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Nuclear waste springs eternal in the human folly

25 Jan 25,  https://theaimn.net/nuclear-waste-springs-eternal-in-the-human-folly/

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.” – Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, 1733

Pope goes on to say – “The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” I’m not sure what he means, but “never is, but always to be blest” really does suggest that the blessed solution actually never comes.

All that is fine, in the religious context. Because that way, it will all come good when we get to Heaven, in the next life.

In the nuclear waste context, the powers that be are as confident as the religious leaders, that all problems will be solved – later on, so we can go on hell-for-leather, making the poisonous trash.

‘High likelihood’ of radioactive waste in smoldering landfill, Missouri officials say

I was prompted to these thoughts by January 22nd news from Missouri – High likelihood of radioactive waste in smoldering landfill, Missouri officials say. I’ve been following this particular radioactive trash problem for at least 12 years  https://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/16/radioactive-trash-in-st-louis-related-to-underground-landfill-fire/. And that fire’s still going! And that radiation is still causing cancers in the local community.

Dr Helen Caldicott, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, visiting St Louis in 2016, said – the radioactive contamination in north St. Louis County is “worse than most places” she’s investigated, and called the situation “obscene.” Records reveal 75 years of government downplaying, ignoring risks of St. Louis radioactive waste.

So, the cleanup of St Louis’ County radioactive sites, contaminated by wastes from nuclear-weapons -making, goes on, with ever hopes to complete it, – while the nuclear-weapons-making goes on, creating even more radioactive trash

St Louis County is symbolic of the whole obscene nuclear waste situation across the planet.

Energy expert Kurt Cobb, writing in Oil Price, examines Sweden’s options for disposing of nuclear waste. He argues that climate change, political instability, and technological limitations could all pose threats to the long-term safety of nuclear waste storage. The Swedish plan is to fill the storage site—”60 km of tunnels buried 500 metres down in 1.9 billion year old bedrock”—sometime by 2080 at which time it will be closed.

Cobb points out that civilization, that is, human settlement in cities, has only been around about 10,000 years, but the wastes must be safe and secure for 100,00 years. The containers, copper capsules, are likely to corrode, and leak radioactive elements into groundwater, in a much shorter time.

He questions our faith in technological progress, which is supposed to absolutely solve the nuclear waste problem. It’s very like the Christian view on Alexander Pope’s statement – we’re not going to be blest in this world, so just look to life in the hereafter.

Kurt Cobb also discusses nuclear reprocessing, which brings its own problems, and still creates more waste, and he mentions other suggestions – shooting such waste into space or into the Sun.

Now here’s where I’m shocked at Mr Cobb. In all my years of reading worthy treatises on nuclear waste disposal, this is the first time I’ve found an energy expert to come up with a heretical thought like stopping making radioactive trash:

“I wonder if we were wise to create something in the first place that requires 100,000 years of care, given how heedless we as a species are to hazards of our own making that may destroy our current civilization much, much sooner than a thousand centuries from now.“

Really, Mr Cobb, wash your mouth out with soap! You don’t say things like that, if you want to be taken seriously by the world’s reputable nuclear experts.

January 25, 2025 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

UK to dispose of, not re-use, radioactive plutonium stockpile


BBC 24th Jan 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr8lzyg299o
The government says it will dispose of its 140 tonnes of radioactive plutonium – currently stored at a secure facility at Sellafield in Cumbria.

The UK has the world’s largest stockpile of the hazardous material, which is a product of nuclear fuel reprocessing.

It has been kept at the site and has been piling up for decades in a form that would allow it to be recycled into new nuclear fuel.

But the government has now decided that it will not be reused and instead says it wants to put the hazardous material “beyond reach” and made ready for permanent disposal deep underground.

That means that a facility will be built at Sellafield where the plutonium can be converted into a stable, rock-like material, which can eventually be disposed of deep underground.

In a statement, energy minister Michael Shanks said the objective was “to put this material beyond reach, into a form which both reduces the long-term safety and security burden during storage and ensures it is suitable for disposal”.

Nuclear materials scientist Dr Lewis Blackburn from the University of Sheffield said the plutonium would be “converted into a ceramic material” which, while still radioactive, is solid and stable so it is deemed safe to dispose of.

“The type of ceramic remains to be decided [and selecting the right material] is the subject of ongoing research.”

Nuclear waste expert Prof Claire Corkhill from the University of Bristol said the goverment’s decision was a “positive step”.

She told BBC News that it paved the way to removing the cost and hazard of storing plutonium at Sellafield “by transforming it and locking it away into a solid, durable material that will last for millions of years in a geological disposal facility”.

“These materials are based on those we find in nature – natural minerals, that we know have contained uranium for billions of years.”

The government is currently in the early stages of a long technical and political process of choosing a suitable site to build a deep geological facility that will eventually be the destination for all of the country’s most hazardous radioactive waste. That facility will not be operational until at least 2050.

January 25, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

America’s ‘zombie’ nuclear reactors to be revived to power Trump golden age

By ELLYN LAPOINTE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 24 January 2025 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14317459/zombie-nuclear-reactors-revived-ai-demand-trump-stargate-south-carolina.html

A defunct nuclear power plant will be revived to power Donald Trump‘s new half-trillion-dollar project to make America the world’s artificial intelligence powerhouse. 

The state-owned utility Santee Cooper — the largest power provider in South Carolina — said Wednesday that it is seeking buyers to complete construction on a partially-built project that was abandoned in 2017.

The VC Summer Nuclear Power Station, which houses two unfinished nuclear reactors, was scrapped following years of lengthy, costly delays and bankruptcy by its contractor, according to a company statement.

But now, the utility is hoping tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft will be willing to finish the project, as they are seeking clean energy sources to fuel data centers for AI.  

‘We are seeing renewed interest in nuclear energy, fueled by advanced manufacturing investments, AI-driven data center demand, and the tech industry’s zero-carbon targets,’ said Santee Cooper President and CEO Jimmy Staton. 

This announcement came as President Donald Trump unveiled a $500bn AI project which he says will jumpstart America’s ‘golden age.’ 

The project, dubbed the ‘Stargate Initiative,’ is a massive private sector deal to expand the nation’s AI infrastructure, led by Big Tech companies such as OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle. It is the largest AI infrastructure project in history.

Trump stated that Stargate will create over 100,000 new jobs ‘almost immediately.’

‘This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president,’ he said during a Tuesday briefing. 

Trump emphasized that the project aims to sharpen the country’s technological edge against competitors, notably China. 

He held the briefing in the White House’s Roosevelt Room alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

The US AI industry has already grown rapidly in recent years, but one of the biggest hurdles to expansion is the energy cost of running data centers.

A recent Department of Energy (DOE) report found that total data center electricity usage more than tripled from from 2014 to 2023, rising from 58 TWh to 176 TWh.

The DOE estimates that by 2028, data center energy demand will increase between 325 to 580, consuming up to 12 percent of US electricity. 

‘This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president,’ he said during a Tuesday briefing. 

Trump emphasized that the project aims to sharpen the country’s technological edge against competitors, notably China. 

He held the briefing in the White House’s Roosevelt Room alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

The US AI industry has already grown rapidly in recent years, but one of the biggest hurdles to expansion is the energy cost of running data centers.

A recent Department of Energy (DOE) report found that total data center electricity usage more than tripled from from 2014 to 2023, rising from 58 TWh to 176 TWh.

The DOE estimates that by 2028, data center energy demand will increase between 325 to 580, consuming up to 12 percent of US electricity. 

Santee Cooper said it was working with the investment firm Centerview Partners LLC to vet buyer proposals, which they will accept until May 5.

The exact asking price has not been publicly named, but the Wall Street Journal reported that completion of the reactors would cost the buyer billions of dollars over several years. 

This would not be the first time that Big Tech bankrolled a nuclear energy project. Last September, Microsoft struck a deal with the New York utility Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. 

This plant was the site of the worst nuclear power accident in US history, when its Unit 2 reactor partially melted down in 1979 and released radioactive gases and iodine into the environment.

Amazon, Meta and Google also sought or signed deals to back nuclear energy projects in 2024, similarly motivated by their AI endeavors. 

The federal government has also shown support for the resurgence of nuclear power. 

In September, the DOE finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help Holtec International, a New Jersey manufacturing company, recommission the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, marking the first-ever revival of a nuclear power plant in the US. 

The Biden administration and Congress also offered billions of dollars in subsidies to maintain older nuclear plants and fund the construction of new reactors. 

President Trump has largely opposed and sought to repeal the former president’s energy and climate policies, but has said he supports nuclear energy. 

In its first actions this week, the new administration signed an executive order directing the heads of ‘all agencies’ to identify regulations that ‘impose an undue burden’ on domestic energy resources, including nuclear power.

It also instructs the US Geological Survey ‘to consider updating the Survey’s list of critical minerals, including for the potential of including uranium,’ which can be refined into nuclear fuel.

January 25, 2025 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

High likelihood of radioactive waste in smoldering landfill, Missouri officials say

MISSOURI INDEPENDENT, By: Allison Kite – January 22, 2025 


Missouri officials are warning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of a “high likelihood” there is radioactive contamination in a smoldering landfill outside St. Louis.

In a letter last week, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources asked that the EPA assume oversight of the Bridgeton Landfill, arguing it may contain nuclear waste like the adjacent West Lake Landfill.

The two landfills, situated in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton, have received extensive attention from regulators over the years. The Bridgeton Landfill has been experiencing a “subsurface smoldering event” — a chemical reaction that heats and consumes waste like a fire but lacks oxygen — for more than 14 years, emitting noxious odors and raising concerns among residents that the “fire” might reach the radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill next door.

The West Lake Landfill is subject to an EPA oversight and a cleanup to remove thousands of tons of uranium left over from World War II. 

But, the state argued in its letter, there may be radioactive waste in the Bridgeton portion of the landfill far closer to the subsurface smolder than previously known……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The St. Louis area has struggled for years with a radioactive waste problem.

During World War II, uranium was refined in downtown St. Louis for use in the Manhattan Project, the name given to the war-era effort to build the world’s first atomic bomb. 

After the war, the waste was trucked to St. Louis County and dumped at the airport where it leaked into Coldwater Creek, polluting its banks and waters and subjecting generations of families to radiation exposure and an increased risk of certain cancers. The waste was sold and moved to a site in Hazlewood — still adjacent to the creek — where it continued to expose residents. 

In 1973, after valuable metals were extracted from the pile, the remaining waste was illegally dumped in the West Lake Landfill, where it remains today.

The EPA is nearing the end of a process to plan an excavation of much of the radioactive waste from the landfill. Parts of the landfill with lower levels of contamination will be capped.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the cleanup of Coldwater Creek. 

Last week, the EPA announced it would expand the excavation at the West Lake Landfill because it found additional radioactive contamination. Under the revised plan, another 40 acres of the landfill will be included in the cleanup. Crews will need to dig up another 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, and the price of the cleanup will climb to almost $400 million.

For years, the EPA thought the radioactive material was confined to two portions of the landfill, relying on findings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which, in the late 1970s, flew a helicopter over the landfill to measure gamma radioactivity. That effort missed contamination in parts of the landfill.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ letter came in response to the EPA’s announcement last week that it would expand the cleanup. The state agency said it supported the expanded cleanup and recommended that the EPA “considers being the lead agency for all the potentially affected properties.”  https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/22/high-likelihood-of-radioactive-waste-in-smoldering-landfill-missouri-officials-say/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIAOhZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR0Eo5ucf2C5gyG0H9KX_GVfE9QfJMSf34RPNYlxK_bMz-QNu–VBSiyrA_aem_ijh3lKomduLQR0zVXkDaIQ

January 25, 2025 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

St Louis radioactively contaminated sites visited by Dr Helen Caldicott.

Anti-nuclear activist tours north St. Louis County sites contaminated with radioactive waste, St Louis Public Radio, By STEPHANIE LECCI • FEB 19, 2016 An internationally recognized anti-nuclear activist and Australian physician said the radioactive contamination in north St. Louis County is “worse than most places” she’s investigated.

 

Dr. Helen Caldicott toured several local sites Friday afternoon, including: the recently remediated St. Cin Park in Hazelwood; West Lake Landfill Superfund site, which contains radioactive nuclear waste dating back to 1940s and ’50s; and the Bridgeton Landfill, whose underground smoldering has caused concern due its proximity to the waste in West Lake.

Byron DeLear, an executive for a clean-energy company, helped take Caldicott on the tour.

“This is truly an historic opportunity for this community to have the expertise of Helen to show up and really start to investigate what’s going on here,” he said.

Caldicott, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, whose umbrella parent organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize, called the situation “obscene.”

“I’m a pediatrician. Children are extremely sensitive to the toxic and carcinogenic effects of radiation,” she said. “I can’t for the life of me understand why the government …hasn’t removed this material, especially if there’s a fire next to this radioactive waste dump.”………

“When you inhale radon, it decays into lead 210 and stays there in the bronchus irradiating just a small volume of cells with alpha radiation, very carcinogenic,” she said. “Radon is one of the most potent causes of lung cancer.”

Caldicott said she will discuss other elements along the decay chain of uranium and “where they go in the body and how they cause cancer” during a symposium at St. Louis Community College-Wildwood Saturday at 7 p.m. Caldicott will be the keynote speaker on the impacts of nuclear weapons development, and will be joined by a panel of other experts. The presentation will also be live-streamed………

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/anti-nuclear-activist-tours-north-st-louis-county-sites-contaminated-radioactive-waste

January 25, 2025 Posted by | general, Reference archives | 2 Comments

Anti nuclear activists celebrate fourth banniversary of nuclear weapons

Half of the world’s nations, representing 2.5 billion people, have now signed and / or ratified the Ban Treaty. There are now 94 States Parties to the treaty and 73 have ratified their absolute adherence to it.


 NFLA 22nd Jan 2025

Today (22nd January) is the banniversary, the fourth anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons[i] entering into international law at the UN.

This treaty, usually called the Ban Treaty, is the first piece of international legislation to outlaw the production, stockpiling, transfer, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.

In the world today we have nine confirmed or acknowledged nuclear weapons states, the USA, Russia, United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, with an estimated 12,121 nuclear weapons in January 2024[ii].

In 2023, these states were estimated to have spent $91.4 billion maintaining and enhancing their nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear proliferation has been restrained because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty[iii] which was first signed by the USA, USSR and UK in 1968 and has almost universal acceptance in the world community. Signatory nations without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, whilst retaining the right to employ nuclear power for energy, whilst the five nuclear weapon states, the USA, Russia, UK, France and China, which have signed it have agreed not to deploy nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Furthermore, under Article 6 they have committed to: pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament’.

The Ban Treaty came to pass because global civil society, particularly in nations whose people suffered greatly from post-war atomic and nuclear bomb testing, such as Australia, the Pacific Islands, Algeria, and Kazakhstan, became increasingly frustrated by the failure of these nuclear nations to conduct any negotiations in ‘good faith’, despite the passage of over 60 years. Civic society groups, scientists, physicians and the Hibakusha pushed back by establishing an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to bring about the world’s first definitive legislation to outlaw nuclear weapons.[iv]

In doing so they were following the example set by worldwide campaigners opposed to anti-personnel landmines, whose campaign led to the passage of the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Land Mine Ban Convention.[v] This became law in 1997. Later that year the International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Novel Peace Prize.

The new campaign aimed to bring in similar legislation to that which previously banned other weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical, biological and bacteriological weapons.

Lawyers from civil society groups and supportive nations drew up the legislation. Several years were spent by campaigners in international shuttle diplomacy, with private meetings and various regional conferences held across the world to build support amongst United Nations member states…………………………………………………………………………………………

Half of the world’s nations, representing 2.5 billion people, have now signed and / or ratified the Ban Treaty. There are now 94 States Parties to the treaty and 73 have ratified their absolute adherence to it.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The Nuclear Free Local Authorities and Mayors for Peace are both established partners in ICAN.

Interestingly in both organisations are member authorities in the Republic of Ireland and the UK. The Republic is a neutral and non-nuclear weapon state that has signed and ratified the Ban Treaty. The UK is a NATO and nuclear weapon state which is refusing to engage with the treaty. This creates a dichotomy.

What then will the UK/Ireland NFLAs and Mayors for Peace Chapter be doing in 2025 to build support for the treaty and the communities affected by nuclear weapons and testing?

Richard Outram, explains:

The big challenge here is getting any British Government, whatever its political persuasion, which remains wedded to nuclear weapons and is a member of a nuclear weapons alliance with a first use policy, to get on board with the Treaty.

“2025 will be an especially significant year in the history of nuclear weapons, being the 80th anniversary of the tragic atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so it will be important to have a focused plan with positive actions.”

Richard intends to:

  • Ask the Labour Government to send an official observer to the next conference of the Ban Treaty to join signatory states and civil society groups. This will be held in New York in March.
  • Lobby the Government to acknowledge the moral imperative for the UK to provide reparations and practical support for the communities, generally Indigenous, impacted by British atomic and nuclear weapons, as per the provisions of Articles 6 and 7 in the Ban Treaty.
  • Continue to work for justice and compensation for Britain’s atomic and nuclear test veteran community and their families. The NFLAs have been a major player in lobbying politicians at all levels in both Conservative and Labour governments, and has appointed a former British Army veteran, Councillor Tommy Judge, to be its spokesperson on these issues.
  • Ask Mayors for Peace to follow Manchester’s example in passing resolutions in support of the ICAN Cities Appeal calling on the British Government to sign the Treaty.
  • Write to parliamentarians at Holyrood in support of a resolution just tabled before the Scottish Government favouring nuclear disarmament and a nuclear free Scotland.
  • Support any move to lobby local government pension funds to divest from nuclear weapons.
  • Continue to work building up the number of our member authorities and to strengthen their capacity to act for peace in this 80th anniversary year of the atom bombings. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/anti-nuclear-activists-celebrate-fourth-banniversary-of-nuclear-weapons/

January 25, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Legal challenges to infrastructure plans to be blocked in Starmer growth push

Dr Ruth Tingay, a prominent environmental campaigner and a co-director of Wild Justice, said: “It sounds like Starmer is auditioning for a role in Trump’s cabinet.

Prime minister hopes his plan to ‘take the brakes off Britain’ will send a message to business to build more

Pippa Crerar, Kiran Stacey, Sandra Laville and Patrick Barkham. Guardian 23rd Jan 2025


Legal challenges to infrastructure plans to be blocked in Starmer growth push

Prime minister hopes his plan to ‘take the brakes off Britain’ will send a message to business to build more

Pippa Crerar, Kiran Stacey, Sandra Laville and Patrick BarkhamThu 23 Jan 2025 11.01 AEDTShare

Campaigners will be blocked from “excessive” legal challenges to planning decisions for major infrastructure projects including airports, railways and nuclear power stations as part of the government’s drive for economic growth.

High court judges will be given the power to rule that judicial reviews on nationally significant projects that they regard as “totally without merit” – and which can currently be brought to the courts three times – will be unable to go to appeal.

Keir Starmer said the change would “take the brakes off Britain” by reforming the planning system, sending a message to business to build more national infrastructure, as ministers desperately pursue opportunities to improve the economy.

“For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth,” he said.

“We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the nimbys and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.”

It is one of a range of measures being considered by the government as part of an all-encompassing dash for growth, which has caused alarm among environmental groups.

With GDP figures barely moving since the election, Rachel Reeves is looking at proposals from airport expansion to widespread deregulation in an effort to improve the UK’s economic outlook.

Government sources said the chancellor was “deeply unimpressed” with the pro-growth ideas presented by a number of the country’s biggest regulators when she met them last week, and has since instructed them to improve their plans………………………………………………………………………….

However, some environmentalists have expressed unease with the government’s drive to curtail legal challenges to infrastructure projects, of which they have promised to deliver 150 this parliament………………….

​In February 2020, Starmer tweeted “congratulations to the climate campaigners” when plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport were ruled illegal by the court of appeal after a judicial review.

“There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion,” he said then…………………………………

The current first attempt – known as the paper permission stage – will be scrapped. Primary legislation will be changed so that where a judge in an oral hearing at the high court deems the case “totally without merit”, it will not be possible to ask the court of appeal to reconsider. A request to appeal second attempt will be allowed for other cases………………………………….

Green groups also have voiced concerns over plans to overrule environmental protections to free up the planning system with a new Nature Restoration Fund which, the government said, would not allow protected species such as newts and bats to be deemed more important than homes or infrastructure.

Niall Toru, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, said: “No one is above the law, not even the government.

“Friends of the Earth only brings cases we think are strong and necessary to protect people and nature from unlawful harm – and considering our string of recent legal wins, so do the courts.

“It is deeply concerning that Labour is attempting to scapegoat claimants. If ministers don’t want to be challenged in the courts, they should act within the law, because already cases aren’t allowed to proceed unless they have merit.”

Dr Ruth Tingay, a prominent environmental campaigner and a co-director of Wild Justice, said: “It sounds like Starmer is auditioning for a role in Trump’s cabinet.

“This proposal doesn’t make any sense whichever way you look at it. First, campaigners can only take judicial reviews if their case does have merit, as judged by the high court.

“So to then allow another judge to block an appeal on the basis that the case is ‘totally without merit’ is nonsensical and will lead to problems of accountability and lack of scrutiny.

“Second, and more importantly, economic growth based on environmental and climate degradation is a loser’s game, and we’ll all be paying the price of that.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/23/legal-challenges-to-infrastructure-projects-to-be-blocked-in-push-for-growth

January 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Vegetation being removed to enable upgrade of Sizewell line

 Work on a Suffolk railway line has sparked “fury and upset” over the
apparent removal of mature trees and vegetation. Leiston resident Hayley
Trueman said the foliage had been cut down along the Sizewell branch line
between Saxmundham and Leiston as part of an upgrade to enable the track to
be used to transport building materials to the new Sizewell C nuclear power
station.

She said: “The trees and vegetation not only provide screening for
us as residents, but is a green corridor for the abundant wildlife that
lives there.

 East Anglian Daily Times 22nd Jan 2025 https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24873970.vegetation-removed-enable-upgrade-sizewell-line/

January 25, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Bill Gates’ nuclear energy startup inks new data center deal


 The Verge 23rd Jan 2025

 Tech companies are flocking to nuclear energy to power their data centers.

TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together on a plan to run existing and future facilities on nuclear energy from small reactors.

Tech companies are scrambling to determine where to get all the electricity they’ll need for energy-hungry AI data centers that are putting growing pressure on power grids. They’re increasingly turning to nuclear energy, including next-generation reactors that startups like TerraPower are developing………..

A memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies establishes a “strategic collaboration” that’ll initially look into the potential for new nuclear power plants in Texas and the Rocky Mountain region that would power SDC’s data centers.

There’s still a long road ahead before that can become a reality. The technology TerraPower and similar nuclear energy startups are developing still have to make it through regulatory hurdles and prove that they can be commercially viable.

Compared to older, larger nuclear power plants, the next generation of reactors are supposed to be smaller and easier to site. Nuclear energy is seen as an alternative to fossil fuels that are causing climate change. But it still faces opposition from some advocates concerned about the impact of uranium mining and storing radioactive waste near communities……………..

TerraPower’s reactor design for this collaboration, Natrium, is the only advanced technology of its kind with a construction permit application for a commercial reactor pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to the company. The company just broke ground on a demonstration project in Wyoming last year, and expects it to come online in 2030………….
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/23/24350335/bill-gates-terrapower-data-center-sabey-nuclear-energy-ai

January 25, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Suffolk Coastal MP said priority to hold Sizewell to account.

24th January, By Dominic Bareham,  East Anglian Daily Times

A Suffolk MP has written to the developers of the new Sizewell C nuclear power station expressing concerns raised by her constituents about the current construction.

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, MP for Suffolk Coastal, said her priority was to hold Sizewell C to account on its “social valuable and charitable investments, employment opportunities and environmental actions”.

Campaigners from action group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), which is opposed to the power station, have written to her asking her to call a halt to the project due to the “huge amount of environmental damage being inflicted by the project”.

………………………………………………………………In the letter, TASC raised concerns works associated with the Sizewell C project were causing environmental damage, including a new link road, access road, five roundabouts and park and ride sites.

It said: “These projects have resulted in the felling of thousands of trees, grubbing out miles of hedging and covering vast areas under concrete and tarmac, devastating the biodiversity-rich environment, Heritage Coast and the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty landscape in the process.

“This amounts to wholesale environmental vandalism, especially when the project still not only lacks a final investment decision but also a final design of the all-important sea defences, has no guaranteed sustainable supply of potable water essential for its 60 years of operation and with the nuclear site’s ground stabilisation trials remaining unfinished.”  https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24876996.suffolk-coastal-mp-said-priority-hold-sizewell-account/

January 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment