nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Nuclear news – but not from the nuclear-media-industrial-political complex

Some Bits of good news – 
Mexico slashed its poverty rate. 


 Green energy approvals smash records in the UK.   

The tide turns for seahorse on England’ South coast.


 TOP STORIES    How Will Ukraine War End?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6C93pCdCHA.   

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Assassination of Memory. 

Europe’s nuclear power plants buckle under climate extremes. 

Famine Officially Declared in Gaza After 2 Years of Near-Total Israeli Blockade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2VJOHp-OMw&t=79s

Climate. Wildfire smoke far more dangerous to health than thought, say scientists. Do heatwaves, wildfires and travel costs signal the end of the holiday abroad?

AUSTRALIA. 

NUCLEAR ITEMS

ATROCITIES. Children at gravest risk as full-fledged famine unfolds in Gaza.
CLIMATE. EDF May Cut Nuclear Output in North France as River Levels Drop. Why New Large and Small Nuclear Reactors are Not Green. Radiocarbon Dispersion around Canadian Nuclear Facilities.
CULTURE and ARTS. Trump Breaks Europe Over His Knee: Unprecedented Optics of White House ‘Losers’ Gathering’.
ECONOMICS. KHNP And Westinghouse ‘Holding Talks’ Over Nuclear JV For US And Europe.
ENERGY.  France ‘flexes’ nuclear output as solar reshapes European energy.Data centers consume massive amounts of water – companies rarely tell the public exactly how much. German experience shows transition to renewables possible for Taiwan and the world..
ENVIRONMENT. The jellyfish are the symptom.Walmart recalls possibly radioactive shrimp after public warned not to eat.The Challenge for Atlantic Salmon -the Epic Journey Begins.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Zionism Is What It Does.
EVENTS. September 13/14 – Global Network 33rd Annual Space Zoom Conference– “NATO-US prepare for war on China
HEALTH. The Trump Administration’s Halt on Medical Evacuations From Gaza Is a Death Sentence for Palestinian Children.
Workers who developed cancer while building America’s nuclear weapons struggle to make medical claims after Trump cuts.
More than 2,000 nuclear weapons have been detonated in the past 80 years: their effects still linger around the world.
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. LANL Silences Public and Tribal Voices While Pushing Radioactive Tritium Venting.
LEGAL. Albion Stupidities: Palestine Action and Anti-Terrorism Laws.
MEDIA. What I Saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022 – Diary of an International Observer.
Atomic Bill and the Payment Due.
The Media Loves “The Experts,” Until it’s Time to Count Gaza’s Dead. Western Media Manufactured Consent for Israel’s Murder of Palestinian Journalists.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Statements of support from international energy scholars for Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out.Angry Denver International Airport neighbors quash nuclear power idea in 48 hours flat.
PLUTONIUM. Trump plans to make Cold War-era plutonium available for nuclear power.
POLITICS. Israel approves controversial West Bank settlement plan.
Taiwan nuclear plant re-opening vote fails as approval threshold missed. Taiwan votes on recalling opposition lawmakers and reviving nuclear power.Iran willing to reduce uranium enrichment to avoid British sanctions.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
Patrick Lawrence: That Big, Beautiful Summit in Alaska .
RAY McGOVERN: Trump & the Seven Dwarfs.
What really happened in Alaska. 

Trump Says He’s Working To Arrange a Meeting Between Putin and Zelensky.French monitor: Ukraine, NATO provoked Russia in Donbas war. Ukraine’s best security guarantee is the peace NATO sabotaged.Jeffrey Sachs:

The US Can End the Gaza Genocide Now.

South Korea’s state-run nuclear power firm barred from North America, Europe over intellectual property dispute: Report.
SAFETY. Call for investigation into serious nuclear leak at Faslane.Mile High City sparks fury over plan for one of America’s busiest airports.
SECRETS and LIES.
Why Zelensky’s main argument against peace is a lie.[SMRs]
 Twin Trails of Treachery Expose – by Paul McKay.
Israel’s man inside the CIA betrayed the US, new files show.
Revealed: The KGB plot to poison loch with radioactive waste... then blame it on American nuclear subs CND peaceniks were campaigning to ban from Britain.
Never Forget The Lies They Told About Gaza: Never Forgive Them.
SPINBUSTER. Only Liars And Manipulators Say Gaza Isn’t Starving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLE0KQdFRJk
WASTES. Treasury criticises ‘unachievable’ plan for underground nuclear waste dump in Cumbria. Fukushima nuclear plant decommissioning seen overrunning estimate.
WAR and CONFLICT. Israeli Military To Call Up 60,000 Reservists as It Prepares for Gaza City Ethnic Cleansing Campaign. Israelis Understand That Trump Can End The Nightmare In Gaza: Americans Should Know This Too.

Everyone will gain from a peace deal for Ukraine. Zelensky should meet with Putin…to surrender.
Ukraine drone hits Russian nuclear plant, sparks huge fire at Novatek’s Ust-Luga terminal . Russia blames nuclear site attack on Ukraine as Kyiv marks independence day. Downed Ukrainian Drone Causes Fire At Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. Trump ‘angry’ about Ukrainian attacks on key Russian pipeline to EU – Budapest
Kiev to replace soldiers with robots – top general.Those warmongering Europeans!
WAR and CONFLICT. Israeli Military To Call Up 60,000 Reservists as It Prepares for Gaza City Ethnic Cleansing Campaign. Israelis Understand That Trump Can End The Nightmare In Gaza: Americans Should Know This Too.

Everyone will gain from a peace deal for Ukraine. Zelensky should meet with Putin…to surrender.Ukraine drone hits Russian nuclear plant, sparks huge fire at Novatek’s Ust-Luga terminal . Russia blames nuclear site attack on Ukraine as Kyiv marks independence day. Downed Ukrainian Drone Causes Fire At Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. Trump ‘angry’ about Ukrainian attacks on key Russian pipeline to EU – Budapest
Kiev to replace soldiers with robots – top general.Those warmongering Europeans!
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Europe To Spend $100BN It Doesn’t Have, To Buy Weapons America Doesn’t Have, To Arm Soldiers Ukraine Now Lacks. European military-industrial output for Ukraine outpaces the US.North Korea has ‘undeclared’ ICBM base near China border, according to new report.Drone Technology and the Future of Nuclear Weapons.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

How France’s nuclear dream became a financial nightmare

Decades of neglect, spiralling costs and political denial have turned France’s once-vaunted nuclear program into a cautionary tale, writes Jean-Luc Porquet (translated by Dr Evan Jones).

By Jean-Luc Porquet | 22 August 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/how-frances-nuclear-dream-became-a-financial-nightmare,20076

Translator’s note: The French nuclear power sector is in deep trouble technically and financially. Formally a cheap source of power, embedded costs have not been counted. There has been a dramatic loss of skills over the decades, inhibiting effective maintenance of existing plants and turning the construction of France’s then most powerful reactor at Flamanville on the Normandy coast into a nightmare.

Technological and resource challenges have escalated, including water availability in the face of climate change. The plan to bury accumulated highly radioactive waste at Bure, 250 kilometres east of Paris, remains at an impasse. And the political class lives in denial.

Meanwhile, sections of the Coalition parties cling to nuclear power as Australia’s post-coal salvation. Australia has uranium. However, regarding nuclear power prospects, there is no history, no capacities, no acceptable locations, no acceptable burial sites and no water. In short, local nuclear power adherents have no brains.

EVERYTHING WAS SUPPOSED to work to plan.

The 58 French nuclear reactors built at an accelerated pace between 1977 and 1996 were due to tranquilly finish their life after 30 years of good and faithful service. And the new super-powerful EPRs [European Pressurised Reactors], designed and built by Éléctricité de France, were to effect a seamless transition.

It was estimated that, by 2012, the first French EPR would be put into operation at Flamanville.

Kapow! Not only has its cost, initially fixed at €3.3 billion [AU$5.9 billion], multiplied by six (!), but its construction site has proved a nightmare. The EPR was connected to the grid only in 2024. And it has hardly run since (it is currently in shutdown).

An emergency patch-up job has been necessary on the aged French nuclear park so that its tired reactors can hang on for another 20 years. Total cost of this major overhaul now in progress: €100 billion [AU$180 billion].

At the moment when the urgent necessity to find €40 billion [AU$72 billion] in economies for the 2026 budget obsesses the Bayrou Government [under pressure from Brussels], Reporterre publishes on YouTube a remarkable documentary by journalist Laure Noualhat, titled Nucléaire – Comment il va ruiner la France. (See also Noulhat’s book, Le nucléaire va ruiner la France, Seuil-Reporterre, 224p.) It is noted there that, in the fairytale world that is nuclear energy, billions waltz out by the dozens. The golden rule is: “Whatever it costs!”

Other inescapable costs to come? To prolong the life of the plant at The Hague, where nuclear fuel is processed and which is at the end of its life — rough estimate: €34 billion [AU$61 billion]. To continue to dig deep at Bure, where the most dangerous nuclear waste will be buried 500 metres below ground — estimated cost: €35 billion [AU$63 billion]. To dismantle the 58 reactors, which, even patched up, will finish by being at the end of their life in ten or 20 years — cost: €50 billion. Total: €219 billion [AU$395.8 billion] to find. This is not all.

The EDF has sold an EPR to Finland for €3 billion [AU$5.4 billion] and two others to the United Kingdom for €22 billion [AU$39.7 billion]. And has promised to take care of any additional costs. Such comes in at €12 billion [AU$21.6 billion] for the former, €56 billion [AU$101 billion] for the latter. Do the maths.

Thomas Piquemal, the EDF’s chief financial officer at the time, went into meltdown. And resigned [in March 2016]. And this is not all.

In 2022, President Macron announced that, at his demand, the EDF will launch six “new generation” EPRs [initially, then eight more to 2050]. Hand on heart, it will happen (in fact, one knows nothing about them). Estimated total price: €100 billion [AU$180.7 billion] (more or less). A former EDF Director, Philippe Huet, interviewed by Laure Noualhat, called this a “crazy gamble”.

If ever this delusional program (transparently dismissed by the Cour des comptes [equivalent to the National Audit Office] as inadvisable) sees the day, who will pay for it? Not the EDF, already indebted to the tune of €55 billion [AU$99 billion]. Nor any private investor (not mad!). Guess… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjfHyhkpef8

Jean-Luc Porquet has been a journalist at Le Canard enchaîné since 1994, where this article appeared on 9 July. He writes a column on ecology and technocratic society, as well as theatre reviews. He has written a dozen books, the latest of which, Le grand procès des animaux, is a satirical fictional account of the sixth extinction in progress.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

‘Nuclear Priests’ could warn future people about wastes under the Irish Sea

 When Sir Keir Starmer entered No 10 last summer, it did not take long for
him to pick up where his predecessors left off on delivering more nuclear
power stations with a promise to “build, baby, build”. The Prime
Minister has vowed to “fast forward on nuclear” and so far has stuck
true to his word, with the Government taking up a larger stake in the
Sizewell C power plant in Suffolk, while loosening planning rules to allow
new small modular reactors to be built across the country.

But with the push for more nuclear power, bringing with it a steady supply of low-carbon energy, the question is inevitably asked: what do you do with all the
nuclear waste?

The answer is to dig a hole nearly the size of Wembley
Stadium 1km down beneath the Irish Sea, that could one day see the rise of
a new “atomic priesthood” and even, some have jokingly claimed, the
creation of glow in the dark cats.

But policymakers are aware that to push
ahead with this new nuclear drive, they will need to develop a stable,
long-term storage facility in which to hold not just future nuclear waste,
but all the nuclear waste the country has produced since the dawn of the
nuclear energy age in the 1950s. This is what the proposed Geological
Disposal Facility will provide.

And when they say long term, they mean long
term. “The purpose of the facility is to keep the radioactivity away from
humans and the environment so that it can’t cause harm for a sufficient
period of time – and that’s of the order of a few hundred thousand
years,” Neil Hyatt, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Nuclear Waste
Services, tells The i Paper.

 iNews 24th Aug 2025, https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/nuclear-priests-glowing-cats-how-warn-future-generations-atomic-danger-3875319

August 27, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Biggest nuclear tests in history: Tsar Bomba, Castle Bravo and their global impact

Edited By Kushal Deb : Aug 25, 2025, https://www.wionews.com/photos/biggest-nuclear-tests-tsar-bomba-castle-bravo-global-impact-1756122889360/1756122889362

Tsar Bomba

Tsar Bomba is the most powerful nuclear test in the history of nuclear weapons. A Soviet Tu-95 bomber dropped it from 13,000 feet, accompanied by a parachute, in Novaya Zemlya, a remote archipelago in the northern fringes of the U.S.S.R., on October 30, 1961, at around 11.32 am in Moscow time. Yielding nearly 50 megatons, it produced mushroom clouds over 40 miles high and 25 miles from end to end and equivalent to the explosion of 57 million tons of TNT. Houses within a 20km radius were completely destroyed. A 5-5.5 magnitude seismic event was felt across the world. The explosion’s shockwave circled the Earth three times and broke windows as far as 1,000 km away.

The Soviet Union was condemned unanimously by Great Britain, Sweden, and the United States. Glaciers around Novaya Zemlya were found with elevated levels of radiation because of the blast. In the following years Soviet Union and the United States signed several treaties, namely the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), to restrict the development of nuclear weapons. It banned nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater; only underground testing was allowed. Several other treaties followed, like the Outer Space Treaty (1967) prohibited placing nuclear weapons in orbit or testing them in space, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (1967), establishing Latin America as a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Castle Bravo

The US tested its first dry Thermonuclear device on March 1, 1954, in the Marshal Islands. Castle Bravo, with a 15 megaton yield, had produced a mushroom cloud that grew to nearly four-and-a-half miles wide and reached a height of 130,000 feet six minutes after the detonation.

Scientists have terribly miscalculated its capacity, intended to be a 5–6 megaton detonation, following the impact, radioactive fallout contaminated surrounding islands, exposing locals and U.S. personnel to dangerous radiation levels. An estimation states that 665 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands were overexposed to radiation. The fallout spread over 7,000 square miles. Europe, Australia, India, and Japan all found traces of radioactive material, starting a widespread outcry for a Nuclear Testing ban.

Castle Yanke

It was tested on May 5, 1954, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It was part of the Castle series tests, of which Ivy Mike and Castle Romeo were a part. Yanke contributed a yield of approximately 13–13.5 megatons, vaporised the test island, and generated a mushroom cloud affectionately estimated at 43 km in height. Although the yield of Castle Yankee was smaller than Castle Bravo, it still contributed to radioactive fallout in the nearby areas around the atoll.

Castle Romeo

Castle Romeo was tested by the US on March 26, 1954, just after the test of Castle Bravo. It yielded 11 megatons of TNT after the explosion, and the extreme red, orange, and yellow hues cloud became a popular representation of the nuclear explosion in the media. This thermonuclear test caused extensive radioactive contamination in the Pacific.

Ivy Mike

Ivy Mike was the world’s first successful hydrogen bomb test. The test marked a shift from fission-based weapons to fusion technology. It also pushed the Soviet Union to accelerate its thermonuclear program. It was also detonated in the Marshal Islands on November 1, 1952. The explosion produced 10.4 megatons of TNT. It spread across 1.8 to 3.2 miles and rose above 25 miles.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Report: Smotrich Told IDF Chief That Anyone Who Doesn’t Evacuate Gaza City Can ‘Die of Hunger or Surrender’

Israel’s Channel 12 also reported that Netanyahu has said he has Trump’s full support for the planned offensive to take over Gaza City but has limited time

by Dave DeCamp | August 24, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/24/report-smotrich-told-idf-chief-that-anyone-who-doesnt-evacuate-gaza-city-can-die-of-hunger-or-surrender/

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has told the head of the Israeli military that anyone who remains in Gaza City after an IDF evacuation order can “die of hunger or surrender,” The Times of Israel reported on Saturday, citing a TV report from Israel’s Channel 12.

“We ordered you [to carry out] a quick operation. In my opinion, you can besiege them,” Smotrich reportedly told IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. “Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them. No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want and your capable [of doing it].”

The Channel 12 report said that during the same meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said that President Trump fully supports Israe’s plans to conquer Gaza City, which involves the forced displacement of over 1 million civilians amid a famine in the area, but that the US president wants a quick and decisive operation.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City amid ramped-up Israeli attacks in the area, but there’s been no sign of a mass evacuation despite Israel’s orders to leave. Palestinians in Gaza City have rejected the idea of another displacement since most of them have been forced to move many times, and they don’t believe the area they’re being told to flee to will be much safer since the IDF continues to bomb the south.

The Palestinians in Gaza City are also likely aware that Israel’s plans involve the complete destruction of the city, which means they almost certainly won’t be able to return. The IDF has told the Israeli government that it will likely take months or possibly over a year to demolish the city.

The Channel 12 report said that Zamir clashed with Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir over the length of time the plan to take over Gaza City will take. Smotrich’s call to starve the remaining Palestinians to death aligns with previous comments he has made.

In April of this year, about a month after Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, Smotrich said Israel wouldn’t allow a “grain of wheat” to enter the Strip. Last year, Smotrich said at a conference that it may be “justified and moral” for Israel to starve two million Palestinians to death, but that the world wouldn’t allow it to happen.

“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” Smotrich said in August 2024. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned.”

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Why has Donald Trump not spoken out about the famine in Gaza? – Inside Story

26 Aug 2025 Al Jazeera

A global hunger monitor, backed by the United Nations, has declared famine in Gaza City and the surrounding areas. The confirmation that Israel has engineered a man-made catastrophe prompted outrage from many nations, with a notable exception.

Neither the White House nor the US State Department has uttered a word in response. While Israel says it’s ‘an outright lie’, how much longer can the US remain silent? Is that silence an implicit go-ahead for the Israeli military’s large-scale assault on Gaza City and the drip-feeding of aid?

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, USA | Leave a comment

Eighteen Palestinians Starve to Death in Gaza Over Three Days Due to Israeli Siege

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has confirmed that famine is taking place in Gaza City.

by Dave DeCamp | August 24, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/24/eighteen-palestinians-starve-to-death-in-gaza-over-three-days-due-to-israeli-siege/

Gaza hospitals have recorded 18 more malnutrition deaths in Gaza over the past three days, according to press releases from Gaza’s Health Ministry, as Palestinians continue to starve due to the US-backed Israeli siege.

In its latest release on Sunday, the Health Ministry said at least eight Palestinians, including one child, had starved to death over the previous 24-hour period. “This brings the total number of victims of famine and malnutrition to 289, including 115 children,” the ministry said.

On Friday, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed that famine was taking place in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City and nearby towns, and that more than 500,000 people in the area were facing “catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death.”

The IPC said that conditions are expected to worsen and that between mid-August and the end of September, famine is expected spread to Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, and Khan Younis in the south.

The Israeli government and its supporters are denying that famine is occurring, pointing to the fact that many children suffering from severe malnutrition had pre-existing medical conditions. But the most vulnerable are always the first to be impacted when famine sets in, and there have been many cases recorded of people suffering from severe malnutrition who have no pre-existing conditions.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a report on August 21 based on virtual tours of hospitals and health centers in Gaza that examined the cases of 27 children and found that 17 of them “deteriorated into a state of severe malnutrition without preexisting health conditions” while 10 suffered from previous illnesses.

“Based on our conversations, a simple fact emerged: Anyone who claims that the images of starvation in the Strip are a result of acute genetic or other diseases, and not due to a grave shortage of food, are lying to themselves,” the report said.

The IPC said that in order to prevent further catastrophe, there must be an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of all restrictions on aid entering Gaza. But Israel is planning a major escalation to take over Gaza City, and President Trump, who has the power to stop the genocidal war by cutting off weapons shipments to Israel, has signaled he’ll back whatever the Israeli government chooses to do.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Ukraine drone hits Russian nuclear plant, sparks huge fire at Novatek’s Ust-Luga terminal

Reuters, By Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly, August 24, 2025

  • Summary
  • Ukrainian drone sparks fire at nuclear plant
  • Nuclear reactor cuts capacity after attack
  • Ukrainian drones strike Ust-Luga fuel export terminal
  • Attacks come on Ukraine’s Independence Day

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Ukraine launched a drone attack on Russia on Sunday, forcing a sharp fall in the capacity of a reactor at one of Russia’s biggest nuclear power plants and sparking a huge blaze at the major Ust-Luga fuel export terminal, Russian officials said.

Despite talk of peace by Russia and Ukraine, the deadliest European war since World War Two is continuing along the 2,000 km (1,250 mile) front line accompanied by missile and drone attacks deep into both Russia and Ukraine.

Russia’s defence ministry said at least 95 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions on August 24, the day that Ukraine celebrates its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Kursk nuclear power plant, just 60 km (38 miles) from the border with Ukraine, said that air defences shot down a drone that detonated near the plant just after midnight, damaging an auxiliary transformer and forcing a 50% reduction in the operating capacity at reactor No. 3.

Radiation levels were normal and there were no injuries from the fire which the drone sparked, the plant said. Two other reactors are operating without power generation and one is undergoing scheduled repairs.

The United Nations’ nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was aware of reports that a transformer at the plant caught fire due to military activity and stressed that every nuclear facility should be protected at all times.

A thousand km north, on the Gulf of Finland, at least 10 Ukrainian drones were downed over the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s northern Leningrad region, with debris sparking fire at the Novatek-operated terminal – a huge Baltic Sea fuel export terminal and processing complex, the regional governor said.

PLUME OF BLACK SMOKE

Unverified footage on Russian Telegram channels showed a drone flying directly into a fuel terminal, followed by a huge ball of fire rising high into the sky followed by a plume of black smoke billowing into the horizon.

“Firefighters and emergency services are currently working to extinguish the blaze,” Alexander Drozdenko, governor of Russia’s Leningrad region, said. There were no injuries, he added……………………..

Ukrainian drones also attacked an industrial enterprise in the southern Russian city of Syzran, the governor of the Samara region said on Sunday. A child was injured in the attack, according to the governor, who did not specify exactly what had been attacked.

………………………………………………………………….Earlier this month, the Ukrainian military said it had struck the Syzran oil refinery. The Rosneft-owned (ROSN.MM)
, opens new tab refinery was forced to suspend production and crude intake after the attack, sources told Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-drone-hits-russian-nuclear-plant-sparks-huge-fire-novateks-ust-luga-2025-08-24/

August 27, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Russia reports blaze at one of its biggest nuclear power plants.

Guy Faulconbridge & Lidia Kelly, Sunday 24 August 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/ukraine-russia-kursk-nuclear-power-plant-b2813260.html


  • Russia     accused Ukraine of launching multiple drone attacks on Sunday, targeting critical infrastructure.
  • A drone strike near the Kursk nuclear power plant damaged an auxiliary transformer, leading to a 50 per cent reduction in operating capacity at reactor No. 3, though radiation levels remained normal and there were no injuries from the fire that the drone sparked.
  • A separate significant blaze erupted at the Novatek-operated Ust-Luga fuel export terminal in Russia’s Leningrad region after it was reportedly hit by Ukrainian drones.
  • Drone activity resulted in temporary flight suspensions at several Russian airports, including Pulkovo.
  • Ukrainian drones also attacked an industrial enterprise in Syzran, with Ukraine stating its strikes target infrastructure crucial to Russia’s military efforts.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Fears are rising about the safety of a nuclear power plant in Russia after a Ukrainian attack overnight

Metro, 24 Aug 25

A fire broke out at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant after military forces shot down what they claimed was a Ukrainian drone flying near the site.

The ‘device detonated’ upon impact, sparking a blaze which the facility said ‘was extinguished by fire crews,’ authorities in Kursk said in a statement.

It added: ‘A combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) belonging to the Armed Forces of Ukraine was shot down by air defence systems near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant………………….

Alexander Khinshtein, the regional acting governor, blamed Ukraine for the strikes in a post on Telegram, adding: ‘They are a threat to nuclear safety and a violation of all international conventions.’

The incident marks one of the most serious escalations in the targeting of energy facilities, fueling anxiety about fighting creeping dangerously close to nuclear assets.

Ukraine’s drone strike on Kursk was one of several reported overnights by Russian authorities.

Firefighters were also sent to an explosion and a fire at the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad region, which holds a large fuel export terminal.

The regional governor said about 10 Ukrainian drones were brought down and debris had sparked the fire.

Ukraine has not commented on the Russian accusations………….

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Wastewater release from Fukushima nuclear plant enters third year.

By Ian Stark, Aug. 25 (UPI) — 

The Japanese utility that keeps the nuclear fuel inside the damaged Fukushima plant cool reports its release of treated wastewater has entered its third year.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced Monday that it has completed its third discharge of Advanced Liquid Processing System treated water into the sea on Monday…………………

According to TEPCO, the ALPS is designed to remove 62 types of radioactive materials from the affected sea and dilute the water to lower the tritium levels. The water is considered “treated” to distinguish it from water yet to be decontaminated…………………………..

Around 70 tons of radioactive wastewater is produced daily at the plant, which cools the nuclear fuel that melted inside the reactor buildings at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As of the first week of August, around 102,000 tons of treated water have been released. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/08/25/Japan-Fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-TEPCO-radioactive/9871756140747/

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment