plague US nuclear revival effort.
The Trump administration has promoted nuclear energy as an edge in the AI race against China. It has slashed regulation, provided tens of billions of dollars in funds and promised to reverse a culture of “risk aversion” at the NRC to accelerate projects.
The warning issued to Holtec by the NRC last week landed as investor interest in the nuclear sector has faded, driven by concerns the AI boom is slowing.
More than $30bn has been wiped off the value of five of the largest US-listed nuclear energy companies in the last year — Oklo, Centrus Energy, BWX Technologies, NuScale and Nano Nuclear
Michigan reactor restart is delayed as Trump administration champions nuclear energy to meet booming AI power demand
Jamie Smyth in New York, 23 Oct 26, https://www.ft.com/content/bcc464cc-9d12-4b15-866d-64642de66ca8?syn-25a6b1a6=1
US regulators have issued a warning to a nuclear project critical to Donald Trump’s efforts to revive the industry, after a contractor fell into a reactor cavity and a bundle of fuel rods nearly tipped over during refuelling. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Holtec International, a company racing to reopen a shuttered reactor at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan, to address a “chilled work environment” that has made staff hesitant to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation. The warning has prompted concerns among critics that financial and political pressures to revitalise nuclear power as an answer to booming AI-driven energy demand are increasing risks of accidents.
The NRC performed an inspection at Palisades in July over concerns about safety awareness. It followed an incident last year in which a worker fell into the reactor cavity, ingested some water and was sent off-site for medical attention. The individual was decontaminated by radiation protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected in their hair, according to an incident report. In a second incident in August, a bundle of nuclear fuel rods tilted over during a refuelling operation, delaying what was anticipated to be the first reopening of a shuttered nuclear reactor in the US.
The NRC also said nine of the 15 reactor operators at Palisades failed the test for an initial licence examination administered in July and August. Six individuals were issued operator licences. Holtec, which has never operated a nuclear power plant, has secured about $2.2bn in government support for a project that has been touted as a symbol of US nuclear resurgence. The owners of two other nuclear plants slated for decommissioning — Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Duane Arnold in Iowa — announced restarts soon after Palisades began work.
The Trump administration has promoted nuclear energy as an edge in the AI race against China. It has slashed regulation, provided tens of billions of dollars in funds and promised to reverse a culture of “risk aversion” at the NRC to accelerate projects.
The warning issued to Holtec by the NRC last week landed as investor interest in the nuclear sector has faded, driven by concerns the AI boom is slowing. More than $30bn has been wiped off the value of five of the largest US-listed nuclear energy companies in the last year — Oklo, Centrus Energy, BWX Technologies, NuScale and Nano Nuclear. Last month, Holtec was forced to postpone a planned initial public offering that was expected to raise $900mn and value the New Jersey-based company at up to $10bn. Palisades first became operational in 1971. It was decommissioned in 2022 but received a $1.5bn loan from the Department of Energy in 2024 to finance its restoration.
More than $30bn has been wiped off the value of five of the largest US-listed nuclear energy companies in the last year — Oklo, Centrus Energy, BWX Technologies, NuScale and Nano Nuclear. Last month, Holtec was forced to postpone a planned initial public offering that was expected to raise $900mn and value the New Jersey-based company at up to $10bn. Palisades first became operational in 1971. It was decommissioned in 2022 but received a $1.5bn loan from the Department of Energy in 2024 to finance its restoration. “The situation at Palisades is that you have a power plant operator newbie in Holtec trying to restart a nuclear reactor, and they may be under a lot of financial and political pressure to get this done speedily,” said Allison Macfarlane, who served as NRC chair from 2012 to 2014.
“The ‘chilled work environment’ warning issued by the NRC raises concerns that staff don’t feel like they can speak up to raise safety concerns and prevent accidents,” she added. “That perhaps reflects the new culture sweeping through part of the industry — move fast and break things. But to ensure safety, nuclear needs a culture based on going slowly and carefully.”
Holtec faces a March 2027 contractual deadline to begin supplying power to customers, who secured an extra $1.3bn in government funds to buy power from Palisades. In a statement to the FT, Holtec said it took the issues identified by the NRC seriously and was addressing them to ensure the plant runs safely. It said the fuel assembly that tilted over was successfully recovered without spilling in a “remarkable demonstration of technical ingenuity”. “A strong safety-conscious work environment is fundamental to our culture,” the company said. “The assertion that we have rushed has directly been countered by the work that has been accomplished.”
The NRC told Holtec its concerns about workplace culture must be addressed promptly to prevent further “cultural decline” within the affected departments. NRC has asked Holtec to correct the problems and will review the company’s plan within 30 days. However, the NRC downplayed any immediate risk to the public, saying mitigating measures ensured plant safety was not compromised. Holtec said the worker who fell into the reactor cavity last year had sustained minor injuries from the fall but quickly returned to work.
Holtec, which is trying to transform itself from a supplier of nuclear components and services into a reactor design and plant operator, has faced governance questions in the past. It has been the target of a whistleblower lawsuit and legal disputes involving former executives, relating to allegations of financial misrepresentation, executive retaliation and fraudulent practices. Kris Singh, founder and chief executive of Holtec, rejected the claims in a prior interview with the FT. The NRC said in a statement that its “safety mission remains our top priority.”
“NRC inspectors continuously monitored Holtec’s actions to safely remove the tipped — not dropped — fuel assembly from the reactor core and its placement in the spent fuel pool. They are independently assessing activities at Palisades and will continue to closely monitor Holtec’s restart-related work.” The US Department of Energy said Palisades’ return to service remained subject to NRC approvals and it was working closely with the regulator and Holtec to advance the “American nuclear renaissance”. “This is why appropriate regulatory oversight is useful in the nuclear sector and in this case it seems to be working,” said Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, a climate and energy think-tank.
He said restarting the Palisades plant would be “good symbolism” for nuclear energy growth in the US, particularly given the scale of the challenge in bringing a more-than-half-century-old plant back to life. “This is difficult, because Holtec never operated this plant, many of the components are old and there have been some well-documented mistakes in the process. But given the volume of investment this project is highly likely to go ahead,” he said.
Some local activists who oppose the reopening of the Michigan plant fear the potential for a serious nuclear accident if the plant restarts, claiming the NRC is no longer an independent regulator and Holtec lacks the skills to do the job. “There’s tremendous financial pressure on the company, political pressure on company. They are muddling through but they don’t know what they’re doing,” said Michael J Keegan of Don’t Waste Michigan, an environmental group. “The NRC is an enabler and they are in collusion with the nuclear power industry.”
Calder Hall at 70 – the sickening hype from the Nuclear Industry belies the Reality
By mariannewildart, https://lakesagainstnucleardump.com/2026/10/22/calder-hall-at-70-the-sickening-hype-from-the-nuclear-industry-belies-the-reality/
In all the media regurgitation of Sellafield’s triumphant press releases about “Calder Hall at 70” featuring the young Queen Elizabeth pressing the button to turn the reactors into nuclear waste, there is no mention that Calder Hall was built to provide plutonium for bombs. As the Tribune points out in 1982:
“WHEN the Queen opened Britain’s first nuclear reactor, Calder Hall, on October 17,1956, she said: “It may well prove to have been among the greatest of our contributions to human welfare that we led the way in demonstrating the peaceful uses of this new source of power.” But Calder Hall had nothing to do with either human welfare or with peace – its purpose was to produce plutonium for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. The hypocrisy of the British Establishment knew no bounds and the public was duped. Newsreels proclaimed an era of nuclear-generated electricity that would be cheap and clean and would bring prosperity to Britain. It was only in later years that the nuclear industry began to concede that Calder Hall was not what it had been made to seem. As the General Manager of Windscale, Calder Hall and Chapelcross admitted ten years later: “The primary function of the reactors at Calder Hall was to produce plutonium for the military programme and the design was optimised for this purpose.”
Another feature of Calder Hall is its name. Named after the beautiful Lakeland stone and slate farm the government compulsory purchased to provide land for the bomb making enterprise, along with a whole host of other Lakeland farms now gobbled up by the nuclear industry and either used as offices or demolished.
The nuclear industry vies with Beatrix Potter in its purchase of Lake District farms. Potter purchased around 16 farms, and the nuclear industry has purchased at least 11 that we know of in the West Cumbria area alone. Many of these have been demolished.
- Calder Hall Farm, Seascale
- Fleming Hall Farm, Seascale
- Seascale Hall Farm, Seascale
- Longlands Farmhouse and cottage, Gosforth
- Town End Farm, Gosforth
- High Ling Bank Farm, Ponsonby, Gosforth
- Calder Town End Farm, Seascale
- Greenmoorside Farm
- Mid Tarn Farm
- Tarn Head Farm
- Yottenfews Farm House (now a corporate office for Sellafield)
The only difference between Beatrix Potter’s farm purchases and the nuclear industry’s purchases of Lake District farms is intention.
Beatrix Potter, best known as the author-illustrator of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit“, supported the efforts of the National Trust to preserve not just the places of extraordinary beauty but also those heads of valleys and low grazing lands that would be irreparably ruined by development… She left nearly all her property to the National Trust, including over 4,000 acres (16 km2) of land, sixteen farms, cottages and herds of cattle and Herdwick sheep. Hers was the largest gift at that time to the National Trust, and it enabled the preservation of the land now included in the Lake District National Park and the continuation of fell farming.
A friend of Beatrix Potter, the sculptor Josefina Vasconcellos who arrived in Cumbria in the 1930s remarked: “When I first came to the Lake District whenever John or I walked there were birds but since the atomic station came there have been less and less and less, they almost died out.” The atomic (nuclear power) station to which she refers is Windscale, which opened in 1950 and Calder Hall. The site was renamed Sellafield.
Nuclear power produces enormous amounts of waste heat. This requires lots of water for cooling. During this cooling process, Nuclear Power Plants are also legally allowed to discharge long-lived, lethal, radioactive materials into the air and water, along with heat.
Water from Wastwater lake is pumped to Sellafield nuclear waste site as a fresh water supply. The NDA (Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) has taken over the licence once held by BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels plc) which allows them to extract a maximum of 18,184.4 m³ a day (over 4 million gallons) and 6,637,306 m³ a year from Wastwater to use on site for various processes.” This is still not enough so an equivalent amount of water is also taken from rivers and boreholes to cool the heels of the nuclear industry. It was farmers in Wasdale and Ennerdale who stopped the nuclear industry taking even more of the Lake District’s top quality water, however the industry still has first dibs on our fresh water.
It is well known that Ruskin, Beatrix Potter and Wordsworth are Lake District icons. Not one of these icons would have separated the West Coast of Cumbria from the Lake District as we have been taught to do in the nuclear age.
The Lake District National Park is an artificial construct which does itself or us no favours in its readiness to publicly disown West Cumbria rather than publicly oppose the diabolic nuclear developments in the Lake District.
This is what the Lake District National Park Authority said said in 2012 about the plan for a geological dump for heat generating nuclear waste:
“It remains a concern that significant media interest highlights the potential location of the geological disposal facility in the ‘Lake District’ rather than ‘West Cumbria.”
Roll on to 2026 and the Chair of the plan for the nuclear waste dump in the Lake District, aka GDF (Geological Disposal Facility) in South and Mid Copeland is Andy Pratt. Andy Pratt is also the Lake District National Park’s “Member of Development Control Committee and the Strategy meeting.” No conflict of interest there then?!
The Lake District National Park Authority’s insistence that ‘West Cumbria’ is an entirely different geographical area to the ‘Lake District’ is an entirely artificial construct which has come about as a direct result of the ruinous nuclear industry.
When the Lake Counties included Cumberland, Westmorland and part of Lancashire there was none of today’s parochialism and narrow mindedness about what constituted the Lake District.
Today the plan for the “Biggest Nuclear Development in Europe” is promoted as if in an isolated industrial “West Cumbrian” bubble, despite being only 20 miles from Keswick and 25 miles from Ambleside as the crow flies.
Where are the protectors of the Lake District?”
Conservation in the Lake District is now focussed on rewilding but far from the fells being covered in trees the pre-Neolithic landscape would have been a relatively open park-like mosaic rather than closed forest.
It is a very safe bet that there are far fewer of Beatrix Potter’s beloved Herdwick on the Lakeland fells now than there were when she was the Ennerdale Show President in the 1930’s.
It is also very safe to say that the wildlife of the Fells was far more abundant in Beatrix Potters hayday. Research into the ‘brand’ of Cumbria has shown that farming and tourism are the two industries most damaged by nuclear developments.
Undermining farming and tourism would leave the field wide open for the nuclear industry to achieve its ambition of new build and burying heat generating nuclear waste under Cumbria.
Back to the friend of Beatrix Potter, the sculptress Josefina de Vasconcellos who arrived in Cumbria in the 1930s:
“When I first came to the Lake District whenever John or I walked there were birds but since the atomic station came there have been less and less and less, they almost died out”.
Josefina’s observations are backed up by science. Lancaster University has been studying the effects of chronic long-term radiation on animals. This includes: “Severe effect on reproduction hatching and abnormal larvae (fish).”
These test studies are backed up by findings in the real world. Many universities worldwide have been studying evidence from nuclear accidents:
“Low-dose radiation has been known to have negative consequences for living beings for almost 100 years. Indeed, background radiation causes the death of tens of thousands of humans annually. These ‘natural’ effects may be exacerbated by the 23 nuclear accidents recorded during the last century”.
Radiation Free Lakeland believe Sellafield to be the equivalent of an ongoing accident with routine releases of radiation to sea, air and groundwaters.
Beatrix Potter left a vast area of Cumbria to the National Trust to be farmed with the express wish of keeping Herdwicks on the land. Her life’s work was to retain the delicate balance created by the domestic and wild community that share and maintain the Lake District.
Nuclear is needed in that living landscape like a hole in the head.
The hype surrounding “Calder Hall at 70” is nuclear propaganda while the reality of at least a dozen Lake District farms bought up abandoned and demolished by the industry are the warning we should all heed.
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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