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The Theocratic Trap – How Divine Claims Become Engines of Destruction

20 July 2026 Dr Andrew Klein,  https://theaimn.net/the-theocratic-trap-how-divine-claims-become-engines-of-destruction/

I. The Definition: A Mask for Power

The word “theocracy” was coined by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the first century CE to describe the polity of ancient Israel – a form of government in which God himself is recognized as the head of state, and divine law is the statute book. Taken literally, theocracy means “rule by God” and refers primarily to an internal “rule of the heart.”

But what begins as a claim to divine guidance inevitably becomes something else. As Josephus himself understood, theocracy is a form of government in which “the laws of the commonwealth are the commandments of God, and they are promulgated and expounded by the accredited representatives of the invisible Deity, real or supposed—generally a priesthood.”

This is the fatal flaw. The claim to speak for God is the ultimate abdication of personal accountability. When human beings claim divine authority, they place themselves beyond criticism, beyond question, beyond moral restraint. The hierarchy that forms around such claims – the priesthood, the clergy, the self-appointed guardians of divine will – becomes an engine of control that inevitably turns toward violence.

II. The Pre-Westphalian Pattern: Religious Wars as the Norm

For more than a century before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Europe was consumed by religious wars arising from the Protestant Reformations. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which the Peace of Westphalia finally concluded, was the last great religious war in Western Europe – a conflict that had “broken out as a result of confessional conflicts between Catholic and Protestant states” and “inflamed vast regions at the heart of Europe.”

The lesson of that era is clear: when religion becomes the justification for war, there is no limit to the violence. The theocratic impulse – the claim that God is on your side and that your enemies are God’s enemies – creates a permission structure for atrocity. As one scholar notes, the pre-Westphalian era was “riven by murderous ideological divisions” that produced wars fought not for faith alone, but for dominance.

The Peace of Westphalia introduced the radical idea that peace was more important than religious unity. It was a turning point—but not an endpoint. The theocratic impulse did not disappear. It merely found new forms.

III. The Jewish Bund: Human Rights, Democracy, and Universalism

In 1897, the same year that Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress, another Jewish movement was born in Tsarist Russia: the General Jewish Labour Bund.

The Bund was “a secular, socialist, defiantly Jewish, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist revolutionary party.” Its members were “young Jewish Marxists who wanted to overthrow the tsar and establish democratic socialism, but also to liberate their own people.”

The Bund’s political project was built on:

  • Do’ikayt (“here-ness”) – the principle that Jews should build viable communities wherever they lived, rather than seeking an ethnostate in Palestine.
  • Internationalism – the belief that Jewish liberation was inseparable from the liberation of all peoples.
  • Universal human rights – the demand for “equal civil and political rights for the Jews in Russia” and for all oppressed peoples.
  • Anti-Zionism – the rejection of the idea that Jewish identity required a state of its own. The Bundists “fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but ‘here where we live.’”

As Bundist leader Henryk Erlich presciently warned in 1938: “Zionism, in point of fact, has always been a Siamese twin of antisemitism… The Zionists regard themselves as second-class citizens in Poland. Their aim is to be first-class citizens in Palestine and to make the Arabs second-class citizens.”

The Bund was “deeply committed to universal humanist values and to socialist politics.” It rejected “all ethnonationalism, including Zionism” and believed that “Jewish national problems arising within the countries where Jews reside can be solved on the basis of freedom and democracy.”

This was the alternative to theocracy: not divine rule, but human rights. Not exclusivity, but solidarity. Not conquest, but coexistence.

IV. Jabotinsky and Revisionist Zionism: The Theocratic Turn

Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, represented a fundamentally different vision. He advocated a “revision” of practical Zionism in favour of “political Zionism” – the idea that Zionism was essentially a political movement, not a cultural or spiritual one.

Jabotinsky’s ideology was built on:

  • Exclusivism – the belief that Jewish national identity must take precedence over all other considerations.
  • State sovereignty – the conviction that only a Jewish state could solve the “Jewish problem.”
  • Ethnonationalism – the elevation of Jewish national identity above universal human values.

By the late 1930s, Revisionist Zionism had become “a right-wing tendency” with branches that included the Irgun, which conducted campaigns of violence against British authorities in Palestine. After World War II, Revisionist ideology evolved into the political and religious movements that now dominate Israeli politics.

In 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed the “nation-state law,” which codified “Jewish supremacy” into law and “effectively mirror[ed] the Nazi-era legislation of ethnoreligious stratification of German citizenry.” As one analysis notes, the law stipulates that “actualisation of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” – meaning that the 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel are “without sovereignty or agency, forever living at the mercy of Israeli Jews.”

The theocratic impulse had found its modern expression: not a priesthood ruling in God’s name, but an ethnostate ruling in the name of a chosen people.

V. The Modern Manifestation: Gaza and the Theology of Extermination

The invocation of divine mandate has been central to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. In a speech on March 2, 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “In this week’s Torah portion, we read ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember and we act.”

This reference to Amalek – the Biblical nation that God commanded King Saul to “destroy all they have, and do not let them live. Kill both man and woman, child and baby” – has become “an oft-used phrase at the highest levels of Israel’s government, a dog whistle well understood to call for the extermination of the Palestinians.”

UN institutions, international and Israeli human rights NGOs, and scholars of genocide studies have “classified the wide use of the Amalek rhetoric across Israeli politics and the military as a clear incitement to genocide.” Netanyahu’s invocation of Amalek was “explicitly cited as direct incitement to genocide.”

In June 2026, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip.” The commission found that the “intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, causing unprecedented death, injury and trauma to Palestinian children.”

The theocratic claim – the assertion of divine mandate – has become the justification for atrocity. As one report notes, “Wipe out the memory of Amalek” has become a rallying cry for those who seek the extermination of the Palestinian people.

VI. The Two Threads: Universalism vs. Exclusivism

The divergence between the Bund and Revisionist Zionism represents two fundamentally different visions of Jewish identity:

  • The Bund (Universalism) Revisionist Zionism (Exclusivism)
  • Human rights for all Rights for Jews only
  • Democracy and socialism Ethnostate and supremacy
  • Coexistence where you live Conquest of Palestine
  • International solidarity National chauvinism
  • Anti-Zionist Zionist

As Molly Crabapple’s recent history of the Bund documents, “Bundists themselves foresaw the inevitable inversion of victim and perpetrator demanded by Zionist ideology.” The Bund’s philosophy of do’ikayt – “here-ness” – offered a vision of Jewish life that did not require the dispossession of another people.

Today, those who place “human values, human rights and universalities above themselves” – the heirs of the Bund’s internationalist tradition – face threats not only from the Israeli far-right but also from figures like Donald Trump, who has embraced the same ethnonationalist rhetoric that fuels theocracy.

VII. The Pattern: How Theocracy Becomes Killing

The pattern is consistent across history:

  1. A claim to divine authority – human beings assert that they speak for God.
  2. The creation of hierarchy – a priesthood or ruling class that interprets divine will.
  3. The denial of accountability – those who claim divine authority place themselves beyond criticism.
  4. The dehumanization of the “other” – those who are not part of the chosen community are cast as enemies of God.
  5. The justification of violence – killing in the name of God becomes not only permissible, but sacred.

This pattern is visible in the pre-Westphalian religious wars of Europe, in the Nazi regime, and in the modern State of Israel. As one commentator notes, “the genocidal ideology the fans espouse” is rooted in “extremist religious nationalism, and the concentration of executive power.”

The claim to divine authority is always a mask for human power. The theocracy is always a hierarchy. And the hierarchy always protects itself – even at the cost of genocide.

VIII. Conclusion: The Choice Before Us

The theocratic impulse – the claim to speak for God – is the oldest and most persistent engine of human violence. It allows the powerful to place themselves beyond accountability. It allows the hierarchy to claim divine sanction for its crimes. It allows the killers to believe they are doing God’s work.
But there is another way.
The Bund offered it: a vision of Jewish identity rooted in universal human rights, democratic socialism, and international solidarity. A vision that rejected ethnonationalism and embraced do’ikayt – the commitment to build a just society wherever one lives.
That vision was nearly destroyed by the Holocaust and by Stalinism. But it survives – in the memory of those who fought for it, and in the example of those who continue to resist the theocratic impulse.

The choice is clear. We can continue to worship the theocracy – to bow before those who claim divine authority and commit atrocity in God’s name. Or we can choose the Bund’s path: human rights, democracy, and the recognition that no one speaks for God.

Theocracies are not built by the devout. They are built by the powerful, who use God’s name to mask their own ambitions. And they always, always lead to killing.

References

  1. Theocracy. Wikipedia.
  2. Theocracy. Catholic Encyclopedia.
  3. Peace of Westphalia. World History Encyclopedia.
  4. The Enduring Lessons of the Jewish Bund. The Nation, 10 April 2026.
  5. ‘For leftist Jews, the Bund is a model’. The Guardian, 8 April 2026.
  6. Revisionist Zionism. Wikipedia.
  7. Israel Is Using Its Genocidal Gaza Playbook on Iran. The Nation, 6 March 2026.
  8. Israel’s ‘nation-state law’ parallels the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. Al Jazeera, 26 July 2018.
  9. UN commission: Israel continues to commit genocide by targeting children. UN News, 23 June 2026.
  10. Blot Out the Memory of Amalek from Under Heaven. De Gruyter Brill, 2025.
  11. General Jewish Labour Bund. Wikipedia.
  12. Bundism. Wikipedia.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Germany To Join French Nuclear Exercise, Deepening ‘Counter-Russia’ Deterrence

by Tyler Durden, Sunday, Jul 19, 2026 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/germany-join-french-nuclear-exercise-deepening-counter-russia-deterrence

In the latest development related to what some analysts have called the ‘new Cold War’ and nuclear saber-rattling between Russia and the West, Germany and France are planning a major nuclear exercise later this year.

The atomic drills were announced Friday, after a joint top-level meeting of the French and German governments near Cologne. “Alongside this work on a shared doctrine, German conventional forces will this year take part in a nuclear exercise of the French military,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unveiled. 

He detailed while at a press event alongside French President Emmanuel Macron that a “strategic steering group” established by the leading European allies would continue looking at deterrence in the future, with an eye on Russia.

“This is complementary to our nuclear participation and deterrence within NATO, which we still hold to,” he added. He also previewed “a maneuver in the autumn held on the initiative of France” – while speaking of the Ukraine war.

“We will clarify together what form exactly this participation will take,” he said.

France is newly positioning itself at the forefront of nuclear deterrence for Europe, a role that the United States has long assumed, and currently still does.

According to some of Macron’s statements at the same event: “Patriotism, yes; nationalism, never. At a time when Europe is rearming, to think that each of us separately accumulating capabilities is the way history is going is absurd.” More details have been offered in the following:

Mr Macron and Mr Merz began the defence council at Nörvenich air base beside a French Rafale and a German Eurofighter – a symbolic backdrop after the aircraft designed to replace them was scrapped.

Nuclear deterrence offers one field where the strained partnership can still move forward.

German troops would play a conventional supporting role and would not control French weapons. Berlin will also help develop radar and space-based systems for detecting ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

Currently the United States and the UK, which both maintain nuclear arsenals, form the core of NATO’s nuclear deterrence strategy. While France also possesses nuclear weapons, it does not yet participate on a leadership level in NATO’s nuclear planning group. The US military also contributes F-35, refueling aircraft, and other support planes.

Russia has not infrequently held its own strategic drills over the course of the last several years of war in Ukraine. It has also become the ‘new normal’ for Russia and Europe to hold rival conventional war games, amid threats, warnings and ongoing miliary flexing.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | France, Germany, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Data centers powered by next-gen nuclear? Don’t fall for Big Tech’s PR hype

Amazon could decide not to purchase any electricity should generating it from these SMRs turn out to be too expensive. Likewise, the agreement between Kairos Power and Google talks about selling “energy, ancillary services, and environmental attributes to Google under Power Purchase Agreements.” The announcements said nothing about the terms of the power purchase.

Estimates of electricity costs from SMRs show that each unit of electrical energy from SMRs would be far more expensive than a corresponding unit from solar and wind power plants,

such incentives [Loan guarantees ] cause recipients to invest in excessively risky projects because they do not bear all the cost of a project’s failure.”

By Molly Langabeer, M.V. Ramana | Analysis | July 20, 2026

Nuclear energy recently crossed a global milestone. In 2025, the share of all electrical energy flowing in the world’s grids coming from nuclear power plants was just 8.8 percent, roughly half of what it was 30 years ago. In contrast, 19.5 percent of the electrical energy came from fast- growing renewables such as solar and wind power. Large hydropower plants provided an additional 13.9 percent.

This decline may come as a surprise, given the ongoing parade of announcements about the bright future of nuclear power, featuring oft-repeated terms like “renaissance” and “revival.” In recent years, two elements have featured prominently in these announcements: The demand from Big Tech companies for nuclear power, and their investment in so-called next-generation or small modular nuclear reactors.

In October 2024, a company called Kairos Power and Google announced that they had signed a “Master Plant Development Agreement, creating a path to deploy a U.S. fleet of advanced nuclear power projects totalling 500 megawatts by 2035.” Two days later, the utility company Energy Northwest and Amazon announced “an agreement to fund efforts to move toward the development and deployment of small modular reactor (SMR) technology in Washington state.” The Amazon version of this announcement also contained the expectation that these reactors “will help meet the forecasted energy needs of the Pacific Northwest beginning in the early 2030s.”

Peer under the hood however, and it becomes evident that these press releases are all show, with little substance.

To start, the actual announcements were far more circumspect than some media coverage would suggest. Amazon, for example, only promised to “fund the initial feasibility phase of an SMR project” in exchange for “the right to purchase electricity from the first project (4 modules), which is expected to generate 320 megawatts of energy capacity.” Having the right, presumably, doesn’t force Amazon to purchase the electricity—and Amazon could decide not to purchase any electricity should generating it from these SMRs turn out to be too expensive. Likewise, the agreement between Kairos Power and Google talks about selling “energy, ancillary services, and environmental attributes to Google under Power Purchase Agreements.” The announcements said nothing about the terms of the power purchase.

There are good reasons for companies to be circumspect about investing in nuclear power plants. In the United States, each unit of electrical energy from a new nuclear reactor costs about three times the corresponding energy from a solar or wind power plant. Furthermore, the diverging long-term trends for nuclear power (becoming more expensive over time) and renewables (becoming cheaper with time) suggest that the cost divergence will only increase. Estimates of electricity costs from SMRs show that each unit of electrical energy from SMRs would be far more expensive than a corresponding unit from solar and wind power plants, even when the cost of storage technologies and other means of accounting for the variability are included. For Big Tech companies already struggling with input costs, buying power from expensive nuclear reactors would only make their business less likely to be financially viable.

Then there is uncertainty. Nuclear power projects have historically been delayed and have cost more than initially anticipated. One study examined 180 nuclear power projects and found that 175 had exceeded their initial budgets and timelines. This is particularly likely with so-called advanced reactor designs and small modular reactors, because there is little or no experience with building such plants. The only recent experience with small modular reactors is in Russia, where the KLT-40S design was based on the design of reactors used in the nuclear-powered icebreakers operated by the country for decades. But building the first power plant based on the KLT-40S design took 13 years from the start of construction to generating electricity, instead of the expected 3 years. In China, the twin High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor units (Shidao Bay 1-1 and 1-2), took more than twice the promised “50 months.”

To be clear: There are no small modular reactor projects currently under construction in the United States. Their estimated times of arrival have already been significantly pushed back. For example, in 2020, the Energy Department declared a goal of having the Natrium reactor and the Xe-100 reactors be operational “within 5-7 years.” But in November 2025, an executive working for Natrium promised “commercial operation delivery date, power on the grid” by “2031.”

When these reactors might actually produce any electricity is also dependent on how much assured funding there is behind each project. Many announcements are ambiguous; of the ones that do specify an amount, the largest investments have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2024, a consortium involving “Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin, affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, NGP, and the University of Michigan” announced that they were investing “approximately $500 million” in X-energy, the designer of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The following June, Terrapower, the nuclear company started by Bill Gates, announced that it had raised $650 million from a group that included “NVentures, the venture capital arm of NVIDIA, and current investors”; the latter included, not surprisingly, Bill Gates and the South Korean company, Hyundai.

To put these figures in context, one estimate of TerraPower’s proposed Natrium nuclear plant is $9.4 billion for 345 megawatts of electrical power. This puts it at roughly the same total cost as a project in Idaho involving six NuScale SMRs that would have generated 462 megawatts of power. The NuScale project was cancelled in 2023 because the $9.3 billion cost estimate was too high for potential purchasers of electricity from this project. Cost estimates for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors like Xe-100, supported by the Amazon consortium, are even higher; if actually built, both Natrium and Xe-100 would produce electricity at costs per unit that are double or more of the cost of producing electricity from large nuclear plants. And, as mentioned earlier, the cost of electricity from large nuclear plants is three times or more the cost of electricity from solar and wind power plants.

Even the largest investment announced so far, $650 million, would not suffice to fund the construction of a single Natrium reactor, or even the much lower power output NuScale SMR. In short, AI companies are not spending anywhere near the amounts needed to bring new nuclear power, especially from small modular reactors, online.

The AI industry certainly has the capital to do so. During their February 2026 earnings calls, Amazon and Google said that they were expecting to spend up to $200 billion and $185 billion, respectively, during the upcoming year on data centers. Their nuclear commitments are just a fraction of one percent of their annual expenditures earmarked for building data centers. This suggests that their announcements of nuclear power investments—typically containing the self-promoting, if questionable, adjectives “safe,” “reliable,” “clean,” and “affordable”—are primarily meant as greenwashing, in order to divert attention from the negative environmental impacts of data center operations. Such investments are more likely to come from the portions of their budgets dedicated to public relations than operational expenses.

In addition to being too expensive, the potential contribution from new nuclear projects will be too meagre. One report estimated that currently 10 percent of data centers require more than 1 gigawatt of power; but projected a doubling of this fraction, to 20 percent, by 2030. Stargate’s Abilene data center project in Texas wants up to 5 gigawatts of power. Meta is planning a 5 gigawatt data center in Louisiana. In January 2026, Pacifico Energy announced that its GW Ranch project received a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air permit for 7.65 gigawatts of gas-fired power generation, the largest permit granted in the United States.

A single small modular reactor—defined as having the capacity to produce less than 300 megawatts of electricity, or less than a third of a gigawatt—would not go very far in meeting the voracious energy demands of AI data centers. Large reactors would be more helpful in meeting these enormous demands, but they are also far more expensive. The last large reactors built in the United States were the Vogtle project in Georgia, which ended up costing over $36 billion—more than double the $14 billion estimated when construction of those reactors started.

The sizeable gap in investment will, at least in part, be filled by public money, either from US citizens or citizens of other countries. In September 2024, when Constellation Energy and Microsoft announced an agreement to restart the Three Mile Island reactor—the twin unit to the reactor that melted down in 1979—they claimed that it was “entirely…a private agreement” and that it “involves no public funds.” The following month, the Washington Post revealed that Constellation had applied to the Energy Department for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee. In November 2025, the Energy Department loaned $1 billion to Constellation, and in June 2026, it announced a “$17.5 billion American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans… to accelerate the deployment of 10 large-scale commercial nuclear reactors.”

Loan guarantees were a key mechanism used by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to incentivize what was described as a so-called “nuclear renaissance. (That renaissance fizzled!) What such guarantees do is transfer the financial “risk to the public,” as a 2008 Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) report explained. The CBO went on to caution: “economic theory suggests that such incentives cause recipients to invest in excessively risky projects because they do not bear all the cost of a project’s failure.”

Which is what happened. US utility companies proposed constructing more than 30 reactors, but just four proceeded to construction, of which two were abandoned mid-project after over $9 billion was spent. Consumers in South Carolina are still paying every month for that project, although they never benefited from any electricity. Duke Energy also wasted billions of dollars on nuclear projects that were never built. The only two completed reactors were the ones at the Vogtle power plant in Georgia that cost close to $37 billion.

The Trump Administration has also used the threat of tariffs to twist the arms of other countries. Earlier this year, the government of Japan promised to invest $40 billion in two SMR projects in Tennessee and Alabama, and $33 billion in natural gas facilities in Pennsylvania and Texas; some of the power generated is to feed “co-located data centers.” If these investments move forward, then it would presumably be Japanese taxpayers who would be shouldering a significant part of the financial burden.

The backdrop to these announcements is the tremendous growth of data centers, which are being built at a rapid pace. As of July 2026, the website Data Center Map lists 11,826 data centers around the world, 4,467 of which were located in the United States. According to a report funded by many AI companies, private investment in artificial intelligence in the United States reached $285.9 billion in 2025, and AI data center power capacity “reached approximately 29.6 gigawatts by Q4 2025, enough to power all of New York state at peak demand.” The scale of the power demand from data centers has resulted in huge increases in consumer electricity bills—a Bloomberg article cited one case in which a blind man living on disability payments in Baltimore was contending with an 80 percent increase in his energy bills over three years. (He lives an hour’s drive from a part of northern Virginia known as ‘Data Center Alley.’) And he had it better than some consumers; the article found that “electricity now costs as much as 267 percent more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity.”

Nuclear energy, however, declined marginally from 831.5 TWh in 2020 to 826.1 TWh in 2025. We can conclude that nuclear power has played no role in fulfilling the increased demand for energy from data centers. If the output from any nuclear reactors were being directed towards data centers, then this electricity would have to have been diverted from the general public or other traditional consumers.

What else is increasing alongside demand from data centers is national carbon dioxide emissions, which increased by 147 million metric tons in the last year. The increase is in part because electricity produced by burning coal went up by about 13 percent. Underlying this increase is utility companies’ reliance on increased use of coal to provide electricity to data centers.

Not so long ago, most Big Tech companies, including Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations. Microsoft pledged to achieve net negative emissions by 2030, Google and Meta committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2030, and Amazon committed to net zero emissions by 2040.

Google is singing a very different tune these days and is evidently interested in being seen as supporting the Trump administration. At the 2025 Hill & Valley Forum, an annual meeting featuring prominent tech executives, venture capitalists, and federal policymakers, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called for “accelerating production of American oil, gas, coal, and potentially some nuclear would be key to realizing Silicon Valley’s AI agenda.” Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Google and Alphabet, told conference attendees: “I thought Secretary Burgum’s comments were fantastic… [B]ecause I think it is very clear that to realize the potential of AI, you have to have the power.”

Between 2019 and 2023, the indirect greenhouse gas emissions caused by the generation of energy purchased by an organization (technically known as “Scope 2” emissions) from Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft increased substantially, with emissions from data centers nearly doubling during that period. There are reports that the “real emissions” from company-owned data centers are over seven times higher than officially reported. Rather than scaling back growth to remain aligned with their climate targets, these companies continue to accelerate investments in AI infrastructure, increasing energy consumption and emissions, and mostly ignoring their own former goals.

This is perhaps why Big Tech firms and their supporters have emphatically described nuclear power as “carbon-free” when announcing any agreements with nuclear companies. For example, when the agreement between Microsoft and Constellation Energy to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor was announced, multiple officials used the term “carbon-free” while talking about nuclear power. The October 2024 news release by Amazon had the sub-headline: “New Small Modular Reactor agreements are part of Amazon’s plan to transition to carbon-free energy.”

Other than building small modular reactors, one way nuclear power could help meet the energy demand from data centers is by restarting reactors that have been shut down—if the companies running these plants could get the public to look the other way when it comes to concerns about the cost of running these plants and the risk of accidents.

There are a handful of reactors that were closed in the recent past, usually because they were uneconomical. First on this list is Three-Mile Island Unit 1, which was designed to generate 819 megawatts, for which Constellation received a $1 billion loan from the DOE. The 2017 decision to shut down this reactor, according to its then-owner, Exelon Corporation, resulted from “more than five years of losses… and its recent failure in an auction to sell Three Mile Island’s power into the regional grid.” The even more dangerous possibility is the reopening of the 805 megawatt Palisades nuclear reactor in Michigan, aided in part by a $1.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy. The dangers stem from problems discovered in the reactor and from the checkered history of the company that is to oversee repairs and operate the reactor. Finally, there is the 601 megawatt Duane Arnold reactor in Iowa, which was shut down in 2020 because a derecho (moving windstorm) caused extensive damage to the reactor’s cooling towers, reinforcing an earlier decision by the owner to shut down the plant because it had calculated that replacing nuclear energy with wind energy would “save customers nearly $300 million in energy costs, on a net present value basis.”

Even if these three reactors were to come online, they would only contribute 2.225 gigawatts of power, at best. Under the extremely optimistic assumption that these decades-old reactors work as anticipated without shutdowns or other problems, and operate at their historical load factors, they would together generate only about 15 TWh of energy every year—a tiny fraction of the Energy Institute’s demand estimate from US data centers of 312.6 TWh in 2025. The demand is expected to only increase.

Projections of future demand, however, have become far more uncertain in light of public opposition to data centers. Data Center Watch reports that between March and June 2025, twenty “projects were blocked or delayed amid local opposition, affecting $98 billion in potential investment—more than all disruptions tracked since 2023.” In July 2026, New York state banned the construction of data centers for a year.

A recent IPSOS poll, for example, found that when asked whether they support or oppose the construction of new data centers in the United States, 44 percent of those polled would oppose it, more than double the percentage of people who support the project (21 percent). When the question was modified to support or opposition to “a data center being built within your community,” support dropped to 14 percent, whereas opposition jumped to 57 percent. And 61 percent of those polled did not agree that rapid growth in the use of artificial intelligence was “mainly a good thing for the country.”

Opposition to data centers springs from multiple concerns. A Gallup survey from March 2026 found that people opposed data centers because of their effects on resources, such as energy consumption and water usage; the effects on costs, especially utility bills; noise pollution; and concerns about quality of life and economic effects from loss of jobs. Some of these concerns would be accentuated if these data centers are powered by nuclear reactors, which could drive up the costs of electricity because of how expensive it is to build new nuclear plants. Using reactors will also increase the water demand. Nuclear reactors that operate on a once-through water cycle withdraw, on average, 44,350 gallons of water for each megawatt-hour of electricity generated, roughly four times the corresponding figure for a combined cycle natural gas plant. It is possible to reduce these water requirements through by essentially recirculating the water used to absorb the plant’s waste heat, or what is known as “closed-cycle cooling,” but that would drive up the energy requirement—a loss either way. In contrast, renewables require little water because there is no heat production.

Finally, there are also reasons to question whether this demand for energy will diminish because the AI industry might be, as some analysts characterize it, a bubble. The main reason to expect this bubble to burst is the absence of a viable business model to pay for the immense expenses of building and operating the immense infrastructure needed. Some investors are even betting on this market collapsing. If that happens, then that would also remove the ostensible motive to build nuclear reactors.

Looking to the future, nuclear power and small modular reactors will be unable to provide any significant boost to the electricity consumption of data centers anytime soon—especially within the next several years, when AI-related energy demand is expected to increase most rapidly. The potential increase of nuclear output from restarting old reactors that were shut down because of age and poor economics is a small fraction of the demand—current and anticipated—from data centers. New nuclear reactors are at least a decade away from being started, and the scale of investment from tech companies in small modular or advanced reactors is completely mismatched to the actual cost of building even a single nuclear reactor, let alone the dozens that would have to be built for nuclear power to contribute a sizeable fraction of the demand from data centers.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

AI for peace: In Rome, Nobel laureates call for disarming AI and nuclear weapons

Bulletin, By François Diaz-Maurin, John Mecklin | Analysis | July 17, 2026

ROME—In a future nuclear crisis, the speed of artificial intelligence may leave little room for human judgment or decision-making. Other AI impacts—its potential to empower destabilizing cyber-attacks or allow for the near-instantaneous generation of disinformation—increase the odds of such a crisis occurring in the first place. Touching on these themes and others, an international group of Nobel Prize winners issued a pointed warning Thursday on emerging nuclear risks in an era of rapidly developing AI technology.

The group’s declaration, titled Humanity at the Threshold: A Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons, followed two days of meetings among the Nobel laureates, top scientific and policy experts, and religious leaders in the Papal Villas of Castel Gandolfo, a summer retreat for popes since the 1600s.

Dubbed The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, the meetings included expert presentations on eight themes related to the rapid advance of AI models, their use in military systems that include command and control of nuclear weapons, and the practical and ethical challenges connected to efforts to reduce the dangers that the AI-nuke nexus poses to humanity.

The assembly followed recent efforts at highlighting the risks posed by the ongoing AI and nuclear arms races. Last year, the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War met at the University of Chicago and issued a declaration calling on policymakers and leaders to reduce the threat of nuclear war. And earlier this month, the United Nations published its first scientific assessment report on the opportunities, risks, and impacts of AI; the assessment explains how the technology could exacerbate global inequality.

But this week marked the first time that such a large and diverse gathering of scientists, experts, activists, and religious leaders addressed, in concert, the risks of AI and nuclear weapons.

The Rome Declaration presented a harrowing description of the problem:

AI built into nuclear systems leaves little time for, or even replaces, human judgement in a crisis. This technology changes the context in which nuclear-armed states compete with each other. … AI uplifts cyber attacks that can fracture critical civilian and strategic infrastructure. AI enables information warfare: Peace depends on a shared reality. Without facts there can be no truth; without truth there can be no trust; and without trust, no dialogue, no verification, and no restraint among nations.

The most advanced AI capabilities, computing resources, and data infrastructures are becoming increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries and corporations, creating significant asymmetries of power and limited incentives for cooperation. AI is a technology that causes economic, military, and social disruption, and is developing at a pace unprecedented in human history.

In the midst of a worsening nuclear arms race, we are embarking on an equally dangerous AI race.

The declaration’s subtitle—Toward an Unarmed and Disarming Peace—reflected the religious underpinnings of the assembly by referencing language Pope Leo XIV used in his May encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. The Vatican was able to convene a diverse group of thought leaders in a way that arguably would not be possible otherwise. It’s a group that could have real impact.

“I might reach a million people,” 2011 Nobel physics laureate Brian Schmidt said. “But the Pope can reach 2 billion. That’s 2,000 times more than me.”………………………………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/2026/07/ai-for-peace-in-rome-nobel-laureates-call-for-disarming-ai-and-nuclear-weapons/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=In%20Rome%2C%20Nobel%20laureates%20call%20for%20disarming%20AI%20and%20nuclear%20weapons&utm_campaign=20260720%20Monday%20Newsletter

July 24, 2026 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear deal that would permit uranium enrichment by Saudi Arabia in limbo awaiting Trump admin sign-off

18 July By Davis Winkie, Zachary Cohen, https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/18/politics/saudi-arabia-trump-nuclear-enrichment

The Trump administration has tentatively agreed to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium without enacting international safeguards intended to prevent nuclear weapons development, according to sources familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by CNN.

The draft nuclear accord that outlines US support for Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program is awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature despite US-Saudi negotiations concluding in October 2025.

Two sources familiar with the matter indicated that the ongoing war with Iran — which according to Trump was launched in part to prevent Tehran from using its enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons — has played a role in delaying Trump’s signature. Some on Capitol Hill also believe the Trump administration is delaying sign-off because it could face a bipartisan disapproval resolution blocking the deals from going into effect, said one of the sources.

Experts told CNN the deal could potentially provide Saudi Arabia with a path to nuclear weapons unless stringent safeguards are put in place. The country’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has previously threatened to build his own nuclear weapons should Iran, his country’s principal regional rival, acquire the bomb.

Four sources said the agreement, which includes a civil nuclear cooperation deal known as a 123 agreement and a mandatory nuclear safeguards agreement, still have not been sent to Congress for review, as federal law requires the White House to do once signed.

The White House did not answer questions regarding the agreements and instead referred CNN to an October 2025 statement from Energy Secretary Chris Wright announcing the end of negotiations.

“We’ve come together on a deal for civil nuclear cooperation,” Wright said at the time. “Together, with bilateral safeguard agreements, we want to grow our partnership, bring American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and keep a firm commitment to nonproliferation.”

The Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC did not respond to a request for comment.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

A Contract for Difference for nuclear lifetime extension for Sizewell B – a nice save for the nuclear industry?

Jérôme à Paris, Jul 22, 2026

A few days ago, the British government announced the extension of the production life of the 1.2 GW Sizewell B nuclear power plant for 20 years, from 2035, and that included the fact that the electricity produced will be sold under a CfD at a price of 70.50 GBP/MWh (in 2025 prices, to be indexed). ……….

it is proper that the power also be sold to ratepayers at a fixed price. The existence of the CfD will also allow the owners to achieve a lower cost of capital (possibly through limited-recourse financing, but in any case through more favorable corporate funding as such a revenue line underpins their balance sheet), ensuring that the price achieved could be more competitive….

Secondly, this puts the production cost risk on the operator (EDF in this case, with Centrica having a 20% stake), as they will have to deliver power at a fixed price, irrespective of what they need to spend to keep the plant running (I have not checked if they can wiggle out of the contract by stopping production earlier in case it becomes too costly to run, but I see that this would have other likely consequences, including reputational, for the operator in any case). 

The third point is that this puts a very visible price tag to nuclear plant lifetime extension. There’s often the blithe assumption that existing plants can continue to run at a very low cost. This reminds everybody that it is not the case, and existing plants definitely have ongoing operating costs – and older plants have significant heavy maintenance, refurbishment and safety costs to manage. The price level proposed here can be seen as attractive for baseload decarbonated power, but it’s certainly not low or the most competitive available these days.

The big question is whether the price is actually the right one. There can only be rather limited competition for nuclear lifetime extension CfDs, so one must consider the temptation for the operator to pad its costs and ask for a price that ensures as profitable an operation as possible (I presume that the price level was negotiated on the basis of detailed cost assumptions provided by the operator and checked by the regulator and experts). There is also the risk that the operator could ask later on for relaxation of safety or other standards in order to lower its ongoing costs (including possibly via the direct or indirect threat to stop operations.

Against that is the fact that the nuclear industry cannot afford to show that it is materially less competitive than alternatives, in particular than offshore wind, the renewable sector with the most similar characteristic as nuclear (large capacity plants, higher capacity factor). If the ask price for extension is barely competitive against new-build offshore wind, what would that say about new-build nuclear? Hinckley Point negotiated a CfD a decade ago, which EDF is not very happy with, even though it is already quite a bit higher (it was 89.5 GBP/MWh for 35 years (rather than 20), indexed from 2012, which means its current level is 131 GBP/MWh, and we’re still some years before operations), given all the cost overruns experienced in the meantime……………………………….. https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/a-cfd-for-nuclear-lifetime-extension

July 24, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Von der Leyen paints target signs on Europe with Ukraine drone pact

17 July 26, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/07/17/von-der-leyen-paints-target-signs-on-europe-with-ukraine-drone-pact/

This is not sleepwalking into war. The European elites’ eyes are wide open and crazed.

The European Union has officially joined the war effort against Russia. This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed a “historic pact” with Ukraine to integrate the production of combat drones to strike Russia.

According to Euronews reporting, the pact also envisages the joint production of ballistic missiles.

This scaled-up war effort will be funded by the €90 billion loan that the EU is releasing to Ukraine. A bill that will be paid for by generations of European taxpayers.

Von der Leyen was greeted in Kiev by Ukraine’s unelected martial-law president, Vladimir Zelensky. That makes two people who do not have a democratic mandate making decisions that are driving Europe to all-out war with Russia. Von der Leyen is a political appointee. She is not elected by popular ballot. Formerly, she was Germany’s Minister of Defense, and not a particularly bright one either. Dogged by corruption scandals and abuse of power over procuring Covid-19 vaccines from Big Pharma, von der Leyen is an exemplar of “failing upwards.”

On her 11th visit to Kiev since the conflict escalated in February 2022, von der Leyen declared that the “tide is turning” in the NATO proxy war against Russia. She was referring to the increase in long-range air strikes on Russian territory and the release of €90 bn to fund the war.

In a public speech, she brazenly announced that the European Union was explicitly allied with Ukraine as a participant in the war.

“In Europe, we already have huge technological and industrial capacity that can be deployed. And we have safe and secure production sites that can help to scale up,” von der Leyen said.

She added: “But we do not have that battle-tested knowledge and expertise that Ukraine has forged. So the point I am making is that we need to combine our strengths. Together, we can work on joint production.”

The innovation, which von der Leyen and her NATO planners presumably think is ever-so smart, is that European countries will produce munitions that are “safe” from Russian retaliatory strikes. The drones and missiles will be transported to Ukraine, from where they can be launched to hit deep into Russian territory to target the capital, Moscow, and take out oil industrial facilities all over the country. In recent months, NATO-backed Ukrainian drones have killed hundreds of Russian civilians. Von der Leyen’s pact with Ukraine is giving a green light to intensify this terror campaign.

But it’s von der Leyen’s arrogant sense of impunity that is astounding and should be viewed as deeply disturbing. She apparently assumes that European countries can serve as an arsenal of weapons for Ukraine to attack Russia. Yet, in her view, Russia is not permitted to take retaliatory action against the EU (and NATO) as a participant in the war. This is insanely reckless and stupid.

Of course, the European Union, NATO, and the United States have been participants in the proxy war against Russia since their coup in Kiev in 2014 to install and weaponize a NeoNazi regime. That background of weaponization and ideological programming culminated in war erupting in 2022. The Collective West has supplied an estimated $400 billion to prop up the regime since 2022, has supplied NATO mercenaries and advisors, as well as providing targeting logistics and operational expertise for long-range missiles.

Ukraine has also signed bilateral military pacts with individual EU countries, such as Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. Britain has signed a One Hundred Year Defense Pact. All of these arrangements provide weapons, warplanes, drones, and missiles.

However, the EU support that von der Leyen unveiled this week is a commitment from the entire 27-nation EU bloc to join the war on an industrial scale.

In April this year, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a list of European companies and their locations that it said were partners in Ukraine’s war effort. Russia said that these sites could henceforth be considered legitimate targets for retaliation. So far,  Russia has refrained from directly striking any EU or NATO state. But how long this Russian restraint will last is a pressing question in the light of increasing provocation by the EU and NATO.

Von der Leyen has taken to describing the Ukrainian regime as a “net provider of security for Europe.” This is to supposedly justify European citizens enduring economic hardship as public monies are funnelled to the corrupt regime.

This week, on cue for the drone deal and fusing of the EU and Ukrainian economies, Zelensky reshuffled his Cabinet for the second time in only a matter of months in an attempt to give the impression that he was cleaning up notorious corruption. Prime Minister Yulia Syrvydenko was sacked because she was close to Zelensky’s former Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, who was forced to quit owing to a massive corruption scandal involving military procurement. In his latest clean-up act, Zelensky made the mistake of sacking Defense Minister Myhailo Federov, sparking public protests in Kiev and other cities. Federov, who had only been in the job for six months, was seen as an earnest reformer. His efforts riled military commanders, such as Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who want the graft gravy train to continue running. No surprise that Zelensky backed the old guard to stay in place, especially as the €90 bn EU freight car is soon to arrive in Kiev.

Indeed, the tide is turning, but not in the way that delusional von der Leyen imagines. Russian forces on the ground are wearing down the last NATO-backed Ukrainian defenses while ramped-up Russian air strikes are destroying drone-making centers in Kiev and other cities.

That is why the EU and NATO are innovating a new tactic of removing drone production sites from Ukraine and seemingly out of Russia’s reach by stationing these sites in European nations. The implicit idea is that the EU can scale up the war effort safely without suffering any consequences.

The Russophobic EU leadership is driving Europe to war against Russia, as Professor Richard Sakwa commented this week in an interview with Glenn Diesen. The decisions are being made autocratically without any democratic mandate. Effectively, the EU has become a dictatorship for war. Another manifestation of this was seen at the Bastille Day parade in Paris on July 14, when NATO troops joined French and Ukrainian regiments in a unified show of belligerence towards Russia.

And brain-dead bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen on her €400,ooo a-year salary are happily painting target signs across European nations.

This is not sleepwalking into war. The European elites’ eyes are wide open and crazed.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Richard Sakwa interview on The Russo-Ukrainian War: Follies of Empire

July 24, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

New Swiss nuclear plants could put thousands of renewables jobs at risk

If nuclear power stations were to be authorised again in Switzerland, this would have a negative impact on employment in the construction and renewable energy sectors.

July 19, 2026 , https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/energy-transition/new-swiss-nuclear-plants-could-put-thousands-of-renewables-jobs-at-risk/91767485

A recent study by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) suggests that thousands of jobs are at risk. According to the authors of the study, simply lifting the ban on the construction of new nuclear power stations, without any other measures, would put between 5,800 and 9,500 jobs at risk in the photovoltaic and construction sectors over the next five years. Over the next ten years, the number of jobs at risk could rise to as many as 10,600.

The construction of a new nuclear power station would create new jobs but, as Switzerland would have to acquire the necessary expertise and technology from abroad, such a project would not even come close to offsetting job losses in the photovoltaic and construction sectors, according to researchers at the ZHAW.

The study states that “an energy and climate policy focused on renewable energy and building renovation is better not only from an environmental perspective, but also in terms of employment”. The ban on the construction of new nuclear power stations provided for in the Federal Act on Nuclear Energy “not only safeguards the strategy of investing in renewable energy, but also protects local jobs in Switzerland”.

In Switzerland, the construction of new nuclear power stations is currently banned, but the Swiss government and parliament are in favour of overturning the ban. At the end of June, however, a broad coalition of opponents launched a referendum against this decision. Swiss voters will likely be able to decide whether to lift the ban in February 2027. In 2017, the Swiss citizens voted against the construction of new nuclear power stations by approving the Energy Strategy 2050 with 58% of the vote.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | employment, Switzerland | Leave a comment

A supercharged El Niño is threatening more deadly heatwaves — and Americans are ignoring the risks

Heat is America’s top weather killer
— but two-thirds of adults show little concern, experts discover. For
many Americans, summer now means confronting a punishing heatwave at some
point. The Fourth of July weekend was one such case: Triple-digit
temperatures led to dozens of deaths in New Jersey, canceled holiday block
parties across states and resulted in buckling rail lines.

A historic,
supercharged global El Niño event isn’t going to make matters any better
— with more intense heat domes forecast this year on top of rising
temperatures linked to climate change, meteorologist Jeff Berardelli, told
The Independent. “90 percent of models say this will be a ‘historic
event’…. An event so intense it doesn’t exist in our approximately
175-year record. And the models show big impacts worldwide,” he said.

Despite these extreme conditions, large numbers of Americans appear
indifferent. Some two-thirds of U.S. adults are not moderately or very
worried about extreme heat, according to a recent study by the Yale Program
on Climate Change Communication.

 Independent 18th July 2026,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/heat-wave-climate-change-el-nino-images-b3015749.html

July 24, 2026 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

American forces struck a nuclear power plant under construction in southern Iran,

President Trump said American forces ‘hit Iran hard’ in honour of the US service members killed in Jordan on Friday

The state atomic energy
agency called the attack a “clear violation of international law”. The Atomic
Energy Organisation said that several projectiles hit the Darkhovin nuclear
power plant in Khuzestan province, but did not give details about possible
damage from the attack.

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) called for restraint, adding that it was looking into the
reports. It also highlighted that the plant was in the “very early stages
of construction” and “contained no nuclear material when last visited
by the IAEA”.

 Times 20th July 2026,
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/iran-claims-us-strikes-hit-nuclear-power-plant-0kb7cpghx

July 24, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘It’s only going to get worse’: wildfires forcing firefighters to make impossible choices

Ajit Niranjan and Caroline Davies

It’s only going to get worse’: wildfires forcing firefighters to
make impossible choices. As the climate crisis fuels more intense blazes,
pushing them to new parts of the world, those tackling them are forced to
ration resources and decide which to fight.

 Guardian 18th July 2026,
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/18/the-impossible-choices-of-a-deadly-wildfire-season

July 24, 2026 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

Jacobs to assist in planning of UK SMR projects

 In May, the company (Jacobs) was selected by GBE-N to provide
environmental services for potential SMR nuclear development at its Oldbury
site. Jacobs said that its work, with a multidisciplinary team including
AtkinsRéalis and AECOM, would cover terrestrial and marine environments,
environmental assessments, Habitats Regulations Assessment and “associated
activities to inform future potential planning, design and permitting
decisions”.

 World Nuclear News 21st July 2026 https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/jacobs-to-assist-in-planning-of-uk-smr-projects

July 24, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Two more Czech sites lined up for Rolls-Royce SMRs

 The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, ČEZ and Rolls-Royce SMR have
signed a memorandum of understanding to start preparatory activities for
small modular reactor projects at two more locations. There is already a
project being worked on by ČEZ and Rolls-Royce SMR for the UK-based
company’s 470 MWe small modular reactors (SMRs) at the existing nuclear
power plant site of Temelín, in the South Bohemian region. The
newly-signed agreement means work can take place for the next proposed SMR
projects at the Tušimice site in the Ústí nad Labem region and
Dětmarovice site in the Moravian-Silesian region.

 World Nuclear News 21st July 2026, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/two-more-czech-sites-lined-up-for-rolls-royce-smrs

July 24, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

First SMR deal in Argentina is ‘nuclear investment landmark’

The plan would mark the largest investment in Argentina’s nuclear sector and add a
privately financed Gen III+ SMR to a site already home to Atucha I, Atucha
II, and the ongoing Atucha I life-extension programme.

 Modern Power Systems 21st July 2026, https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/first-smr-deal-in-argentina-is-nuclear-investment-landmark/

July 24, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, SOUTH AMERICA | Leave a comment